'Oh, there's a way off,' Camilla muttered cryptically to herself as the stablehand left in search of his brother. She made an angry noise as she considered the unconscious Kara. 'You'd die now, just to raise the stakes, wouldn't you!' Camilla busied herself making some broth, and, soaking it in bread, began forcing it down Kara's throat and massaging her throat to make her swallow. 'That's it. You eat now, and stay alive, while that pair of louts track down your brother. Then we will see what we will see.'
As the ominous-looking steamship plowed through the waters towards Isla Fiero as inexorably as Fate itself, the middle-aged Greek man dressed in white took one last pull on the stub of his Cuban cigar, and with one gold ringed and braceleted hand, flicked it into the sea. He watched as a sea-plane circled, then came about and landed. At the same moment the ship's engines were cut. It coasted to a point near to the plane before stopping and weighing anchor. A launch was lowered, went to the plane and returned minutes later. Presently, a tall, nervous, skinny man with big teeth, clutching his hat in both hands, was brought aboard.
'You're sure,' the Greek man said. 'My daughter is on this . . . what do you call it? Isla Fiero? What does that mean? Island of Fire?'
'I- it means Savage Island, Señor Savalas. A- and the other Señor Savalas is there too, looking for her-'
The short Greek war profiteer started at this. 'What other Savalas? What is his name?'
'I never heard a name!' the nervous man said. 'All I know is what I heard, and I heard that he's her brother, and that he's tall, with a scar on his face, right here, and I was told that he was trying to kill her-'
The middle-aged man sighed, gripped the handrail, and stared out to sea, distractedly.
'Bastards!' he exploded suddenly. 'Both of them, bastards!' He spat into the sea, as though expectorating something filthy. 'I will see the both them dead! Dragged in the road until they are broken and skinned alive! Bastards! I should have smashed their brains out at birth! You!' he turned his attentions now on the nervous man, who had gone very pale. 'With this aeroplane of yours . . . you can get my men and I on to the island, unseen?'
'There is a lake,' the nervous man said, 'near the Casa where the Castellans live-'
'Who are these Castellans?' the arms merchant spat. 'Does she live with them?'