A maid came into the room and watched open-mouthed as Dorcas picked up the marble head, padding the blanket around it for concealment, and left the house unopposed. She could count on nothing now except herself.
She dared not follow the road back to the square. It would take too long on foot. Instead, she cut straight downhill through sparsely set olive trees and spiky stands of cypress. There were few houses to be seen—the village was farther to her right, with the black rock of Lindos rising above it in the darkening sky. Dusk came swiftly now, but there was still enough light so that she could pick her way, following the sound of waves in a downward course to the beach.
With the sun gone, the wind had a cold bite to it. It blew with forceful intent across the inlet, stinging her with sand. In her arms the marble head seemed a dead weight—unlike the lively weight of a little girl. Underfoot the earth was sandy, pebbly, and more than once she slipped and slid in her plunging descent. Once, when she paused for breath, it seemed that she heard someone coming behind her on the hill, and that spurred her on again. At last she was free of the trees and upon a narrow path that led to the beach.
As she ran onto the sand, she saw the dark, bobbing shape of the caïque a little way out upon the water. Near the edge of the surf a shadow moved and came toward her up the beach. She knew it was Gino. There was no one else—no Johnny or Stavros.
“Where is Beth?” Dorcas cried.
How well she remembered the way Gino could laugh. He was laughing as he took the blanket from her arms and opened it. The little white head shone in the darkness, the features of the child just visible in the dying light. Gino ran his fingers almost reverently over the marble cheek.
“It is the right one,” he said.
He would have turned away, but she flung herself upon him and caught him by the arm. “You shan’t take the head until I have Beth!”
He pushed her away carelessly and she fell upon her knees in stony sand.
“There are a few more tears for you to weep,” he said, and turned toward the water. But before he had taken three steps there was a crashing in the brush above them and the sound of stones rolling beneath running feet. Gino paused, ready to run or to fight, as the need demanded. But it was only Fernanda rushing toward him across the sand.
“Where is Beth?” she cried, as Dorcas had done. But she did not wait for an answer. She saw the blanket in Gino’s arms and guessed what he was about.
“Put that down!” she ordered. “Put it down there on the sand and get the child first! You can’t be such an idiot as to take Beth with you.”
It was to be expected that he would laugh at Fernanda, but strangely he did not. He stood where he was for an undecided moment and she went to him and took the head firmly from his hands and set it upon the sand.
“Go and fetch Beth,” she told him.
Gino turned and went down the beach without argument. Dorcas ran after him, and as they neared the water’s edge she saw a small shadow crouching on the sand, mutely terrified by the events that had caught her up.
Dorcas called out to her and ran to pick the little girl up in her arms. She felt Beth’s cold cheek, wet against her own, and swollen from crying, and she held her fiercely close. Out on the water a lantern bobbed in the stern of the flat-bottomed caïque and she knew Vanda was there. Now it did not matter. Let Gino take the head. After a moment she set the little girl down and they started up the beach hand in hand.
He had seen her reach the child and had turned back to Fernanda at once. As Dorcas came up the beach, he met her with the head in its blanket safely under one arm. He began to run as he neared Dorcas, and before she saw what he was about, he had snatched Beth up like a rag doll beneath his free arm and was gone down the beach, splashing out into the water.
Dorcas cried out once and not again. She hurled herself in pursuit, but he was already beside the boat, handing Beth up to Vanda, and the head after her. She heard the chugging of the engine now and saw Gino pull himself over the boatside and disappear.
If she tried to follow and he saw her, he would not hesitate to thrust her back into the water. Already the boat had begun to move upon the dark surface. Dorcas ran through the surf, into deeper water on the opposite side of the boat, knowing only that she must reach Beth. That if Beth was to be taken away, then she must go with her. The water was warm from the sun and salt drops struck her face as she ran. Under water there were stones and the bottom slid away steeply at this place. She was swimming before her hands touched the wooden side of the boat.
She reached up and caught the rail, clinging to it, unable to get the leverage to pull herself aboard. She was being towed helplessly into deeper water. Then hands reached for her, grabbing at her dress, her arms, pulling her up and over the side. She tumbled into the bottom of the caïque and found that it was Johnny Orion who had hauled her on board. He held her against the boards with one hand, whispering to her to stay down.
Darkness and the noise of the engine had hidden what had happened. A black shadow that was Vanda stood at the tiller, with Gino beside her. If Beth was crying, the sound was hidden by the engine. Dorcas lay with her cheek against a coil of rope, her wet dress cold upon her body in the raw wind. The smell of salt and wood, engine fuel and sea water engulfed her sickeningly.
Johnny rose to a crouch and she whispered to him. “Be careful—he has a gun.”
Beside her the shadow that was Johnny rose quietly, steadied itself with a roll of the boat, and stood braced and ready.
There was a sudden shout from Gino, but he had not turned toward Johnny. Dorcas rose to her hands and knees, the better to act when the moment came, and now she saw what had made Gino cry out. In the prow of the boat a great figure had risen and was coming step by careful step toward Gino. It was Stavros, monstrous seeming on the small deck.
A shot crashed as the gun in Gino’s hand flamed briefly. But Stavros was not there. The bullet spat harmlessly into the water beyond. Johnny moved softly, creeping toward the child. Stavros came up with a curiously familiar movement that made Dorcas think incongruously of a basketball player with a ball in his hands. The gun fired again, and there was the unmistakable sound of a bullet striking stone and ricocheting away. The marble head glowed white in Stavros’s hands as he hurled it with deadly intent. For the third time the revolver fired, but the gun’s aim went awry as the heavy head struck its target. Gino fell backward over the side of the boat without a cry, and the marble head went with him. The splash was tremendous as Vanda cut the engine.
Johnny had drawn Beth from the line of fire and she came scrambling over the rough deck to her mother. Vanda left the tiller and would have gone overboard to seek her brother, but Stavros pulled her back and held her, shouting angrily in Greek. She struggled and fought him, but he bound her with his great arms and it was Johnny who went over the side, diving into the black water of the harbor. Vanda bit the arm that held her, and when Stavros let her go, she snatched up a rope coil and hurled it toward the swimmer.
Light from the lantern sent a shimmer across the dark rippling. An arm shattered the pattern, and bright drops leaped upward. Johnny shouted unintelligibly and dived beneath the surface again. Dorcas stood at the rail, with Beth’s arms about her neck, Beth’s face hidden against her shoulder. The moment of waiting was agonizing, endless. The path of light had closed over whatever lay below, its surface movement unbroken. Then the wet white oval of Johnny’s face was turned toward them and there was a dark head beside his own.
Stavros caught the end of the rope from Vanda’s hands. He pulled in the length and flung it again, so that it spat into the water within Johnny’s reach. There was a splashing struggle of movement while the swimmer secured the rope beneath Gino’s armpits. Then Stavros was hauling them both in. First Gino, still unconscious, was pulled over the side, and after him Johnny, with a helping hand from Stavros.
Vanda wasted no time. She attended the engine at once, turning the boat about, heading for the sand. For the first
time Dorcas looked toward shore. Lanterns moved upon the beach. The men of Lindos were there. Vanda drove the boat hard in, grounding its prow.
Men splashed into the water. Ready hands helped Dorcas and Beth ashore. Someone flung a jacket about her wet shoulders. Strangely, it was Stavros who had picked Gino up in his arms and jumped into shallow water to carry him up the beach. Men moved in the lantern light and shouted to one another. Stavros dumped his burden face down on the sand. He stood back and Johnny knelt above the prone body and began to work rhythmically, silently. Beside him Vanda knelt, her face drawn and tight in the yellow lantern rays.
Beyond the circle of light someone moved. Men whispered and stood aside, and Dorcas saw Fernanda. She did not come through at once, but stayed where she was, stricken and alone. And for once silent. Beth saw her and rushed across the sand to someone who spelled safety in the midst of nightmare. Fernanda held out her hands to the child.
Dorcas stepped closer to the center of the chiaroscuro that had formed upon this ledge of beach. Gino’s head was turned and there was a mark upon his forehead where the marble had struck. If there had been blood, the water had washed it away. Black hair dripped wetness into the sand, and no light of excitement stirred him now. His eyes were closed and his face held less of life than the face of the marble boy.
That which was unholy had lost all power, Dorcas thought, and felt tears stinging her eyes. For the last time she would weep for the dark Apollo. Weep, not in fear, but for the waste and the loss and the squandering.
Stavros said something in Greek, and Johnny looked up from his motion. “He’s not conscious, but he’s breathing. Can we take him somewhere?”
The men on the beach looked at one another and Vanda gave quick directions. Before Gino could be carried to the village, however, there was a further stir at the edge of the semicircle of watchers. Lanterns parted, and Xenia Katalonos came across the sand.
She stopped beside Johnny and looked upon the mute face of Gino Nikkaris. “He is dead?” she asked.
Johnny shook his head. “He’s still alive. But I don’t know how badly he’s injured. Stavros knocked him overboard with the marble head.”
Xenia gave a small cry. Her concern was not for Gino. “Where is the head? The head of the weeping boy?”
Johnny gestured toward the harbor. “Somewhere out there on the bottom. It saved Stavros’s life. It took a bullet meant for him.”
Xenia cried out despairingly and covered her face with her hands.
Two of the men picked up Gino. Someone had flung a blanket over his wet body. As they moved with him, Fernanda came to life. She let Beth go and moved across the sand. She walked beside the men who carried Gino and pain lined her face as never before. Once she reached out a hand to touch him in despair, and bent to speak to him as they walked along.
“It was my fault,” she said. “Forgive me, Gino.”
Unexpectedly he opened his eyes and looked up at her as though, out of all the sounds about him, her voice alone could reach through the deepening mists.
“Not—your fault,” he said in a sigh so soft that Dorcas, moving beside Fernanda, barely caught the words.
They carried him away and Fernanda followed no farther than the place where the path began.
So now, Dorcas thought, Gino would go out of their lives forever. Out of Fernanda’s and out of her own. And there were no tears left to weep.
Fernanda walked alone up the beach and bent over something in the sand. When she straightened she carried a burden in her hands. She brought it to the place where Xenia Katalonos stood with Johnny, looking out at the dark water. Fernanda did not speak, but held out the thing in her hands.
By lantern light it sprang to life—unshattered, unmarred, as perfect as when it had first been created eternities ago—the marble head of a weeping boy.
For once Madame Xenia was without words. It was Johnny who exclaimed.
“But, Stavros—I saw him with the head in his hands! He threw it—”
“You saw what you expected to see,” Fernanda said. “What Gino took out to the boat with him was the stone catapult ball. I brought it from the cat and left it near the edge of the sand when I followed Dorcas. Then I took the marble head from Gino and sent him down the beach for Beth. Before he came back, I’d wrapped the stone ball in the blanket and he picked it up without knowing. I couldn’t let him take the marble piece out of the country, it would have brought him nothing but trouble.”
“But of course!” Xenia cried, life coming back into her voice. “Stavros would have known what he was throwing. He would never have sacrificed the marble head.”
Fernanda agreed. “That’s what I mean—that it was my fault. Trying to save Gino, I put the weapon into Stavros’s hands.”
There had been more fault in Fernanda than that, Dorcas thought sadly. She had long ago set into motion the events that had culminated with a stone ball in Stavros’s hands.
Madame Xenia, however, had no time for such notions. She clasped the marble piece to her breast ecstatically and faced the three of them—Fernanda, Dorcas, Johnny—dominant again and in authority.
“It was Gino Nikkaris who took the head. You understand this? He would have escaped with it to Turkey if we had not stopped him. No one else was involved. You have helped Greece today. You have saved one of her finest treasures.”
No one contradicted her. It did not matter. They would let the story stand. Even Fernanda would do nothing now. Constantine need never be brought into the picture and his wife’s plans for his posthumous fame would suffer no defeat. The true guilt, in any event, lay with Gino.
“You will come to my house, please,” Madame Xenia said in a voice rich with hospitality. “I will find for you dry clothes. A hot dinner will be waiting.”
Fernanda turned from he without speaking and went alone toward the village. Johnny picked up Beth, and she clung to him with both arms. Ahead of them another woman moved alone, following the lanterns. It was Vanda Petrus, moving with all the dignity of deep sorrow—a woman grieving, the symbol of ancient tragedy.
The beach emptied about them, and Dorcas stood beside Johnny. She remembered the warm stones of Camiros and the meaning they had held for her—not empty peace, but a grasping of life and belief in herself.
“It takes courage to be happy,” Johnny said, and she knew how well he understood.
Beth had gone sound asleep against his shoulder. She did not waken as Johnny put an arm about Dorcas and they moved together up the sandy ledge.
Overhead the deep blue of the sky was pierced with stars. The rock of Lindos soared against the heavens as it had done for thousands of years. Gods and men—the rock had seen them come and go. Apollo was gone from his firmament and Athena from her temple. Yet as she looked, it seemed to Dorcas that something trembled in the starlit air like a vast, silent laughter. She walked close to Johnny, wondering if the old gods might still amuse themselves on their Olympic heights.
A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.
Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley,
California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.
In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).
After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.
In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.
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