"Believe?" she questioned without glancing at him. "It is nothing to them. What matter? I tell them something, that is all."
He did not reply to this, merely turning to give an order to the helmsman. The other seaman was coming along the deck, and he called him to take in the log and run up the ensign. It was nothing to them, he thought, repeating her words to himself. Nothing. They would make no fine distinctions between himself and the captain. Yes, she was right in that. He went into the chart room and got out the flags of the ship's name. She, the ship, was not to blame, he muttered. She had been faithful. "And so have I!" he cried out within himself. He could not make it clear even to himself, but as he bent the grimy little flags to the signal halyards and hoisted them to the crosstrees, and saw them straighten out like sheets of tin in the breeze, he had an uplifting of the heart. He rang "Stop" to the engine room, and went over to Evanthia.
"Go down," he said gently, "and tell the captain he must come up. We are going to drop the anchor. There is a boat coming alongside."
He stood watching the boat bearing down upon them. He tried to think clearly. Yes, the captain must come up. The complex animosities of the night must be put away. And though he was a little afraid of what lay before him in that great fair city rising from the sea, he had no regrets for the past. He felt, in spite of everything, he had been faithful.
CHAPTER XV
"You can have no idea," said the flat and unemotional voice by Mr. Spokesly's shoulder, "simply no idea how miraculous the whole business seems to us. Astonished? No word for it. We were flabbergasted. For you saved the situation. You arrived in the nick, positively the nick, of time. I don't go beyond the facts when I say things were looking decidedly, well blue, for us. Oh, don't misunderstand me. No ill-treatment. Just the reverse, in fact. But you can understand we weren't bothering much about politeness when we couldn't get anything to eat. And that's what it amounts to."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Mr. Spokesly. "I must say, finding so many of you here, has surprised me."
"We had to stay. Couldn't get out," replied the other man, shooting a frayed cuff and flicking the ash delicately from his cigarette.
They were seated, as it were, at the centre of that vast crescent which the city forms upon the flanks of Mount Pagos. On either hand the great curves of the water-front sprang outward and melted into the confused colours of the distant shore. From their vantage point on the roof of the Sports Club, they could see in some detail the beauty of the buildings, the marble entrances, the cedar-wood balconies and the green jalousies of the waterside houses. They could see the boats sailing rapidly across the harbour from Cordelio in the afternoon breeze, and beyond, bathing the whole panorama in a strong blaze of colour, the sun, soon to set in the purple distances beyond the blue domes of the islands. To the right the shore curved in a semi-circular sweep to form the head of the great Gulf, while on their left the green waters, ruffled by the breeze and given a magical lustre by the rays of the setting sun, stretched away into the distance.