It was a man. I could see his shape but not his features. Naturally I connected his appearance with the disappearance of Frederick. The villainous German officer.

I might or might not be trespassing, but my best move was to hope he hadn’t seen me and get out as fast as I could. I swam underwater most of the way and got out in the shelter of a rock. He was halfway down the cliff when I looked back; the darkness of his body stood out against the chalk-white ash.

Rather than risk being seen climbing the cliff I swam around the headland and headed for our own bay. I lingered deliberately at the house, eating a huge breakfast, taking my time. It must have been almost noon before I got to the excavation.

Frederick was in a terrible mood. I would have liked to believe that he was worried about my late arrival, but I knew him well enough to doubt that. The men were visibly amused at my tardiness; Nicholas gave me a grin and a wink when I joined his crew.

We were still digging up pots. Frederick thought that the area we were working in had been a storeroom, with another such room above. The reason why the pots we found were so badly shattered was that they had fallen when the upper floor collapsed. Since all I had to look forward to when these scraps were cleared was another layer of pots, I was not working with much enthusiasm. It was a warm, sleepy day, and everyone was moving slowly.

All of a sudden Nicholas stood up. I stared at him from my squatting position and saw that his face had gone queer and pale. He screamed out something I didn’t understand, although I had been picking up some Greek. Then he took off at full speed, followed by the other men.

I ran too. Mine not to reason why. But it took me a few seconds to get myself together, so I was still within the confines of the ravine when I heard the roaring. That was what it sounded like, the bellowing roar of a huge animal. Then the ground heaved.

The tremor was more severe than the ones I had felt the day before. It knocked me flat. That’s a good place to be during an earthquake, flat on the ground, although I would have preferred a more open area. A few rocks fell, but not many.

I continued to lie there even after the movement stopped. I didn’t stir until someone shook me.

“Get up,” said Frederick.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I feel good here.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Frederick said impatiently. “There may be another shock. We must get out into the open.”

We went back to the house. Frederick was grumbling all the way; he seemed to feel a personal resentment against the earth for interfering with his work.

“The men won’t be back today,” he complained. “Another wasted afternoon. Perhaps you might spend a few more hours-”

“Oh, no,” I said firmly. “In fact, I’m not going in again unless you get a boat. If you’re going to walk out on me the way you did this morning… Did you run away because that man showed up?”

“What man?”

“The one in the villa. The Colonel. Don’t tell me you didn’t see him.”

“I did not. More important, did he see you? On no account must you allow him to-”

“Why not?”

Frederick shrugged. “Why, legally, I suppose we are trespassing.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“What other reason could there be?” inquired Frederick.

I decided there was no point in going on with this sort of thing, so I went to the village.

The church was open, and people were going in and out. A sizable crowd had collected. People clustered together, talking in low voices. When I passed they looked up and smiled in response to my “hello,” but the smiles were stiff and the eyes avoided mine.

I figured they were worried about the quakes, and I didn’t blame them. I headed for the hotel to see how Jim was doing.

It was the first time I had been inside the place, and the appearance of the lobby made me glad I wasn’t staying there. Chickens were roosting on the chairs, and my sandals stuck to the floor. Nobody was at the desk, so I banged on the bell and shouted. Finally a woman came out of the back, wiping her hands on her apron.

I had heard Jim speak of Angelos’ wife. He said she did most of the work, acting as cook, chambermaid, and bellboy. Her name was Helena. I had felt sorry for her because Angelos struck me as a typical peasant-type male, the kind that expects a wife to work all day and lie still all night; but when I saw Helena I decided she was probably a match for her burly husband. She was a massively built woman who had weathered middle age better than women usually do when they work like mules. Her hair was streaked with gray, but it was still thick and shiny, and the black hairs on her upper lip added to her charm.

After I had tried to explain what I wanted and had received no response except a blank stare, I began to wonder if all her strength had gone to her biceps. I was about to give up when Jim came down the stairs.

“I thought I heard your dulcet tones,” he said, with a smile. “Are you calling on the sick and wounded? How nice.”

I looked him over. Except for the white bump of bandage on top of his head, he appeared normal.

“I see you’re okay, so I’ll leave,” I said.

“Have some coffee or something. No more work today. I suppose your crew departed too?”

I nodded. Jim spoke to Helena, asking her if she could bring us some coffee, out on the terrace. He got a much livelier reaction than I had. She rolled her eyes at Jim and giggled. I studied Jim with a new interest. He had somewhat the same effect on me-although I knew better than to giggle and bat my eyelashes-but it hadn’t occurred to me that he might affect most women that way.

We sat down at one of the tables on the terrace. The crowd was still moving, in little restless eddies, like water in a pond after it has been disturbed. From where we sat I could see the lights inside the dark cavern of the church.

“Lots of candles being lit today,” Jim said. “I wonder who the patron saint of earthquakes is.”

“Is that why they seem so queer and restless?”

“I guess so. They seem to be unusually disturbed. I mean, tremors aren’t all that unusual around here.”

“There’s Nicholas,” I said, pointing. “He felt the quake coming, Jim. At least he started to run before I heard or felt anything.”

Nicholas turned, as people will when you are looking at them and talking about them. I beckoned. He came toward us, and Jim invited him to sit down. He gave me a rather sheepish grin. Like many of the men he had beautiful white teeth. He spoke to Jim, gesticulating.

“He wants to apologize,” Jim translated. “He says he should have warned you, but when the-damn, the word is hard to translate-the queasiness, I guess, comes over him, he can’t think.”

“Queasiness? Ask him what it feels like.”

Nicholas was watching me anxiously. I patted him on the arm and smiled, and he smiled back, looking relieved.

He and Jim talked for a while, and then Nicholas rose. He turned to me and said, speaking slowly and clearly, “Not more. All gone now, today. All right?”

“Good,” I said heartily.

He understood that. We bobbed our heads and grinned at each other, and then he walked off, with the hip-swinging swagger characteristic of the men of the island.

“You got that,” Jim said.

“No more quakes today. How does he know, Jim?”

“He says it’s an inherited talent. Lots of the islanders have it. He can’t describe the feeling very well, but apparently he starts to feel sick. Like a migraine, I guess. Frankly, I find it hard to believe.”

“But it happened. He yelled something and started to run long before I heard the rumbling. I didn’t hear it yesterday, by the way.”

“Yesterday’s shocks were milder. When it’s a bad quake the sound is quite loud. You can understand why the ancients thought of Poseidon as the Earthshaker and compared the noise with the roaring of the sacred bulls.”