Captain Rannie came out of the chart room from which his lean and cadaverous head had been projecting to deliver his homily on obeying orders, and looked all round at the white walls of fog. It was as though he were contemplating some novel but highly convenient dispensation of Providence which he was prepared to accept as one of the minor hardships of life. All consciousness of Mr. Spokesly's presence seemed to have vanished from his mind. He spoke to the helmsman, walked to port and looked down at the water, looked aft and aloft, and resumed his stroll.
And Mr. Spokesly, craftily placed at a disadvantage, turned suddenly and clattered down the ladder.
"Well," he thought to himself, pausing on the deck below and still holding to the hand-rail, "he can't keep it up for ever. And I can't do anything in this fog. He's going to pile her up."
But as he went into the saloon he could not help asking himself, "What for?" What gain had Captain Rannie or Mr. Dainopoulos in view when they ran a valuable cargo on the rocky shores of Lesbos or Anatolia? The word "ran" stuck in his mind. "Running a cargo" in war-time, eh? One didn't run cargoes on the rocks, in war-time. He stared so fixedly at Amos, who was laying the table, that in spite of Evanthia's assurance of future good fortune, the poor creature trembled and grew pale. Mr. Spokesly understood neither Greek nor Spanish, or he might have derived some enlightenment from a conversation with the young Jew. He frowned and went on down to his cabin. He wanted sympathy in his anxiety. And it was part of his Victorian and obsolete mental equipment to expect sympathy from a woman.
She was standing before the little mirror, setting the immense tortoise-shell comb into her hair at the desired angle, and she gave herself a final searching scrutiny, as she turned away, before flashing a dazzling smile at him.
"What is the matter?" she asked in her precise English, seeing the worried expression on his face. He sat down on the settee, and she seated herself close beside him, smiling with such ravishing abandon that he forgot the reason for his concern.
"If I can only get you ashore," he muttered, holding her to him and kissing her hair.
"Where?" she whispered, watching him with her bright amber eyes.
"That's just it," he said. "I don't know where."
She put her finger to her lips.