beyond recognition, except by very skilful eyes indeed. The dockyard had been strictly closed against all visitors while the work was in progress, and the men had been lodged within its walls, so that no hint of what was going on might leak out. Hippocles had paid a daily visit to his home, and did not conceal from his daughter that he was busy in carrying out her suggestions. So frank, indeed, was he, and so cheerful in manner, that the girl was fairly thrown off her guard. Not a suspicion crossed her mind, that her father was meditating a desperate enterprise in which the chances were certainly rather against his life than otherwise, nor did she realize the extraordinary haste with which the work was being pressed on, though she was generally aware that a good deal of expedition was being used. Hence she was taken by surprise, when on the eighth day instead of her father’s usual visit, timed so that he might share her noon-day meal, a written message was delivered to her, to the effect that her father was suddenly called away from Athens on business of importance, and that he could not be certain of the day of his return. The surprise almost overwhelmed her, chiefly because she felt that this unusual hurry on the part of her father was significant of the perilous nature of the enterprise. It was only her unusual fortitude, backed by the feeling that she herself must not deviate from doing her duty, that enabled her to bear up at all.

[Pg 42]

Meanwhile Hippocles was on his way to the scene of action. The Skylark crossed the Ægean without meeting with any misadventure. She was overhauled, indeed, when[Pg 43] about half her journey was accomplished by an Athenian cruiser, and her owner had the satisfaction of finding that so far his disguise was successful. The Athenian captain was an acquaintance of his own (indeed there were few prominent people in the city to whom he was not known) and had actually been on board the Skylark more than once; but he did not recognize either Hippocles or his vessel. In fact he was about to carry her off as a prize when Hippocles, still without discovering himself, produced the pass with which he had been provided under the seal of the Athenian authorities. His arrival at Mitylene was happily timed in more ways than one. By a stroke of that good fortune which is proverbially said to help the bold it so happened that there was a violent north-east wind blowing. This was a wind from which the harbor of Mitylene afforded little or no shelter. In fact, when it was blowing, most sailors preferred to be out on the open sea. Hippocles accordingly found everything in commotion. The blockading ships, which moored as they were 

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