CHAPTER VIII
THE LECTURE ON THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS
Captain Scott was ready to do anything the occasion might require.Possibly he would not have been sorry to come into collision withCaptain Mazagan and his piratical craft, judging from what he had saidto Louis Belgrave, and he had pluck enough to precipitate a conflictwith the enemy; but sometimes it requires more courage to keep out of afight than to plunge into one.
As he had admitted himself, Louis was his model; and he felt that norashness, no braggadocio, no challenging, no casting down the gage ofbattle to the pirate who had already outlawed himself, no holding out ofa temptation to cross swords with him, would be justified or palliatedwhen he came to render an account of his conduct in what was yet tooccur to the commander of the Guardian-Mother.
Whatever he did he was to do strictly in self-defence. The character ofCaptain Ringgold and of Louis would permit nothing more than this. The"Big Four" fully understood why the Fatime was there. It was true thatthe Maud had held out the temptation for her to follow her; but it wasas a man with a gold watch and plenty of money in his purse holds out atemptation to the robber; but it does not follow that he should throwaway his valuables.
But the plan suggested by Scott and adopted by the commander had notworked as had been expected. The Guardian-Mother ought to be there inthe bay, or somewhere in the vicinity; but nothing had been seen of her,and no one knew what had become of her. According to the plan, the twosteamers were to find a way to escape from the pirate, and Scott hadmarked out the manner in which it was to be done. The gale and thenon-appearance of the ship had upset the plan, though the Maud hadcarried out her portion of the programme.
"What next, Captain Scott?" asked Louis.
"Wait," replied the captain.
"Wait for what?"
"I don't know," replied Scott, shaking his head. "Wait for whatever isto come."
"But what is to come?" asked Louis, who still had a fear that thecaptain would resort to some fool-hardy expedient.
"You know just as much about this affair as I do, Louis, and you may bea better prophet than I am. It is not a question of navigation just now,or I should be willing to take the entire responsibility. Of course thehandling of the Maud is an important element in getting out of thescrape, whatever it may prove to be. I have somewhere seen a picture ofa good-looking gentleman playing chess with an individual provided withhorns, hoofs, and a caudal appendage. But in this game the mortalappeared to have the best of it, and he says to the infernal power,'Your next move.'"
"And that is what you say to the representative of the same infernalmajesty in Khrysoko Bay," interposed Louis, rather pleased with theillustration, especially in its application to Captain Mazagan.
"Precisely so; it is the pirate's move, and I shall not do a thing tillhe makes it," added Captain Scott. "What Mazagan will do, or how he willdo it, I have no more idea than you have, Louis. That is where we stand.I am willing to listen to any advice that you wish to give me."
"I have no wish to give any advice," replied Louis; and by this time hewas entirely satisfied with the position Scott had taken, and heapproved everything he had done.
At this point Pitts announced that dinner was ready, and Scott led theway to the cabin. The ledge of rocks appeared to cover at least half anacre of the bottom of the bay. The Maud had anchored abreast of therock, in two fathoms of water. It was just about high tide when she camein, as the captain had learned from his nautical almanac, and the ebbplaced the craft broadside to the Moorish steamer, so that the "BigFour" could see her out the cabin windows.
The pirate made no demonstration of any kind, and the dinner wasdisposed of in good order, and with hardly an allusion to the excitingevents that were expected. Pitts was instructed to give the engineerstheir dinner as soon as possible; for all hands might be needed at anymoment.
"Heave the lead, Flix; it begins to look like shoal water around us,"said the captain when they returned to the forecastle.
The great rock was of a light color, and could be distinctly seen fromthe deck. A portion of it rose about six feet above the surface of thewater when the Maud anchored, and the receding tide now permitted twofeet more of the projecting cone to be seen.
"By the mark two," reported Felix, as he drew up the line.
"Twelve feet; we have not much to spare under the keel," added thecaptain. "We had fourteen feet when we anchored, and the tide has beenebbing five hours."
"Hold on, Captain Scott!" shouted Felix, as he carried the lead-line tothe other side of the vessel. "I have been measuring on the top of abulging rock. And a half two!"
"Fifteen feet; that looks more like it. There ought to be about threefeet ebb and flow here, and your sounding gave about double that, Flix."
"It was the fault of the rock on the bottom, Captain;" but the leadsmanheaved the line all around the steamer with the same result.
There was nothing to do except to observe the Fatime; but she didnothing, and there was no appearance of any movement on her deck.
"I think we had better attend to that lesson now, as we have nothingelse to do," said the captain after they had looked about them for atime. "I don't care to have the pirate suppose we are on the anxiousseat."
"All right," replied Louis, as he seated himself on the rail by the bowflag-pole. "I have studied my lesson, and I am all ready."
"Blaze away, then," replied the captain.
"If any of you have not yet found it out, I will begin by informing youthat the land on three sides of us belongs to the island of Cyprus, andyou are again on Turkish territory. The owners of the island call itKebris, written by them G'br's, if you can make anything of thatcombination of consonants," Louis began, spelling out the strange nameshe introduced. "The Greeks call it Kupros, and the French, Chypre. Venuswas the original goddess of spring among the Romans, but became thegoddess of love, the Aphrodite of the Greeks, and was worshipped as suchin this island by the Phoenicians and other ancients.
"One of this lady's names was Cypris, or Cypria; and that is why theisland happens to be called Cyprus. It is in about the same latitude asSouth Carolina. It is about 35 to 50 miles from Asia Minor on the southand Syria on the east. It is 140 miles long by 60 in breadth, containing3,707 square miles, or larger than both Rhode Island and Delawareunited.
"It has two ranges of mountains extending east and west, the highestpeak being 6,352 feet. It has plenty of rivers, with no water in themexcept after heavy rains, or when the snow melts on the mountains. Thereis no room for lakes of any size, though there is a small one on theeast coast, which dries up completely in summer, like the rivers, buthas an abundance of fish in winter. This is rather remarkable, and thefact is not doubted, though the phenomenon has not been explained."
"The fish must go down where the water goes," laughed Felix. "If thereare any volcanoes here, I suppose they come up in the winter all boiledor broiled ready for the table."
"I don't know how that is, Flix, and we haven't time to investigate thematter. The interior of the island is mostly composed of a great plain,which was once famous for its crops of grain; but the system ofirrigation which prevailed has been discontinued, and its fertility nolonger exists. In a scarcity of rain five years ago there was almost afamine in the island.
"As you have seen for yourselves, there is a deficiency of harbors, andthis bay is a fair specimen of them. It has two places they callseaports, but they are not worthy of the name. They are on the southside, and in such a blow as we had last night, they afford no shelter toshipping from southerly storms; and Captain Scott was wise in cominghere instead of going to Limasol, which is just inside of Cape Gata.The ports on this side of the island would be similarly exposed in anortherly storm. Safe ports are necessary for the commerce of a countryor an island, and therefore to its prosperity.
"In ancient times there were ports at Salamis, Paphos, and Famagusta, inthe eastern part of the island, which was the portion celebrated in thepast. The capital is Leucosia, as I f
ind it on my chart, though I findit elsewhere put down as Nicosia; and even the cape we have in sight isPifanio in a standard atlas. The population is 186,000, of whom notquite 50,000 are Mohammedans, and the rest are orthodox Greeks. Thegreat majority of the people speak the Greek language, but it is so muchcorrupted that Flix would not understand it."
"You are right, my darling; I want the pure Greek of Kilkenny, or Idon't take it in," replied the Milesian.
"The island was colonized by the Phoenicians, who have a history toolong to be related now; but they occupied the northern part of Syria andthe country to the north of us. They were the New Yorkers of their dayand generation, and were largely engaged in commerce. They brought theworship of Venus over here, and called the island Kupros after her. Ithad at first nine independent kingdoms, and I should suppose that almostanybody could afford to be a king in this locality. It was conquered bythe Egyptians about five hundred years before the time of Christ; thenby the Persians; and finally came into the possession of the Romans.
"It went with the Eastern Empire when Rome was divided. The peopleembraced Christianity at an early date. It was said that a shepherddiscovered the body of St. Matthew and a part of his Gospel in theisland, which called many early saints to visit it. In 646 A.D., Cypruswas taken by the Saracens, but was not long held by them. RichardCoeur-de-Lion captured it on his way to Syria for the Third Crusade.In 1570 the Turks obtained possession of it, and have practically heldit ever since.
"The ruins of Salamis may be seen at the other end of the island. In theBook of Acts we read that Paul came over here. 'And when they were atSalamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.'Then the account informs us that they went 'through the isle' to Paphos;and doubtless the place was near Point Papho, which I find on my chart.Don't forget to tell Mrs. Blossom, Flix, that you have been to an islandvisited by Paul and Barnabas in their missionary travels.
"The island has about the same productions as Egypt. Carobs, or locustbeans, figure up to about $300,000. But I fear you will not remember anymore figures if I should give them; and I see there is something like amovement on board of the pirate."
"You must repeat that lecture on board of the ship when we get back toher," added the captain. "It was telling us just what I wanted toknow."
"I could have done better if I had had the library of theGuardian-Mother for reference," replied Louis, as all hands fixed theirattention on the Fatime.
"They are getting out a boat, sir," said Don, who had gone to thehurricane deck to obtain a better view.
"That means that they intend to pay us a visit; and as I intend toretain the command of the Maud until I am relieved by Captain Ringgold,I shall allow no one from the pirate to come on board," said CaptainScott in his most decided tones. "All hands except Felipe will arm withbreech-loaders and revolvers, with a supply of ammunition, and form inthe port gangway."
This order was promptly executed, and the force collected at the placedesignated. This gangway was concealed from the enemy by the house ondeck. Louis had two revolvers, and he loaned one to Don. Scott hadcarried out a handsaw which was kept in the pilot-house in readiness forany emergency, as well as an axe and a hatchet. The captain had usedthis same saw with decided effect upon some smugglers who attempted toobtain possession of the little steamer in the Bay of Gibraltar, and heplaced it where it was ready for use at any moment.
In addition to this novel weapon, he had sent for a small heave-linewith which he had done some lassoing on the same occasion, and also onCaptain Mazagan at a later period. The five hands in the port gangwayhad loaded their weapons, and were ready to be called into the field.The captain took a look at them, and all was satisfactory. He hastenedback to the forecastle, where he saw that the boat was already pullingfor the Maud.