I had that illusion. But I
discovered in that fog-bound boat that I knew very little about myself
after all, that the future was absolutely unknown to me beyond the grand
fact that I was going to the address which the girl had repeated twice
in her musical contralto, and that I was mysteriously exalted about it.

"I was steering, you know, and had let things go a bit, I suppose, under
the stress of my thoughts, when I realized the boatman was calling to me
and waving an arm. I collected my wits and looked round. There was a
methodical sound of oars and in a moment a large boat loomed close to us
and I saw the ghostly figures of the four rowers, their bodies rising to
full height as they plunged their oars in deep and then fell slowly
backward to the thwarts. And as the boat moved forward again in one of
its long, rhythmical surges and the stern of her came into the faint
radiance of our small lantern I saw a bent figure with a fez lean
suddenly forward, grasping the gunwale with one hand and his coat collar
with the other and stare at us with a fixed, crouching intensity that
was familiar. I was perfectly certain it was M. Nikitos, and in the
mental excitement of wondering what he might be doing at that hour in a
four-oared boat, I was turning my own craft round in a half circle. I
heard voices in the fog, the voice of M. Nikitos giving strident orders
and hoarse growls of assent from the toiling boatman. The sounds died
away and I became aware of other sounds close by, the long hiss and slap
of the sea against masonry, and voices. Voices clamouring and protesting
and calling aimlessly and interjecting unheeded remarks into other
voices engaged in torrential vituperation. And then my boatman stood up
suddenly, his tall form rising and falling into the fog like some comic
contrivance as the swell tossed the boat perilously near the sea-wall,
and uttered a sharp, monosyllabic comment. The voices ceased as though
by magic, and a grave question came out of the invisible air, which my
boatman, leaning out and laying hold of the stones, answered in a quiet
and competent fashion. You must understand that I had not seen this man,
yet he had already made that impression upon me. The whole business to
me, a strange and somewhat exalted Englishman sitting in a reeling
row-boat and wondering whether he was about to be dashed to pieces
against the stones, savoured of a carefully rehearsed performance. And
when a flight of balustraded