"Kalkis, little Greek boat just ahead," said Mr. Spokesly, slipping a couple of shillings into a waiting palm. "And look here, can you wait a second when I get aboard? My skipper wants to go ashore."
"Tell him to double up then."
Captain Rannie was standing on the grating at the head of the gangway, charged with a well-rehearsed monologue on the extreme lack of consideration experienced by some shipmasters. Mr. Spokesly ran up and cut him short.
"Hurry up, sir. Boat's waiting," and before he was aware of it Captain Rannie, with one of his shins barked in getting aboard, was halfway across the gulf.
"Now," said Mr. Spokesly to himself, looking towards the houses. "I wonder what's going to happen."
CHAPTER XII
At first it seemed as if nothing would ever happen again. There were no electric lights on the Kalkis, although she had a very fine dynamo in her engine-room, because one of her engineers in time past had cut away all the wiring and sold it. The donkey-boiler fire was banked and the donkey man gone ashore. She swung at anchor in absolute silence. The launch was half a mile away. Over the Vardar valley was a glare as of distant conflagrations, and along the front shore the sparkling entrances of the palaces of pleasure from which Mr. Spokesly had just come.
He went down and unlocked the door of his cabin. It was much cleaner than it had been for years, but smelled of new paint. He opened the scuttles, hooked back the door, and lit the brass gimbal-lamp. His tin trunk was stowed under the bed-place. Clean fresh canvas was on the floor and a rag mat by the bunk. A piece of lilac-tinted toilet soap, which is almost indispensable in an English guest room. A clean towel, which he had bought himself at Stein's. The next room was a bathroom, but it was not yet in an entirely satisfactory condition. It had been used to keep chickens in at some time and had also served as a store for the steward. And fresh water had to be carried from the pump, as all the plumbing had been cut away and sold.
Well, it would do. Mr. Spokesly opened the trunk and began to lay the contents in different drawers. He did it clumsily, as a matter of course, so that things of silk and cotton were crumpled and twisted, and he regarded his results dubiously. He decided he would be a failure as a lady's maid, and lighting a cigarette ascended to the deck. A fine thing, he reflected, if she never came and he had all those fal-lals and frills to carry about the ocean!