Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia ScarlettMacKenzie, Compton
General
Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia Scarlett
MacKenzie, Compton
Fiction
"I will find a caique and you will hide by the sea where I show you. We
cannot go back over the river to Greece. But how much can you pay for
the caique? Fifty dollars? There are Greek fish-mens, sure, who was
going to take us."
Michael at once agreed to the price.
"Then it will be easy," said the corporal, after he had calculated his
own profit upon the transaction.
"And ten dollars for yourself," Michael added.
"I don't want nothing out of it for myself," the corporal declared,
indignantly; but after a minute's hesitation he told them that he did
not think it would be possible to hire the caique for less than sixty
dollars, and looked sad when Michael did not try to contest the higher
figure.
They had started to walk seaward along the bed of the ravine when the
corporal ran back with an exclamation of contempt to where the dead
officer was lying.
"If I ain't dippy!" he laughed. "Gee! I 'most forgot to see what was in
his pockets."
He made up for the oversight by a thorough search and came back
presently, smiling and slipping the holster of the officer's revolver on
his own belt. Then he patted his own pockets, which were bulging with
what he had found, and they walked forward in silence. The end of the
ravine brought them to an exposed upland, which they crossed warily,
flitting from stunted tree to stunted tree, because the moonlight was
seeming too bright here for safety. The upland gave place to sandy
dunes, the hollows of which were marshy and made the going difficult;
but the night was breathless and not a leaf stirred in the oleander
thickets to alarm their progress.
"Not much wind for sailing," Michael murmured.
"That's all right," said the corporal, whose name was Yanni Psaradelis.
"If we find a caique, we can wait for the wind."
Sylvia was puzzled by Rakoff's not having said a word about any river to
cross at the frontier. She wondered if he had salved his loyalty
thereby, counting upon their recapture, or if by chance they were to get
away, throwing the blame on Providence. Yet had he time for such
subtleties? It was hard to think he had, but by Yanni's account of the
river it seemed improbable that they would ever have escaped without his
help, and it was certainly strange that Rakoff, if his benevolence had
been genuine, should not have warned them. And now actually the dunes
were dipping to the sea; on a simultaneous impulse they ran down the
last sandy slope and knelt upon the beach by the edge of the tide,
scooping up the water as though it were of gold.
"Say, that's not the way to go escaping from the Voulgars," Yanni told
them, reproachfully. "We got to go slow and keep out of sight."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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