listened,
sniffed, and resigned himself passively for a moment to the impact of
influences so subtle that to one unaccustomed to the sea they might be
suspected of supernatural sources. He climbed to the bridge-deck and
went over to where the smashed boat hung like a skeleton from the
crumpled davit. And he was aware at once of the correctness of his
suspicions. But it would not be Lesbos. It was the high land which juts
northward and forms the western promontory of the long curving Gulf of
Smyrna. He could see it as an intenser and colder projection of the
darkness. And then his curiosity centred about the more complex problem
of speed. They could not be doing more than a couple of knots. What was
the old fraud's game? Waiting for a signal, perhaps. He had evidently
got himself and his old ship inside any mines that had been laid between
Chios and Lesbos. If there were any. Perhaps he was waiting for
daylight.

This was the correct solution. Captain Rannie had crept as close in
under Lesbos as he had dared according to the scanty hints he had gotten
from Mr. Dainopoulos, who had been informed by a Greek sailor from a
captured Bulgarian schooner that there was a safe passage inshore to the
east of Cape Vurkos. The result, however, of clearing the southern coast
of Lesbos in safety was to engender a slight recklessness in the
captain. For his dangers were practically over. Even if he got run
ashore later, they could get the cargo out of her. And he had made too
much distance east before turning south, so that, in trying to raise a
certain point on the western side, he had grown confused. The chart was
not large enough. When Mr. Spokesly appeared once more on the bridge,
Captain Rannie had rung "Slow" on the telegraph, and was endeavouring to
locate some sort of light upon the immense wall of blackness that rose
to starboard.

And it could not be asserted that he was sorry to see his chief officer.
That gentleman could not do much now. Captain Rannie, with his
binoculars to his eyes, was trembling with excitement. According to the
chart he ought to see a red light on his port bow within an hour or two.
There was a good reason for supposing that light was still kept burning
even during the war. It could not be seen from the northward and was of
prime importance to coasting vessels in the Gulf when making the turn
eastward into the great inland estuary at the head of which lay the
city. He was creeping along under the hi