The captain and owner, walking the bridge, said to Catlin:
“Well, Bill, I’m taking a gamble—thousand to one shot, that’s all.”
When dusk fell the island of Thermia lay close in to starboard, and the man at the wheel stood ready to port his helm and bring her over from the sou’-east-by-east to an easterly course to round the island, that being the route toward Smyrna; but old Christophe, standing behind him, took the wheel, rang for slow speed and groped in toward the island. It loomed up about them, a rocky point, before he said over his shoulder to Captain Eli:
“Here’s where we can lay to, sir. Good anchorage here in this cove, and no risk of wind.”
All that night she rocked there, gently; on a sea that was almost without a swell. And when morning came, to the crew’s further curiosity, she brought in her hook, swung about, and headed due west, plodding along at slow speed and apparently purposeless. A liner came out of the north and gave her a passing hoot. Christophe, eyeing the other boat, said to Captain Eli:
“She be for Messina way, and now not likely be another ship along here for ten days. That’s what those mens know. If I make good guess, that’s why they clear Piræus to-day, after big ship go, sir.”
“And when will we make that Island of Hydra?” Drake asked, staring to the westward.
“Just about sunset, captain, sir. Then we slip round it and there are small islands between it and mainland, and entrance into Nauplia which so long and so big it is like long gulf. We lay behind them islands, sir, and—see what shall see about midnight, I think, sir.”
Drake caught his dry, knowing grin, but did not entirely share his confidence as to the outcome of their strange voyage.
The pilot’s prediction as to progress was fulfilled; just as a hazy sunset colored the tips of the high, bleak mountains behind which the day disappeared, they passed the isle with its abandoned and obsolete fortifications, and hove to in waters that seemed to have been deserted since the time of ancient wars. Night fell with a thin, low-lying fog that seemed to sweep down from the great bastions of Nauplia and rest on the still waters. The stars were obscured and a new depression engulfed Drake.