He was not exactly frightened but he was excusably flustered. One is not kidnapped like this without any preliminaries every day. He was painfully aware of being in the way of his new captors. He was kicked in the ribs and his legs were trodden upon. He heard blows being struck against hard substances which he knew were human skulls because of the abortive yells ending in groans. There was a determination and ferocity in this attack combined with the least possible amount of noise. All he could hear were the heavy blows and the hard breathing of the assailants. Then came a sort of helpless splash. “Somebody will get drowned,” he thought.
He made haste to pull himself forward from under the feet of the combatants. Luckily for his ribs they were bare, which also added to the quietness of that astonishing development. Once in the bows he sat up, and by that time everything was over. Three shadowy forms were standing in a row in the boat, motionless, like labourers who had accomplished a notable task. The boat out of which he had been dragged was floating within a yard or two, apparently empty. The whole affair, which could not have lasted more than a minute, seemed to Cosmo to have been absolutely instantaneous. Not a sound came from the shipping along the quays, not even from the brig and the xebec which were the nearest. A sense of final stillness such as follows, for instance, the explosion of a mine and resembles the annihilation of all one’s perceptive faculties took possession of Cosmo for a moment. Presently he heard a very earnest but low voice cautioning the silent world: “If you dare make a noise I will come back and kill you.” It was perfectly impersonal; it had no direction, no particular destination. Cosmo, who heard the words distinctly, could connect no image of a human being with them. He was roused at last when, dropping his hand on the gunwale, he felt human fingers under it. He snatched his hand away as if burnt and only then looked over. The white hair of the old boatman seemed to rest on the water right against the boat’s side. He was holding on silently, even in this position displaying the meek patience of his venerable age—and Cosmo contemplated him in silence. A voice, not at all impersonal this time, said from the stem sheets, “Get out your oars.”
“There is a man in the water here,” said Cosmo, wondering at his own voice being heard in those fantastic conditions. It produced, however, the desired effect, and almost as soon as he had spoken Cosmo had to help a bearded sailor, who was a complete stranger to him, to haul the old man inside the boat. He was no great weight to get over the gunwale, but they had to handle him as if he had been drowned. He never attempted to help himself. The other men in the boat took an interest in the proceedings.
“Is he dead?” came a subdued inquiry from aft.
“He is very old and feeble,” explained Cosmo in an undertone. Somebody swore long but softly, ending with the remark: “Here’s a complication.”
“That scoundrel Barbone dragged out a dying man,” began Cosmo impulsively.
“Va bene, va bene … Bundle him in and come aft, signore.”
Cosmo, obeying this injunction, found himself sitting in the stem sheets by the side of a man whose first act was to put his hand lightly upon his shoulder in a way that conveyed a sort of gentle exultation. The discovery that the man was Attilio was too startling for comment at the first moment. The next it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
“It seems as if nothing could keep us apart,” said that extraordinary man in a low voice. He took his hand off Cosmo’s shoulder and directed the two rowers—who, Cosmo surmised, were the whisperers of the tower—to pull under the bows of the brig. “We must hide from those customhouse fellows,” he said. “I fancy the galley is coming along.”
No other word was uttered till one of the men got hold of the brig’s cable and the boat came to a rest with her side against the stem of that vessel, when Cosmo, who now could himself hear the faint noise of rowing, asked Attilio in a whisper: “Are they after you?”
“If they are after anything,” answered the other coolly, “they are after a very fine voice. What made you give that shout?”
“I had to behave like a frightened mouse before those sbirri, on account of those papers you left with me, and I felt that I must assert myself.” Cosmo gave this psychological explanation grimly. He changed his tone to add that, fancying he had seen the shape of the English man-of-war’s boat, the temptation to hail her had been irresistible.
“Possibly that’s what started them. They know nothing of us. Luck was on our side. We slipped in
