Marianne and the Lords of the East

Chapter 7 A Night for the Devil

BY the time that Jason, Gracchus and Jolival reached the rendezvous, which was that same unfrequented stretch of shore behind the mosque of Kilij Ali Pasha where the Klepht, Theodoros, had borne Marianne unconscious from the sea, it was so dark, in spite of the obligatory lanterns, that at first they did not see Craig O'Flaherty and his men at all.

A strong wind was sweeping along the beach, tossing up the sand and whipping the sea into heavy, grinding breakers that spattered the darkness with white foam.

The time was that moment just before the dawn when the night is at its darkest and thickest, as if all the forces of darkness were gathering to help it keep possession of the earth and fight off the onslaught of the light. The three were more than fifteen minutes late. Preparations for departure had taken longer than anticipated because Gracchus had been temporarily mislaid, having been locked in a cellar through an oversight of the butler. In addition, the party had been stopped more than once in the two leagues between Bebek and Galata by patrols of janissaries out hunting for a miscreant who had caused sacrilegious disturbances in no less than three separate mosques.

The beach was so dark and empty that for a moment the three men believed themselves alone. Jason swore furiously into the wind, regardless of who might overhear him.

'Perhaps they thought we'd never get aboard in this gale,' Jolival hazarded. 'Or else they decided that we were not coming—'

'They had no business to think or decide,' Jason snarled. 'As to the gale, well, they're sailors, aren't they? In any case, I'm sure they can't be far off. I know O'Flaherty.'

His previous loud cursing might well have sufficed but to make doubly sure he whistled three times on a particular note and a moment later was answered in an identical fashion. Almost immediately Craig O'Flaherty and his men appeared, dark shadowy figures which the privateer's eyes, accustomed to peering through the blinding spray, were soon able to pick out from the surrounding blackness.

The crew the Irishman had assembled could scarcely have been said to constitute the cream of the world's seamen. There were two Genoese, a Maltese, a Greek, an Albanian and two Georgians whom Craig had ruthlessly bribed away from the service of his friend Mamoulian. But they looked capable enough and stood up to Jason's practiced scrutiny.

'So here you are at last,' was Craig's welcome. 'We were beginning to give up hope.'

'I daresay,' retorted Jason dryly. 'Several hours without a drink is a long time. Where were you, O'Flaherty? Find a bar somewhere still open?'

'In a safe place, and on consecrated ground, what's more,' the Irishman retorted, indicating the vague outline of a small tekke of Whirling Dervishes which made a white blur against the dark bulk of the mosque. 'You may not have noticed, but it's blowing fit to skin a cat. It was all we could do to keep our feet on the beach.'

'You have a boat?'

'Yes. That, too, is in a safe place—in that fisherman's hut, down there on the shore. Do you see it? And now, if you want my opinion, we had better be moving, unless we want our boarding party to take place in broad daylight. Dawn is not far off.'

'Come, then. Run out the boat.'

While the men ran down to the hut, Jason turned quickly to Jolival and grasped both his hands in the warm, spontaneous fashion which won him so many friends.

'We part here, then. Goodbye, my friend. Take good care of her. This is not the first time I have entrusted her to you.'

'I spend my life taking care of her,' Jolival said gruffly, trying to shake off a nasty feeling of impending disaster. 'You take care of yourself, Beaufort. Wars are not precisely rest cures.'

'Don't worry. I'm indestructible. And look after the baby, too. His mother's love for him is very new and still very fragile, I think. It may be a long while before I am able to take care of him.'

The American's hands were warm and strong and firm.

Returning their friendly pressure impulsively, Jolival was troubled by a slight feeling of remorse. Seeing the younger man so ready to be a father to another man's child, he was sorry he had not told him the whole truth. Prince Corrado had certainly approved his decision to conceal his true identity, but at that moment Jolival wished he had not done it. Jason was obviously expecting Marianne to have little Sebastiano with her when she landed in America, and might not be best pleased to find things otherwise.

The men, under Craig's directions, were running the boat down to the sea. It was a long caique, sound and well built, and looked capable of a pretty turn of speed.

Suddenly the vicomte made up his mind.

'There is something else I want to tell you—something about the child. I've not told you before because it did not seem to me that I had the right, but now—'

'What is there about now in particular to make you decide to reveal a secret which does not belong to you —and which I may very well know already?'

'Which you—?'

Jason laughed. His hand came down heavily on Jolival's shoulder, warmly reassuring.

'Perhaps I'm not quite such a fool as you and Marianne like to think, my friend. So you may be at peace with yourself. You have given nothing away, because you had no need to. Nor, by the way, have I any intention of giving young Sant'Anna my name. And now goodbye.'

He was about to turn away when he suddenly gripped Jolival with both hands.

'Kiss her for me—and tell her I love her.'

Then he ran to join his men. They were having some trouble in getting the boat into the water. It was as if the sea were trying to throw off the vessel that had the temerity to try to ride it. Jolival could see the dim figures of men moving about against the background of foaming breakers and his mind groped half-unconsciously for a snatch of forgotten prayer.

Then suddenly there came a triumphant shout, and Jolival saw nothing more.

'Here we go, then!' a voice cried in Italian. Already it sounded some way off. 'But it's a real night for the devil!'

Left alone on the beach, Jolival shivered. A night for the devil?

True enough, perhaps. The caique had vanished. The sea had swallowed it, like the dark, gaping jaws of some ravening monster. There was nothing to be heard but the frenzied pounding of the waves and the howling of the wind. Was the gallant little craft still afloat?

Unable to free himself from his sense of foreboding, Jolival turned up the collar of his coat mechanically and climbed back up the slope toward the three bare plane trees where they had tethered the horses. He had no wish to return to Bebek. What was the point? Marianne would only pester him with questions to which he had no answers. At that precise moment he did not even know for certain that the caique had not gone straight to the bottom.

The wind dropped for a second and he heard a church clock in Pera strike five. It gave him an idea. The French embassy was nearby and, having been built as a Franciscan monastery, it contained a belfry which, although in a somewhat dilapidated condition, commanded a view over the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. From up there, as soon as it was light enough, it would at least be possible to see what became of the Sea Witch and perhaps even something of the gallant band of men attempting to gain possession of her.

Leaving the horses tethered to the plane tree so that the noise of hooves should not wake the whole district, which at this hour of a winter's morning was still shuttered and empty, Jolival turned his steps in the direction of the embassy. He had no difficulty obtaining entrance once he had succeeded in rousing the porter, in itself no easy task. The man stood in some awe of the gentleman who came to play chess with the ambassador and, although it was a considerable time since he had last been seen there, he was admitted without question. It was as much as he could do, however, to prevent them from waking Monsieur de Latour-Maubourg.