The Man from the 'Turkish Slave' Read online

  It was at the sound of her voice that Lesset suddenly realised that it was the truth. He swung round and for the first time he noticed the small black opening below the keystone.

  Peter and Tereza saw it clearly. Time and movement seemed to slow down so that horror should lose no detail. Lesset turned from the pit. His knees bent and he crouched as he flung himself forward desperately from the mound of rubble. He seemed to hang, a squat, ruffled, bird-like shape, in the air and a long, incoherent shout came from him, a cry of panic and despair as the earth and stones behind him trembled. His cry was lost in the echoing thunder of an explosion. A great gout of rock and debris sprouted from the pit and they saw his body twisted and flung upwards. It disappeared in a vast, rising spume of smoke and dust. A spattering of stones and plaster rattled down around them. Peter held Tereza to him, protecting her with his arms. The echoes of the explosion swung to and fro across the town and between the cliffs and then died. Slowly the smoke and dust drifted away.

  Peter pushed the gate back and ran into the road. The top of the pile had been blown away and the ground was thick with debris. Lying at the foot of the house wall opposite the church was Lesset. He was huddled up like a child’s doll, maltreated and flung into a corner. His face was turned upwards; the eyes wide and still, the skin pocked and cut with grit, and the mouth was a little open and curled at one corner as though he smiled, as though he had died smiling at some fine irony.

  ‘Peter … it is terrible.’

  Peter turned and took Tereza by the shoulders, moving her away from the sight. As he did so Quisto, with two men behind him, appeared at the broken crest of the pile before the church door.

  The crowd about Peter stirred. Somewhere behind him a child began to cry and then was hushed. From the foot of the jetty Quisto and Father Gordano came forward through their people. There was silence as the men and women parted before them. Peter watched the many familiar faces and for a moment he lifted his eyes from them to the damaged houses on the far side of the square, and then higher across the steep roofs to the blunt muzzle of Pae thrusting into the clear blue. His eyes came back to the crowd. He saw Anita shrinking back as Quisto passed, her face solemn and frightened. It would be a long time, Peter felt, before she let her light fingers stray again, a long time before she forgot this morning and the dark hours she had spent in the church with the other islanders. For himself there would be no forgetting.

  He put his arm around Tereza and, glancing down, saw her face bright with pride as she watched her father move along the jetty. She had accepted Quisto’s judgment more readily than Peter. The thing Quisto was going to do would be forever a secure island secret. Peter heard Quisto’s voice echoing in his memory, ‘These are my people … they understand that it must be done this way. Punishment must carry mercy.’

  In his heart he knew that the old man was right. They had the pearl collar and the rest of the jewels were safe, and soon they would have a boat ready and he and Quisto would go to Santos. The man in Sao Paulo would know all he needed to round up the organisers of this jewel traffic. Jaeger and Lesset were dead. Soon Assis and the Pastori brothers would be dead to the world.

  Quisto and Father Gordano came to the edge of the jetty and the crowd followed them.

  They were all behind Quisto, approving; his children, his people, following him and his judgment unquestioningly.

  Peter stood with his arm around Tereza and felt her pressed to him, her hand holding his. Quisto was like some hoary god, white-haired, dark of brow and with a tremendous nobility about him, and his voice rang across the square as he stood on the jetty. Father Gordano was at his side. Below them, in the water, was the motor-boat.

  Assis was at the tiller, Vasco stood by the motor which was gently ticking over and Manöel lay groaning in the bows, and high above the gentle sound of the motor came Quisto’s stern voice.

  ‘To us you are dead men. To the police you shall be dead men. You shall be wiped out of our hearts and our memories for there is a sickness in the thought of you and an evil in the sight of you which shames us. But wherever you go you will remember us, and the memory shall stay with you and be a curse and it will touch every moment of your lives until your last hour …’

  He bent down and cast off the mooring rope. He flung it and Assis caught it.

  ‘Go!’

  Quisto’s great arm came up and he pointed towards the harbour mouth, and the one word, rich and scornful with contempt, echoed over the stained and wreck-strewn waters.

  The engine note rose, little rosettes of white water eddied from the boat’s stern as it moved away from the jetty. Only Assis looked back for a while.

  They stood there, the women and the children, and the silent men, dirty and ragged and with the destruction of their town behind them, and they watched the boat pull out, head towards the opening of the harbour, and then disappear.

  Quisto swung round to his people and, a great smile over his face, he roared cheerfully: ‘And now to work!’

  Father Gordano touched his arm.

  ‘First, my son, let us pray.’

  Father Gordano turned and raised his hands and everyone knelt. Peter knelt beside Tereza and on his other side he heard Grazia wheeze and grunt as she lowered herself. Father Gordano prayed … and as he prayed Peter knew that in a few moments they would rise and there would be everything before them … Work and hope and love and the disappointments and rewards which belong to those who work.

  Copyright

  First published in 1954 by Hodder & Stoughton

  This edition published 2013 by Bello

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-4324-3 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-4322-9 POD

  Copyright © Victor Canning, 1954

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