The ship, as it progressed, was lifting to a swell. Two hours I lay there staring at that black, rain-streaked porthole glass. I glanced at my watch from time to time. This was one night I would not sleep. That I vowed.

Suddenly, I was aware of something: a change! For the last few minutes, there had been no ship pitch. We were travelling like a billiard table. I was not enough of a sailor to be able to figure out what this meant but I was sure it must mean something. The rain had not stopped, as witness that streaking black window. So what was the meaning of this?

Far away, somewhere in the ship, I heard a faint staccato of bells.

A vibration ceased.

THE ENGINES HAD STOPPED!

Through my rain-streaked port glass, I could see something coming out of the night.

A craft of some sort!

I could see the glow of a light in its bow. The port running light gleamed red as blood. A white light in the stern told me it was not a third the size of the Golden Sunset.

It was approaching. Like shadowy Demons, sailors, seen by the port lights from our ship, were hanging fenders along its rails. It was going to come alongside! Yes! Somebody had thrown a line aboard!

What was it? A patrol craft? I could not tell.

Somebody, a dim shadow, was standing by its pilot house. He was even with this very deck.

A port light flashed across his face.

THE BLACK-JOWLED MAN!

Oh, Gods! What was this? My wits spun!

Quickly I grabbed my bathrobe tighter about me. I sped out of my cabin. Barefooted, I came to the deck. Like a shadow myself, I melted behind a big life-jacket box.

The pelting rain struck at me. I peered out.

The craft came against our hull with a thump.

The black-jowled man came to its rail.

Another figure came out of a door on this deck and, in the darkness, went to our rail opposite the black-jowled man. They were only about five feet apart.

A flashlight winked in the hand of the black-jowled man. It fell upon the face of the person at our rail.

My blood froze.

TEENIE! Those eyes and mouth were unmistakable even under that battered cap and in the rain.

"You didn't have to start a riot, you (bleep)!" she said. "You almost got me hit with a rock and then where would you have been? We were sailing anyway the very next morning. Jesus, I'm mad at you!"

"That's not one-sided!" snarled the black-jowled man. "You didn't have to go to Thessalonica at all. It was time to show you the party can get rough! You've been wandering all over the globe! Delay, delay! What have you got to say to that?"

"I got to say I never would have had any bullfights or clothes, you cheapskate. You know what I think? I think right now you're trying to con me. I don't think you have any idea at all of giving me what I deserve."

"Delay, delay, delay! You deserve to be shot! You weren't supposed to take a joy ride. You were supposed to deliver him into our hands!"

My heart stopped beating. Then a sickening wave of awful comprehension rushed through me. Those songs! Marijuana becoming hashish and hashish becoming hash oil. Her interest in charts, her efforts to see Turkey from the mountaintops. The search for outlaws, each one inexorably closer to Turkey! She had been shanghaiing me aboard my own yacht to return me to a place where I would be murdered!

He had begun to swear at her. She said, "Keep your voice down. You earlier threatened to pay the captain to finish it off. Well, let me tell you something, buster, Bitts and me are in cahoots. We're just like that!" And she raised two fingers parallel. "This yacht ain't going to move a foot unless I tell it to. And you know what I think, you (bleep)? I think you're going to try to get me in and then you're going to wave your dirty hand and tell me to get lost. That's what I think you're going to do."

"You wrong me," said the black-jowled man. "I keep my word."

"The hell you do," said Teenie. "Remember that Rome jeweler's? You said we could go back and pick up the necklace and what did you do? You just plain forgot!"

"I didn't!" said the black-jowled man. "I picked it up myself the day after you sailed. Here it is."

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a box.

"That ain't going to do you any good now," said Teenie, waving it back as he extended it across the gap. "You probably had him put in fake stones and hope I can't tell in this light. No sir, Mac. I don't trust you worth a (bleep)."

He put the box back into his pocket, with an angry thrust.

She raised a cautionary finger at him. "Now hear this, loud and clear, buster. I'm not moving this yacht into Turkish waters until I get my ten grand."

"Jesus," said the black-jowled man.

I was seething. Rage had begun to take over. So that was her price, was it? Ten grand for delivering me to my death!

Teenie stepped back from the rail. Above the hiss of the rain her voice was plain. "Ten grand in my little hot hand, buster, and then and only then will I give the word."

"Jesus," said the black-jowled man. "I haven't got ten grand aboard here."

"See?" said Teenie. "You were trying to pull a con. You weren't going to pay me at all! Oh, I'm used to dealing with the likes of you. I was brought up on birds that would rather do a double switch than eat."

"Listen," said the black-jowled man. "Izmir is right over there. Our agent will have the cash. I can get it in two hours. And if I pay you, will you order this yacht to Istanbul? You know (bleeped) well, we've got to get our hands on him."

"All right," said Teenie. "We'll stand by right here off Chios."

"No, not all right," said the black-jowled man.

"How do I know you won't just sail away the moment I leave? I think you better step over that rail and come with me."

"All right," said Teenie. "I'll tell Bitts."

She passed within three feet of me in the dark. She went to the bottom of the bridge ladder. She yelled up, "Stand by right where you are off Chios. We're going into Izmir. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Aye, aye," came down from the darkness.

She sped back past me.

"You sure you've got him safe?" said the black-jowled man before he extended an arm to help her over the rail.

"You bet he is," said Teenie. "Drugged to the gills and I'll keep him drugged. He thinks he's on his way to Egypt. You want to go down and see him?"

"We've wasted enough time. Jump."

Teenie landed on their deck. Lines were cast off. The screws of the craft churned. It was swallowed in the rain and dark.

Oh, the perfidy of women!

I was sick to the core with her treachery.

I HAD TO ACT!

TWO HOURS!

But two hours can become two minutes if one doesn't rush.

There was a rift in the rain. A momentary luminance of moonlight spread its green horror across the scene.

There was a loom of land a mile or two away. That must be Chios, the Greek island almost up against the Turkish shore.

I yearned toward it. Oh, Gods, if I could only reach it, I would be out of their tentacles.

The rain closed in again. But I had had an omen. Some God, if only for a moment, had plucked the veil aside.

ACTION! I had to get into action quick! Even now the hurled stones for adultery were halfway through the air. Suddenly I realized that the stones of the demonstrators had been another warning from the Gods. It had been another omen and I had not seen it!

I would not miss it now!

Swift as a cat I raced below. Did I have time to pack? The hand grips that Teenie had bought me in Rome lay upon the closet floor. Anything that had to do with Teenie was bad luck. I flinched from them. No, I did not have time to pack. I would abandon my things.

I grabbed some clothes at random and began to hurl them on: running shorts, a business jacket, a straw hat, scuba slippers.