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Since Madame Ypsilante fell into Konrad Karl's arms the Queen had turned her back on the landing slip and gazed steadily out to sea. Only when the sound of their footsteps made her sure that her guests were going into the palace did she venture to look round cautiously. "It's all right," said Gorman. "You can come on shore." He held out his hand to her.
He bitterly cursed the mistake he had made in not dispatching one at least of the British ships round to assist the Ypsilante in blockading the entrance; but he checked himself, as it occurred to him that, had he done so, Ada might have been placed in still greater peril, as Zappa might still have attempted to carry her off, and, on finding himself completely entrapped, without a hope of escape, might have blown up the Sea Hawk, with all on board her, and he remembered the principle which had often sustained him through adversity and sorrow, though he could not accuse himself of having, through his own conduct, brought on the misfortune, or the cause of grief, that Heaven ordains everything for the best, and that it is impious to repine at its decrees.
I insist: Tell me his name and I will at once kill him. I shall pluck out his heart and dogs shall eat it." Gorman did not care whether Goldsturmer's heart was eaten by dogs or not. He did want to understand how it came that the astute Jew expected to have the pearls offered to him. It was plain that Madame Ypsilante did not want to sell them and that she had not suggested the sale.
He was once more the irrepressible, cheery, street arab among kings, who had swindled the British public with his Vino Regalis, who defied all conventional decencies in his relations with Madame Ypsilante, who had failed to pay his bills in London and tried to outwit the Emperor over the sale of Salissa. "Gorman," he said, "my friend Gorman. Once more we are alive. Many things happen.
The Queen, having no one else to treat as a confidant, often talked to him about Phillips. The King was expansive about Madame Ypsilante. One evening he became very sentimental, almost lachrymose. He and Gorman were sitting together near the flagstaff, smoking and looking out towards the harbour where the Megalian navy still lay at anchor. "Ah," said the King, "my poor Corinne! She will languish.
He seemed to be thinking of his pearls draped round the neck of an Empress, a Czarina or some other lady of very high estate who would wear them worthily. "Only a queen," he murmured, "should wear those pearls." "Madame Ypsilante is the next best thing to a queen," said Gorman. A faint smile flickered across Goldsturmer's mouth.
He was a broad-minded man with no prejudice against ladies like Madame Ypsilante. He had a knowledge of the by-ways of finance which made him very useful to the king; for Konrad Karl, though he lived in Beaufort's Hotel, was by no means a rich man. The Crown revenues of Megalia, never very large, were seized by the Republic at the time of the revolution, and the king had no private fortune.
After the Ione had left Cephalonia, she commenced her intricate passage among the innumerable isles and islets of the Grecian Archipelago, towards Lissa, in the neighbourhood of which his new friend Teodoro Vassilato, the captain of the Ypsilante, had appointed a rendezvous with Captain Fleetwood.
Once more Gorman lamented the fact that women were mixed up in a business affair. "Damn Madame Ypsilante," he said. Then, finding some relief for his feelings in expressing them aloud: "Damn that woman's tongue." Gorman was puzzled and therefore anxious. His commission on the sale of Salissa his rake-off, as Donovan called it was large, a sum which Gorman did not want to lose.
Give back the money. Go from Paris. Be starved. Have no pearls, no joy. But you will save us. Say you will save us." Gorman's position was an exceedingly difficult one. Madame Ypsilante had firm hold on his hand. She was kissing it at the moment. He was not at all sure that she would not bite it if he refused her request. "I'll think the whole thing over," he said.
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