Виктория Холт - The Captive

He replied: “We’ll talk later. For the time … this is enough.”

“Where is he taking us?”

“We’ll see. He is giving us a chance.”

We did not speak further. We just clasped hands tightly as though we feared we might be separated.

It was not yet dark and through the carriage window I recognized some of the landmarks I had noticed on my journey to the Pasha’s domain. I glimpsed the Castle of the Seven Towers, the mosques, the tumbledown wooden houses.

I felt a great relief when we crossed the bridge which I knew separated the Turkish from the Christian part of the city. We were then on the north side of the Golden Horn.

We went on for some little while before the carriage stopped abruptly and the Chief Eunuch descended from the driver’s seat. He signed for us to get out. He lifted his hand in a gesture which somehow signified that this was the end of his obligation.

“We don’t know how to thank you,” said Simon in French.

He nodded.

“Embassy over there. Tall building. You see.”

“Yes, but…”

“Go … go now. They may look for you.”

Almost abruptly he climbed up into the driver’s seat.

“Good luck,” he cried; and the carriage started back.

Simon and I were alone in Constantinople.

I felt a great elation. We were free . both of us. We only had to walk into the Embassy and tell our story and we should be kept in safety, our families informed of our whereabouts and then we should be sent home.

I turned to Simon.

“Can you … believe it!” I cried.

“It’s hard to. I’ll take you to the Embassy. You’ll have to explain that you have escaped from a harem.”

“It seems so incredible.”

“They will believe you. They will know what goes on … particularly in the Turkish section.”

“Let’s go, Simon. Let’s tell them. Soon … we’ll be on our way home.”

He stood still and looked at me steadily.

“I can’t go to the Embassy.”

“What… ?”

“Have you forgotten that I am escaping from English justice? They would send me back to . you can guess what. “

I stared at him in dismay.

“Do you mean you are going to stay here?”

“Why not? For a while, perhaps, till I make plans. It’s as good a place as any for a fugitive from justice. But I think I shall try to make my way to Australia. I’ve had experience on a ship. I think that is the most likely place.”

“Simon. I can’t go without you.”

“Of course you can. You’ll be sensible … when you have thought about it.”

“Oh no …”

“Rosetta, I am going to take you to the Embassy right away. You’ll go in. You’ll explain. They’ll do everything possible to help you.

They’ll get you home . soon. We were brought here to the Embassy for that purpose. “

“For both of us,” I said.

“Well, how were they to know that I could not take advantage of it?

But you can. And you will be foolish beyond all reason not to . and without delay. In fact, I shall insist that you do. “

“I could stay here with you. We’d find a way …”

“Listen, Rosetta. We’ve had great good luck … the greatest in the world. You can’t turn your back on this chance now. It would be utter folly. We found valuable friends. Nicole for you, the Chief Eunuch for me. You were of service to her and I was lucky enough to strike up a friendship with him. Our cases were similar. It gave us something in common. He had been taken … the same as I was. We could talk in his language. When he knew that you and I were together, it seemed significant. He with the French girl … you with me. It gave us a fellow feeling. Don’t you see, it’s stupendous good fortune. We might have spent our lives in that place. You a slave girl at the Pasha’s command … me guarding the harem with the eunuchs … perhaps becoming one of them. It could have been like that, Rosetta. And we have escaped. Let us thank our guardian angels for taking such care of us. Now we have to make sure that it was not done for us in vain.”

“I know. I know. But I can’t go without you, Simon.”

He looked about us. We were close to a church, which, on closer inspection, proved to be an English one.

There was a tablet on the wall. Simon drew me to it and we read that the church had been built as a dedication to those men who had fallen in the Crimean War.

“Let’s go in,” said Simon.

“There we can think and perhaps talk.”

It was quiet in the church. Fortunately there was no one there. I should have looked incongruous in my Turkish garb. We sat in a pew near the door, ready to escape if necessary.

“Now,” said Simon, ‘we have to be sensible. “

“You keep saying that, but…”

“It is so necessary to be.”

“You can’t ask me to leave you, Simon.”

“I shan’t forget you said that.”

“It has been so long. I have wondered and wondered what was happening to you … and now that we are at last together…”

“I know,” he said. There were a few moments of silence, then he went on: “The Chief Eunuch kept me informed. I knew the French girl had saved you from the Pasha by giving you a dose of a certain medicine.

He supplied the medicine for her to give to you. “

“He told you that!”

“Yes. I had spoken of you. I had told him of our shipwreck … how we had been together that time on the island. He said it reminded him of his own experience. And … the French girl had been taken into the harem. I think because it was so similar and there was a chance for us, he wanted us to have it. He used to say, ” It will be the same story for you unless you get out of here. ” There seemed no hope.

Then this chance came. What fantastic good fortune we have had, Rosetta. “

“I can’t believe that we’re here together now. It seems from the start we have been looked after. First the ship … then the island, and now this.”

“We have had our opportunities and taken them. And now we must not turn away from them when they are offered to us.”

“I cannot leave you here.”

“Remember it was my original plan to get away from England. What would happen if I returned now?”

“You cannot stay here. They may look for you. What if they found you?

The penalty for escaping is. “

“They won’t find me.”

“We could prove you were innocent. Together we could do it.”

“No. It is not the time.”

“Will it ever be?”

“Perhaps not. But if I went back with you I should be arrested at once. I should be in the same position that I was in before I got out.”

“Perhaps you should never have gone.”

“Just think: if I hadn’t we should never have met. We should never have been on that island together. Looking back, it seems like a sort of paradise to me.”

“An uncomfortable paradise. Do you forget how hungry we were … how we longed for the sight of a ship?”

“And then we found we were in the hands of corsairs. No, I am not likely to forget.”

“The island was no paradise.”

“But we were together.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Together, and that is how we should stay.”

He shook his head.

“This is your chance, Rosetta. You have to take it.

I am going to make you take it. “

“But I want so much to stay with you, Simon. More than anything I want that.”

“And I want you to be safe. It will be so easy for you.”

“No, it will be the hardest thing I ever did.”

“You are letting your emotions of the moment get the better of your good sense. Tomorrow you would regret it. There will be a bed for you at the Embassy. There will be sympathetic listening to your story and all the help necessary to get you comfortably home.”