Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia ScarlettMacKenzie, Compton
General
Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia Scarlett
MacKenzie, Compton
Fiction
"Those Voulgars," Yanni panted, "won't do nothing except holler. They
can't see us."
Another rifle banged, and Sylvia was thrilled by the way their escape
was conforming to the rules of the game; she reveled in the confused
sounds of anger and pursuit on land.
"They don't know where we are," laughed Yanni.
But the noise of the fugitives scrambling on board the caique and the
hoisting of the little boat brought round them a shower of bullets, the
splash of which was heard above the rain. One of these broke a jar of
wine, and every man aboard bent to the long oars, driving the perfumed
caique deeper into the darkness.
"I had a funny time getting this caique," Yanni explained, when, with
some difficulty, he had been dissuaded from firing his late captain's
revolver at the country of Bulgaria, by this time at least two miles
away. "I didn't have no difficulty to get across, but I had to walk
half-way to Cavalla before I found the old fish-man who owns this
caique. I told him two British peoples wanted him and he says, 'Are them
Mr. B.'s fellows for Cavalla?' I didn't know who Mr. B. was, anyway, so
I says, 'Sure, they're Mr. B.'s fellows,' but when we got off at dusk,
he says his orders was for Porto Lagos and to let go the little boat
when he could hear a bird calling. He didn't give a dern for no matches.
Wal, Mr. B.'s fellows didn't answer from round about Lagos, and he said
bad words, and how it was three days too soon, and who in hell did I
think I was, anyway, telling him Mr. B.'s fellows was waiting? So I
told him there was a mistake somewheres, and asked him what about taking
you Thaso for twenty dollars. We talked for a bit and he said, 'Yes.'
Now we got to make him go Samothraki."
At this point the captain of the caique, a brown and shriveled old man
seeming all the more shriveled in the full-seated breeches of the Greek
islander, joined them below for an argument with Yanni that sounded more
than usually acrimonious and voluble. When it was finished, the captain
had agreed, subject to a windy moonrise, to land them at Samothraki on
payment of another ten pounds in gold. They went on deck and sat astern,
for the rain was over now. A slim, rusty moon was creeping out of the
sea and conjuring from the darkness forward the shadowy bulk of Thasos;
presently, with isolated puffs that frilled the surface of the water
like the wings of alighting birds, the wind began to blow; the long oars
were shipped, and the crew set the curved mainsail that crouched in a
defiant bow against whatever onslaught might prepare itself; from every
mountain gorge in Thrace the northern blasts rushed down with life for
the stagnant sea, and life for the dull, decrescent moon, which in a
spray of stars they drove glittering up the sky.
"How gloriously everything hums and gurgles!" Sylvia shouted in
Michael's ear. "When shall we get to Samothrace?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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