“Will you please take me – there?” Cordelia asked him.
The Maltese nodded and she rose to her feet.
There was a cupboard in the hall that held coats and capes. She opened the door and took out the first cape she could find.
It covered her gown and she pulled the hood over her head.
Vella closed the front door behind them and they set off in the pale light of dawn.
The streets in the neighbourhood of the Manduca house were empty. But, as they drew nearer to the more populous part of the town, there were already small crowds gathered at the street corners.
“Yesterday, Mistress,” Vella said, “the Churches were crowded to the doors with terrified people praying for a miracle.”
“I can understand – their fears,” Cordelia murmured.
“The corridors and Courts of the Magisterial Palace were a surging mass of Knights,” Vella went on, “and everywhere there was uproar and conflicting rumours.”
“I understand that the French Knights refused to fight.”
“I think that was true, Mistress. But a number of Maltese soldiers lost their lives, although I was told that some threw down their arms and ran away.”
Cordelia gave a little gasp but said nothing. All she could think of was that David was dead.
It was not a long walk to the Church of St. John, but she felt as if it took hours.
At last she saw the two bell towers and they passed through the central door into the nave.
There was the sweet scent of incense and the flicker of the sanctuary lights. Then, as she walked over the colourful tablets of jewelled mosaic beneath which the Knights lay buried, she saw the body of a man lying in the Chancel.
She knew that it was David before she reached him.
Vella had laid him down with his face towards the high altar and his two hands clasped over his sword, which lay upon his breast.
The pale morning light coming through the stained glass windows seemed to touch David’s fair hair with a finger of gold as if it haloed his head.
Cordelia went down on her knees.
It seemed almost unbelievable that David should be dead. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep.
Then she saw that his face held an expression of almost radiant happiness.
There was a smile on his lips and she knew that if she could have seen his eyes they would have held that visionary light which came into his face whenever he spoke of his faith.
For a long time she gazed at him.
Then, as instinctively the beautiful words of the Prayer for the Dead came to her lips, Cordelia knew that David was not dead but alive.
He had joined the Knights whose presence she had felt when she first came to the Church and now he was in their company with his faith, which he had lived by and for which he had died, untarnished as theirs had been.
David had found his dream and he had not been disappointed.
Cordelia reached out her hand and touched his, finding it strange that it should be cold while he still seemed so alive.
Then, as she raised her face to the cross on the Altar, she recognised that there was no death, only life, and David was still living out his vows.
Vella touched her shoulder.
“We must go, Mistress,” he said. “It’s getting late and it may not be safe for you to be in the streets.”
Cordelia rose to her feet and took one last look at her brother. Then she moved away, leaving him among the effigies of other Knights who had fought for Christ and St. John.
They moved through the streets quickly.
Occasionally Cordelia had a glimpse of bands of French soldiers in the distance, but Vella hurried her down side alleys and up steep narrow steps, so that they would not be seen.
They were within sight of the Count’s house when Cordelia stopped and faced the Maltese beside her.
“Vella,” she asserted insistently, “we must warn Captain Stanton.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“He is not on the island, Mistress.”
“I am aware of that, Cordelia replied. “He left yesterday morning taking his ship to intercept a pirate vessel carrying a cargo to Tunis. He did not expect to be away for long, but if he returns and the French are still here, they will confiscate the ship even if they do not fire at it!”
Vella listened intently and then he said,
“It might be possible, Mistress, to intercept the Captain. I could find out in the Harbour exactly where he has gone.”
“And you could obtain a boat so that it would be possible to warn him what has occurred in Malta?”
Vella thought for a moment and then said,
“It will cost money, Mistress.”
'That is no problem,” Cordelia replied. “I have quite a large sum in cash, I also have some jewellery.”
As Vella did not speak, she added with a note of resolution in her voice,
“You must get the best boat you can, Vella, because I intend to go with you!”
“You, Mistress? But that would be dangerous.”
“That does not trouble me,” Cordelia said quickly. “What is important is for us to warn Captain Stanton. Whatever happens he must not return to Malta until the French have left – and if they take over the island it will still be perilous.”
Vella nodded as if he understood.
Cordelia was thinking quickly.
“I will go back to the house now. It is unlikely that anyone will be awake. I will give you what money I have and my jewellery to sell. When you have done that and found out all you can in the Harbour regarding Captain Stanton’s movements, come and tell me – what arrangements you have made.”
“I will do that, Mistress.”
There was a note in Vella’s quiet voice and the way he spoke that told Cordelia she could trust him.
*
It was after midnight when Cordelia finally left the Count’s house and everyone, she was sure, was fast asleep after the agitations and anxieties of the day.
The Count himself was hoarse with tiredness, as he told his wife, from arguing in the Magisterial Palace and attempting to put the Maltese point of view to the Grand Master.
Von Hompesch had done nothing but dither, being swayed first by this argument, then by that, and finding it impossible to make up his mind what to do one way or another.
Finally he did nothing and reports that the Knights had surrendered the island to the French gained conviction with every passing hour.
There were rumours of desertion and disobedience mixed with confusion, stories of Knights being killed or dangerously wounded and of fights in which those in the crowd were stabbed or bludgeoned.
Finally white flags were raised over St. Elmo and Fort Ricasoli and von Hompesch prepared to receive Napoleon’s Emissaries in the Council Chamber.
Without the waste of many words a twenty-four hour truce was signed on condition that the Grand Master should send his Plenipotentiaries to negotiate the surrender of the island.
“The representatives included four Maltese,” the Count said in answer to a question from his wife, “and they have already left on the three-mile journey to L’Orient by launch.”
Having reported what he knew to date, the Count had retired to bed and Cordelia told them that she intended to do the same thing.
The Countess had been very sympathetic and understanding about David’s death, but Cordelia found it difficult to speak about it.
She was determined not to yield to her natural impulse to break down in a passion of weeping, until she was sure that she had saved Mark.
She felt frantically that she could not lose the man she loved as well as her beloved brother.
It was strange, she used to think afterwards, that she had trusted Vella so implicitly that she never for one moment questioned that he would do as she asked of him.
She had given him all her money and all her jewellery, some of which was worth a considerable amount. It included a pearl
necklace that had belonged to her mother, two diamond brooches and a diamond bracelet that she had inherited.
Even allowing for the fact that the traders would be upset by the confusion caused by the arrival of the French, there was no reason to think that they would not appreciate the value of the fine diamonds.
Vella had promised to come to her as soon after midnight as was possible and long before the hour struck in a dozen Church towers Cordelia crept downstairs.
She had put on her riding boots and was wearing the dark cloak that she had borrowed to go to the Church of St. John earlier in the day.
Vella’s knock on the door was very faint.
She opened it immediately and neither of them spoke for fear of being overheard. Vella closed the door behind them and they hurried away from the vicinity of the house.
Cordelia had already written a long letter of explanation to the Countess telling her that she had gone to find Mark, but not saying where he had gone for fear the letter might fall into French hands and they would be intercepted.
In the shadows at the end of the street Vella had waiting two ponies for her. They were ‘Barbs’, which came from the Barbary Coast and were always ridden by the Maltese.
They were held by a small ragged boy who accepted a few coins for his trouble and at once disappeared.
Cordelia arid Vella set off at a sharp pace, finding it easy to see the way by the light of the moon in the starlit sky.
“You have a boat?” Cordelia asked after they had gone a short distance.
“My cousin has a caïque, Mistress, in the South of the island. He is anxious that we should reach him with all possible speed as he wishes to set out to sea before daylight.”
Cordelia knew at once that this was in order to avoid the French ships.
At the same time as the majority of them were anchored in the vicinity of Valetta, the South coast of the island might, she reasoned, be almost clear of enemy vessels.
They were soon well away from the City and now they were passing through vineyards and olive groves.
The Knights, Cordelia had heard from the Count, had introduced many new industries during their reign in Malta, but agriculture employed more men and women than any other.
They skirted fields growing grain and cotton and avoided the barren limestone hills.
They rode through small villages where there were huge herds of goats and Cordelia could not help thinking that a large number of them, together with pigs and sheep, would be slaughtered to victual the French ships.
Everywhere peasants and thrifty farmers suffered in time of war, she thought bitterly, and Napoleon's Armies wherever they fought had always lived off the land.
They rode fast, Vella leading the way so that all Cordelia had to do was to follow him.
She was glad that she was a proficient horsewoman and that it did not tire her unduly to be in the saddle for a long time.
Finally, when the stars were fading and the moon was almost indiscernible in the sky, she saw the sea ahead.
Avoiding the fortifications they moved along narrow twisting paths until finally they reached the shore.
The Maltese had always burrowed into the limestone of their island and, after they had moved a little way along a gravelly beach, Cordelia could see the outline of the bow of a boat half-hidden in a roughly hewn cave.
Men came to greet them and she was introduced to Vella's cousin, a short stocky-looking man like himself, dressed as a fisherman but speaking in a more cultured manner than his appearance would suggest.
The cousins talked together for some minutes and there was an exchange of money. Then Vella made a gesture to Cordelia that she should go aboard as a boy appeared from nowhere to take their horses.
Carrying a little bundle under her arm that comprised all the possessions Cordelia had brought with her, she was helped into a boat that was rocking gently on the waves.
She saw at once that it was larger than she had expected and realised that it was a caïque of the type used along the shores of the Mediterranean by the natives of every country.
She counted a crew of seven, which, with herself and Vella as passengers, made a complement of nine.
Then speaking in low voices the seamen took the boat into the open sea, having muffled the long oars to deaden their sound.
As Cordelia felt the waves slap against the wooden sides and as the crew started to raise the big sail, she felt with a little throb of excitement that she had succeeded.
She could hardly believe it possible that her impulsive idea of saving Mark and of warning him that the French were in Malta could be an actuality.
When she had pretended to go to bed in the Count’s house, she had felt that it was a hundred to one chance against her being able to get away from the island.
Vella might not be able to sell the jewellery, his cousin might refuse to hire the boat and they might be intercepted before they reached the coast.
There were dozens of things that might have happened to prevent her getting away.
And yet unbelievably everything had gone smoothly.
Now the only difficulty was to find Mark and, as far as they themselves were concerned, to avoid the French.
The sea was choppy and Cordelia was thankful that she never yet in her life had been seasick. She had been in some very rough storms, but she had found them invigorating and had never succumbed as most women did.
Vella came to her side.
“It’s a good boat, Mistress,” he said as if he must justify the expense, “and my cousin is a very fine navigator.”
“You have found out – where Captain Stanton is likely to be?” Cordelia asked.
“I saw the pilot of the St. Maria who had brought the cargo captured from the pirates into the Grand Harbour.”
“What will happen to the cargo now?” Cordelia asked, thinking as she spoke that it was a somewhat senseless question.
“The French are very avaricious, Mistress,” Vella said quietly.
Cordelia thought of all the wonderful treasures that Valetta contained.
‘If the French take possession of Malta, what will become of the Knights’ property?’ she asked herself. ‘And those fabulous pictures and furniture, tapestries and historic relics?’
Then she thought reassuringly that the Grand Master would doubtless make some provision for them in the terms of surrender.
But the stories she had heard of Bonaparte’s ruthlessness and the way he had extorted the last penny from those whom he conquered were not very encouraging.
The caïque was heading North-West, but once or twice in the darkness she saw the grey outlines of great ships and their masts were silhouetted against the sky.
But if they noticed the caïque, the French lookouts must have thought it was only a fishing boat and they passed unchallenged.
Slowly the sable of the night faded and an hour later there was the first pale gold finger of the dawn in the east.
Cordelia looked back.
The island of Malta was just a purple smudge on the horizon.
‘It belongs to yesterday,’ she thought. ‘It’s the past! Ahead lies tomorrow.’
Chapter Six
Cordelia ate the food that Vella offered her. It was only coarse almost black bread and goat’s milk cheese which all the Maltese housewives made.
She was touched to find that he had also brought fruit, obviously for her only, as she noticed that none of the seamen on board ate it.
There was red Maltese wine to drink, which was sweet and not very strong.
The food took away the feeling of emptiness that she had felt since she awoke. She had been too agitated to eat any dinner last night and after David’s death her luncheon had gone untouched.
It was Vella who, once dawn had come, persuaded her to lie down in the small cabin below and try to sleep.
There she found a hard bunk covered with blankets that were old and faded. Yet the place was clean and Cordelia, having taken off her riding boo
ts and her cloak, made herself comfortable.
She slept although she was certain that she would be too anxious to do so.
“We will keep watch for the St. Jude, Mistress,” Vella said, “and tell you the moment she is sighted.”
Because she did in fact feel very tired after the long night, Cordelia did as he suggested and when she awoke the sun was high in the Heavens and it was already afternoon.
It was also very hot and Cordelia was glad when she came on deck that it was possible to find shade under the big sail.
The wind was still behind them and they were therefore moving swiftly, but as the afternoon progressed she began to feel worried that they might have missed Mark and that he had returned to Malta by the route to the West of Gozo.
The sea seemed limitless and where the horizon met the sky there was only a blending of colour without a mast in sight.
Cordelia began to wonder how soon it would be if they did not find Mark before she was forced to tell the caïque to turn back towards Malta.
The seamen in charge of the boat smoked when they were not attending to the sails and rigging and frequently spat into the sea.
They were all dark-skinned Maltese, their faces lined and weather-beaten, their eyes bright and alert.
She was well aware that now the French were in possession of Malta it might be extremely unpleasant for her being English.
It was different for the Countess who was married to a Maltese, but to be an enemy of France and in the power of Bonaparte at this moment was something too unpleasant to contemplate.
Vella was standing in the bow of the boat looking out to sea.
Suddenly he gave a shout.
“What is it?” Cordelia asked quickly.
“A mast! I can see a mast on the starboard bow!”
The man at the tiller of the caïque altered course to starboard and Cordelia felt that she was unable to breathe before Vella gave another shout that seemed to be echoed in the slap of the sails.
“I can see the Cross of the Order!” he cried. “’Tis the St. Jude!”
Cordelia clasped her hands together.
Now that Mark was sighted she realised how afraid she had been that she would not find him and that she had done the wrong thing in not waiting for his return.
The Dream and the Glory Page 11