‘So I can: very dark and very narrow.’
‘Well, from the way he is trimming sail, I believe Mr Woodbine means to take us through in spite of the wind abeam. He knows these waters uncommon well. It is not very long, thanks be, and we are a weatherly ship: and when you are through, there is Spalato right before you.’
There indeed was Spalato right before them, the horrors of the very dark and very narrow passage forgotten and the setting sun casting an indistinct but wonderfully moving glory on the enormous rectangle of Diocletian’s palace.
And before Surprise was wholly clear of the channel the immense voice of the lookout at the foremasthead called, ‘On deck, there. On deck. Ringle fine on the starboard bow.’
Jack instantly gave a series of orders: before she reached the open water the frigate was under bare poles, riding to a kedge in the gentle outward current. By the time Ringle was alongside and Reade aboard Surprise with Dr Jacob, darkness had fallen, and fireflies could be seen drifting across the strait.
Jack took them both below, but Jacob was bleeding so profusely from a wound that he had contrived to inflict upon himself as he came up the side, probably on a shattered length of the gunwale, that Stephen had to lead him away, send his breeches to be soaked in cold water at once, sew up the gash, and then ask Poll to bandage it and to find a pair of clean duck trousers that would fit. While this was doing, Jacob asked, ‘You did not receive my dispatches, I suppose?’
‘Never a one. Have the Brotherhood’s messengers left?’
‘Three days ago. Your friends in Kutali received me nobly and told me a great deal: let me summarize. In the very first place the Sheikh of Azgar has promised the sum required for the mercenaries: the news came more than a week ago. The Russians and Austrians are still dawdling – there is said to be suspicion, ill-will, on both sides. Zeal among the Moslem Bonapartists reached a feverish point when a pilgrim back from one of the Shiite shrines in the farther Atlas reported seeing the gold being weighed out in the presence of Ibn Hazm as he passed through Azgar. The heads of the Brotherhood met in a Moslem village, resolved all difficulties to do with personal dislikes and rivalries and appointed five of their most considerable members, two of them influential figures in Constantinople. They are riding by the pashas’ relays to Durazzo and there they will take one of Selim’s fast-sailing houarios for Algiers. There they are to beg
the Dey to transport the money, the treasure, promised by the Sheikh. It may be possible to intercept them between Pantellaria and Kelibia.’
Jack opened the door of the sick-bay and looked in. ‘Forgive me for interrupting you,’ he said, ‘but I just wanted to ask Dr Jacob where the French frigate is lying.’
‘Over by the Marsa, sir, the broad northern end. There are some merchantmen from the Barbary Coast fairly near.’
‘How many guns does she carry?’
‘I am sorry to say that I never noticed, sir, but so many, according to his secretary, that he could not decently surrender to a little nine-pounder frigate.’
‘I see,’ said Jack. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’
‘I am afraid I offended him,’ said Jacob, when the door had closed.
‘Never in life, colleague,’ said Stephen. ‘Pray go on.’
But Jacob had been shaken by that cold look of dislike that it took him some moments to collect his ideas. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘well, I took it upon myself to send word to our friend in Ancona and to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Carbonari as soon as you should appear. I hope this does not embarrass you?’
‘Not in the least. Has a time been named?’
‘Just after the rising of the moon.’
‘At what o’clock would that be?’
‘I took it to be at night, of course, but I am sorry to say I cannot be more precise.’
‘I have seen the moon by day, looking very whimsical in the presence of the sun.
However. I shall ask the Commodore.’
‘Commodore, dear,’ he said some moments later, ‘would you know when the moon rises tonight?’
‘At thirty-three minutes after midnight; and she is just five degrees below the planet Mars. And Stephen, let me tell you something: Pomone is in this channel, no great way astern. If I were on my own I should send a French-speaking officer aboard the French frigate to tell her captain that Pomone, a thirty-gun eighteen-pounder frigate, and the twelve-pounder Surprise would enter the harbour at first light tomorrow, that they would fire half a dozen blank broadsides at close range, to which he would respond, also with blanks; and that then, decencies preserved, we should all make sail, leaving by the broad north-west passage if this leading wind holds as I expect, and proceed to Malta. But would this interfere with your plans?’
‘Not in the least: and if you wish I will carry your proposal over to the Cerbère.’
‘That would be very kind of you, Stephen. Should you like me to write it down?’
‘If you please.’
Jack scratched for a while, and passing the list he said, ‘You will see that I have underlined blank every time: but in his agitation the poor man might not think to draw all his guns before the first exchange. You will put him in mind of it, if you please. . . but tactfully, tactfully, if you know what I mean.’
‘What would be a proper time for this visit?’ asked Stephen without the least sign of having heard but reflecting upon his friend’s large, clear, somewhat round and feminine hand, his instant reaction in time of nautical crisis, and his not uncommon ineptitudes.
‘As soon as you have put on your good uniform and Killick has found your best wig.
A boat and a bosun’s chair will be ready.’
The captain and the officers of Cerbère were an intelligent set, and since captains usually collect men of a like mind,
they were all thoroughly dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. They longed to be out of this ambiguous posture, and it was with a general satisfaction that they saw the light of a boat pulling, man-of-war fashion, from the narrow mouth of the Porte di Spalato. They all of them studied it with their night-glasses and when its obvious intention was to come aboard them, the officer of the watch ordered a bosun’s chair to be rigged: they had already experienced Dr Jacob’s almost fatal attempt at coming up the side.
They hailed the boat as a matter of form, and they were somewhat shocked when the reply ‘a message from the English commodore’, though in French, was not in Jacob’s French. However, they lowered the chair and Stephen came aboard with what grace could be managed with such a vehicle but at least dry, clean and orderly.
He returned the first lieutenant’s salute, said that he should like to speak to the captain, and was shown into the great cabin.
Captain Delalande received him with a grave courtesy and listened to what he had to say in silence: when Stephen had finished he said, ‘Be so good as to tell the Commodore, with my compliments, that I agree to all his proposals, and that I shall reply to his and’his consort’s blank broadsides with an equal number, equally blank, that I shall follow him through the Canale di Spalato, and then proceed to Malta.’ He coughed, unbent a little, and proposed coffee.
When they had drunk two cups and eaten two Dalmatian almond biscuits, the tension had so far diminished that Stephen asked whether the captain had ever known the firing of a salute or the like to be accompanied by the involuntary discharge of a ball, the drawing of the cannon having been overlooked.
‘No, sir,’ said Delalande, ‘I have not. When we fire a salute or anything of that nature, we like the gun to make as much noise as possible. And to this end we withdraw the ball – in itself precious enough, I assure you, and much regarded by the Ministry – and replace it with more wads and sometimes a disk or two of wood as well.’
Stephen thanked him and took his leave, escorted by a lieutenant; and not only on the quarterdeck but also in the waist of the ship among the hands he noticed approving, even friendly looks. It was not only in the Royal Navy, he concluded, that secrecy was the rarest commodity aboard a ship.
‘My dear William,’ he said, safely on the tender’s deck, ‘I dare say the moon will be up presently?’
‘In about half an hour, sir,’ said Reade.
‘Then if it can be spared, would you be so very kind as to lend me your little boat and a reliable, grave, sober man to carry Dr Jacob and me ashore in let us say twenty minutes?’