rather high: there were flowers on it, now beaten down by the storm. Otherwise everything was as it had been. High up inside the porch the small lamp still burned before Saint Elmo's niche, untouched by the hail or rain; the house door, as usual, was unlocked; and in Laura's bedroom another lamp, blue this time, glowed between Charles Fielding's portrait and Our Lady of Consolation. The whole place was neat and trim and it felt thoroughly inhabited, as though she had left it only an hour ago: there was a vase of frail rock-roses by the lamp, and not a petal had fallen yet. He sat down with a feeling of relief so great that for a while the release of tension left him quite weak.
He did not strike a light, partly because Laura's tinder-box was notoriously inefficient, and partly because now that his eyes were accustomed to the dim blue glow he could see reasonably well. From where he sat he had no difficulty in making out the portrait, and for a while he considered that formidable, unhappy, passionate man. 'Laura is the only one who can deal with him,' he reflected, as a whole series of flashes made Fielding seem to leap from his frame, to the accompaniment of long, tremendous thunder like the whole Mediterranean fleet saluting. The rain began again and he stood at the sitting-room window, watching it in the intermittent play of lighting: the new mound was disintegating under the downpour, with earth and battered flowers drifting towards the door. 'It is very like a grave,' he observed, turning and sitting down at Laura's piano. His hands wandered over the keyboard, playing of themselves. Working out the measures to be taken was useless until he saw Laura and learnt how things stood; nevertheless his mind raced through the various possibilities again and again until, during a pause in the rain, he heard the Franciscans' little cracked bell somewhere in the blind tangle of roofs beyond the court ringing for complines.
Mechanically at first and then with real intention he recited the prayer for protection during the darkness of the night; then he began to play a rough version of the first psalm in the Dorian mode. But he did not do it well and in any case the piano was not the instrument for plainchant. He fell silent and sat there a great while, his body quite relaxed. The rain was falling still, sometimes hard, sometimes merely steady, yet by now the cistern was brim-full and it no longer made a noise. The only sound that reached the silent, lonely court was the falling rain; and during a particularly gentle spell an odd metallic grating at the outer door caught his ear: looking from the window he saw light shining under the lintel. The sound again, three times repeated, quite soft, but an uncommon sound and one that he had heard before: someone was picking the lock. Not forcing the door with a bar, but picking the lock.
He waited until it opened - opened carefully, slowly, with none of its usual creak - and before they dowsed their dark lantern he saw two men, one tall, one short. They paused for a moment before running on tiptoe through the rain and across the flooded court, and Stephen moved silently back through the house to the broad window-seat in Laura's bedroom. Undrawn curtains hung on either side; they covered no great area, but in his experience people rarely suspected such a hiding-place.
After a soundless approach they strode into the bedroom, flashing their lights about. 'She is not back yet,' said one in French, with his beam on the unruffled counterpane.'
'Go and look in the kitchen,' said the other man.
'No. She is not back yet,' said the first man, returning. 'Though the party should have been over hours ago.'
'The rain is keeping her.'
'Shall we wait?'
The shorter man, who was sitting on the sofa, took the hood completely off his lantern, set it on the low brass table and looked at his watch: he said 'We cannot afford to miss Andreotti. If she is not back by the time he reaches St James's we shall have to send a couple of reliable men. At about three or four in the morning, when she is bound to be here. She cannot stay at the Commendatore's all night, for heaven's sake.'
With the stronger light Stephen recognized Lesueur from Graham's and Laura's description: a hard man. Then with a most uncommon shock he recognized Lesueur's companion: Boulay, a civilian fairly high in Sir Hildebrand's administrative staff. He abandoned the idea of making sure of Lesueur with his pistol and taking his knife to the other: Boulay was far too valuable to be dispatched out of hand. Unless things turned ugly, he must be preserved.
'Beppo and the Arab?' suggested Boulay.
'No, not Beppo,' said Lesueur impatiently. 'He takes far too much pleasure in it altogether. As I told you, I want it done quick. Clean, no fuss.'
'There is Paolo: very serious and conscientious, and as strong as a bull. He was a butcher's man.'
Lesueur did not reply for some time, and it was clear to Stephen that he hated the whole thing. 'The ideal,' he said at last, 'would have been to find her asleep.' Then for a long interval all three sat still, listening to the rain.
A desultory conversation between Boulay and Lesueur did spring up in time, but Stephen learnt far less from it than he had hoped. A certain Luigi was embezzling much of the money sent to Palermo, and various plans were suggested for confounding him; neither spoke with much concern or conviction however and it was clear that nine parts of their attention was fixed on the outer door, waiting for it to open. Yet Stephen did gather that Boulay was a Channel Islander, with relatives at Fecamp; that Lesueur suffered from piles; and that there were two other French organizations represented in Malta, the one cooperative, the other comparatively hostile, neither of much importance. It also became evident that both men had come directly from Citta Vecchia in the downpour, which accounted for their having no suspicion of the frigate's return, no notion that he could possibly be present in Valletta.
Valletta, at this juncture, was in the curious position of having a port-admiral's office but no port-admiral. The senior naval officer, to whom Jack Aubrey reported, was an elderly post-captain by the name of Fellowes, a prim, starchy officer who had served much of his time ashore. They hardly knew one another and their meeting was formal. 'It is to be regretted that Surprise did not come in two days earlier,' said Fellowes. 'The Commander-in- Chief - with a reverent inclination of his head - 'delayed his departure until the evening in the hope of seeing her. However, I am charged to give you these orders, to answer any questions that may arise from them to the best of my ability, and to add certain verbal instructions. Perhaps you had better read them straight away.'
'If you please, sir,' said Jack, taking the proffered sheet. To Captain J Aubrey, His Majesty's Ship Surprise. By Sir Francis Ives, K.B. Vice-Admiral of the Red, &c. &c. he read. Whereas Mr Eliot, His Majesty's Consul at Zambra, has represented to me that his Highness the Dey of Mascara has made the most extravagant, unjust, and inadmissible demands upon the government of Great Britain, intermixed with unfriendly expressions, even to menaces of hostility, if he does not obtain the sums of money he has laid claim to early in the ensuing month:-
You are hereby required and directed to appear before Zambra and endeavour to have an interview with Mr Consul Eliot, and concert such proper measures to be pursued as the situation may require; whether to have an audience of the Dey, and explain with firmness the unreasonableness of his demands, and the exposure of his
