Treason’s Harbour

This period was now at an end, however: Sir Francis Ives, the new and respectable Commander-in-Chief, was now with the main body of the fleet, blockading Toulon, where the French, with twenty-one line-of-battle ships and seven frigates, showed signs of great activity, while at the same time he was picking up all the complex threads of his command, tactical, strategic, and political, with their necessary complement of intelligence. At the same time the Admiralty was sending an official to deal with the situation in Malta, their acting Second Secretary, no less, Mr Andrew Wray. He had a reputation for brilliant parts, and he had certainly done very well at the Treasury under his cousin Lord Pelham: there was no doubt that he was an exceptionally able man. And Maturin had no doubt that quite apart from coping with the French he would need all his abilities to overcome the ill-will of the Army and the jealousy and obstruction of the other British intelligence organizations that had made their devious way into the island. There were mysterious gentlemen from various departments, darkening counsel, hampering one another, and causing confusion; and Stephen Maturin’s only consolation when he contemplated the situation was that the French were probably worse. Despotic government tends to breed spies and informers, and there were traces of at least three different Paris ministries at work in Malta, each in ignorance of the others, with a man from a fourth keeping watch on them all. The ostensible purpose of Mr Wray’s visit was to check corruption in the dockyard, and it appeared to Maturin that he would probably be more successful in this than in counter-espionage. Intelligence was a highly specialized concern, and as far as he knew this was Wray’s first direct connection with the department. Corruption on the other hand was universal, open to all; and since Wray in his youth had kept a carriage and a considerable establishment on an official salary of a few hundred a year and no private means it was likely that he was tolerably well acquainted with the subject. Maturin had first met Wray some years ago, when Jack Aubrey was ashore, uncommonly rich in prize-money and the spoils of the Mauritius campaign: the meeting – a casual exchange of bows and how d’ye do, sirs – had taken place in a gambling club in Portsmouth, where Jack was playing with several acquaintances. The introduction amounted to nothing in itself and Maturin would never have remembered Wray but for the fact that some days later, when Maturin was in London, it seemed that Jack had accused Wray or his associates, in terms only just ambiguous enough for decency, of cheating at cards. Wray did not ask for the barbarous satisfaction usual in such cases. It is possible that he understood Jack’s words to apply to some other player – Stephen had had no first-hand account of the affair – yet there had been signs of hostile influence inside the Admiralty for some time past: ships refused, good appointments going to men with a far less spectacular fighting-record, no promotion for Jack’s subordinates, and at one time Stephen had suspected that Wray might be taking his revenge in this way. But on the other hand it might be the result of other causes; it might for example be the result of the ministers’ dislike of General Aubrey, Jack’s father, an everlasting member of parliament in the Radical interest and a sad trial to them all – an explanation supported by the fact that Wray’s reputation had not suffered. Ordinarily a man who did not fight in such circumstances was put to the hiss of the world, but when Aubrey and Maturin, who had had to sail very shortly after the unpleasantness, came back from the Indies and beyond Stephen found that it was generally assumed that there had been either a meeting or an explanation, and that Wray was received everywhere: Stephen saw him several times in London. And if Wray had not suffered in reputation he could hardly feel lastingly revengeful. In any case his manner of life had changed entirely since those days: he had made a very good marriage, from a worldly point of view, and although Fanny Harte brought him little beauty and less affection (she was against the match from the start, being attached to William Babbington, of the Royal Navy), her fortune allowed him to lead the expensive life he liked, to lead it without recourse to expedients, and to look forward to a much greater degree of wealth when the Rear-Admiral died, since Harte had inherited an extraordinarily large sum from a money-lending relative in Lombard Street, and Fanny was his only child. Furthermore, after Jack Aubrey’s brilliant and very publicly acknowledged little victory in the Ionian where among other things he had provided the Navy with an excellent base and had delighted the Grand Turk, a point of great diplomatic importance at this juncture, he was reasonably safe from the insidious marginal comment hinting at misconduct or the semi-official note bringing up the indiscretions of his youth.

‘Here is the other one,’ said Lesueur, as Graham came out of the green shade and sat by Stephen Maturin. ‘There were confusing reports about him, and at one time he seemed to be part of a different organization altogether; but now it appears that he is only a linguist, employed to deal with Turkish and Arabic documents, and that he must soon go back to his university. You will have him watched, however, and his connections noted. Where that woman can be I cannot tell. She was supposed to be here twenty-three, no, twenty-four minutes ago, to give Aubrey his lesson. Now she will not have time before his meeting.’

A long pause, and Giuseppe, who had the corner shutter to peer through as well as that which gave the frontal view, said, ‘There is a lady hurrying down the side-alley with a maid.’

‘Has she a dog? A great enormous Illyrian mastiff ?’

‘No, sir, she has not.’

‘Then it is not Mrs Fielding,’ said Lesueur in a cross, positive voice. But he was mistaken, as he perceived the moment the lady and her black-cowled maid turned the corner and hurried into the court of Searle’s hotel.

All the men at Aubrey’s table sprang to their feet, for this was not an example of local solace, no fifth gardener: far from it. Indeed, when Captain Pelham fell flat on his face it would hardly have been an exaggerated testimony of his respect if it had been voluntary, instead of too much Marsala and an inconvenient chair-leg.

There was an amiable hubbub as Mrs Fielding tried to apologize to Captain Aubrey and at the same time to satisfy those officers who wished to know how she did, and what had happened to Ponto. This was the grim censorious puritanical unsmiling creature with a collar of steel spikes, the Illyrian mastiff, an animal the size of a moderate calf that always stalked by Laura Fielding’s side, holding in its long stride to match her shorter step and protecting her from the least familiarity by its mere presence; or if that were not enough then by a thunderous growl. As far as it could be made out, Ponto had been left at home in disgrace for killing an ass; he was perfectly capable of doing so, but Mrs Fielding’s English was sometimes a little wild and the calmness with which she spoke of the act made it seem that there was some mistake. ‘Upon my word, gentlemen,’ she went on, with scarcely a pause, ‘you are all very fine today. White breeches! Silk stockings!’

Why, yes, they said. Had she not heard? Calliope had brought Mr Wray of the Admiralty last night, and they were going to pay their respects at the Governor’s in twenty minutes, square-rigged and with a vast expenditure of breeches-ball and hair-powder, confident that their collective beauty would strike him dumb with amazement.

It was pleasant to see how the captains, some of them true tartars aboard, most of them thoroughly accustomed to battle, and all of them capable of assuming great responsibility, played the fool before a pretty woman. ‘There is a capital book to be written on the human mating display in all its ludicrous variety,’ observed Dr Maturin. ‘Not, however, that this is more than a faint shadowing-forth of the full ceremony. Here we have no strong rivalry, no burning eagerness among the men, no real hope’ – this with a penetrating glance at his friend Aubrey – ‘and in any event the lady is not at leisure.’ Mrs Fielding was certainly not at leisure in Maturin’s particular sense of the word, but it was pleasant too to see how well she took their open though respectful admiration, their kindly banter and their flights of wit – no missishness, no bridling, no simpering, but no bold over-confidence either: she hit just the right note of friendliness, and Maturin watched her with admiration. He had earlier noticed her ignoring of Pelham’s drunkenness – she was used to men of war – and now he observed her instant recovery from the shock of seeing Pullings’ face as Jack Aubrey led him out of the arbour’s shade to be presented and the particularly kind way in which she wished him joy of his promotion and asked him to her house that evening – a very small party, just to hear the rehearsal of a quartet: he saw her childish delight when the chelengk was put through its paces and her frank greed when she had it in her hands and she was admiring the big stones at the top. He watched her with curiosity, and with something more than that. For one thing she reminded him strongly of his first love: she had the same build, rather small but as slim and straight as a rush, and the same striking dark red hair; and by a very singular coincidence she too had arranged it so that a touchingly elegant nape was to be seen, and an ear with a delicate curve. For another she had shown him particular attention.

Insects might still delude Maturin and pierce his skin, but at this late stage it was difficult for women to do so. He knew that no one could possibly admire him for his looks; he had no illusions about his social charms or his conversation; and although he felt that his best books, Remarks on Pezophaps Solitarius and Modest Proposals for the Preservation of Health in the Navy, were not without merit he did not believe that either would set any female bosom in a blaze. Even his wife had not been able to get through more than a few pages, in spite of her very real good will. His status in the Navy was modest – he was not even a commissioned officer – and he had neither patronage nor influence. Nor was he rich.

Mrs Fielding’s amiability and her invitations were therefore prompted by something other than a notion (however remote) of gallantry or of profit: what it might be he could not tell unless indeed it had to do with intelligence. If that were so then clearly it was his duty to be all compliance. There was no other way in which he could sift the matter; no other way in which he could either surprise her connections or induce her to reveal them, or use her to convey false information. He might be completely mistaken – after a while an intelligence-agent tended to see spies everywhere, rather as certain lunatics saw references to themselves in every newspaper – but whether or no he intended to play his part in the hypothetical game. And he the more easily persuaded himself that this was the right course since he liked her company, liked her musical evenings, and was convinced that he could govern any untimely emotion that might rise in his heart. It was for Mrs Fielding that he had put on these white stockings (for neither his rank nor his inclination required his presence at the reception), and it was for Mrs Fielding that he now advanced, swept off his hat, made his most courtly leg and cried, ‘A very good day to you, ma’am. I trust I find you well?’

‘All the better for seeing you, sir,’ said she, smiling and giving him her hand. ‘Dear Doctor, cannot you persuade Captain Aubrey to take his lesson? We only have to memorate the trapassato remoto.’

‘Alas, he is a sailor; and you know the sailor’s slavish devotion to clocks and bells.’

A shadow passed over Laura Fielding’s face: her only disagreement with her husband had been on the subject of punctuality. With a slightly artificial cheerfulness she went on, ‘Just the regular trapassato remoto – not ten minutes.’

‘Look,’ said Stephen, pointing to the clock in the Apothecary’s Tower. They all turned, and once again the watchers involuntarily recoiled. ‘Ten minutes is all these fine gentlemen have in which to pace stately to the Governor’s; for they must not pelt up the cruel slope, creasing their careful neckcloths, losing their hair-powder, gasping in the heat, and arriving in a state of crimson dissolution. You had much better sit down with me and drink a glass of iced cow’s milk in the shade; the goat I cannot recommend.’

‘I dare not,’ she said, as the captains took their leave, walking off in order of seniority, ‘I should be late for Miss Lumley. Captain Aubrey,’ she called, ‘if by any chance I should be delayed for this evening’s rehearsal, I beg you will step in and show Captain Pullings the lemon-tree – it has been watered today! Giovanna is going to Notabile directly, but the door will not be really shut.’

‘I should be very happy to show Captain Pullings the lemon-tree,’ said Jack, and at the word captain Pullings laughed aloud once more. ‘It is the finest lemon-tree of my acquaintance. And pray, ma’am, will Ponto be going to Notabile too?’

‘No. Last time he killed some goats and childs. But he knows the naval uniform. He will not say anything to you, unless perhaps you touch the lemons.’

‘Your plan seems to answer, sir,’ said Giuseppe, watching the officers and Graham start climbing the steps towards the palace and Stephen and Mrs Fielding sit down to a dish of iced cream flavoured with coffee – they had agreed that Miss Lumley was not a sea-officer and could not therefore have so morbidly acute a sense of measured time.

‘I believe it may answer very well,’ said Lesueur. ‘In general I have found that the uglier the man, the greater his vanity.’

‘Now, sir,’ said Laura Fielding, licking her spoon, ‘since you have been so very kind, and since I should like to send Giovanna off to Notabile, I shall ask you to be kinder still and walk with me as far as St Publius: there are always a great many blackguard soldiers hanging about the Porta Reale, and without my dog…’

Dr Maturin declared that he should be happy to act as vicar to so noble a creature, and indeed he looked unusually pleased and cheerful as they left the courtyard and as he handed her across the Piazza Regina, crowded with soldiers and two separate herds of goats; but by the time they were walking past the Auberge de Castile part of his mind had drifted away, back to the subject of mood and its origins. Another part was very much in the present, however, and his silence was in some degree deliberate; it did not last long, but as he had foreseen it disturbed Laura Fielding. She was under a constraint – a constraint that he perceived more and more clearly – and both her tone and her smile were somewhat artificial when she said, ‘Do you like dogs?’

‘Dogs, is it?’ he said, giving her a sideways glance and smiling. ‘Why now, if you were an ordinary commonplace everyday civilly-prating gentlewoman I should smirk and say “Lord, ma’am, I dote upon ’em,” with as graceful a writhe of my person as I could manage. But since it is you I shall only observe that I understand your words as a request that I should say something: you might equally have asked did I like men, or women, or even cats, serpents, bats.’

‘Not bats,’ cried Mrs Fielding.

‘Certainly bats,’ said Dr Maturin. ‘There is as much variety in them as in other creatures: I have known some very high-spirited, cheerful bats, others sullen, froward, dogged, morose. And of course the same applies to dogs – there is the whole gamut from false fawning yellow curs to the heroic Ponto.’

‘Dear Ponto,’ said Mrs Fielding. ‘He is a great comfort to me; but I wish he were a little wiser. My father had a Maremma dog, a bog-dog, that could multiply and divide.’

‘Yet,’ said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, ‘there is a quality in dogs, I must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas – when you consider how immensely it enhances daily life and how it enriches a man’s past and future, so that he can look back and forward with complacency – why, it is a pleasure to find it in brute creation.’

Affection was also to be found in commanders: it fairly beamed from Pullings as Jack Aubrey led him up to the Governor and his guest. Jack did not at all relish this meeting with Wray, but since he felt that he could not avoid it without meanness he was glad that etiquette required that he should present his former lieutenant: the necessary formality would take away some of the awkwardness. Not that there seemed a great deal of awkwardness ahead, he reflected, looking along the line. Wray looked much the same, a tall, good-looking, animated, gentlemanlike fellow wearing a black coat with a couple of foreign orders; he was perfectly well aware of Jack’s approach – their eyes had met some time before – but he was laughing away with Sir Hildebrand and a red-faced civilian, apparently quite unmoved, as though he had not the least reason to look furtive, or even uneasy in his mind.

The line moved on. It was their turn. Jack made the presentation to the Governor, who replied with a slight inclination of his head, an indifferent look, and the word ‘Happy’. Then he urged Pullings on a step and said, ‘Sir, allow me to name Captain Pullings. Captain Pullings, Mr Secretary Wray.’

‘I am delighted to see you, Captain Pullings,’ said Wray, holding out his hand, ‘and I congratulate you with all my heart on your share in the Surprise’s brilliant victory. As soon as I read Captain Aubrey’s dispatch’ – bowing to Jack – ‘and his glowing account of your unparalleled exertions I said Mr Pullings must be promoted. There were gentlemen who objected that the Torgud was not in the Sultan’s service at the moment of her capture – that the promotion would be irregular – that it would establish an undesirable precedent. But I insisted that we should attend to Captain Aubrey’s recommendation, and I may tell you privately,’ he added in a lower tone, smiling placidly at Jack as he did so, ‘that I insisted all the more strongly, because at one time Captain Aubrey seemed to do me an injustice, and by promoting his lieutenant I could, as the sea-phrase goes, the better wipe his eye. Few things have given me greater pleasure than bringing out the commission, and I am only sorry that the victory should have cost you such a cruel wound.’

‘Mr Wray: Colonel Manners of the Forty-Third,’ said Sir Hildebrand, who felt that this had been going on far too long.

Jack and Pullings bowed and gave place to the Colonel: Jack heard the Governor say ‘That was Aubrey, who took Marga,’ and the soldier’s almost instant keen reply ‘Ah? It was held by the enemy, I recollect?’ but his mind was deeply perturbed. Was it possible that he had misjudged Wray? Could any man have such boundless impudence to speak so if it were false? Wray could certainly have barred the promotion if he had wished; there was the perfect excuse of the Torgud’s being a rebel. Jack tried to recall the exact details of that far-away unhappy, angry evening in Portsmouth – just what was the sequence of events? – just how much had he drunk? – who were the other civilians at the table? – but he had been through a great deal of much more open violence since that time and he could no longer fix the grounds of his then certainty. Cheating there had been, and for large sums of money, of that he was still sure; but there had been several players at the table, not only Andrew Wray.

He became aware that Pullings had been talking about the Second Secretary in a tone approaching enthusiasm for some time – ‘such magnanimity, magnanimity, you know what I mean, sir – benevolent eye – uncommon learned too, no sort of doubt about it – should certainly be First Secretary if not First Lord’ – and that they were standing at a table covered with bottles, decanters and glasses.

‘So here’s to his health, sir, in admiral’s flip,’ cried Pullings, putting an ice-cold silver tankard into his hand.

‘Admiral’s flip, at this time of day?’ said Jack, looking thoughtfully at Captain Pullings’ round, happy face, with its livid wound now glowing purple – the face of one who had already swallowed a pint of marsala and who was in any case quite overcome with joy – the face of an ordinarily abstemious man who was now in no state to drink champagne mixed with brandy half and half. ‘Would not a glass of pale ale do as well? Capital stuff, this East India pale ale.’

‘Come, sir,’ said Pullings reproachfully. ‘It’s not every day I wet the swab.’

‘Very true,’ said Jack, remembering the time he first put on a commander’s epaulette – only one in those days – and his unbounded delight. ‘Very true. To Mr Secretary’s very good health, then. May he prosper in all his designs.’

The admiral’s flip did for poor Pullings even sooner than might have been expected. They were separated by a tide of thirsty officers, many of whom wished Pullings joy of his promotion, and Jack had not been talking to his old friend Dundas for five minutes before he saw two of them leading, almost carrying, Pullings away. He followed and found that they had put him on a seat in a quiet corner of the garden, where he was very nearly asleep, pale, but smiling still. ‘You are all right, Tom, are you not?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Pullings from a great distance. ‘It was only a little close in there. Like the hold of a slave-ship.’ He added that he was thinking of Mrs Pullings, of Mrs Captain Pullings, and what she would say to an income of sixteen guineas a month. Sixteen beautiful guineas a lunar month!

‘What she will say to your poor phiz is more to the point,’ said Jack to himself, contemplating the now mute, insensible commander. A very ugly wound indeed: he had rarely seen an uglier. Yet Stephen Maturin assured him that the great gash would heal and that the eye was in no danger; and in medical matters he had never known Stephen go far wrong. A bell struck within his mind, a warning-bell for his appointment. He said, ‘Mrs Fielding, pretty thing,’ and returning to the palace he walked fast through the crowd to the fore-court and there called ‘Surprise’. The cry was at once taken up by the various seamen and Marines there present and within seconds his coxswain appeared, wiping his mouth – a rather splendid coxswain, for on these occasions any ship worth her copper liked her captain, his barge, and those that belonged to it, to do her credit, and Bonden had come out in a tall round hat with Surprise on it, a light-blue coat with a velvet collar, satin breeches and silver-buckled shoes, the whole (apart from the shoes, which had been taken from a dead renegado) the work of his own and his friends’ needles. ‘Bonden,’ said Jack, ‘Mr – Captain Pullings is taken a little poorly.’

‘Paralytic, sir?’ asked Bonden in a spirit of pure enquiry: no moral or even aesthetic question arose.

‘Not as who should say paralytic,’ said Jack: but this was at once understood as decent form, no more, and Bonden said that he would borrow a stretcher from the pile always ready in the guard-room when the Governor gave a party, rouse out a couple of strong, reliable bargemen for the fore-end, and cut round to the garden-gate, for to avoid scandal, sir, and letting the redcoats laugh.

‘Make it so, Bonden, make it so: the garden-gate in five minutes,’ said Jack. Ten minutes later he was half way down the ladder-like street that led to his hotel, walking beside the stretcher borne shoulder-high in front by two of the frigate’s bargemen and at knee-level by the powerful coxswain behind, so that it was tolerably straight: the commander himself was lashed in with the traditional seven turns, like a hammock. The scandal of a naval officer disguised in drink no longer seemed to affect any of the party now that the palace redcoats were out of sight, and Jack’s only care was to preserve his hat. The houses on either side had covered, closed-in balconies, and every twenty yards or so, where the slope of the street brought the balcony conveniently low, a hand from behind the shutters would make a dart at his head, accompanied by a laugh, silvery or beery as the case might be, and an invitation to step within. Officers as imposing as post-captains were rarely treated so, at least in daylight, but this was the feast of St Simeon Stylites, and a great deal of licence was tolerated; in any case Jack’s hat (which, out of love for Lord Nelson and a liking for the ways of his youth, he wore athwartships rather than fore and aft) had been snatched at in countless ports since before he needed to shave, and he was fairly good at preserving it.

He preserved it now, and reaching the court of the hotel he hailed his steward, who could be seen on the roof, staring in the wrong direction. ‘The roof, there. Lend a fist, Killick: bear a hand, now.’

Killick came running down. ‘There you are at last, sir,’ he cried, clapping on to the stretcher in an absent-minded way, his eyes fixed on Jack’s hat. ‘Which I been looking out for you this last bleeding watch and more.’ Killick was an unimproved foremast-hand, rougher than most, impervious to what civilizing influence the cabin might exert and deeply, obstinately ignorant, self-opinionated, and ill-informed. But he did know that ‘a diamond the size of a pea was worth a king’s ransom’, and he did know that the chelengk was made of diamonds because he had privately written Preserved Killick HMS Surprise none so Pretty on a window-panel with it. The two topmost stones were certainly as big as the dried naval peas he had eaten all his life – the green kind he had never seen – and he was persuaded that the chelengk ranked with the crown jewels: or even higher, since not one of the crown jewels had clockwork in it. Ever since the present had arrived from Constantinople his life had been one long anxiety, particularly as they were now ashore, with thieves at every hand; he hid the object in a different place every night, usually wrapping its outer case in sailcloth and covering that with filthy rags, the whole nestling among concealed fish-hooks and rat-traps set to go off at a sneeze.

He and Bonden put Pullings tenderly to bed in a neat, seamanlike fashion, and Jack, looking at his watch, realized that if he were not to be late for Mrs Fielding’s rehearsal he would have to step out; he also realized that he had not sent his violin round earlier in the day, a foolish oversight in a town where all officers wore uniform, and could not be seen carrying so much as a packet themselves, let alone a musical instrument. ‘Bonden,’ he said, ‘jump to the Doctor’s parlour, take my fiddle-case from the window-seat, and come along to Mrs Fielding’s with me. I am going directly.’

Bonden made no reply, only twisting his head to one side, looking dogged, and pretending to be busy with the string of Captain Pullings’ nightcap; but Killick plucked Jack’s hat from the bedside table with such force that the chelengk quivered again and said, ‘Not in that scraper you ain’t.’ The diamonds were of course his first consideration, but there was also the hat itself, Captain Aubrey’s best gold-laced hat, and Killick hated to see good uniforms worn to skin and bone, rack and ruin; or indeed worn at all. And although he was an open-handed creature himself (none more prodigal than Preserved Killick when ashore with a hat-full of prize-money) he disliked seeing Captain Aubrey’s victuals or wine eaten or drunk by anyone but admirals or lords or very good friends; and he had been known to give junior officers and midshipmen the mixed leavings of yesterday’s bottles. Now he came back with a little mean shrunken threadbare hat that had seen cruel hard service in the Channel. ‘Oh well, damn the scraper,’ said Jack, reflecting that the chelengk would be horribly out of place at the rehearsal. ‘Bonden, what are you at?’

‘I shall have to shift my togs first,’ said Bonden, looking away.

‘Which he means was he to carry a fiddle the redcoats might call out Give us a tune, sailor,’ said Killick. ‘You wouldn’t like that, your honour, not with Surprise on the ribbon of his hat. No. What you would like is for me to call a blackguard boy to carry it; and Bonden will go along and keep an eye on him, as in duty bound.’

It was all hellfire nonsense, began Captain Aubrey, and they were a couple of God-damned swabs; but then reflecting that they had followed him many a time on to the deck of an enemy man-of-war, when there was no question of carrying fiddle-cases or being laughed at, he said there was no time to be lost – they might do as they chose – but if that fiddle were not at Mrs Fielding’s within five minutes of his own arrival, they might look out for another ship.

In fact the fiddle was there before him. Bonden’s little barefoot boy knew every short cut and they were waiting at the big double doors giving on to the street when Jack came hurrying down through an adverse tide of black-cowled women, men of half a dozen nations, some scented, and goats. ‘Well done,’ he said, giving the boy a shilling. ‘I shall be just in time. Bonden, you may cut along: I shall want my gig at six in the morning.’ He took his fiddle and hurried down the long stone passage that pierced the building from front to back, leading to the little garden house where Laura Fielding lived; but when he reached the door that opened on to this inner court he found that his haste had been quite unnecessary – there was no answer to his knock. He waited a decent interval, then pushed the door; and as it opened he caught a great heady waft from her lemon-tree. It was an enormous tree, certainly as old as Valletta, if not older, and it had some flowers all the year round. Jack sat on the low surrounding wall, rather like a well-head, and gasped for a while; the bed had had its enormous quarterly watering that very day, and the damp earth gave out a grateful freshness.