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.