Then, as those on board came ashore, tongues and tears were loosened. Among them was a girl who had been taken only two years before; in her arms was a baby, a heritage of shame. It was pitiful to see how her father started forward to meet her--then stopped, and for a moment she stood alone with down-dropped eyes, and the joy and expectation in her face struck dead. But suddenly from the women behind her mother ran out, with her love triumphing over shame, and she fell on the girl's neck with a sob and drew her tenderly away. Another was a very old man who tottered down the gangway steps; none knew his name and he knew none, but looked round puzzledly at the changed quay and the sprouted town. But there were very few to return to Hydra, for the Turks had always filled their plunderous and lustful hands from places where the men were of softer mould than these stern islanders. Tombazes, with Nikola still close to him, had pushed his way forward to the edge of the quay where the ship was disembarking; a crowd of jovial, whistling sailors poured down the plank, and still Nikola had not seen what he looked for. But at the last came a woman in Turkish dress, and at her he looked longer and more peeringly as she came down the bridge. She had removed the yashmak from her face, and her head, gray-haired, was bare. But surely to another never had the glory of woman been given in such magnificent abundance. It grew low on her forehead and was braided over her ears and done up in great coils behind her head. Her eyebrows were still black, startlingly black against that gray head and ivory-colored face, but her eyes were blacker, and like fire they smouldered, and they pierced like steel. Weary yet keen was her face; expectant and wide her eyes; and expectant her mouth, slightly open, and still young and girlish in its fine curves and tender lines. Among that crowd of merry, strong-built men she seemed of different clay; you would have said she was a china cup among crockery and earthen-ware. And Nikola looked, and his eyes were riveted to her, and they grew dim suddenly, and with a little, low cry he broke from Tombazes and forced his way through those who stood around, so that when the woman stepped ashore off the bridge he stood full in front of her, and his hands were out-stretched; you would have said he held his heart in them, offering it to her. She saw and paused, her lips parted in a sudden surprise and amaze; for a moment her eyebrows contracted as if puzzled, but before they had yet frowned, cleared again, and she took both his hands in hers and kissed him on the lips.