The Sea King’s Daughter

I

BY FOLLOWING A PATH ACROSS THE HEADLAND WE were able to reach the bay of the villa and save swimming time. I was thinking about Frederick when I proposed the land route, but I was also remembering Jim’s warning. I could at least minimize the time I spent in the water under Frederick ’s unreliable supervision.

As we walked along the path, the roof of the villa came into sight on our left.

“I wonder if we’re trespassing,” I said. “Maybe that’s their private bay down there.”

“The sea is open to all,” said Frederick vaguely.

“Well, we can but try. If we get warned off, or shot at, it’s your problem.”

Frederick didn’t answer; the question didn’t seem to concern him. We turned toward the cliff, which was lower here than it was on our section of the coast, and climbed down to the water.

I hadn’t slept too well the night before. I had lain awake for a long time, thinking about what Frederick had told me. In spite of my doubts and reservations, the lure of hidden treasure had infected me. The description of the ships, tumbled and scattered across the ocean floor like bones in a marine graveyard, was so fantastic it sounded like a scene out of Jules Verne. Yet Frederick ’s theories made sense. The southern coast of Thera, the nearest part of the island to the motherland of Crete, would be the logical place for a major port. Some archaeologists believed that the capital city must have been in the center of the island, which had collapsed into the caldera. But this assumption seemed to be based on the Atlantis legend, as recorded by Plato; and with all due respect to Plato, the details of his story were highly questionable. It simply didn’t make sense to have a big city in the middle of an island when the sea was the main highroad of communication. In Crete the cities were on the coast or within easy reach of the coastline. I didn’t believe Plato’s account of a man-made channel three hundred feet wide and a hundred feet deep that allowed ships to reach a central harbor.

The central part of the island wasn’t the only part that had subsided. There was another caldera on the south coast, according to maps I had seen. That’s where the main harbors must have been, on the lee side of the island, the part nearest to Crete.

So when I slid into the water I wouldn’t have been surprised to see submerged towers and mammoth walls, with fish swimming in and out of the empty window frames. I knew better-but I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I was using a snorkel but no air tanks, because I didn’t have them or any means of filling them. I couldn’t bring my own tanks; they were too bulky to carry and they would have been useless anyway, without a compressor to refill them.

Frederick had done nothing about supplying these necessary items, and his vagueness on the subject was a point against his claims. It was almost as if he were afraid to give me the equipment that would prove or disprove his story. I could see the difficulty; as soon as he started making inquiries about scuba gear, the port authorities in Phira would learn about it. Frederick claimed “they” were suspicious and antagonistic already. He might be exaggerating, but I had read about divers in Greece and Turkey having trouble with government officials. And there was no use telling him he should have thought about these things before he planned the project.

However, my preliminary survey had convinced me that I could do a lot of exploring without scuba gear. The water was fairly shallow and warm. In fact it felt warmer than the cool morning air, and it closed around me like welcoming arms.

The beauty of it hit me first, the way it always does. This sea floor didn’t have the luxuriant junglelike vegetation of the reefs off Florida, but the translucence of the water gave objects a pristine, shimmery look, as if they were encased in clear plastic. Sunlight sifted down through the cool green depths and danced on the sandy bottom. It was surprisingly clean; there was almost no marine growth and no mud. Not that the bottom was level-far from it. There were patches of relatively smooth sand, black or white, the black being lava sand. But most of the surface was a jumble of rocks and stones. With a little imagination you could believe you were seeing the ruins of a city strewn across the acres of the bay. Tumbled heaps might have been fallen towers; rock ridges looked like the remains of walls, with gaping holes for doors and windows. But I knew that what I saw was not man-made. The rubble consisted of pumice and magma ejected from the volcano, mixed with fragments of broken lava flow and stones from the collapsed cliffs. Some of them, worn smooth by water, resembled worked stones to an astonishing degree. There had been reports of sunken quays in another part of the island-long strips of stone so straight it was hard to believe they had been shaped by nature. But they were beach rock, natural concrete formed by water running over limestone and the silica of lava and pumice.

There was only one way of searching the area systematically, and that was to swim a sort of grid pattern, back and forth. It would take a long time because I would have to check every suspicious-looking formation.

The sun was fully up by that time, and the eastern sky was a tapestry of blazing colors. I waved at Frederick, who was sitting hunched up on a rock looking like an irritated albatross. He gave me a limp flap of the hand, and I went down again. I struck out for the mouth of the bay, keeping fairly close to the south coastline. The water got deeper as I went on; at the mouth of the bay it was about fifty feet. I could work down there, but not for long. The rock walls came down sheer into the water, but they were uneven; I could climb out if I had to. I decided to go on out a little farther.

I was swimming with my face in the water watching the scene below. There was considerable activity, fish of all sizes scuttling around. The visibility was excellent.

All of a sudden there was nothing down there. A few fish, yes. But no bottom, only a gaping black gulf. The edge was as sharp as the rim of the Grand Canyon, and I had a feeling the bottom was almost as far down.

There aren’t too many things in the water that scare me, but that did. I went flapping back from the edge like a kitten on a glass-topped table. When I could see bottom under me I floated for a minute or two, getting my breath back.

Then I went back to the chasm and dived.

Not down into it, of course, but near the rim. I had to do it to compensate for that attack of nerves. I’m not ashamed of being afraid; caution is a sign of good sense. But this wasn’t a rational fear. It was fear of the lightless depths, fear of the dark; peering down into the abyss I half expected to see some monstrous bulk heave itself out of the water, trailing tentacles and staring with big evil eyes full of a cruel intelligence… It was ridiculous. I could drown just as fast in five feet of water as in five hundred; and the Kraken is an imaginary monster.

There was no way I was ever going to get down into those depths. This was part of the outer caldera, and if it was anything like the central bay, it was hundreds of feet deep. Nothing less than a specially designed submarine would ever penetrate the abyss.

I’d had enough. I wasn’t nervous anymore, but I’d had enough for one day. I went back to the place where Frederick was waiting, and rose up out of the water at his feet, spitting out my mouthpiece and pushing my mask up.

“Well?” he demanded. “What did you find?”

Nothing.” I pulled myself up onto the rocks and reached for a towel. “If you mean ruins or wrecks. But there sure is a hell of a big hole out there.”

“Ah, yes, the outer caldera. Nothing would have survived down there. The pressure must be enormous.”

I stood up.

“Let’s go. I’m cold and hungry.”

As we crossed the plateau back toward the house, I was surprised to find my eyes pricking, almost as if I wanted to cry. I decided it must be fatigue. I had come to terms with my father a long time before, there was no excuse for feeling hurt because he thought of his antiquities first and me second. No, that was a misstatement. He didn’t think of me at all.

II

I started the search next morning. It took two hours to make the first crossing of the bay and I was bushed when I finished. The nervous strain was what wore me out; I was so painfully conscious of my ignorance and so afraid I would miss something. The following day I started the second crossing, ten feet beyond the first. Since the bay got wider and the water got deeper, I wasn’t able to finish in two hours.

The job would have been much easier with proper scuba gear. Even though the water wasn’t deep, only about thirty feet, I had to spend a lot of time on the bottom. I could see why Frederick was unwilling to ask about a compressor, but one thing we had to have, and soon, was a boat, or even an inflatable raft-something I could anchor out in the middle of the bay, in case I needed to get out of the water in a hurry. If I did get into trouble, Frederick wasn’t going to be much help perched on a rock fifty yards away.

So, when he tried to haul me out of the sack on Sunday morning I refused to budge. I had to meet Jim at ten anyhow. Frederick was annoyed when I told him of the appointment, which I had seen no reason to mention earlier. I told him Jim might come looking for me if I didn’t show up, and finally Frederick gave in. He promised to see what he could do about a boat.

I put on my best flowered shift over my bathing suit, got my mask and flippers, and started for town. I hadn’t gone ten yards before I was dripping with sweat. It was unseasonably hot, even for the Mediterranean. The air was close and breathless, and the sky had a queer hazy look. I was looking forward to getting into the water, and that wasn’t all I was looking forward to. When I saw Jim at one of the tables on the hotel terrace my heart gave a jump.

He was fully dressed, in old jeans and a blue shirt, and as soon as I was within hailing distance I called out, “I thought we were going swimming.”

“Have some coffee and we’ll talk about it.”

“Hot,” I said, mopping my brow.

“Earthquake weather,” said Jim.

I gave him a startled look. He grinned.

“That’s what the men are saying. It’s possible. This area is seismically unstable.”

“I know all about the history of Thera,” I said. “But I didn’t think-”

“No problem,” Jim said smugly. “We have quakes all the time in California. Only I’ve never been in the water when the earth shook, and I’m not sure I want to try it.”

Angelos, the owner of the hotel, waited on us personally. Jim introduced us. I greeted him in my best Greek, which made him smile broadly, but I thought I had never seen anyone who looked less like an angel. He was a big, hulking man, one of the few Greeks I had met who really did look greasy-the result of his trade, perhaps, for Jim explained that he and his wife ran the small hotel together. I assumed he had shaved, since it was Sunday, but his jowls were heavily shadowed. He and Jim talked for a while, and then Jim interpreted.

“He says it’s okay to swim. There may be some minor tremors but they won’t amount to much.”

I studied Angelos skeptically. He smiled at me, his white teeth gleaming against the dark stubble.

“How does he know?” I asked.

“He says he feels it. It’s possible, you know. Some of the island people claim to be sensitive to it. They get nauseated, headachy-”

“You sound like a TV commercial for cold remedies,” I interrupted. “I’ve read about that. One of Mary Renault’s books, wasn’t it? The hero could feel earthquakes before they happened. It would be a useful skill in those days. People would think you had divine connections. But that was fiction.”

Angelos seemed to know what we were talking about. He nodded vigorously, and spoke. Then he slapped Jim on the back, with a roll of his eyes at me and a remark that made Jim look self-conscious.

“Let’s go,” he said.

As we walked down the street toward the beach, I asked, “What did Angelos say about me?”

“You can probably guess.”

“Hmmm.”

Jim seemed anxious to change the subject.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I made a lunch date for you. My boss wants to meet you.”

“Why?”

“What are you so prickly about? Why shouldn’t he want to meet you?”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “It will be jolly lunching with Sir Christopher.”

When we reached the pier, there were a lot of men hanging around. Greek men hang around a lot-on street corners, in cafés, around piers. They greeted Jim with enthusiasm.

“The fishing boats are out,” he said, glancing around. “I guess that means it’s okay. Let’s go down the beach a way.”

The sea was as flat as a pond on a windless day. We found a nice smooth spot, with a few rocks between us and the pier. It was pleasant and private. I peeled off my dress and shoes and adjusted my flippers. Then I looked up.

For a second I knew how the ancient Greek hero felt when the earthquake was imminent. The ground seemed to dip, and my stomach went down with it.

Jim was standing a few feet away, watching me. His build was on the lean side, but his shoulders were good and the bands of muscle across his chest were hard and smooth. He was nicely tanned. But for that one eerie second he looked like the man in my dream. The breathless stillness of the air, the oily smooth surface of the sea against which he stood added to the strangeness of the atmosphere.

The impression came and was gone. I jumped up, forgetting I had the flippers on. I tripped, and Jim reached out an arm and caught me.

“I hope you swim better than you walk,” he said, with a smile.

After that challenge I had to excel. I forgot my half-formed plan of flapping around and pretending to be only a mediocre swimmer. I swam rings around him. He was good but not in my class. I can brag about my swimming because it’s the only thing I can brag about. Most of the other things I did that summer were disasters.

When we were ready to quit I raced him in and got there quite a distance ahead of him. He was winded when he joined me. His chest was pumping in and out like a bellows. And of course, damn him, he said just the right thing.

“My God, you’re good. How about giving me lessons?”

It was then that I remembered my subtle, crafty scheme for pretending I was a lousy swimmer. I looked at Jim’s smiling face. His eyelashes were stuck together in spiky points and his eyes were wide with admiration and pleasure. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He was as candid and open as…as I was not. It never entered his head that my expertise might be turned to illegal ends. That was the first thing that would have occurred to Frederick.

“Oh, well,” I mumbled. “You’re pretty good yourself.”

“Not in your class.”

He was still watching me with beaming approval, not a trace of wounded vanity or crushed male ego; and I knew that if I didn’t speak up I would never be able to look him in the eye again. I had actually opened my mouth to start the confession when the earth shook.

I mean, it really shook. The sinking feeling wasn’t inside me, it was in the ground. It felt like a plane hitting an air pocket, a swoop and then a lift. When the movement stopped, Jim and I were lying flat on the ground. His arms were around me and I was clutching him like a drowning man. In one lovely smooth movement he stood up, lifting me with him.

“Nice little earthquake,” he said, and kissed me.

It is a testimonial to Jim’s kisses that for a little while I wasn’t sure whether the ground was really rocking under my feet or whether it just felt that way. When he finally lifted his head I saw that he was smiling.

“We’d better get back,” he said casually, and scooped up our discarded clothing.

Another shock hit. I staggered, and Jim put his arm around me again. My teeth began to chatter.

“Oh, God,” I groaned. “This is awful.”

“I can see you aren’t used to quakes. This was a baby quake, just a tremor. Come on, now, be a big girl.”

We walked a few steps, but I was still shaking and I kept tripping over my fins. Jim picked me up in his arms. He was a lot stronger than he looked. As we approached the pier a ragged cheer went up. I lifted my head from Jim’s shoulder and saw the men standing along the pier watching us.

“Put me down,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yes… Are there going to be any more earthquakes?”

“How would I know? Maybe we shouldn’t take any chances.”

He kissed me again. I had not intended to respond, but I couldn’t help it. Finally the roaring in my ears subsided and I realized the men on the pier were cheering again.

“Put me down, damn it,” I said. “I’m not going to put on a free show for those peeping toms.”

“They aren’t peeping, they’re standing right out in the open.”

But he put me down. I took off my fins and stalked toward the steps with what dignity I could manage. I walked past the grinning audience with my nose in the air. Jim was behind me. He said something to the men; there was a laughing chorus of response.

Then Jim caught up with me, and I demanded, “What did you say?”

“I told them you were my girl.”

“What do you mean, your girl?”

“I should have said ‘woman.’”

I started to object; he cut me short by handing me my dress. I put it on. When my head emerged I saw that Jim was studying me soberly.

“Better understand something,” he said. “Insofar as sexual morality is concerned, these people are still in the nineteenth century. There are two kinds of women here-good, respectable ladies, who stay at home and tend their cook pots, and-the other kind. Western women confuse these guys. They still think of women as property. Okay, so I told them you were my property. You may not like it. I don’t like it either. But they are more likely to respect my property rights than your feelings. Not that I’m trying to curtail your extracurricular activities, but-”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have no-”

That was when it happened. I could pinpoint the exact second; between “no” and the next word, which was going to be “plans.” I never said it. I was looking straight at him. Our eyes met, as it says in the old books. It was a meeting, more significant than any physical touch.

Neither of us spoke. Words weren’t necessary. We walked up the sloping street toward the plaza, holding hands.

Church was letting out and people were standing around, talking and drinking coffee and relaxing. This was their one day of rest, and they were enjoying it. At one of the tables on the terrace a man was sitting. I picked him out of the crowd right away, because he was the only man who was wearing a hat. It was an expensive-looking tweed cap, and it struck an incongruous note on such a hot day.

I nudged Jim and pointed. “Sir Christopher?”

“Right.”

He saw us coming; when we reached the terrace he was on his feet, holding a chair for me and smiling. The cap came off with a gallant sweep. Then I understood why he wore it. He was as bald as an egg, and, without protection, that pink skin would have fried like an egg. As if to compensate for the hairlessness on top, he had cultivated a handsome handlebar moustache that curved like a buffalo’s black horns. I was reminded of Hercule Poirot, but Sir Christopher wasn’t short and tubby like Agatha Christie’s detective. He was tall and lean and rather handsome in a bony, big-nosed way. He had a nice smile and an air of understated elegance that made me feel grubby, with my salt-soaked hair and damp dress.

“How do you do, Miss Bishop,” he said. “I hope our little earthquake didn’t alarm you.”

“It did,” I admitted.

“There’s no danger, unless you happen to be in a ravine or under a cliff when loose rock is shaken down. You may have noticed the arched construction prevalent here. It is quite well adapted to quakes; I’ve seen these houses swaying to and fro, but they don’t often collapse.”

I assumed the speech was meant to be reassuring. It did not affect me that way. Sir Christopher’s smile broadened.

“You’ll become accustomed to earth tremors if you spend much time in this part of the world,” he said consolingly.

“I guess they have lots of earthquakes,” I said. “I knew it, from my reading, but until you’ve experienced it… How about the volcano?”

“Quite active,” said Sir Christopher cheerily. “But don’t fret, you’ll not see anything like the great eruption of 1450, the one that has preserved so much for us. The only other disaster of that magnitude occurred in approximately 25,000 B.C.”

He chuckled as he saw me surreptitiously counting on my fingers.

“An interval of almost twenty-five thousand years, my dear,” he said. “There has never been anything like the fifteenth-century eruption in recorded history-except for Krakatoa, of course, and that was probably not as great as the Thera eruption.”

“Krakatoa was bad enough,” Jim said. “The descriptions of eyewitnesses are strikingly reminiscent of certain legends that have come down to us from early times.”

He glanced at Sir Christopher, who laughed lightly.

“Jim and I enjoy arguing about his theories. Atlantis, the Greek flood legend, the Exodus story-”

“Then you don’t believe in the idea that Thera is-was-Atlantis?” I asked.

“Oh, I think the majority of scholars agree that the eruption and the consequent destruction of the Cretan cities may have furnished the kernel of Plato’s story,” Sir Christopher said disinterestedly. “But I am unable to go along with the enthusiasts who want to connect every myth with that single event.”

“Not all of them,” Jim admitted, looking a little flustered as Sir Christopher turned to regard him with a humorous smile. “But there has to be a connection between the eruption and the story of the Exodus; it’s just too circumstantial to be a coincidence. We know, from the Krakatoa eruption, that volcanic action of that magnitude is accompanied by earthquakes, rain, hail, lightning-side effects that could explain all the plagues mentioned in the Bible. Areas a hundred and fifty miles from Krakatoa experienced total darkness; and as you said, the Thera eruption was considerably greater than that of Krakatoa. As for the parting of the waters, it’s generally agreed that the Hebrews didn’t cross the Red Sea, but rather a Sea of Reeds in the northern part of the Egyptian Delta, along a well-known ancient route into Sinai and Palestine. The receding of the sea along the coast, followed by a tremendous tsunami wave, has been observed many times as a result of seismic action. Even the death of the first-born could have resulted from crop failure and disease after-”

“‘Could,’” Sir Christopher repeated. His smile, which I had found so pleasant, was beginning to get on my nerves. “We will never know, will we? Speculation of that sort is entertaining, but not very profitable, my boy.’’

“Let’s talk about something else besides earthquakes,’’ I said.

“Certainly.’’ Sir Christopher continued to smile. “How is my old friend Frederick?’’

“Fine,’’ I said. “Just fine.’’

“I’m happy to hear it. I saw him recently, and I didn’t think he looked well. He never took proper care of himself. Is he still eating out of tins?’’

“Yes,’’ I said. “I mean, no, not all the time. I buy fish and things for supper sometimes.’’

“I’m glad he has someone to look after him.”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” I said.

Sir Christopher raised one eyebrow. He must have practiced, it moved so smoothly.

“Now where did you get that impression? I feel sorry for the poor chap, actually. There was a time when I considered him the most fortunate of men. He had success in his field, good health, good looks, a pretty, devoted young wife, and a child…” The pause was, I thought, quite deliberate. Then he went on. “ Frederick destroyed himself. Or rather, his one failing destroyed his success. It was a tragedy in the classic Greek sense, one flaw in an otherwise noble character-”

Jim had been increasingly uncomfortable as this speech unrolled. Now he interrupted, “Not quite the classic Greek tragedy, Chris. The Greek heroes failed because they incurred the displeasure of some fickle god or other.”

“If Frederick were a religious man, he might consider himself cursed,” Sir Christopher said gently. “I’m sure that to this day he doesn’t understand why he failed. He is incapable of understanding emotion. That constitutes both his flaw and his inability to recognize it as such.”

“Where did you know him?” I asked.

Sir Christopher glanced at Jim. It was one of those meaningful glances.

“It is a rather painful story,” he said softly.

I felt like some poor savage who goes to a fancy party and commits an unwitting faux pas.

Jim got red. “I’ve told you, Chris, that it doesn’t pain me one damn bit. I wish you wouldn’t-”

“I’m sorry, my boy. I was being overly sensitive. It is painful to me, even after all these years.”

Jim was now the color of a nice ripe tomato.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean-”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “Either tell me or change the subject. And if you think I’m going to join in the chorus of apologies, forget it.”

I wasn’t embarrassed any longer, I was mad. I can’t stand that kind of hassling, the gentle, prickly kind. Especially when it was directed at Jim.

“There is no need for you to apologize,” said Sir Christopher, with a forgiving smile. “You had no idea that the subject might be… You see, mydear, your…employer and I were at Oxford together before the war. Frederick was a Rhodes scholar. We became friends-we two and another young student named Durkheim. They called us the Three Musketeers, of course. We were drawn together because of our interest in pre-classical Greek culture. Durkheim was the oldest; I think perhaps he was also the most brilliant. He had been studying the Linear B script, and if he had lived… But I anticipate.

“When World War Two broke out, Durkheim was assigned to Crete -a rare example of the military’s actually using a man where he could be most useful. I went with him. We hadn’t been there long when who should appear but your-but Frederick. We couldn’t imagine how he had managed it. This was in the early months of 1941, before America entered the war, and your government was not precisely encouraging its citizens to travel abroad. Yet there he was, imperturbable as ever, and in a frightful state about his precious antiquities. You would have thought the ruins of Knossos were the only things threatened by a possible German invasion.

“As you know-or perhaps you don’t, all this is ancient history to you young creatures-the invasion came. It was airborne, and quite overwhelming. Our troops fought on for a short time, but eventually we were forced to withdraw, and the Germans occupied the island. Because Durkheim knew the language and the terrain, he stayed on as liaison officer with the underground; and I stayed as well. So did Frederick. In his peculiar fashion he was more effective than any of us. He had spent only one short season in Crete before the war, yet he knew the country as well as Durkheim did.

“It was a frightful existence. We were constantly on the move, eating scraps, sleeping where and when we could, constantly anticipating discovery and death. But we were young and healthy and fired up with patriotism. I remember the night when we got the news of America ’s entry into the war. We were staying in a remote village in the eastern mountains, and we got roaring drunk on retsina. Even Frederick got drunk. It was the only time I ever saw him display a human weakness.

“That was the high point. From then on, everything went wrong. Crete is a splendid place for guerrilla warfare-mountainous, rugged, primitive; and the men were superb. But the Germans were inhumanly efficient. They rounded up the resistance fighters group by group. Durkheim was the prize catch, of course, they wanted him badly. I don’t know precisely how it happened. Everyone who was with him that night is dead. Frederick and I were not in his group, we were off on errands of our own.

“I met Frederick next day, at the rendezvous we had arranged, and it was he who informed me of Durkheim’s capture. We were making futile plans for freeing him when one of the men from the village found us and told us he had been executed.”

I paid Sir Christopher the tribute of a moment of silence before I turned to Jim.

“Who was he, your father?”

“Your arithmetic is terrible,” Jim said. “He was my uncle. My mother’s older brother. Look, let’s not pull out all the stops, shall we? I never even saw him. I wasn’t born till after he died.”

I had never heard him sound like that-like a sulky little boy saying something deliberately naughty and waiting to be scolded. Sir Christopher said nothing, and after a moment Jim went on.

“It’s different for you, Chris. You knew him. He was your friend. I mean-”

“Quite all right, my boy. Don’t give it another thought. I understand your point of view thoroughly.”

Oh, he was an expert, that man; he had both of us speechless and feeling obscurely guilty. I knew what he was doing, but I couldn’t seem to prevent it. He looked from me to Jim, as if waiting for us to speak, and then offered a change of subject.

“Did you enjoy your dip? You are a splendid swimmer, young lady. I was almost moved to join you.”

“Oh,” I said. “You saw us. Where were you?”

“I was taking a stroll on the bluff above the beach. You ought to consider marine archaeology, my dear. It’s a new and expanding field. One day I hope to investigate some of the sunken harbor sites in Crete. Perhaps I can induce you to join me.”

There was no question about it. He knew. The cat-and-mouse hints were beginning to annoy me. Maybe he didn’t mean them as threats, maybe he was trying to warn me. He was beaming benevolently, like Jupiter without his beard or hair. Jim looked puzzled. He knew something was going on, but, bless his honest heart, he didn’t know what.

Sir Christopher turned to him. “Jim, you had better get some clothes on. It’s a bit breezy here in the shade.”

“Okay. Back in a minute, Sandy.”

As soon as he was out of sight, I turned to Sir Christopher. I knew I had to take the initiative, or the man would continue to intimidate me with that soft voice and gentle smile.

“Okay,” I said. “How did you find out?”

“Find out what?” That damned eyebrow slipped up again.

“That I am Frederick ’s daughter.”

It was out, and I had an instant feeling of relief, like lancing a boil.

“You are a direct young person, aren’t you?” Sir Christopher said, looking amused.

I winced. “Usually I am. I sort of got roped into this lie. You haven’t told Jim. Why not?”

“But, my dear girl, that’s your affair. If you don’t choose to tell him, why should I interfere?”

“I’m going to tell him,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you would let me do it.”

“If I had meant to betray your secret, I would have done so by now, surely.”

I let my breath out with a big whoosh of air. His smile faded as he watched me.

“My dear child,” he exclaimed. “You surely don’t think I would hold this over your head? I’m not that sort of person. Deal with the situation as you see fit.”

I started to say I was sorry and caught myself just in time. Maybe I had misjudged him. Apparently I had. But I still wasn’t going to apologize. He waited for a minute and then went on.

“Only do be careful about your diving, won’t you? If I know Frederick -and I think I do-he will be inclined to urge you on rather than caution you. You mustn’t take careless chances.”

“What diving?” I asked.

“Now, now,” Sir Christopher said indulgently. “That isn’t worthy of you, Sandy.”

“I suppose you saw the article in Geographic,” I said resignedly.

“No; but I knew Frederick had a daughter, and when a lovely young lady of precisely the right age joined him here, I made inquiries.”

“You could report him,” I said. “I mean, if you think I’m going to do any diving-”

“I have no intention of reporting anyone,” Sir Christopher interrupted, sounding annoyed. “I felt obliged to warn you; even to do that violates my cherished habit of noninterference.”

“And you won’t tell Jim?”

“I won’t tell him. And don’t you tell him I knew,” he added, with a flash of wry humor. “He would murder me if you injured yourself and he learned that I had been aware of your activities.”

“I won’t injure myself.”

“I certainly hope not.” He glanced up. “And here he comes,” he said calmly. “Just in time to order. Jim, I think we ought to introduce our young friend to the gourmet flavor of octopus, don’t you?”

Octopus tastes a little like old automobile tire. It’s good exercise for the jaws. We had a big fattening lunch, with plenty of retsina, and we talked of this and that. Sir Christopher was a fascinating conversationalist, when he put his rapier away. After lunch he rose.

“Back to the job. Paper work is the curse of excavation. Laymen don’t realize that it takes ten times as long as the actual digging. No”-putting his hand on Jim’s shoulder as Jim started to rise-“I don’t want to see you until tomorrow morning, Jim. Enjoy your day of rest.”

He walked toward the door of the hotel. Sunlight slipping through the vines cast a pattern of weaving shadows across his back and shoulders.

“He must like you,” Jim said ingenuously. “This is the first time he’s told me to run off and play. What’ll we do?”

“I could take a nap,” I said, yawning. “I’m not used to all that heavy food.”

“Let’s walk some of it off.”

I knew what he had in mind. It was in my mind too. But the walk did me in. It was awfully hot. We climbed the hill behind the town and wandered around the slopes for a while, looking for a shady spot. There were vines on the terraced hillsides, but they didn’t provide much shade. Finally we followed a goat trail up into an area that was too steep and rocky for cultivation, and found a tree. It was scrawny and bent, but it was a tree, and that’s rare on Thera. We lay down in the shade and Jim put his arms around me… And in five minutes we were both asleep.

I woke with a start, after dreaming that a dog was licking my feet. The sun was warm on my legs, and Jim was tickling my toes with a stalk of grass. As soon as I opened my eyes he leaned over me.

“And now,” he said, “let’s get back to what we were doing when you copped out on me. I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

He kissed me before I could think of an answer, and I stopped trying to think.

There’s something exciting about making love in the open air, a suggestion of innocence and freedom. The air was hot and sweet; no smog, no gasoline fumes, only the scent of wild thyme and sun on clean dust, and the smell of the sea. But one of the reasons why those moments stand out in my memory is that they ended so soon, and so dreadfully.

It started with a rhythmic pounding. I thought at first it was the beat of my heart, or Jim’s, but the pounding grew louder, faster, fiercer. A shower of pebbles rained down. They weren’t big, but they stung, and the sound seemed right on top of us, like wild horses charging, intent on riding us down.

I understood then what the Greeks meant by the word panic, an attribute of Pan, who was another of those monstrous Greek mixtures, half man, half goat. Wildly I struggled to sit up. The rain of stones trickled out. I looked up; and I would not have been surprised to see the god himself, immense and shadowy, thundering past on his cloven hooves.

I saw a man on horseback-presumably the same man I had seen once before. He was motionless for a moment; then he turned in the saddle and the horse broke into a trot. In a few seconds they were out of sight. The hoofbeats faded into silence.

“Damn,” said Jim. “Of all the times…”

I let my head fall onto his shoulder. I felt foolish, remembering my reasonless terror, but some of it lingered.

“Good old Pan,” I mumbled. “Riding around to chaperone the heedless maiden…”

As usual, Jim followed my train of thought without difficulty.

“Wrong god,” he said, with a little laugh. “Wrong religion, in fact. The Greek gods didn’t chaperone maidens. Neither did the goddesses, except when their husbands went astray after human girls.”

“And then they turned the girls into spiders or something,” I said dreamily. His lips were against my hair, moving down in search of my mouth, and I was losing interest in gods and goddesses, Greek or otherwise.

All of a sudden he pushed me down flat and threw himself on top of me. Shock and physical pain brought a cry to my throat, but I couldn’t let it out because my face was mashed against his shoulder. I couldn’t breathe. There was a jagged rock digging into the small of my back, and his weight on my chest reminded me of an old medieval torture, the one where they pressed people to death. Then something hit me on the left ear, the only part of me, except my feet, that was exposed, and I understood. For a few minutes I thought the whole damned hillside was falling down on us.

The rattle and crash of falling rock finally stopped, and Jim lifted himself up. I took in a lovely deep breath, and let it out faster than I intended, as Jim collapsed on me again.

I squawked out a few useless questions, like “Are you hurt?” It was obvious that he was. He managed to roll off me, though, and sprawled onto his back, limp as a rag doll. There was blood trickling down his face from half a dozen places, most of them above the hairline.

I grabbed my dress-I had been lying on it-and started tearing it up.

“My God,” I said. “That was close. What happened?”

“I would say that was obvious,” said Jim.

“Rockslide. I know. But why then? The horse was long gone.”

“Who cares?” Jim’s voice was weaker. “A minor quake, maybe. I wouldn’t have noticed…”

I mopped the blood off his face. Most of the cuts were small ones. I thought it was shock that made his face such a funny color till I noticed the puddle of blood under his head.

He yelped when my fingers probed and found a long gash at the back of his head. The blood was coming out in a thick, steady stream. His hair was already soaked. I tore off another wad of cloth and held it against the wound. I was scared, but I don’t think it showed in my voice.

“Look, you lie still. I’ll go for help.”

“I can walk. Let’s get going, before I get any weaker.”

I helped him up. His back, which had taken most of the punishment, was a mess, all scraped and bloody.

“There’s a house down there,” I said, pointing.

“No, thanks. They’ll slap some goat dung on it and say a prayer. Chris has medical supplies.”

We started down the hill, but we hadn’t gone far before I knew he’d never make it to the village, not on his feet.

“We’re not far from our house,” I said, panting. “If you can get that far-”

He didn’t have to get that far. A few minutes later Frederick appeared around a curve in the path. I had never been so glad to see him.

Frederick didn’t seem to share my feelings. His brows drew together in a scowl, and he exclaimed, “Must you go about the countryside embracing like a pair of cheap hippies? Not only is it in poor taste-”

Jim chose that moment to fold up. We went down together, our knees buckling in perfect harmony, and it dawned on Frederick that things were not quite as they seemed.

“What happened?” he asked. His voice was only slightly less irritated.

“Can’t you see he’s hurt?” I snarled. “Don’t stand there, give me a hand.”

Frederick hauled Jim to his feet and draped a limp arm over his shoulders. I took the other arm and we started walking.

“Where are you planning to take him?” Frederick asked.

“Our place; it’s the closest. You can go for the doctor while I-”

“There is no doctor,” said Frederick distantly. “Not in the village. What happened to him?”

“Rockslide. I suppose part of the cliff was weakened by the quake.”

“Ah. And may I inquire how it happens that you are unmarked, whereas he has cuts only on his back?”

It wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it.

“I am unmarked because he shielded me,” I said shortly. “If it’s any of your damn business.”

“Hmph,” said Frederick. “Save your breath. You’ll need it, this stretch is rough.”

It was rough, and steep; but I couldn’t help noticing that it showed no signs of fresh disturbance. There had been no falls of rock anywhere-except right above where we happened to be lying.

I put the idea out of my mind. Living with Frederick was infecting me with his delusions of persecution.

Frederick had an extensive collection of medical supplies, including antibiotics, which you can buy in Europe without a prescription. He got to work on Jim with ruthless efficiency, ignoring Jim’s groans and curses. The big cut wasn’t as deep as I had feared, and after an examination that made Jim rise to new heights of profane comment, Frederick announced that there didn’t seem to be a fracture or concussion. He then jabbed a hypodermic needle into a little sealed bottle of penicillin, and ordered me out of the room.

I stared at him. I was standing there holding bloody bandages and a basin of bloody water. My hands were bloodstained. I had watched the whole process without any signs of squeamishness. I couldn’t understand why he was suddenly so considerate of my nonexistent sensitivities. Then Jim, who was lying on his stomach with his chin propped on his folded arms, turned his head painfully and winked at me.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, catching on. “Really, Frederick, you are archaic.”

I slammed the door behind me; but when I was outside I couldn’t help laughing. This was a side of Frederick I had never seen. He was behaving like a stuffy, old-fashioned…Father.

I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. But don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel teary and sentimental either. I wasn’t anxious for Frederick to develop paternal feelings about me-especially when the feelings all seemed to be negative.

I invited Jim to stay, realizing there was nothing for supper except those everlasting tin cans, but he insisted on going back to the hotel. Frederick agreed with him, pointing out that the path was tricky after dark, and that Jim shouldn’t risk falling on his head a second time. I gave my kindly old father a long, thoughtful look. He returned it with interest.

The three of us started out. Jim was walking with the careful steadiness of a drunk who is not certain his head is tightly anchored to his neck. Frederick hadn’t offered him any pain pills, not while I was around, anyway. We talked stiltedly-God knows what about, I wasn’t listening, not even to myself. I was wondering what would happen when we ran into Sir Christopher, Frederick ’s old war buddy.

He was sitting on the hotel terrace when we reached the plaza. His bald head shone in the light of the lanterns Angelos had strung along the arbor. I rather expected Frederick to turn back then. But he didn’t, he marched on, holding Jim by the arm, like a keeper returning an escaped lunatic. And it was in that spirit that he addressed Sir Christopher.

“Better keep an eye on him tonight,” he remarked, without a word of greeting. “There is always the possibility of concussion.”

Sir Christopher, always the perfect gent, had risen. He stared down at Jim’s bowed head in understandable surprise, and then looked at Frederick.

“Hello, Frederick. Good of you to look after my young friend. What happened to him?”

All in order, you see-the greeting, the polite thank-you, the pertinent question. He even managed to nod and smile at me during the speech.

I explained about the rockslide, with a little tribute to Jim’s quick-thinking courage, which had saved me from injury. It was now Frederick ’s turn to make a graceful comment acknowledging Jim’s kindness to his young friend. He didn’t, and I suppose nobody expected him to.

Sir Christopher shook his head. “I did warn you, I believe, about being in a ravine or under a cliff during a tremor.”

“I don’t think it was a quake,” I said. “The rider dislodged some stones when he went by. Maybe others were loosened.”

“Rider?” Sir Christopher repeated.

Jim sat up straight. He was looking better.

“You know, the old guy who rides, back in the hills. The one who lives in the villa on the headland.” He turned to me. “I found out who he is, did I tell you? At least I found out what he is. German. They call him the Colonel.”

Frederick was sitting to my right, balancing on two legs of the chair and staring at the darkening sky, as if to express his boredom with the lot of us. I wasn’t looking at him when Jim spoke, but his reaction would have been hard to miss. The legs of the chair hit the ground with a crash. As I whirled around I saw that his face had gone gray. He tried to speak, but only a gurgle emerged from his gaping mouth. Then he fell forward onto the table, smashing Sir Christopher’s coffee cup.