The Mudir, when that was translated to him, allowed a flicker of a change of expression to pass over his face. But when he spoke it was with the same flatness of tone.

“He says that if we hand over all we have recovered so far the Vali will allow us to remain here and keep whatever else we find,” reported Turner.

Turner displayed some small concern as he translated, but yet in his old man’s face the most noticeable expression was one of curiosity; he bore no responsibility, and he could allow himself the luxury—the pleasure—of wondering how his captain was going to receive this demand. Even in that horrid moment Hornblower found himself remembering Rochefoucauld’s cynical epigram about the pleasure we derive from the contemplation of our friends’ troubles.

“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “that my master King George will be angry when he hears that such a thing has been said to me, his servant, and that his friend the Sultan will be angry when he hears what his servant has said.”

But the Mudir was unmoved by any suggestion of international complications. It would take a long, long time for a complaint to travel from Marmorice to London and then back to Constantinople. And Hornblower could guess that a very small proportion of a quarter of a million sterling, laid out in the proper quarter, would buy the support of the Vizier for the Vali. The Mudir’s face was quite unrelenting—a frightened child might have a nightmare about a face as heartless as that.

“Damn it,” said Hornblower, “I won’t do it.”

There was nothing he wanted more in this world than to break through the iron serenity of the Mudir.

“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “I’ll drop the gold back into the Bay sooner than hand it over. By God, I will. I’ll drop it down to the bottom and they can fish for it themselves, which they can’t do. Tell him I swear that, by—by the Koran or the beard of the Prophet, or whatever they swear by.”

Turner nodded in surprised approval; that was a move he had not thought of, and he addressed himself eagerly to the task of translation. The Mudir listened with his eternal patience.

“No, it’s no good, sir,” said Turner, after the Mudir had replied. “You can’t frighten him that way. He says—”

Turner was interrupted by a fresh sentence from the Mudir.

“He says that after this ship has been seized the idolaters—that’s the Ceylonese divers, sir—will work for him just as they work for us.”

Hornblower, desperate, thought wildly of cutting the divers’ throats after throwing the treasure overboard; that would be consonant with this Oriental atmosphere, but before he could put the frightful thought into words the Mudir spoke again, and at considerable length.

“He says wouldn’t it be better to go back with some treasure, sir—whatever more we can recover—than to lose everything? He says—he says—I beg your pardon, sir, but he says that if this ship is seized for breaking the law your name would not be held in respect by King George.”

That was phrasing it elegantly. Hornblower could well imagine what their Lordships of the Admiralty would say. Even at the best, even if he fought it out to the last man, London would not look with favour on the man who had precipitated an international crisis and whose behaviour necessitated sending a squadron and an army into the Levant to restore British prestige at a moment when every ship and man was needed to fight Bonaparte. And at worst—Hornblower could picture his little ship suddenly overwhelmed by a thousand boarders, seized, emptied of the treasure, and then dismissed with contemptuous indulgence for him to take back to Malta with a tale possibly of outrage but certainly of failure.

It took every ounce of his moral strength to conceal his despair and dismay—from Turner as well as from the Mudir—and as it was he sat silent for a while, shaken, like a boxer in the ring trying to rally after a blow had slipped through his guard. Like a boxer, he needed time to recover.

“Very well,” he said at length, “tell him I must think over all this. Tell him it is too important for me to make up my mind now.”

“He says,” translated Turner when the Mudir replied, “he says he will come tomorrow morning to receive the treasure.”

Chapter XVIII

In the old days, long ago, Hornblower as a midshipman had served in the Indefatigable on cuttingout expeditions more numerous than he could remember. The frigate would find a coaster anchored under the protection of shore batteries, or would chase one into some small harbour; then at night—or even in broad day—the boats would be manned and sent in. The coaster would take all the precautions she could; she could load her guns, rig her boarding nettings, keep her crew on the alert, row guard round the ship, but to no avail The boarders would fight their way on board, clear the decks, set sail, and carry off the prize under the nose of the defences. Often and often had Hornblower seen it close, had taken part. He had noted with small enough sympathy the pitiful precautions taken by the victim.

Now the boot was on the other leg; now it was even worse, because Atropos lay in the broad Bay of Marmorice without even the protection of shore batteries and with ten thousand enemies around her. Tomorrow, the Mudir had said, he would come for the treasure, but there was no trusting the Turks. That might be one more move to lull the Atropos into security. She might be rushed in the night. The Mejidieh, over there, could put into her boats more men than Atropos could boast altogether, and they could be supplemented with soldiers crammed into fishing boats from the shore. If she were attacked by twenty boats at once, from all sides, by a thousand Moslem fanatics, what could she do to defend herself?

She could rig her boarding nettings—they were already rigged. She could load her guns—they were already loaded, grape on top of round shot, depressed so as to sweep the surface of the Bay at close range round the ship. She could keep anxious watch—Hornblower was going round the ship himself, to see that the lookouts were all awake, the guns’ crews dozing no more deeply than the hard decks would allow as they lay at their posts, the remainder of the hands stationed round the bulwarks with pike and cutlass within easy reach.

It was a novel experience to be the mouse instead of the cat, to be on the defensive instead of the offensive, to wait anxiously for the moon to rise instead of hurrying to the attack while darkness endured. It might be counted as another lesson in war, to know how the waiting victim thought and felt—some day in the future Hornblower might put that lesson to use, and, paralleling the thought of the ship he was going to attack, contrive to circumvent the precautions she was taking.

That was one more proof of the levity and inconstancy of his mind, said Hornblower to himself, bitterness and despair returning in overwhelming force. Here he was thinking about the future, about some other command he might hold, when there was no future. No future. Tomorrow would see the end. He did not know for certain yet what he would do; vaguely in his mind he had the plan that at dawn he would empty the ship of her crew—nonswimmers in the boats, swimmers sent to seek refuge in the Mejidieh–while he went down below to the magazine, with a loaded pistol, to blow the ship and the treasure, himself with his dead ambitions, his love for his children and his wife, to blow it all to fragments. But would that be better than bargaining? Would it be better than returning not only with Atropos intact but with whatever further treasure McCullum could retrieve? It was his duty to save his ship if he could, and he could. Seventy thousand pounds was far less than a quarter of a million, but it would be a godsend to an England at her wits’ ends for gold. A Captain in the Navy should have no personal feelings; he had a duty to do.