“Angeliké,” said Danaë quickly, “how is it that you have managed to send messages to Narkissos when you wished? I never heard of anyone’s doing it before.”
Then the seed so casually dropped had borne fruit! Angeliké smiled to herself as she replied, “That’s all you know about it! All the girls send messages if they wish. Why not make use of friend Petros?”
“I would not trust Petros if there was no one else in the world.”
“Well, what I do,” reluctantly, “is to get hold of Aristomaché. She is always going about, looking for suitable brides and bridegrooms, and she is to be trusted. She is sleeping here to-night, so as to see the gifts to-morrow.”
And the next morning Angeliké smiled again, when she found Danaë missing when she woke, and saw her shortly afterwards returning breathless from a hurried visit to the women-servants’ quarters. She could picture, as well as if she had heard the request uttered, the old woman despatching her grandson to waylay Armitage as he landed, and to tell him that some one wished to speak to him at a certain place. That would be the form of the message, since the matter was too delicate to be confided to the go-between, and the important thing now was to discover the place, and to contrive to direct Prince Christodoridi’s steps thither at the right time. But the Angeliké of the last two days was such an ingratiating creature, and the ruse to discover the date of her wedding so prettily transparent, that her father was rather pleased than otherwise to be dragged off to examine her own particular myrtle, and decide whether it would flower in time to provide her wreath, or whether some bush growing on lower ground must be laid under contribution.
Armitage received his message duly, and with mixed feelings. He was to turn aside to examine a built-up archway some little distance to the left of the fortress gate, and some one—nods and winks and meaning gestures—would come to speak to him there. He hoped in one way that it might be Danaë, for it seemed that etiquette would otherwise prevent him from speaking to her at all, and he had Zoe’s inquiries to make. But Parthenios Chalkiadi’s warning rang in his ears, and he had caught certain looks passing among the women the day before which seemed to indicate that he was somehow connected with Danaë in their minds. This was the more undesirable in that he had no very definite idea what his wishes or intentions were, and only a vague notion that perhaps he had better not have come to the island. But this was forgotten when he saw Danaë standing in the shelter of the archway, and sprang forward to meet her. She allowed him no time for conventional greeting.
“You will wonder how I got here, lord. I climbed down the wall.” She held out her hands, all bruised and scratched, and looked down at her torn and dusty skirt. “You will guess I should not have done that for nothing. Lord, turn back. There is a plot to kidnap you.”
On this version of the facts she had decided, after much mental wrestling. But Armitage was incredulous.
“But who would do such a thing, Lady Danaë? I am more than sorry that you should have taken so much trouble——”
She interrupted him hastily. “Don’t think of me, lord; but believe what I tell you. Do not enter the fortress. You would not have me betray my own people?” with the ghost of a smile. “But we are all pirates, you know, and you are rich, and can pay ransom. Go back while you can.”