Phroso: A Romance
by Anthony Hope · English · Gutenberg #41822 · 543,048 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Phroso: A Romance
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Phroso: A Romance
Author: Anthony Hope
Release date: January 11, 2013 [eBook #41822]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41822
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHROSO: A ROMANCE ***
PHROSO
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
MR WITT’S WIDOW
SPORT ROYAL
A CHANGE OF AIR
HALF A HERO
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA
FATHER STAFFORD
THE GOD IN THE CAR
COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP
THE HEART OF THE PRINCESS OSRA
[Illustration: A SHOT WHISTLED BY ME. Page 120.]
PHROSO
A ROMANCE
BY
ANTHONY HOPE
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1897
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. A LONG THING ENDING IN ‘POULOS,’ 1
II. A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY, 20
III. THE FEVER OF NEOPALIA, 41
IV. A RAID AND A RAIDER, 60
V. THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL, 79
VI. THE POEM OF ONE-EYED ALEXANDER, 98
VII. THE SECRET OF THE STEFANOPOULOI, 118
VIII. A KNIFE AT A ROPE, 137
IX. HATS OFF TO ST TRYPHON! 155
X. THE JUSTICE OF THE ISLAND, 177
XI. THE LAST CARD, 197
XII. LAW AND ORDER, 215
XIII. THE SMILES OF MOURAKI PASHA, 235
XIV. A STROKE IN THE GAME, 257
XV. A STRANGE ESCAPE, 277
XVI. AN UNFINISHED LETTER, 298
XVII. IN THE JAWS OF THE TRAP, 319
XVIII. THE UNKNOWN FRIEND, 340
XIX. THE ARMENIAN DOG! 357
XX. A PUBLIC PROMISE, 378
XXI. A WORD OF VARIOUS MEANINGS, 398
XXII. ONE MORE RUN, 419
XXIII. THE ISLAND IN A CALM, 440
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
A SHOT WHISTLED BY ME, _Frontispiece_
PAGE
‘WHO STABBED HIM?’ 44
WE TOOK SPIRO’S BODY AND FLUNG IT DOWN, 135
‘WHAT IS HIS LIFE TO YOU, LADY?’ 196
‘A THOUSAND PARDONS, MY LORD!’ 270
‘WE ARE READY FOR--ANYTHING--NOW,’ 302
‘AT LAST, MY GOD, AT LAST!’ 356
BACK TO NEOPALIA, 450
PHROSO
CHAPTER I
A LONG THING ENDING IN POULOS
‘Quot homines tot sententiæ;’ so many men, so many fancies. My fancy
was for an island. Perhaps boyhood’s glamour hung yet round sea-girt
rocks, and ‘faery lands forlorn,’ still beckoned me; perhaps I felt
that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss
mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buy
company, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of
the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom’s death had endowed
me. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom’s
death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled
even by the prospect of the island. My friends understood this wish
for an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poor
Tom. Beatrice was most emphatic in declaring that ‘a horrid little
island’ had no charms for her, and that she would never set foot in
it. This declaration was rather annoying, because I had imagined
myself, spending my honeymoon with Beatrice on the island; but life is
not all honeymoon, and I decided to have the island none the less.
Besides I was not to be married for a year. Mrs Kennett Hipgrave had
insisted on this delay in order that we might be sure that we knew our
own hearts. And as I may say without unfairness that Mrs Hipgrave was
to a considerable degree responsible for the engagement--she asserted
the fact herself with much pride--I thought that she had a right to
some voice in the date of the marriage. Moreover the postponement just
gave me the time to go over and settle affairs in the island.
For I had bought it. It cost me seven thousand five hundred and fifty
pounds, rather a fancy price but I could not haggle with the old
lord--half to be paid to the lord’s bankers in London, and the second
half to him in Neopalia, when he delivered possession to me. The
Turkish Government had sanctioned the sale, and I had agreed to pay a
hundred pounds yearly as tribute. This sum I was entitled, in my turn,
to levy on the inhabitants.
‘In fact, my dear lord,’ said old Mason to me when I called on him in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, ‘the whole affair is settled. I congratulate you
on having got just what was your whim. You are over a hundred miles
from the nearest land--Rhodes, you see.’ (He laid a map before me.)
‘You are off the steamship tracks; the Austrian Lloyds to Alexandria
leave you far to the northeast. You are equally remote from any
submarine cable; here on the southwest, from Alexandria to Candia, is
the nearest. You will have to fetch your letters.’
‘I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing,’ said I indignantly.
‘Then you’ll only get them once in three months. Neopalia is extremely
rugged and picturesque. It is nine miles long and five broad. It grows
cotton, wine, oil and a little corn. The people are quite
unsophisticated, but very good-hearted.’
‘And,’ said I, ‘there are only three hundred and seventy of them, all
told. I really think I shall do very well there.’
‘I’ve no doubt you will. By the way, treat the old gentleman kindly.
He’s terribly cut up at having to sell. “My dear island,” he writes,
“is second to my dead son’s honour, and to nothing else.” His son, you
know, Lord Wheatley, was a bad lot, a very bad lot indeed.’
‘He left a heap of unpaid debts, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, gambling debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris and
London with his cousin Constantine--by no means an improving
companion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to pay the debts,
you know.’
‘Poor old chap,’ said I. I sympathised with him in the loss of his
island.
‘Here’s the house, you see,’ said Mason, turning to the map and
dismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. ‘About the middle
of the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I’m afraid it’s a
tumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without looking
much better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception of
the future Lady Wheatley would cost--’
‘The future Lady Wheatley says she won’t go there on any account,’ I
interrupted.
‘But, my very dear lord,’ cried he, aghast, ‘if she won’t--’
‘She won’t, and there’s an end of it, Mr Mason. Well, good day. I’m to
have possession in a month?’
‘In a month to the very day--on the 7th of May.’
‘All right; I shall be there to take it.’
Escaping from the legal quarter, I made my way to my sister’s house in
Cavendish Square. She had a party, and I was bound to go by brotherly
duty. As luck would have it, however, I was rewarded for my virtue
(and if that’s not luck in this huddle-muddle world I don’t know what
is); the Turkish Ambassador dropped in, and presently James came and
took me up to him. My brother-in-law, James Cardew, is always anxious
that I should know the right people. The Pasha received me with great
kindness.
‘You are the purchaser of Neopalia, aren’t you?’ he asked, after a
little conversation. ‘The matter came before me officially.’
‘I’m much obliged,’ said I, ‘for your ready consent to the transfer.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to us. In fact our tribute, such as it is, will be
safer. Well, I’m sure I hope you’ll settle in comfortably.’
‘Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you see--been
there a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent two
years hunting antiquities in the Morea and some of the islands.’
The Pasha stroked his beard, as he observed in a calm tone:
‘The last time a Stefanopoulos tried to sell Neopalia, the people
killed him, and turned the purchaser--he was a Frenchman, a Baron
d’Ezonville--adrift in an open boat, with nothing on but his shirt’.
‘Good heavens! Was that recently?’
‘No; two hundred years ago. But it’s a conservative part of the world,
you know.’ And his Excellency smiled.
‘They were described to me as good-hearted folk,’ said I;
‘unsophisticated, of course, but good-hearted.’
‘They think that the island is theirs, you see,’ he explained, ‘and
that the lord has no business to sell it. They may be good-hearted,
Lord Wheatley, but they are tenacious of their rights.’
‘But they can’t have any rights,’ I expostulated.
‘None at all,’ he assented. ‘But a man is never so tenacious of his
rights as when he hasn’t any. However, _autres temps autres mœurs_;
I don’t suppose you’ll have any trouble of that kind. Certainly I hope
not, my dear lord.’
‘Surely your Government will see to that?’ I suggested.
His Excellency looked at me; then, although by nature a grave man, he
gave a low humorous chuckle and regarded me with visible amusement.
‘Oh, of course, you can rely on that, Lord Wheatley,’ said he.
‘That is a diplomatic assurance, your Excellency?’ I ventured to
suggest, with a smile.
‘It is unofficial,’ said he, ‘but as binding as if it were official.
Our Governor in that district of the empire is a very active man--yes,
a decidedly active man.’
The only result of this conversation was that when I was buying my
sporting guns in St James’s Street the next day I purchased a couple
of pairs of revolvers at the same time. It is well to be on the safe
side, and, although I attached little importance to the by-gone
outrage of which the Ambassador spoke, I did not suppose that the
police service would be very efficient. In fact I thought it prudent
to be ready for any trouble that the old-world notions of the
Neopalians might occasion. But in my heart I meant to be very popular
with them. For I cherished the generous design of paying the whole
tribute out of my own pocket, and of disestablishing in Neopalia what
seems to be the only institution in no danger of such treatment
here--the tax-gatherer. If they understood that intention of mine,
they would hardly be so short short-sighted as to set me adrift in my
shirt like a second Baron d’Ezonville, or so unjust as to kill poor
old Stefanopoulos as they had killed his ancestor. Besides, as I
comforted myself by repeating, they were a good-hearted race;
unsophisticated, of course, but thoroughly good-hearted.
My cousin, young Denny Swinton, was to dine with me that evening at
the Optimum. Denny (a familiar form of Dennis) was the only member of
the family who sympathised thoroughly with me about Neopalia. He was
wild with interest in the island, and I looked forward to telling him
all I had heard about it. I knew he would listen, for he was to go
with me and help me to take possession. The boy had almost wept on my
neck when I asked him to come; he had just left Woolwich, and was not
to join his battalion for six months; he was thus, as he put it, ‘at a
loose end,’ and succeeded in persuading his parents that he ought to
learn modern Greek. General Swinton was rather cold about the project;
he said that Denny had spent ten years on ancient Greek, and knew
nothing about it, and probably would not learn much of the newer sort
in three months; but his wife thought it would be a nice trip for
Denny. Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but if
Mrs Swinton had known--however, if it comes to that, I might just as
well exclaim, ‘If I had known myself!’
Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, and
was drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. He
wanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I sat
down and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling with
equal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first _entrée_
and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for some
reason, declared was ‘a lark’), when two people came in and sat down
at the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs had
been tilted up in token of pre-engagement. The man--for the pair were
man and woman--was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark,
and he had good regular features; he looked also as if he had a bit of
a temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen him
before, and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run up
against him twice in St James’s Street that very day. The lady was
handsome; she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace;
her manner was rather elaborate, and, when she spoke to the waiter, I
detected a pronounced foreign accent. Taken together, they were a
remarkable couple and presented a distinguished appearance. I believe
I am not a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether their
thoughts paid me a similar compliment. For I certainly detected both
of them casting more than one curious glance towards our table; and
when the man whispered once to a waiter, I was sure that I formed the
subject of his question; perhaps he also remembered our two
encounters.
‘I wonder if there’s any chance of a row!’ said Denny in a tone that
sounded wistful. ‘Going to take anybody with you, Charley?’
‘Only Watkins; I must have him; he always knows where everything is;
and I’ve told Hogvardt, my old dragoman, to meet us in Rhodes. He’ll
talk their own language to the beggars, you know.’
‘But he’s a German, isn’t he?’
‘He thinks so,’ I answered. ‘He’s not certain, you know. Anyhow, he
chatters Greek like a parrot. He’s a pretty good man in a row, too.
But there won’t be a row, you know.’
‘I suppose there won’t,’ admitted Denny ruefully.
‘For my own part,’ said I meekly, ‘as I’m going for the sake of quiet,
I hope there won’t.’
In the interest of conversation I had forgotten our neighbours; but
now, a lull occurring in Denny’s questions and surmises, I heard the
lady’s voice. She began a sentence--and began it in Greek! That was a
little unexpected; but it was more strange that her companion cut her
short, saying very peremptorily, ‘Don’t talk Greek: talk Italian.’
This he said in Italian, and I, though no great hand at that language,
understood so much. Now why shouldn’t the lady talk Greek, if Greek
were the language that came naturally to her tongue? It would be as
good a shield against eavesdroppers as most languages; unless indeed
I, who was known to be an amateur of Greece and Greek things, were
looked upon as a possible listener. Recollecting the glances which I
had detected, recollecting again those chance meetings, I ventured on
a covert gaze at the lady. Her handsome face expressed a mixture of
anger, alarm, and entreaty. The man was speaking to her now in low
urgent tones; he raised his hand once, and brought it down on the
table as though to emphasise some declaration--perhaps some
promise--which he was making. She regarded him with half-angry
distrustful eyes. He seemed to repeat his words and she flung at him
in a tone that grew suddenly louder, and in words that I could
translate:
‘Enough! I’ll see to that. I shall come too.’
Her heat stirred no answering fire in him. He dropped his emphatic
manner, shrugged a tolerant ‘As you will,’ with eloquent shoulders,
smiled at her, and, reaching across the table, patted her hand. She
held it up before his eyes, and with the other hand pointed at a ring
on her finger.
‘Yes, yes, my dearest,’ said he, and he was about to say more, when,
glancing round, he caught my gaze retreating in hasty confusion to my
plate. I dared not look up again, but I felt his scowl on me. I
suppose that I deserved punishment for my eavesdropping.
‘And when can we get off, Charley?’ asked Denny in his clear young
voice. My thoughts had wandered from him, and I paused for a moment as
a man does when a question takes him unawares. There was silence at
the next table also. The fancy seemed absurd, but it occurred to me
that there too my answer was being waited for. Well, they could know
if they liked; it was no secret.
‘In a fortnight,’ said I. ‘We’ll travel easily, and get there on the
7th of next month;--that’s the day on which I’m entitled to take over
my kingdom. We shall go to Rhodes. Hogvardt will have got me a little
yacht, and then--good-bye to all this!’ And a great longing for
solitude and a natural life came over me as I looked round on the
gilded cornices, the gilded mirrors, the gilded flower-vases, and the
highly-gilded company of the Optimum.
I was roused from my pleasant dreams by a high vivacious voice, which
I knew very well. Looking up, I saw Miss Hipgrave, her mother, and
young Bennett Hamlyn standing before me. I disliked young Hamlyn, but
he was always very civil to me.
‘Why, how early you two have dined!’ cried Beatrice. ‘You’re at the
savoury, aren’t you? We’ve only just come.’
‘Are you going to dine?’ I asked, rising. ‘Take this table, we’re just
off.’
‘Well, we may as well, mayn’t we?’ said my _fiancée_. ‘Sorry you’re
going, though. Oh, yes, we’re going to dine with Mr Bennett Hamlyn.
That’s what you’re for, isn’t it, Mr Hamlyn? Why, he’s not listening!’
He was not, strange to say, listening, although as a rule he listened
to Beatrice with infinite attention and the most deferential of
smiles. But just now he was engaged in returning a bow which our
neighbour at the next table had bestowed on him. The lady there had
risen already and was making for the door. The man lingered and looked
at Hamlyn, seeming inclined to back up his bow with a few words of
greeting. Hamlyn’s air was not, however, encouraging, and the stranger
contented himself with a nod and a careless ‘How are you?’ and, with
that, followed his companion. Hamlyn turned round, conscious that he
had neglected Beatrice’s remark and full of penitence for his
momentary rudeness.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said he, with an apologetic smile.
‘Oh,’ answered she, ‘I was only saying that men like you were invented
to give dinners; you’re a sort of automatic feeding-machine. You ought
to stand open all day. Really I often miss you at lunch time.’
‘My dear Beatrice!’ said Mrs Kennett Hipgrave, with that peculiar lift
of her brows which meant, ‘How naughty the dear child is--oh, but how
clever!’
‘It’s all right,’ said Hamlyn meekly. ‘I’m awfully happy to give you a
dinner anyhow, Miss Beatrice.’
Now I had nothing to say on this subject, but I thought I would just
make this remark:
‘Miss Hipgrave,’ said I, ‘is very fond of a dinner.’
Beatrice laughed. She understood my little correction.
‘He doesn’t know any better, do you?’ said she pleasantly to Hamlyn.
‘We shall civilise him in time, though; then I believe he’ll be nicer
than you, Charley, I really do. You’re--’
‘I shall be uncivilised by then,’ said I.
‘Oh, that wretched island!’ cried Beatrice. ‘You’re really going?’
‘Most undoubtedly. By the way, Hamlyn, who’s your friend?’
Surely this was an innocent enough question, but little Hamlyn went
red from the edge of his clipped whisker on the right to the edge of
his mathematically equal whisker on the left.
‘Friend!’ said he in an angry tone; ‘he’s not a friend of mine. I only
met him on the Riviera.’
‘That,’ I admitted, ‘does not, happily, in itself constitute a
friendship.’
‘And he won a hundred louis of me in the train between Cannes and
Monte Carlo.’
‘Not bad going that,’ observed Denny in an approving tone.
‘Is he then _un grec_?’ asked Mrs Hipgrave, who loves a scrap of
French.
‘In both senses, I believe,’ answered Hamlyn viciously.
‘And what’s his name?’ said I.
‘Really I don’t recollect,’ said Hamlyn rather petulantly.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters which
had now made their appearance.
‘My dear Beatrice,’ I remonstrated, ‘you’re the most charming creature
in the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn’t matter to
you.’
‘Oh, don’t be tiresome. It doesn’t matter to you either, you know. Do
go away and leave me to dine in peace.’
‘Half a minute!’ said Hamlyn. ‘I thought I’d got it just now, but it’s
gone again. Look here, though, I believe it’s one of those long things
that end in _poulos_.’
‘Oh, it ends in _poulos_, does it?’ said I in a meditative tone.
‘My dear Charley,’ said Beatrice, ‘I shall end in Bedlam if you’re so
very tedious. What in the world I shall do when I’m married, I don’t
know.’
‘My dearest!’ said Mrs Hipgrave, and a stage direction might add,
_Business with brows as before_.
‘_Poulos_,’ I repeated thoughtfully.
‘Could it be Constantinopoulos?’ asked Hamlyn, with a nervous
deference to my Hellenic learning.
‘It might conceivably,’ I hazarded, ‘be Constantine Stefanopoulos.’
‘Then,’ said Hamlyn, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it was. Anyhow, the less
you see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that.’
‘But,’ I objected--and I must admit that I have a habit of assuming
that everybody follows my train of thought--‘it’s such a small place,
that, if he goes, I shall be almost bound to meet him.’
‘What’s such a small place?’ cried Beatrice with emphasised despair.
‘Why, Neopalia, of course,’ said I.
‘Why should anybody, except you, be so insane as to go there?’ she
asked.
‘If he’s the man I think, he comes from there,’ I explained, as I rose
for the last time; for I had been getting up to go and sitting down
again several times.
‘Then he’ll think twice before he goes back,’ pronounced Beatrice
decisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island.
Denny and I walked off together; as we went he observed:
‘I suppose that chap’s got no end of money?’
‘Stefan----?’ I began.
‘No, no. Hang it, you’re as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean Bennett
Hamlyn.’
‘Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe.’
Denny looked sagacious.
‘He’s very free with his dinners,’ he observed.
‘Don’t let’s worry about it,’ I suggested, taking his arm. I was not
worried about it myself. Indeed for the moment my island monopolised
my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic
character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs
Hipgrave said the engagement was based on ‘general suitability.’ Now
it is difficult to be very passionate over that.
‘If you don’t mind, I don’t,’ said Denny reasonably.
‘That’s right. It’s only a little way Beatrice--’ I stopped abruptly.
We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just
perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped
down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the _menu_
card. I turned it over.
‘Hullo, what’s this?’ said I, searching for my eye-glass, which was
(as usual) somewhere in the small of my back.
Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. It
was in Greek, and it ran thus:
‘By way of Rhodes--small yacht there--arrive seventh.’
I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion or
two; one was that my tall neighbour was named Stefanopoulos; another
that he had made good use of his ears--better than I had made of mine;
for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, I
fancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared she
would accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these things
should be so, why he wished to remember the route of my journey, the
date of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to hire a yacht.
Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed a
more interesting complexion.
‘When you’ve done with that bit of paper,’ observed Denny, in a tone
expressive of exaggerated patience, ‘we might as well go on, old
fellow.’
‘All right. I’ve done with it--for the present,’ said I. But I took
the liberty of slipping Mr Constantine Stefanopoulos’s memorandum into
my pocket.
The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly my
interest in Neopalia. I went to bed still thinking of my purchase, and
I recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I went
to sleep was, ‘What did she mean by pointing to the ring?’
Well, I found an answer to that later on.
CHAPTER II
A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY
Until the moment of our parting came, I had no idea that Beatrice
Hipgrave felt my going at all. She was not in the habit of displaying
emotion, and I was much surprised at the reluctance with which she
bade me good-bye. So far, however, was she from reproaching me that
she took all the blame on herself, saying that if she had been kinder
and nicer to me I should never have thought about my island. In this
she was quite wrong; but when I told her so, and assured her that I
had no fault to find with her behaviour, I was met with an almost
passionate assertion of her unworthiness and an entreaty that I should
not spend on her a love that she did not deserve. Her abasement and
penitence compelled me to show, and indeed to feel, a good deal of
tenderness for her. She was pathetic and pretty in her unusual
earnestness and unexplained distress. I went the length of offering to
put off my expedition until after our wedding; and although she
besought me to do nothing of the kind, I believe that we might in the
end have arranged matters on this footing had we been left to
ourselves. But Mrs Hipgrave saw fit to intrude on our interview at
this point, and she at once pooh-poohed the notion, declaring that I
should be better out of the way for a few months. Beatrice did not
resist her mother’s conclusion; but when we were alone again, she
became very agitated, begging me always to think well of her, and
asking if I were really attached to her. I did not understand this
mood, which was very unlike her ordinary manner; but I responded with
a hearty and warm avowal of confidence in her; and I met her questions
as to my own feelings by pledging my word very solemnly that absence
should, so far as I was concerned, make no difference, and that she
might rely implicitly on my faithful affection. This assurance seemed
to give her very little comfort, although I repeated it more than
once; and when I left her, I was in a state of some perplexity, for I
could not follow the bent of her thoughts nor appreciate the feelings
that moved her. I was however considerably touched, and upbraided
myself for not having hitherto done justice to the depth and sincerity
of nature which underlay her external frivolity. I expressed this
self-condemnation to Denny Swinton, but he met it very coldly, and
would not be drawn into any discussion of the subject. Denny was not
wont to conceal his opinions and had never pretended to be
enthusiastic about my engagement. This attitude of his had not
troubled me before, but I was annoyed at it now, and I retaliated by
asseverating my affection for Beatrice in terms of even exaggerated
emphasis, and hers for me with no less vehemence.
These troubles and perplexities vanished before the zest and interest
which our preparations and start excited. Denny and I were like a pair
of schoolboys off for a holiday, and spent hours in forecasting what
we should do and how we should fare on the island. These speculations
were extremely amusing, but in the long run they were proved to be,
one and all, wide of the mark. Had I known Neopalia then as well as I
came to know it afterwards, I should have recognised the futility of
attempting to prophesy what would or would not happen there. As it
was, we span our cobwebs merrily all the way to Rhodes, where we
arrived without event and without accident. Here we picked up Hogvardt
and embarked on the smart little steam yacht which he had procured for
me. A day or two was spent in arranging our stores and buying what
more we wanted, for we could not expect to be able to purchase any
luxuries in Neopalia. I was rather surprised to find no letter for me
from the old lord, but I had no thought of waiting for a formal
invitation, and pressed on the hour of departure as much as I could.
Here, also, I saw the first of my new subjects, Hogvardt having
engaged a couple of men who had come to him saying that they were from
Neopalia and were anxious to work their passage back. I was delighted
to have them, and fell at once to studying them with immense
attention. They were fine, tall, capable-looking fellows, and the two,
with ourselves, made a crew more than large enough for our little
boat; for both Denny and I could make ourselves useful on board, and
Hogvardt could do something of everything on land or water, while
Watkins acted as cook and steward. The Neopalians were, as they stated
in answer to my questions, brothers; their names were Spiro and
Demetri, and they informed us that their family had served the lords
of Neopalia for many generations. Hearing this, I was less inclined to
resent the undeniable reserve and even surliness with which they met
my advances. I made allowance for their hereditary attachment to the
outgoing family, and their natural want of cordiality towards the
intruder did not prevent me from plying them with many questions
concerning my predecessors on the throne of the island. My
perseverance was ill-rewarded, but I succeeded in learning that the
only member of the family on the island, besides the old lord was a
girl whom they called ‘the Lady Euphrosyne,’ the daughter of the
lord’s brother who was dead. Next I asked after my friend of the
Optimum Restaurant, Constantine. He was this lady’s cousin once or
twice removed--I did not make out the exact degree of kinship--but
Demetri hastened to inform me that he came very seldom to the island,
and had not been there for two years.
‘And he is not expected there now?’ I asked.
‘He was not when we left, my lord,’ answered Demetri, and it seemed to
me that he threw an inquiring glance at his brother, who added
hastily,
‘But what should we poor men know of the Lord Constantine’s doings?’
‘Do you know where he is now?’ I asked.
‘No, my lord,’ they answered together, and with great emphasis.
I cannot deny that something struck me as peculiar in their manner,
but when I mentioned my impression to Denny he scoffed at me.
‘You’ve been reading old Byron again,’ he said scornfully. ‘Do you
think they’re corsairs?’
Well, a man is not a fool simply because he reads Byron, and I
maintained my opinion that the brothers were embarrassed at my
questions. Moreover I caught Spiro, the more truculent-looking of the
pair, scowling at me more than once when he did not know I had my eye
on him.
These little mysteries, however, did nothing but add sauce to my
delight as we sprang over the blue waters; and my joy was complete
when, on the morning of the day I had appointed, the seventh of May,
Denny cried ‘Land!’ and looking over the starboard bow I saw the cloud
on the sea that was Neopalia. Day came bright and glorious, and as we
drew nearer to our enchanted isle we distinguished its features and
conformation. The coast was rocky save where a small harbour opened to
the sea, and the rocks ran up from the coast, rising higher and higher
till they culminated in a quite respectable peak in the centre. The
telescope showed cultivated ground and vineyards, mingled with woods,
on the slopes of the mountain; and about half-way up, sheltered on
three sides, backed by thick woods, and commanding a splendid
sea-view, stood an old grey battlemented house.
‘There’s my house,’ I cried in natural exultation, pointing with my
finger. It was a moment in my life, a moment to mark.
‘Hurrah!’ cried Denny, throwing up his hat in sympathy.
Demetri was standing near and met this ebullition with a grim smile.
‘I hope my lord will find the house comfortable,’ said he.
‘We shall soon make it comfortable,’ said Hogvardt; ‘I daresay it’s
half a ruin now.’
‘It’s good enough now for a Stefanopoulos,’ said the fellow with a
surly frown. The inference we were meant to draw was plain even to the
point of incivility.
At five o’clock in the evening we entered the harbour of Neopalia, and
brought up alongside a rather crazy wooden jetty which ran some fifty
feet out from the shore. Our arrival appeared to create great
excitement. Men, women, and children came running down the narrow
steep street which climbed up the hill from the harbour. We heard
shrill cries, and a hundred fingers were pointed at us. We landed;
nobody came forward to greet us. I looked round, but saw no one who
could be the old lord; but I perceived a stout man who wore an air of
importance, and walking up to him I asked him very politely if he
would be so good as to direct me to the inn; for I had discovered from
Demetri that there was a modest house where we could lodge that night;
I was too much in love with my island to think of sleeping on board
the yacht. The stout man looked at Denny and me; then he looked at
Demetri and Spiro, who stood near us, smiling their usual grim smiles.
At last he answered my question by another, a rather abrupt one:
‘What do you want, sir?’ And he lifted his tasselled cap a few inches
and replaced it on his head.
‘I want to know the way to the inn,’ I answered.
‘You have come to visit Neopalia?’ he asked.
A number of people had gathered round us now, and all fixed their eyes
on my face.
‘Oh,’ said I carelessly, ‘I’m the purchaser of the island, you know. I
have come to take possession.’
Nobody spoke. Perfect silence reigned for half a minute.
‘I hope we shall get on well together,’ I said, with my pleasantest
smile.
Still no answer came. The people round still stared. But presently the
stout man, altogether ignoring my friendly advances, said curtly,
‘I keep the inn. Come. I will take you to it.’
He turned and led the way up the street. We followed, the people
making a lane for us and still regarding us with stony stares. Denny
gave expression to my feelings as well as his own;
‘It can hardly be described as an ovation,’ he observed.
‘Surly brutes!’ muttered Hogvardt.
‘It is not the way to receive his lordship,’ agreed Watkins, more in
sorrow than in anger. Watkins had very high ideas of the deference due
to his lordship.
The fat innkeeper walked ahead; I quickened my pace and overtook him.
‘The people don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ I remarked.
He shook his head, but made no answer. Then he stopped before a
substantial house. We followed him in, and he led us upstairs to a
large room. It overlooked the street, but, somewhat to my surprise,
the windows were heavily barred. The door also was massive and had
large bolts inside and outside.
‘You take good care of your houses, my friend,’ said Denny with a
laugh.
‘We like to keep what we have, in Neopalia,’ said he.
I asked him if he would provide us with a meal, and, assenting
gruffly, he left us alone. The food was some time in coming, and we
stood at the window, peering through our prison bars. Our high spirits
were dashed by the unfriendly reception; my island should have been
more gracious; it was so beautiful.
‘However it’s a better welcome than we should have got two hundred
years ago,’ I said with a laugh, trying to make the best of the
matter.
Dinner, which the landlord himself brought in, cheered us again, and
we lingered over it till dusk began to fall, discussing whether I
ought to visit the lord, or whether, seeing that he had not come to
receive me, my dignity did not demand that I should await his visit;
and it was on this latter course that we finally decided.
‘But he’ll hardly come to-night,’ said Denny, jumping up. ‘I wonder if
there are any decent beds here!’
Hogvardt and Watkins had, by my directions, sat down with us; the
former was now smoking his pipe at the window, while Watkins was busy
overhauling our luggage. We had brought light bags, the rods, guns,
and other smaller articles. The rest was in the yacht. Hearing beds
mentioned, Watkins shook his head in dismal presage, saying,
‘We had better sleep on board, my lord.’
‘Not I! What, leave the island now we’ve got here? No, Watkins!’
‘Very good, my lord,’ said Watkins impassively.
A sudden call came from Hogvardt, and I joined him at the window.
The scene outside was indeed remarkable. In the narrow paved street,
gloomy now in the failing light, there must have been fifty or sixty
men standing in a circle, surrounded by an outer fringe of women and
children; and in the centre stood our landlord, his burly figure
swaying to and fro as he poured out a low-voiced but vehement
harangue. Sometimes he pointed towards us, oftener along the ascending
road that led to the interior. I could not hear a word he said, but
presently all his auditors raised their hands towards heaven. I saw
that some of the hands held guns, some clubs, some knives; and all the
men cried with furious energy, ‘_Nai, Nai._ Yes, yes!’ Then the whole
body--and the greater part of the grown men on the island must have
been present--started off in compact array up the road, the innkeeper
at their head. By his side walked another man whom I had not noticed
before; he wore an ordinary suit of tweeds, but carried himself with
an assumption of much dignity; his face I could not see.
‘Well, what’s the meaning of that?’ I exclaimed, looking down on the
street, empty again save for groups of white-clothed women, who talked
eagerly to one another, gesticulating and pointing now towards our
inn, now towards where the men had gone.
‘Perhaps it’s their Parliament,’ suggested Denny; ‘or perhaps they’ve
repented of their rudeness and are going to erect a triumphal arch.’
These conjectures, being obviously ironical, did not assist the
matter, although they amused their author.
‘Anyhow,’ said I, ‘I should like to investigate the thing. Suppose we
go for a stroll?’
The proposal was accepted at once. We put on our hats, took sticks,
and prepared to go. Then I glanced at the luggage.
‘Since I was so foolish as to waste my money on revolvers--?’ said I,
with an inquiring glance at Hogvardt.
‘The evening air will not hurt them,’ said he; and we each stowed a
revolver in our pockets. We felt, I think, rather ashamed of our
timidity, but the Neopalians certainly looked rough customers. Leading
the way to the door I turned the handle; the door did not open. I
pulled hard at it. Then I looked at my companions.
‘Queer,’ said Denny, and he began to whistle.
Hogvardt got the little lantern, which he always had handy, and
carefully inspected the door.
‘Locked,’ he announced, ‘and bolted top and bottom. A solid door too!’
and he struck it with his fist. Then he crossed to the window and
looked at the bars; and finally he said to me, ‘I don’t think we can
have our walk, my lord.’
Well, I burst out laughing. The thing was too absurd. Under cover of
our animated talk the landlord must have bolted us in. The bars made
the window no use. A skilled burglar might have beaten those bolts,
and a battering ram would, no doubt, have smashed the door; we had
neither burglar nor ram.
‘We’re caught, my boy,’ said Denny, ‘nicely caught! But what’s the
game?’
I had asked myself that question already, but had found no answer. To
tell the truth, I was wondering whether Neopalia was going to turn out
as conservative a country as the Turkish Ambassador had hinted. It was
Watkins who suggested an answer.
‘I imagine, my lord,’ said he, ‘that the natives’ (Watkins always
called the Neopalians ‘natives’) ‘have gone to speak to the gentleman
who sold the island to your lordship.’
‘Gad,’ said Denny, ‘I hope it’ll be a pleasant interview!’
Hogvardt’s broad good-humoured face had assumed an anxious look. He
knew something about the people of these islands; so did I.
‘Trouble, is it?’ I asked him.
‘I’m afraid so,’ he answered, and then we turned to the window again,
except Denny, who wasted some energy and made a useless din by
battering at the door till we beseeched him to let it alone.
There in the room we sat for nearly two hours. Darkness fell; the
women had ceased their gossiping, but still stood about the street and
in the doorways of their houses. It was nine o’clock before matters
showed any progress. Then came shouts from the road above us, the
flash of torches, the tread of men’s feet in a quick triumphant march.
Next the stalwart figures of the picturesque fellows, with their white
kilts gleaming through the darkness, came again into sight, seeming
wilder and more imposing in the alternating glare and gloom of the
torches and the deepening night. The man in tweeds was no longer
visible. Our innkeeper was alone in front. And all, as they marched,
sang loudly a rude barbarous sort of chant, repeating it again and
again; while the women and children, crowding out to meet the men,
caught up the refrain in shrill voices, till the whole air seemed full
of it. So martial and inspiring was the rude tune that our feet began
to beat in time with it, and I felt the blood quicken in my veins. I
have tried to put the words of it into English, in a shape as rough, I
fear, as the rough original. Here it is:
‘Ours is the land!
Death to the hand
That filches the land!
Dead is that hand,
Ours is the land!
‘Forever we hold it,
Dead’s he that sold it!
Ours is the land,
Dead is the hand!’
Again and again they hurled forth the defiant words, until at last
they stopped opposite the inn with one final long-drawn shout of
savage triumph.
‘Well, this is a go,’ said Denny, drawing a long breath. ‘What are the
beggars up to?’
‘What have they been up to?’ I asked; for I could not doubt that the
song we had heard had been chanted over a dead Stefanopoulos two
hundred years before. At this age of the world the idea seemed absurd,
preposterous, horrible. But there was no law nearer than Rhodes, and
there only Turk’s law. The sole law here was the law of the
Stefanopouloi, and if that law lost its force by the crime of the hand
which should wield it, why, strange things might happen even to-day in
Neopalia. And we were caught in the inn like rats in a trap.
‘I don’t see,’ remarked old Hogvardt, laying a hand on my shoulder,
‘any harm in loading our revolvers, my lord.’
I did not see any harm in it either, and we all followed Hogvardt’s
advice, and also filled our pockets with cartridges. I was
determined--I think we were all determined--not to be bullied by these
islanders and their skull-and-crossbones ditty.
A quarter of an hour passed; then there came a knock at the door,
while the bolts shot back.
‘I shall go out,’ said I, springing to my feet.
The door opened, and the face of a lad appeared.
‘Vlacho the innkeeper bids you descend,’ said he; and then, catching
sight perhaps of our revolvers, he turned and ran downstairs again at
his best speed. Following him we came to the door of the inn. It was
ringed round with men, and directly opposite to us stood Vlacho. When
he saw me he commanded silence with a gesture of his hand, and
addressed me in the following surprising style.
‘The Lady Euphrosyne, of her grace, bids you depart in peace. Go,
then, to your boat and depart, thanking God for His mercy.’
‘Wait a bit, my man’ said I; ‘where is the lord of the island?’
‘Did you not know that he died a week ago?’ asked Vlacho, with
apparent surprise.
‘Died!’ we exclaimed one and all.
‘Yes, sir. The Lady Euphrosyne, Lady of Neopalia, bids you go.’
‘What did he die of?’
‘Of a fever,’ said Vlacho gravely; and several of the men round him
nodded their heads and murmured in no less grave assent, ‘Yes, of a
fever.’
‘I am very sorry for it,’ said I. ‘But as he sold the island to me
before he died, I don’t see what the lady, with all respect to her,
has got to do with it. Nor do I know what this rabble is doing about
the door. Bid them disperse.’
This attempt at _hauteur_ was most decidedly thrown away. Vlacho
seemed not to hear what I said. He pointed with his finger towards the
harbour.
‘There lies your boat. Demetri and Spiro cannot go with you, but you
will be able to manage her yourselves. Listen now! Till six in the
morning you are free to go. If you are found in Neopalia one minute
after, you will never go. Think and be wise.’ And he and all the rest,
as though one spring moved the whole body, wheeled round and marched
off up the hill again, breaking out into the old chant when they had
gone about a hundred yards. We were left alone in the doorway of the
inn, looking, I must admit, rather blank.
Upstairs again we went, and I sat down by the window and gazed out on
the night. It was very dark, and seemed darker now that the gleaming
torches were gone. Not a soul was to be seen. The islanders, having
put matters on a satisfactory footing, were off to bed. I sat
thinking. Presently Denny came to me, and put his hand on my shoulder.
‘Going to cave in, Charley?’ he asked.
‘My dear Denny,’ said I, ‘I wish you were at home with your mother.’
He smiled and repeated, ‘Going to cave in, old chap?’
‘No, by Jove, I’m not!’ cried I, leaping up. ‘They’ve had my money,
and I’m going to have my island.’
‘Take the yacht, my lord,’ counselled Hogvardt, ‘and come back with
enough force from Rhodes.’
Well, here was sense; my impulse was nonsense. We four could not
conquer the island. I swallowed my pride.
‘So be it,’ said I. ‘But look here, it’s only just twelve. We might
have a look round before we go. I want to see the place, you know.’
For I was very sorely vexed at being turned out of my island.
Hogvardt grumbled a little at my proposal, but here I overruled him.
We took our revolvers again, left the inn, and struck straight up the
road. We met nobody. For nearly a mile we mounted, the way becoming
steeper with every step. Then there was a sharp turn off the main
road.
‘That will lead to the house,’ said Hogvardt, who had studied the map
of Neopalia very carefully.
‘Then we’ll have a look at the house. Show us a light, Hogvardt. It’s
precious dark.’
Hogvardt opened his lantern and cast its light on the way. But
suddenly he extinguished it again, and drew us close into the rocks
that edged the road. We saw coming towards us, in the darkness, two
figures. They rode small horses. Their faces could not be seen; but as
they passed our silent motionless forms, one said in a clear, sweet,
girlish voice:
‘Surely they will go?’
‘Ay, they’ll go or pay the penalty,’ said the other voice. At the
sound of it I started. For it was the voice of my neighbour in the
restaurant, Constantine Stefanopoulos.
‘I shall be near at hand, sleeping in the town,’ said the girl’s
voice, ‘and the people will listen to me.’
‘The people will kill them if they don’t go,’ we heard Constantine
answer, in tones that witnessed no great horror at the idea. Then the
couple disappeared in the darkness.
‘On to the house!’ I cried in sudden excitement. For I was angry now,
angry at the utter humbling scorn with which they treated me.
Another ten minutes’ groping brought us in front of the old grey house
which we had seen from the sea. We walked boldly up to it. The door
stood open. We went in and found ourselves in a large hall. The wooden
floor was carpeted here and there with mats and skins. A long table
ran down the middle; the walls were decorated with mediæval armour and
weapons. The windows were but narrow slits, the walls massive and
deep. The door was a ponderous iron-bound affair; it shamed even the
stout doors of our inn. I called loudly, ‘Is anyone here?’ Nobody
answered. The servants must have been drawn off to the town by the
excitement of the procession and the singing; or, perhaps, there were
no servants. I could not tell. I sat down in a large armchair by the
table. I enjoyed the sense of proprietorship; I was in my own house.
Denny sat on the table by me, dangling his legs. For a long while none
of us spoke. Then I exclaimed suddenly:
‘By Heaven, why shouldn’t we see it through?’ I rose, put my hands
against the massive door, and closed and bolted it, saying, ‘Let them
open that at six o’clock in the morning.’
‘Hurrah!’ cried Denny, leaping down from his table, on fire with
excitement in a moment.
I faced Hogvardt. He shook his head, but he smiled. Watkins stood by
with his usual imperturbability. He wanted to know what his lordship
decided--that was all; and when I said nothing more, he asked,
‘Then your lordship will sleep here to-night?’
‘I’ll stay here to-night, anyhow, Watkins,’ said I. ‘I’m not going to
be driven out of my own island by anybody.’
As I spoke, I brought my fist down on the table with a crash. And then
to our amazement we heard, from somewhere in the dark recesses of the
hall where the faint light of Hogvardt’s lantern did not reach, a low
but distinct groan, as of someone in pain. Watkins shuddered, Hogvardt
looked rather uncomfortable; Denny and I listened eagerly. Again the
groan came. I seized the lantern from Hogvardt’s hand, and rushed in
the direction of the sound. There, in the corner of the hall, on a
couch covered with a rug, lay an old man in an uneasy attitude,
groaning now and then and turning restlessly. By his side sat an old
serving-woman in weary heavy slumber. In a moment I guessed the
truth--part of the truth.
‘He’s not dead of that fever yet,’ said I.
CHAPTER III
THE FEVER OF NEOPALIA
I looked for a moment on the old man’s pale, clean-cut, aristocratic
face; then I shook his attendant by the arm vigorously. She awoke with
a start.
‘What does this mean?’ I demanded. ‘Who is he?’
‘Heaven help us! Who are you?’ she cried, leaping up in alarm. Indeed
we four, with our eager fierce faces, must have looked disquieting
enough.
‘I am Lord Wheatley; these are my friends,’ I answered in brisk sharp
tones.
‘What, it is you, then--?’ A wondering gaze ended her question.
‘Yes, yes, it is I. I have bought the island. We came out for a walk
and--’
‘But he will kill you if he finds you here.’
‘He? Who?’
‘Ah, pardon, my lord! They will kill you, they--the people--the men of
the island.’
I gazed at her sternly. She shrank back in confusion. And I spoke at a
venture, yet in a well-grounded hazard:
‘You mean that Constantine Stefanopoulos will kill me?’
‘Ah, hush,’ she cried. ‘He may be here, he may be anywhere.’
‘He may thank his stars he’s not here,’ said I grimly, for my blood
was up. ‘Attend, woman. Who is this?’
‘It is the lord of the island, my lord,’ she answered. ‘Alas, he is
wounded, I fear, to death. And yet I fell asleep. But I was so weary.’
‘Wounded? By whom?’
Her face suddenly became vacant and expressionless.
‘I do not know, my lord. It happened in the crowd. It was a mistake.
My dear lord had yielded what they asked. Yet some one--no, by heaven,
my lord, I do not know who--stabbed him. And he cannot live.’
‘Tell me the whole thing,’ I commanded.
‘They came up here, my lord, all of them, Vlacho and all, and with
them my Lord Constantine. The Lady Euphrosyne was away; she is often
away, down on the rocks by the sea, watching the waves. They came and
said that a man had landed who claimed our island as his--a man of
your name, my lord. And when my dear lord said he had sold the island
to save the honour of his house and race, they were furious; and
Vlacho raised the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard wrote
on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos long ago. Then they came near
with knives, demanding that my dear lord should send away the
stranger; for the men of Neopalia were not to be bought and sold like
bullocks or like pigs. At first my lord would not yield, and they
swore they would kill the stranger and my lord also. Then they pressed
closer; Vlacho was hard on him with drawn knife, and the Lord
Constantine stood by him, praying him to yield; and Constantine drew
his own knife, saying to Vlacho that he must fight him also before he
killed the old lord. But at that Vlacho smiled. And then--and
then--ah, my dear lord!’
For a moment her voice broke, and sobs supplanted words. But she drew
herself up, and after a glance at the old man whom her vehement speech
had not availed to waken, she went on.
‘And then those behind cried out that there was enough talk. Would he
yield or would he die? And they rushed forward, pressing the nearest
against him. And he, an old man, frail and feeble (yet once he was as
brave a man as any), cried in his weak tones, “Enough, friends, I
yield, I--” and they fell back. But my lord stood for an instant, then
he set his hand to his side, and swayed and tottered and fell; the
blood was running from his side. The Lord Constantine fell on his
knees beside him, crying, “Who stabbed him?” Vlacho smiled grimly, and
the others looked at one another. But I, who had run out from the
doorway whence I had seen it all, knelt by my lord and staunched the
blood. Then Vlacho said, fixing his eyes straight and keen on the Lord
Constantine, “It was not I, my lord.” “Nor I by heaven,” cried the
Lord Constantine, and he rose to his feet, demanding, “Who struck the
blow?” But none answered; and he went on, “Nay, if it were in error,
if it were because he would not yield, speak. There shall be pardon.”
But Vlacho, hearing this, turned himself round and faced them all,
saying, “Did he not sell us like oxen and like pigs?” and he broke
into the death chant, and they all raised the chant, none caring any
more who had struck the blow. And the Lord Constantine--’ The
impetuous flow of the old woman’s story was frozen to sudden silence.
‘Well, and the Lord Constantine?’ said I, in low stern tones that
quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny’s hand, which was on my
arm, jump up and down. ‘And Constantine, woman?’
[Illustration: “WHO STABBED HIM?”]
‘Nay, he did nothing,’ said she. ‘He talked with Vlacho awhile, and
then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself to
seek the Lady Euphrosyne. Presently he came back with her; her eyes
were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord; for she loved
him. She sat by him till Constantine came and told her that you would
not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if you did not
go. Then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying heaven she might
find him alive when she returned. “I must go,” she said to me, “for
though it is a shameful thing that the island should have been sold,
yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not meet death. Kiss
him for me if he awakes.” Thus she went and left me with my lord, and
I fear he will die.’ She ended in a burst of sobbing.
For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:
‘Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?’
She shrank from me as though I had struck her.
‘I do not know; I do not know,’ she moaned.
But the question she dared not answer was to find an answer.
The stricken man opened his eyes, his lips moved, and he groaned,
‘Constantine! You, Constantine!’ The old woman’s eyes met mine for a
moment and fell to the ground again.
‘Why, why, Constantine?’ moaned the wounded man. ‘I had yielded, I had
yielded, Constantine. I would have sent them--’
His words ceased, his eyes closed, his lips met again, but met only to
part. A moment later his jaw dropped. The old lord of Neopalia was
dead.
Then I, carried away by anger and by hatred of the man who, for a
reason I did not yet understand, had struck so foul a blow against his
kinsman and an old man, did a thing so rash that it seems to me now,
when I consider it in the cold light of memory, a mad deed. Yet then I
could do nothing else; and Denny’s face, ay, and the eyes of the
others too told me that they were with me.
‘Compose this old man’s body,’ I said, ‘and we will watch it. But do
you go and tell this Constantine Stefanopoulos that I know his crime,
that I know who struck that blow, that what I know all men shall know,
and that I will not rest day or night until he has paid the penalty of
this murder. Tell him I swore this on the honour of an English
gentleman.’
‘And say I swore it too!’ cried Denny; and Hogvardt and Watkins, not
making bold to speak, ranged up close to me; I knew that they also
meant what I meant.
The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.
‘You are a bold man, my lord,’ said she.
‘I see nothing to be afraid of up to now,’ said I. ‘Such courage as is
needed to tell a scoundrel what I think of him I believe I can claim.’
‘But he will never let you go now. You would go to Rhodes, and tell
his--tell what you say of him.’
‘Yes, and further than Rhodes, if need be. He shall die for it as sure
as I live.’
A thousand men might have tried in vain to persuade me; the treachery
of Constantine had fired my heart and driven out all opposing motives.
‘Do as I bid you,’ said I sternly, ‘and waste no time on it. We will
watch here by the old man till you return.’
‘My lord,’ she replied, ‘you run on your own death. And you are
young; and the youth by you is yet younger.’
‘We are not dead yet,’ said Denny; I had never seen him look as he did
then; for the gaiety was out of his face, and his lips had grown set
and hard.
She raised her hands towards heaven, whether in prayer or in
lamentation I do not know. We turned away and left her to her sad
work; going back to our places, we waited there till dawn began to
break and from the narrow windows we saw the grey crests of the waves
dancing and frolicking in the early dawn. As I watched them, the old
woman was by my elbow.
‘It is done, my lord,’ said she. ‘Are you still of the same mind?’
‘Still of the same,’ said I.
‘It is death, death for you all,’ she said, and without more she went
to the great door. Hogvardt opened it for her, and she walked away
down the road, between the high rocks that bounded the path on either
side. Then we went and carried the old man to a room that opened off
the hall, and, returning, stood in the doorway, cooling our brows in
the fresh early air. While we stood there, Hogvardt said suddenly,
‘It is five o’clock.’
‘Then we have only an hour to live,’ said I, smiling, ‘if we don’t
make for the yacht.’
‘You’re not going back to the yacht, my lord?’
‘I’m puzzled,’ I admitted. ‘If we go this ruffian will escape. And if
we don’t go--’
‘Why, we,’ Hogvardt ended for me, ‘may not escape.’
I saw that Hogvardt’s sense of responsibility was heavy; he always
regarded himself as the shepherd, his employers as the sheep. I
believe this attitude of his confirmed my obstinacy, for I said,
without further hesitation:
‘Oh, we’ll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is,
they’ll turn against him. Besides, we said we’d wait here.’
Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined
to do a rash thing, there is a great comfort in feeling that you are
already committed to it by some previous act or promise.
‘So we did,’ he cried. ‘Then that settles it, Hogvardt’
‘His lordship certainly expressed that intention,’ observed Watkins,
appearing at this moment with a big loaf of bread and a great pitcher
of milk. I eyed these viands.
‘I bought the house and its contents,’ said I; ‘come along.’
Watkins’ further researches produced a large lump of native cheese;
when he had set this down he remarked:
‘In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are
two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front
door, two cows tethered.’
I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.
‘We can stand a siege, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Well, I hope it won’t come
to that.’
Hogvardt rose and began to move round the hall, examining the weapons
that decorated the walls. From time to time he grunted disapprovingly;
the guns were useless, rusted, out of date; and there was no
ammunition for them. But when he had almost completed his circuit, he
gave an exclamation of satisfaction and came to me holding an
excellent modern rifle and a large cartridge-case.
‘See!’ he grunted in huge delight. ‘“C. S.” on the stock. I expect you
can guess whose it is, my lord.’
‘This is very thoughtful of Constantine,’ observed Denny, who was
employing himself in cutting imaginary lemons in two with a fine
damascened scimitar that he had taken from the wall.
‘As for the cows,’ said I, ‘perhaps they will carry them off.’
‘I think not,’ said Hogvardt, taking an aim with the rifle through the
window.
I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.
‘Well, we can’t go now,’ said I. ‘It’s settled. What a comfort!’ I
wonder whether I had ever in my heart meant to go!
The next hour passed very quietly. We sat smoking pipes or cigars and
talking in subdued tones. The recollection of the dead man in the
adjoining room sobered the excitement to which our position might
otherwise have given occasion. Indeed I suppose that I at least, who
through my whim had led the rest into this quandary, should have been
utterly overwhelmed by the burden on me. But I was not. Perhaps
Hogvardt’s assumption of responsibility relieved me; perhaps I was too
full of anger against Constantine to think of the risks we ourselves
ran; and I was more than half-persuaded that the revelation of what he
had done would rob him of his power to hurt us. Moreover, if I might
judge from the words I heard on the road, we had on our side an ally
of uncertain, but probably considerable, power in the sweet-voiced
girl whom the old woman called the Lady Euphrosyne; she would not
support her uncle’s murderer, even though he were her cousin.
Presently Watkins carried me off to view his pen of goats, and having
passed through the lofty flagged kitchen, I found myself in a sort of
compound formed by the rocks. The ground had been levelled for a few
yards, and the rocks rose straight to the height of ten or twelve
feet; from the top of this artificial bank they ran again in wooded
slopes towards the peak of the mountain. I followed their course with
my eye, and three hundred or more feet above us, just beneath the
summit, I perceived a little wooden _châlet_ or bungalow. Blue smoke
issued from the chimneys; and, even while we looked, a figure came out
of the door and stood still in front of it, apparently gazing down
towards the house.
‘It’s a woman,’ I pronounced.
‘Yes, my lord. A peasant’s wife, I suppose.’
‘I daresay,’ said I. But I soon doubted Watkins’ opinion; in the first
place, because the woman’s dress did not look like that of a peasant
woman; and secondly, because she went into the house, appeared again,
and levelled at us what was, if I mistook not, a large pair of
binocular glasses. Now such things were not likely to be in the
possession of the peasants of Neopalia. Then she suddenly retreated,
and through the silence of those still slopes we heard the door of the
cottage closed with violence.
‘She doesn’t seem to like the looks of us,’ said I.
‘Possibly,’ suggested Watkins with deference, ‘she did not expect to
see your lordship here.’
‘I should think that’s very likely, Watkins,’ said I.
I was recalled from the survey of my new domains--my satisfaction in
the thought that they were mine survived all the disturbing features
of the situation--by a call from Denny. In response to it I hurried
back to the hall and found him at the window, with Constantine’s rifle
rested on the sill.
‘I could pick him off pat,’ said Denny laughingly, and he pointed to a
figure which was approaching the house. It was a man riding a stout
pony; when he came within about two hundred yards of the house, he
stopped, took a leisurely look, and then waved a white handkerchief.
‘The laws of war must be observed,’ said I, smiling. ‘This is a flag
of truce.’ I opened the door, stepped out, and waved my handkerchief
in return. The man, reassured, began to mop his brow with the flag of
truce, and put his pony to a trot. I now perceived him to be the
innkeeper Vlacho, and a moment later he reined up beside me, giving
an angry jerk at his pony’s bridle.
‘I have searched the island for you,’ he cried. ‘I am weary and hot!
How came you here?’
I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my
house, and added significantly:
‘But has no message come to you from me?’
He smiled with equal meaning, as he answered:
‘No; an old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the
village--’
‘Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos,’ said I with a nod.
‘Well then, if you will, to the Lord Constantine,’ he admitted with a
careless shrug, ‘but her message was for his ear only; he took her
aside and they talked alone.’
‘You know what she said, though?’
‘That is between my Lord Constantine and me.’
‘And the young lady knows it, I hope--the Lady Euphrosyne?’
Vlacho smiled broadly.
‘We could not distress her with such a silly tale,’ he answered; and
he leant down towards me. ‘Nobody has heard the message but the Lord
Constantine and one man he told it to. And nobody will. If that old
woman spoke, she--well, she knows and will not speak.’
‘And you back up this murderer?’ I cried.
‘Murderer?’ he repeated questioningly. ‘Indeed, sir, it was an
accident done in hot blood. It was the old man’s fault, because he
tried to sell the island.’
‘He did sell the island,’ I corrected; ‘and a good many other people
will hear of what happened to him.’
He looked at me again, smiling.
‘If you shouted it in the hearing of every man in Neopalia, what would
they do?’ he asked scornfully.
‘Well, I should hope,’ I returned, ‘that they’d hang Constantine to
the tallest tree you’ve got here.’
‘They would do this,’ he said with a nod; and he began to sing softly
the chant I had heard the night before.
I was disgusted at his savagery, but I said coolly:
‘And the Lady?’
‘The Lady believes what she is told, and will do as her cousin bids
her. Is she not his affianced wife?’
‘The deuce she is!’ I cried in amazement, fixing a keen scrutiny on
Vlacho’s face. The face told me nothing.
‘Certainly,’ he said gently. ‘And they will rule the island together.’
‘Will they, though?’ said I. I was becoming rather annoyed. ‘There are
one or two obstacles in the way of that. First, it’s my island.’
He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘That,’ he seemed to say, ‘is not
worth answering.’ But I had a second shot in the locker for him, and I
let him have it for what it was worth. I knew it might be worth
nothing, but I tried it.
‘And secondly,’ I went on, ‘how many wives does Constantine propose to
have?’
A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! I could have sung in glee. The fellow
was dumbfoundered. He turned red, bit his lip, scowled fiercely.
‘What do you mean?’ he blurted out, with an attempt at blustering
defiance.
‘Never mind what I mean. Something, perhaps, that the Lady Euphrosyne
might care to know. And now, my man, what do you want of me?’
He recovered his composure, and stated his errand with his old cool
assurance; but the cloud of vexation still hung heavy on his brow.
‘On behalf of the Lady of the island--’ he began.
‘Or shall we say her cousin?’ I interrupted.
‘Which you will,’ he answered, as though it were not worth while to
wear the mask any longer. ‘On behalf, then, of my Lord Constantine, I
am to offer you safe passage to your boat, and a return of the money
you have paid--’
‘How’s he going to pay that?’
‘He will pay it in a year, and give you security meanwhile.’
‘And the condition is that I give up the island?’ I asked; I began to
think that perhaps I owed it to my companions to acquiesce in this
proposal however distasteful it might be to me.
‘Yes,’ said Vlacho, ‘and there is one other small condition, which
will not trouble you.’
‘What’s that? You’re rich in conditions.’
‘You’re lucky to be offered any. It is that you mind your own
business.’
‘I came here for the purpose,’ I observed.
‘And that you undertake, for yourself and your companions, on your
word of honour, to speak to nobody of what has passed on the island or
of the affairs of the Lord Constantine.’
‘And if I won’t give this promise?’
‘The yacht is in our hands; Demetri and Spiro are our men; there will
be no ship here for two months.’ The fellow paused, smiling at me. I
took the liberty of ending his period for him.
‘And there is,’ I said, returning his smile, ‘as we know by now, a
particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island.’
‘Certainly you may chance to find that out,’ said he.
‘But is there no antidote?’ I asked, and I showed him the butt of my
revolver in the pocket of my coat.
‘It may keep it off for a day or two--not longer. You have the bottle
there, but most of the drug is with your luggage at the inn.’
His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges
apiece.
‘But there’s plenty of food for Constantine’s rifle,’ said I, pointing
to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.
He suddenly became impatient.
‘Your answer, sir?’ he demanded peremptorily.
‘Here it is,’ said I. ‘I’ll keep the island and I’ll see Constantine
hanged.’
‘So be it, so be it,’ he cried. ‘You are warned; so be it!’ Without
another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down the road.
And I went back to the house feeling, I must confess, not in the best
of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed, they
applauded me, and we made up our minds to ‘see it through,’ as Denny
said.
The day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his
house, having wrapped him in a sheet; we dug for him as good a grave
as we could in a little patch of ground that lay outside the windows
of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the house.
There he must lie for the present. This sad work done, we came back
and--so swift are life’s changes--killed a goat for dinner, and
watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when
evening came we ate our goat-flesh and Hogvardt milked our cows; then
we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.
But the evening was hot and we adjourned out of doors, grouping
ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door. Hogvardt
had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape,
depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side
of the island and finding there a boat which we had no reason to
suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying ‘Hark!’
From the direction of the village and the harbour came the sound of a
horn, blowing long and shrill and echoed back in strange protracted
shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us. And following on the
blast we heard, low in the distance and indistinct, yet rising and
falling and rising again in savage defiance and exultation, the
death-chant that One-Eyed Alexander the Bard had made on the death of
Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. For a few minutes we sat
listening; I do not think that any of us felt very comfortable. Then I
rose to my feet, saying:
‘Hogvardt, old fellow, I fancy that scheme of yours must wait a
little. Unless I’m very much mistaken, we’re going to have a lively
evening.’
Well, then we shook hands all round, and went in and bolted the door,
and sat down to wait. We heard the death-chant through the walls now;
it was coming nearer.
CHAPTER IV
A RAID AND A RAIDER
It was between eight and nine o’clock when the first of the enemy
appeared on the road in the persons of two smart fellows in gleaming
kilts and braided jackets. It was no more than just dusk, and I saw
that they were strangers to me. One was tall and broad, the other
shorter and of very slight build. They came on towards us confidently
enough. I was looking over Denny’s shoulder; he held Constantine’s
rifle, and I knew that he was impatient to try it. But, inasmuch as
might was certainly not on our side, I was determined that right
should abide with us, and was resolute not to begin hostilities.
Constantine had at least one powerful motive for desiring our
destruction; I would not furnish him with any plausible excuse for
indulging his wish: so we stood, Denny and I at one window, Hogvardt
and Watkins at the other, and quietly watched the approaching figures.
No more appeared; the main body did not show itself, and the sound of
the fierce chant had suddenly died away. But the next moment a third
man came in sight, running rapidly after the first two. He caught the
shorter by the arm, and seemed to argue or expostulate with him. For a
while the three stood thus talking; then I saw the last comer make a
gesture of protest as though he yielded his point unwillingly, and
they all came on together.
‘Push the barrel of that rifle a little farther out,’ said I to Denny.
‘It may be useful to them to know it’s there.’
Denny obeyed; the result was a sudden pause in our friends’ advance;
but they were near enough now for me to distinguish the last comer,
and I discerned in him, although he had discarded his tweed suit and
adopted the national dress, Constantine Stefanopoulos himself.
‘Here’s an exercise of self-control!’ I groaned, laying a detaining
hand on Denny’s shoulder.
As I spoke, Constantine put a whistle to his lips and blew loudly. The
blast was followed by the appearance of five more fellows; in three of
them I recognised old acquaintances--Vlacho, Demetri and Spiro. These
three all carried guns. The whole eight came forward again, till they
were within a hundred yards of us. There they halted, and, with a
sudden swift movement, three barrels were levelled straight at the
window where Denny and I were stationed. Well, we ducked; there is no
use in denying it; for we thought that the bombardment had really
begun. Yet no shot followed, and after an instant, holding Denny down,
I peered out cautiously myself. The three stood motionless, their aim
full on us. The other five were advancing warily, well under the
shelter of the rock, two on the left side of the road and three on the
right. The slim boyish fellow was with Constantine on the left; a
moment later the other three dashed across the road and joined them.
In a moment what military men call ‘the objective,’ the aim of these
manœuvres, flashed across me. It was simple almost to ludicrousness;
yet it was very serious, for it showed a reasoned plan of campaign
with which we were very ill-prepared to cope. While the three held us
in check, the five were going to carry off our cows. Without our cows
we should soon be hard put to it for food. For the cows had formed in
our plans a most important _pièce de résistance_.
‘This won’t do,’ said I. ‘They’re after the cows.’ I took the rifle
from Denny’s hand, cautioning him not to show his face at the window.
Then I stood in the shelter of the wall, so that I could not be hit by
the three, and levelled the rifle, not at my human enemies, but at
the unoffending cows.
‘A dead cow,’ I remarked, ‘is a great deal harder to move than a live
one.’
The five had now come quite near the pen of rude hurdles in which the
cows were. As I spoke, Constantine appeared to give some order; and
while he and the boy stood looking on, Constantine leaning on his gun,
the boy’s hand resting with jaunty elegance on the handle of the knife
in his girdle, the others leapt over the hurdles. Crack! went the
rifle, and a cow fell. I reloaded hastily. Crack! and the second cow
fell. It was very fair shooting in such a bad light, for I hit both
mortally; my skill was rewarded by a shout of anger from the robbers.
(For robbers they were; I had bought the live stock.)
‘Carry them off now!’ I cried, carelessly showing myself at the
window. But I did not stay there long, for three shots rang out, and
the bullets pattered on the masonry above me. Luckily the covering
party had aimed a trifle too high.
‘No more milk, my lord,’ observed Watkins in a regretful tone. He had
seen the catastrophe from the other window.
The besiegers were checked. They leapt out of the pen with alacrity. I
suppose they realised that they were exposed to my fire while at that
particular angle I was protected from the attack of their friends.
They withdrew to the middle of the road, selecting a spot at which I
could not take aim without showing myself at the window. I dared not
look out to see what they were doing. But presently Hogvardt risked a
glance, and called out that they were in retreat and had rejoined the
three, and that the whole body stood together in consultation and were
no longer covering my window. So I looked out, and saw the boy
standing in an easy graceful attitude, while Constantine and Vlacho
talked a little way apart. It was growing considerably darker now, and
the figures became dim and indistinct.
‘I think the fun’s over for to-night,’ said I, glad to have it over so
cheaply.
Indeed what I said seemed to be true, for the next moment the group
turned and began to retreat along the road, moving briskly out of our
sight. We were left in the thick gloom of a moonless evening and the
peaceful silence of still air.
‘They’ll come back and fetch the cows,’ said Hogvardt. ‘Couldn’t we
drag one in, my lord, and put it where the goat is, behind the house?’
I approved of this suggestion; Watkins having found a rope, I armed
Denny with the rifle took from the wall a large keen hunting-knife,
opened the door and stole out, accompanied by Hogvardt and Watkins,
who carried their revolvers. We reached the pen without interruption,
tied our rope firmly round the horns of one of the dead beasts and set
to work to drag it along. It was no child’s play, and our progress was
very slow, but the carcase moved, and I gave a shout of encouragement
as we got it down on to the smoother ground of the road and hauled it
along with a will. Alas, that shout was a great indiscretion! I had
been too hasty in assuming that our enemy was quite gone. We heard
suddenly the rush of feet; shots whistled over our heads. We had but
just time to drop the rope and turn round, when Denny’s rifle rang
out, and then--somebody was at us! I really do not know exactly how
many there were. I had two at me, but by great good luck I drove my
big knife into one fellow’s arm at the first hazard, and I think that
was enough for him. In my other assailant I recognised Vlacho. The fat
innkeeper had got rid of his gun and had a knife much like the one I
carried myself. I knew him more by his voice as he cried fiercely,
‘Come on!’ than by his appearance, for the darkness was thick now.
Parrying his fierce thrust--he was very active for so stout a man--I
called out to our people to fall back as quickly as they could, for I
was afraid that we might be taken in the rear also.
But discipline is hard to maintain in such a force as mine.
‘Bosh!’ cried Denny’s voice.
‘_Mein Gott_, no!’ exclaimed Hogvardt. Watkins said nothing, but for
once in his life he also disobeyed me.
Well, if they would not do as I said I must do as they did. The line
advanced--the whole line, as at Waterloo. We pressed them hard. I
heard a revolver fired, and a cry follow. Fat Vlacho slackened in his
attack, wavered, halted, turned, and ran. A shout of triumph from
Denny told me that the battle was going well there. Fired with
victory, I set myself for a chase. But, alas, my pride was checked.
Before I had gone two yards, I fell headlong over the body for which
we had been fighting (as Greeks and Trojans fought for the body of
Hector), and came to an abrupt stop, sprawling most ignominiously over
the cow’s broad back.
‘Stop! Stop!’ I cried. ‘Wait a bit, Denny! I’m down over this infernal
cow.’ It was an inglorious ending to the exploits of the evening.
Prudence or my cry stopped them. The enemy was in full retreat; their
steps pattered quick along the rocky road; and Denny observed in a
tone of immense satisfaction:
‘I think that’s our trick, Charley.’
‘Anybody hurt?’ I asked, scrambling to my feet.
Watkins owned to a crack from the stock of a gun on his right
shoulder, Hogvardt to a graze of a knife on the left arm. Denny was
unhurt. We had reason to suppose that we had left our mark on at least
two of the enemy. For so great a victory it was cheaply bought.
‘We’ll just drag in the cow,’ said I--I like to stick to my
point--‘and then we might see if there’s anything in the cellar.’
We did drag in the cow; we dragged it through the house, and finally
bestowed it in the compound behind. Hogvardt suggested that we should
fetch the other also, but I had no mind for another surprise, which
might not end so happily, and I decided to run the risk of leaving the
second animal till the morning. So Watkins ran off to seek for some
wine, for which we all felt very ready, and I went to the door with
the intention of securing it. But before I shut it, I stood for a
moment on the step, looking out on the night and sniffing the sweet,
clear, pure air. It was in quiet moments like these, not in such a
tumult as had just passed, that I had pictured my beautiful island;
and the love of it came on me now and made me swear that these fellows
and their arch-ruffian Constantine should not drive me out of it
without some more, and more serious, blows than had been struck that
night. If I could get away safely and return with enough force to keep
them quiet, I would pursue that course. If not--well, I believe I had
very bloodthirsty thoughts in my mind, as even the most peaceable man
may, when he has been served as I had and his friends roughly handled
on his account.
Having registered these determinations, I was about to proceed with my
task of securing the door, when I heard a sound that startled me.
There was nothing hostile or alarming about it; rather it was pathetic
and appealing, and, in spite of my previous fierceness of mood, it
caused me to exclaim, ‘Hullo, is that one of those poor beggars we
mauled?’ For the sound was a faint distressed sigh, as of somebody in
suffering; it seemed to come from out of the darkness about a dozen
yards ahead of me. My first impulse was to go straight to the spot,
but I had begun by now to doubt whether the Neopalians were not
unsophisticated in quite as peculiar a sense as that in which they
were good-hearted, and I called to Denny and Hogvardt, bidding the
latter to bring his lantern with him. Thus protected, I stepped out
of the door in the direction from which the sigh had come. Apparently
we were to crown our victory by the capture of a wounded enemy.
An exclamation from Hogvardt told me that he, aided by the lantern,
had come on the quarry; but Hogvardt spoke in disgust rather than
triumph.
‘Oh, it’s only the little one!’ said he. ‘What’s wrong with him, I
wonder.’ He stooped down and examined the prostrate form. ‘By heaven,
I believe he’s not touched--yes, there’s a bump on his forehead, but
not big enough for any of us to have given it.’
By this time Denny and I were with him, and we looked down on the
boy’s pale face, which seemed almost deathlike in the glare of the
lantern. The bump was not such a very small one, but it could hardly
have been made by any of our weapons, for the flesh was not cut. A
moment’s further inspection showed that it must be the result of a
fall on the hard rocky road.
‘Perhaps he tripped on the cord, as you did on the cow,’ suggested
Denny with a grin.
It seemed likely enough, but I gave very little thought to the
question, for I was busy studying the boy’s face.
‘No doubt,’ said Hogvardt, ‘he fell in running away and was stunned;
and they didn’t notice it in the dark, or were afraid to stop. But
they’ll be back, my lord, and soon.’
‘Carry him inside,’ said I. ‘It won’t hurt us to have a hostage.’
Denny lifted the lad in his long arms--Denny was a tall powerful
fellow--and strode off with him. I followed, wondering who it was that
we had got hold of: for the boy was strikingly handsome. I was last in
and barred the door. Denny had set our prisoner down in an armchair,
where he sat now, conscious again, but still with a dazed look in his
large dark eyes as he glanced from me to the rest and back again to
me, finally fixing a long gaze on my face.
‘Well, young man,’ said I, ‘you’ve begun this sort of thing early.
Lifting cattle and taking murder in the day’s work is pretty good for
a youngster like you. Who are you?’
‘Where am I?’ he cried, in that blurred indistinct kind of voice that
comes with mental bewilderment.
‘You’re in my house,’ said I, ‘and the rest of your infernal gang’s
outside and going to stay there. So you must make the best of it.’
The boy turned his head away and closed his eyes. Suddenly I snatched
the lantern from Hogvardt. But I paused before I brought it close to
the boy’s face, as I had meant to do, and I said:
‘You fellows go and get something to eat, and a snooze if you like.
I’ll look after this youngster. I’ll call you if anything happens
outside.’
After a few unselfish protests they did as I bade them. I was left
alone in the hall with the prisoner; soon merry voices from the
kitchen told me that the battle was being fought again over the wine.
I set the lantern close to the boy’s face.
‘H’m,’ said I, after a prolonged scrutiny. Then I sat down on the
table and began to hum softly that wretched chant of One-Eyed
Alexander’s, which had a terrible trick of sticking in a man’s head.
For a few minutes I hummed. The lad shivered, stirred uneasily, and
opened his eyes. I had never seen such eyes; I could not
conscientiously except even Beatrice Hipgrave’s, which were in their
way quite fine. I hummed away; and the boy said, still in a dreamy
voice, but with an imploring gesture of his hand:
‘Ah, no, not that! Not that, Constantine!’
‘He’s a tender-hearted youth,’ said I, and I was smiling now. The
whole episode was singularly unusual and interesting.
The boy’s eyes were on mine again; I met his glance full and square.
Then I poured out some water and gave it to him. He took it with a
trembling hand--the hand did not escape my notice--and drank it
eagerly, setting the glass down with a sigh.
‘I am Lord Wheatley,’ said I, nodding to him. ‘You came to steal my
cattle, and murder me, if it happened to be convenient, you know.’
The boy flashed out at me in a minute.
‘I didn’t. I thought you’d surrender if we got the cattle away.’
‘You thought!’ said I scornfully. ‘I suppose you did as you were bid.’
‘No; I told Constantine that they weren’t to--’ The boy stopped short,
looked round him, and said in a surprised voice, ‘Where are all the
rest of my people?’
‘The rest of your people,’ said I, ‘have run away, and you are in my
hands. And I can do just as I please with you.’
His lips set in an obstinate curve, but he made no answer. I went on
as sternly as I could.
‘And when I think of what I saw here yesterday, of that poor old man
stabbed by your bloodthirsty crew--’
‘It was an accident,’ he cried sharply; the voice had lost its
dreaminess and sounded clear now.
‘We’ll see about that when we get Constantine and Vlacho before a
judge,’ I retorted grimly. ‘Anyhow, he was foully stabbed in his own
house for doing what he had a perfect right to do.’
‘He had no right to sell the island,’ cried the boy, and he rose for a
moment to his feet with a proud air, only to sink back into the chair
again and stretch out his hand for water.
Now at this moment Denny, refreshed by meat and drink and in the
highest of spirits, bounded into the hall.
‘How’s the prisoner?’ he cried.
‘Oh, he’s all right. There’s nothing the matter with him,’ I said, and
as I spoke I moved the lantern, so that the boy’s face and figure were
again in shadow.
‘That’s all right,’ observed Denny cheerfully. ‘Because I thought,
Charley, we might get a little information out of him.’
‘Perhaps he won’t speak,’ I suggested, casting a glance at the captive
who sat now motionless in the chair.
‘Oh, I think he will,’ said Denny confidently: and I observed for the
first time that he held a very substantial-looking whip in his hand;
he must have found it in the kitchen. ‘We’ll give the young ruffian a
taste of this, if he’s obstinate,’ said Denny, and I cannot say that
his tone witnessed any great desire that the boy should prove at once
compliant.
I shifted my lantern so that I could see the proud young face, while
Denny could not. The boy’s eyes met mine defiantly.
‘Do you see that whip?’ I asked. ‘Will you tell us all we want to
know?’
The boy made no answer, but I saw trouble in his face, and his eyes
did not meet mine so boldly now.
‘We’ll soon find a tongue for him,’ said Denny, in cheerful barbarity;
‘upon my word, he richly deserves a thrashing. Say the word, Charley!’
‘We haven’t asked him anything yet,’ said I.
‘Oh, I’ll ask him something. Look here, who was the fellow with you
and Vlacho?’
Denny spoke in English; I turned his question into Greek. But the
prisoner’s eyes told me that he had understood before I spoke. I
smiled again.
The boy was silent; defiance and fear struggled in the dark eyes.
‘You see he’s an obstinate beggar,’ said Denny, as though he had
observed all necessary forms and could now get to business; and he
drew the lash of the whip through his fingers. I am afraid Denny was
rather looking forward to executing justice with his own hands.
The boy rose again and stood facing that heartless young ruffian
Denny--it was thus that I thought of Denny at the moment; then once
again he sank back into his chair and covered his face with his hands.
‘Well, I wouldn’t go out killing if I hadn’t more pluck than that,’
said Denny scornfully. ‘You’re not fit for the trade, my lad.’
I did not interpret this time; there was no need; the boy certainly
understood. But he had no retort. His face was buried in those slim
hands of his. For a moment he was quite still: then he moved a little;
it was a movement that spoke of helpless pain, and I heard something
very like a stifled sob.
‘Just leave us alone a little, Denny,’ said I. ‘He may tell me what he
won’t tell you.’
‘Are you going to let him off?’ demanded Denny, suspiciously. ‘You
never can be stiff in the back, Charley.’
‘I must see if he won’t speak to me first,’ I pleaded, meekly.
‘But if he won’t?’ insisted Denny.
‘If he won’t,’ said I, ‘and you still wish it, you may do what you
like.’
Denny sheered off to the kitchen, with an air that did not seek to
conceal his opinion of my foolish tender-heartedness. Again I was
alone with the boy.
‘My friend is right,’ said I gravely. ‘You’re not fit for the trade.
How came you to be in it?’
My question brought a new look, as the boy’s hands dropped from his
face.
‘How came you,’ said I, ‘who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at
their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like
Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be working with
them?’
I got no answer; only a frightened look appealed to me in the white
glare of Hogvardt’s lantern. I came a step nearer and leant forward to
ask my next question.
‘Who are you? What’s your name?’
‘My name--my name?’ stammered the prisoner. ‘I won’t tell my name.’
‘You’ll tell me nothing? You heard what I promised my friend?’
‘Yes, I heard,’ said the lad, with a face utterly pale, but with eyes
that were again set in fierce determination.
I laughed a low laugh.
‘I believe you are fit for the trade after all,’ said I, and I looked
at him with mingled distaste and admiration. But I had my last weapon
still, my last question. I turned the lantern full on his face, I
leant forward again, and I said in distinct slow tones--and the
question sounded an absurd one to be spoken in such an impressive
way:
‘Do you generally wear--clothes like that?’
I had got home with that question. The pallor vanished, the haughty
eyes sank. I saw long drooping lashes and a burning flush, and the
boy’s face once again sought his hands.
At that moment I heard chairs pushed back in the kitchen. In came
Hogvardt with an amused smile on his broad face; in came Watkins with
his impassive acquiescence in anything that his lordship might order;
in came Master Denny brandishing his whip in jovial relentlessness.
‘Well, has he told you anything?’ cried Denny. It was plain that he
hoped for the answer ‘No.’
‘I have asked him half-a-dozen questions,’ said I, ‘and he has not
answered one.’
‘All right,’ said Denny, with wonderful emphasis.
Had I been wrong to extort this much punishment for my most
inhospitable reception? Sometimes now I think that I was cruel. In
that night much had occurred to breed viciousness in a man of the most
equable temper. But the thing had now gone to the extreme limit to
which it could go, and I said to Denny:
‘It’s a gross case of obstinacy, of course, Denny, but I don’t see
very well how we can horsewhip the lady.’
A sudden astounded cry, ‘The lady!’ rang from three pairs of lips,
while the lady herself dropped her head on the table and fenced her
face round about with her protecting arms.
‘You see,’ said I, ‘this lady is the Lady Euphrosyne.’
For who else could it be that would give orders to Constantine
Stefanopoulos, and ask where ‘my people’ were? Who else, I also asked
myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the
hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? And who else would
understand English? In all certainty here was the Lady Euphrosyne.
CHAPTER V
THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL
The effect of my remark was curious. Denny flushed scarlet and flung
his whip down on the table; the others stood for a moment motionless,
then turned tail and slunk back to the kitchen. Euphrosyne’s face
remained invisible. On the other hand, I felt quite at my ease. I had
a triumphant conviction of the importance of my capture, and a
determination that no misplaced chivalry should rob me of it.
Politeness is, no doubt, a duty, but only a relative duty; and, in
plain English, men’s lives were at stake here. Therefore I did not
make my best bow, fling open the door, and tell the lady that she was
free to go whither she would, but I said to her in a dry severe voice:
‘You had better go, madam, to the room you usually occupy here, while
we consider what to do with you. You know where the room is; I
don’t.’
She raised her head, and said in tones that sounded almost eager:
‘My own room? May I go there?’
‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘I shall accompany you as far as the door; and
when you’ve gone in, I shall lock the door.’
This programme was duly carried out, Euphrosyne not favouring me with
a word during its progress. Then I returned to the hall, and said to
Denny:
‘Rather a trump card, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but they’ll be back pretty soon to look for her, I expect.’
Denny accompanied this remark with such a yawn that I suggested he
should go to bed.
‘Aren’t you going to bed?’ he asked.
‘I’ll take first watch,’ said I. ‘It’s nearly twelve now. I’ll wake
you at two, and you can wake Hogvardt at five; then Watkins will be
fit and fresh at breakfast-time, and can give us roast cow.’
Thus I was again left alone; and I sat reviewing the position. Would
the islanders fight for their lady? Or would they let us go? They
would let us go, I felt sure, only if Constantine were out-voted, for
he could not afford to see me leave Neopalia with a head on my
shoulders and a tongue in my mouth. Then probably they would fight.
Well, I calculated that so long as our provisions held out, we could
not be stormed; our stone fortress was too strong. But we could be
blockaded and starved out, and should be very soon unless the lady’s
influence could help us. I had just arrived at the conclusion that I
would talk to her very seriously in the morning when I heard a
remarkable sound.
‘There never was such a place for queer noises,’ said I, pricking up
my ears.
This noise seemed to come directly from above my head; it sounded as
though a light stealthy tread were passing over the roof of the hall
in which I sat. The only person in the house besides ourselves was the
prisoner: she had been securely locked in her room; how then could she
be on the top of the hall? For her room was in the turret above the
doorway. Yet the steps crept over my head, going towards the kitchen.
I snatched up my revolver and trod, with a stealth equal to the
stealth of the steps overhead, across the hall and into the kitchen
beyond. My three companions slept the sleep of tired men, but I roused
Denny ruthlessly.
‘Go on guard in the hall,’ said I. ‘I want to have a look round.’
Denny was sleepy but obedient. I saw him start for the hall, and went
on till I reached the compound behind the house.
Here I stood deep in the shadow of the wall; the steps were now over
my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof,
three yards to the left, I saw the flutter of a white kilt.
‘There are more ways out of this house than I know,’ I thought to
myself.
I heard next a noise as though of something being pushed cautiously
along the flat roof. Then there protruded from between two of the
battlements the end of a ladder. I crouched closer under the wall. The
light flight of steps was let down; it reached the ground, the kilted
figure stepped on it and began to descend. Here was the Lady
Euphrosyne again. Her eagerness to go to her own room was fully
explained: there was a way from it across the house and out on to the
roof of the kitchen; the ladder shewed that the way was kept in use. I
stood still. She reached the ground, and, as she touched it, she gave
the softest possible little laugh of gleeful triumph; a pretty little
laugh it was. Then she walked briskly across the compound, till she
reached the rocks on the other side. I crept forward after her, for I
was afraid of losing sight of her in the darkness, and yet did not
desire to arrest her progress till I saw where she was going. On she
went, skirting the perpendicular drop of rock. I was behind her now.
At last she came to the angle formed by the rock running north and
that which, turning to the east, enclosed the compound.
‘How’s she going to get up?’ I asked myself.
But up she began to go, her right foot on the north rock, her left on
the east. She ascended with such confidence that it was evident that
steps were ready for her feet. She gained the top; I began to mount in
the same fashion, finding the steps cut in the face of the cliff. I
reached the top and saw her standing still, ten yards ahead of me. She
went on; I followed; she stopped, looked, saw me, screamed. I rushed
on her. Her arm dealt a blow at me; I caught her hand, and in her hand
there was a little dagger. Seizing her other hand, I held her fast.
‘Where are you going to?’ I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no
notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was merely a
national trait.
Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle.
‘I was trying to escape,’ she said. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, I heard you. Where were you going to?’
‘Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?’
I loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed
to measure the distance.
‘Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?’ I asked. ‘Have you
friends there?’
She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.
‘No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you.’
‘Yet there’s some one in the cottage up there,’ I observed. ‘It
belongs to Constantine, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ she answered defiantly. ‘Dare you go and seek him
there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?’
‘As long as we are four against a hundred I dare only skulk,’ I
answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. ‘But do you think
he’s there?’
‘There! No; he’s in the town; and he’ll come from the town to kill you
to-morrow.’
‘Then is nobody there?’ I pursued.
‘Nobody,’ she answered.
‘You’re wrong,’ said I. ‘I saw somebody there to-day.’
‘Oh, a peasant perhaps.’
‘Well, the dress didn’t look like it. Do you really want to go there
now?’
‘Haven’t you mocked me enough?’ she burst out. ‘Take me back to my
prison.’
Her tragedy-air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up
to something which I thought she ought to know.
‘There’s a woman in that cottage,’ said I. ‘Not a peasant; a woman in
some dark-coloured dress, who uses opera-glasses.’
I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.
‘It’s false,’ she cried. ‘There’s no one there. Constantine told me no
one went there except Vlacho and sometimes Demetri.’
‘Do you believe all Constantine tells you?’ I asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s my cousin, and--’
‘And your suitor?’
She flung her head back proudly.
‘I have no shame in that,’ she answered.
‘You would accept his offer?’
‘Since you ask, I will answer. Yes. I had promised my uncle that I
would.’
‘Good God!’ said I, for I was very sorry for her.
The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt
her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.
‘Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?’ I
demanded.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘He told me what she said.’
‘That I told him he was his uncle’s murderer?’
‘Did you tell her to say that?’ she asked, with a sudden inclination
of her body towards me.
‘I did. Did he give you the message?’
She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.
‘On my honour, I saw what I have told you at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I
know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw
Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come
with him. Did any lady come with him?’
‘Are you mad?’ she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and
I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and
put my hands behind my back.
‘Go to the cottage if you like,’ said I. ‘But I won’t answer for what
you’ll find there.’
‘You set me free?’ she cried with eagerness.
‘Free to go to the cottage; you must promise to come back. Or I’ll go
to the cottage, if you’ll promise to go back to your room and wait
till I return.’
She hesitated, looking towards where the cottage was; but I had
stirred suspicion and disquietude in her. She dared not face what she
might find in the cottage.
‘I’ll go back and wait for you,’ she said. ‘If I went to the cottage
and--and all was well, I’m afraid I shouldn’t come back.’
The tone sounded softer. I would have sworn that a smile or a
half-smile accompanied the words, but it was too dark to be sure, and
when I leant forward to look, Euphrosyne drew back.
‘Then you mustn’t go,’ said I decisively; ‘I can’t afford to lose
you.’
‘But if you let me go I could let you go,’ she cried.
‘Could you? Without asking Constantine? Besides, it’s my island you
see.’
‘It’s not,’ she cried, with a stamp of her foot. And without more she
walked straight by me and disappeared over the ledge of rock. Two
minutes later I saw her figure defined against the sky, a black shadow
on a deep grey ground; then she disappeared. I set my face straight
for the cottage under the summit of the hill. I knew that I had only
to go straight and I must come to the little plateau scooped out of
the hillside, on which the cottage stood. I found, not a path, but a
sort of rough track that led in the desired direction, and along this
I made my way very cautiously. At one point it was joined at right
angles by another track, from the side of the hill where the main road
across the island lay. This, of course, afforded an approach to the
cottage without passing by my house. In twenty minutes the cottage
loomed, a blurred mass, before me. I fell on my knees and peered at
it.
There was a light in one of the windows. I crawled nearer. Now I was
on the plateau, a moment later I was under the wooden verandah and
beneath the window where the light glowed. My hand was on my revolver;
if Constantine or Vlacho caught me here, neither side would be able to
stand on trifles; even my desire for legality would fail under the
strain. But for the minute everything was quiet, and I began to fear
that I should have to return empty-handed; for it would be growing
light in another hour or so, and I must be gone before the day began
to appear. Ah, there was a sound, a sound that appealed to me after my
climb, the sound of wine poured into a glass; then came a voice I
knew.
‘Probably they have caught her,’ said Vlacho the innkeeper. ‘What of
that? They will not hurt her, and she’ll be kept safe.’
‘You mean she can’t come spying about here?’
‘Exactly. And that, my lord, is an advantage. If she came here--’
‘Oh, the deuce!’ laughed Constantine. ‘But won’t the men want me to
free her by letting that infernal crew go?’
‘Not if they think Wheatley will go to Rhodes and get soldiers and
return. They love the island more than her. It will all go well, my
lord. And this other here?’
I strained my ears to listen. No answer came, yet Vlacho went on as
though he had received an answer.
‘These cursed fellows make that difficult too,’ he said. ‘It would be
an epidemic.’ He laughed, seeming to see wit in his own remark.
‘Curse them, yes. We must move cautiously,’ said Constantine. ‘What a
nuisance women are, Vlacho.’
‘Ay, too many of them,’ laughed Vlacho.
‘I had to swear my life out that no one was here, and then, “If no
one’s there, why mayn’t I come?” You know the sort of thing.’
‘Indeed, no, my lord. You wrong me,’ protested Vlacho humorously, and
Constantine joined in his laugh.
‘You’ve made up your mind which, I gather?’ asked Vlacho.
‘Oh, this one, beyond doubt,’ answered his master.
Now I thought that I understood most of this conversation, and I was
very sorry that Euphrosyne was not by my side to listen to it. But I
had heard about enough for my purposes, and I had turned to crawl away
stealthily--it is not well to try fortune too far--when I heard the
sound of a door opening in the house. Constantine’s voice followed
directly on the sound.
‘Ah, my darling, my sweet wife,’ he cried, ‘not sleeping yet? Where
will your beauty be? Vlacho and I must work and plan for your sake,
but you need not spoil your eyes with sleeplessness.’
Constantine did it uncommonly well. His manner was a pattern for
husbands. I was guilty of a quiet laugh all to myself in the verandah.
‘For me? You’re sure it’s for me?’ came in that Greek with a strange
accent, which had first fallen on my ears in the Optimum Restaurant.
‘She’s jealous, she’s most charmingly jealous!’ cried Constantine in
playful rapture. ‘Does your wife pay you such compliments, Vlacho?’
‘She has no cause, my lord. But my lady Francesca thinks she has cause
to be jealous of the Lady Euphrosyne.’
Constantine laughed scornfully at the suggestion.
‘Where is she now?’ came swift and sharp from the woman. ‘Where is
Euphrosyne?’
‘Why, she’s a prisoner to that Englishman,’ answered Constantine.
I suppose explanations passed at this point, for the voices fell to a
lower level, as is apt to happen in the telling of a long story, and I
could not catch what was said till Constantine’s tones rose again as
he remarked:
‘Oh, yes; we must have a try at getting her out, just to satisfy the
people. For me, she might stay there as long as she likes, for I care
for her just as little as, between ourselves, I believe she cares for
me.’
Really this fellow was a very tidy villain; as a pair, Vlacho and he
would be hard to beat--in England, at all events. About Neopalia I had
learned to reserve my opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to
resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still
again--still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an
insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger.
For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and Vlacho
appeared on the threshold.
‘Ah,’ said Vlacho, ‘dawn is near. See, it grows lighter on the
horizon.’
A more serious matter was that, owing to the open door and the lamp
inside, it had grown lighter on the verandah, so light that I saw the
three figures--for the woman had come also--in the doorway, so light
that my huddled shape would be seen if any of the three turned an eye
towards it. I could have picked off both men before they could move;
but a civilised education has drawbacks; it makes a man scrupulous; I
did not fire. I lay still, hoping that I should not be noticed. And I
should not have been noticed but for one thing. Acting up to his part
in the ghastly farce which these two ruffians were playing with the
wife of one of them, Constantine turned to bestow kisses on the woman
before he parted from her. Vlacho, in a mockery that was horrible to
me who knew his heart, must needs be facetious. With a laugh he drew
back; he drew back farther still; he was but a couple of feet from the
wall of the house; and that couple of feet I filled. In a moment, with
one step backwards, he would be upon me. Perhaps he would not have
made that step; perhaps I should have gone, by grace of that narrow
interval, undetected. But the temptation was too strong for me. The
thought of the thing threatened to make me laugh. I had a pen-knife in
my pocket. I opened it, and dug it hard into that portion of Vlacho’s
frame which came most conveniently and prominently to my hand. Then,
leaving the pen-knife where it was, I leapt up, gave the howling
ruffian a mighty shove, and with a loud laugh of triumph bolted for my
life down the hill. But when I had gone twenty yards I dropped on my
knees, for bullet after bullet whistled over my head. Constantine, the
outraged Vlacho too, perhaps, carried a revolver! Their barrels were
being emptied after me. I rose and turned one hasty glance behind me.
Yes, I saw their dim shapes like moving trees. I fired once, twice,
thrice, in my turn, and then went crashing and rushing down the path
that I had ascended so cautiously. I cannoned against the tree trunks;
I tripped over trailing branches; I stumbled over stones. Once I
paused and fired the rest of my barrels. A yell told me I had hit--but
Vlacho, alas, not Constantine; I knew the voice. At the same instant
my fire was returned, and a bullet went through my hat. I was
defenceless now, save for my heels, and to them I took again with all
speed. But as I crashed along, one at least of them came crashing
after me. Yes, it was only one! I had checked Vlacho’s career. It was
Constantine alone. I suppose one of your heroes of romance would have
stopped and faced him, for with them it is not etiquette to run away
from one man. Ah, well, I ran away. For all I knew, Constantine might
still have a shot in the locker; I had none. And if Constantine killed
me, he would kill the only man who knew all his secrets. So I ran. And
just as I got within ten yards of the drop into my own territory, I
heard a wild cry, ‘Charley! Charley! Where the devil are you,
Charley?’
‘Why, here, of course,’ said I, coming to the top of the bank and
dropping over.
I have no doubt that it was the cry uttered by Denny which gave pause
to Constantine’s pursuit. He would not desire to face all four of us.
At any rate the sound of his pursuing feet died away and ceased. I
suppose he went back to look after Vlacho, and show himself safe and
sound to that most unhappy woman, his wife. As for me, when I found
myself safe and sound in the compound, I said, ‘Thank God!’ And I
meant it too. Then I looked round. Certainly the sight that met my
eyes had a touch of comedy in it.
Denny, Hogvardt and Watkins stood in the compound. Their backs were
towards me, and they were all staring up at the roof of the kitchen,
with expressions which the cold light of morning revealed in all their
puzzled foolishness. And on the top of the roof, unassailable and out
of reach--for no ladder ran from roof to ground now--stood Euphrosyne,
in her usual attitude of easy grace. Euphrosyne was not taking the
smallest notice of the helpless three below, but stood quite still
with unmoved face, gazing up towards the cottage. The whole thing
reminded me of nothing so much as of a pretty composed cat in a tree,
with three infuriated helpless terriers barking round the trunk. I
began to laugh.
‘What’s all the shindy?’ called out Denny. ‘Who’s doing
revolver-practice in the wood? And how the dickens did she get there,
Charley?’
But when the still figure on the roof saw me, the impassivity of it
vanished. Euphrosyne leant forward, clasping her hands, and said to
me:
‘Have you killed him?’
The question vexed me. It would have been civil to accompany it, at
all events, with an inquiry as to my own health.
‘Killed him?’ I answered gruffly. ‘No, he’s sound enough.’
‘And--’ she began; but now she glanced, seemingly for the first time,
at my friends below. ‘You must come and tell me,’ she said, and with
that she turned and disappeared from our gaze behind the battlements.
I listened intently. No sound came from the wood that rose grey in the
new light behind us.
‘What have you been doing?’ demanded Denny surlily; he had not enjoyed
Euphrosyne’s scornful attitude.
‘I have been running for my life,’ said I, ‘from the biggest
scoundrels unhanged. Denny, make a guess who lives in that cottage.’
‘Constantine?’
‘I don’t mean him.’
‘Not Vlacho--he’s at the inn.’
‘No, I don’t mean Vlacho.’
‘Who then, man?’
‘Someone you’ve seen.’
‘Oh, I give it up. It’s not the time of day for riddles.’
‘The lady who dined at the next table to ours at the Optimum,’ said I.
Denny jumped back in amazement, with a long low whistle.
‘What, the one who was with Constantine?’ he cried.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘the one who was with Constantine.’
They were all three round me now; and thinking that it would be better
that they should know what I knew, and four lives instead of one stand
between a ruffian and the impunity he hoped for, I raised my voice and
went on in an emphatic tone,
‘Yes. She’s there, and she’s his wife.’
A moment’s astonished silence greeted my announcement. It was broken
by none of our party. But there came from the battlemented roof above
us a low, long, mournful moan that made its way straight to the heart,
armed with its dart of outraged pride and trust betrayed. It was not
thus, boldly and abruptly, that I should have told my news. But I did
not know that Euphrosyne was still above us, hidden by the
battlements. We all looked up. The moan was not repeated. Presently we
heard slow steps retreating, with a faltering tread, across the roof;
and we also went into the house in silence and sorrow. For a thing
like that gets hold of a man; and when he has heard it, it is hard for
him to sit down and be merry, until the fellow that caused it has paid
his reckoning. I swore then and there that Constantine Stefanopoulos
should pay his.
CHAPTER VI
THE POEM OF ONE-EYED ALEXANDER
There is a matter on my conscience which I cannot excuse but may as
well confess. To deceive a maiden is a very sore thing, so sore that
it had made us all hot against Constantine; but it may be doubted by a
cool mind whether it is worse, nay, whether it is not more venial than
to contrive the murder of a lawful wife. Poets have paid more
attention to the first offence--maybe they know more about it--the law
finds greater employment, on the whole, in respect to the second. For
me, I admit that it was not till I found myself stretched on a
mattress in the kitchen, with the idea of getting a few hours’ sleep,
that it struck me that Constantine’s wife deserved a share of my
concern and care. Her grievance against him was at least as great as
Euphrosyne’s; her peril was far greater. For Euphrosyne was his
object; Francesca (for that appeared from Vlacho’s mode of address to
be her name) was an obstacle which prevented him attaining that
object. For myself I should have welcomed a cut throat if it came as
an alternative to Constantine’s society; but probably his wife would
not agree with me, and the conversation I had heard left me in little
doubt that her life was not safe. They could not have an epidemic,
Vlacho had prudently reminded his master; the island fever could not
kill Constantine’s wife and our party all in a day or two. Men suspect
such an obliging malady, and the old lord had died of it, pat to the
happy moment, already. But if the thing could be done, if it could be
so managed that London, Paris, and the Riviera would find nothing
strange in the disappearance of one Madame Stefanopoulos and the
appearance of another, why, to a certainty, done the thing would be,
unless I could warn or save the woman in the cottage. But I did not
see how to do either. So (as I set out to confess) I dropped the
subject. And when I went to sleep I was thinking not how to save
Francesca, but how to console Euphrosyne, a matter really of less
urgency, as I should have seen had not the echo of that sad little cry
still filled my ears.
The news which Hogvardt brought me when I rose in the morning, and was
enjoying a slice of cow-steak, by no means cleared my way. An actual
attack did not seem imminent--I fancy these fierce islanders were not
too fond of our revolvers--but the house was, if I may use the term,
carefully picketed, and that both before and behind. Along the road
which approached it in front there stood sentries at intervals. They
were stationed just out of range of our only effective long-distance
weapon, but it was evident that egress on that side was barred. And
the same was the case on the other; Hogvardt had seen men moving in
the wood, and had heard their challenges to one another repeated at
regular intervals. We were shut off from the sea; we were shut off
from the cottage. A blockade would reduce us as surely as an attack. I
had nothing to offer except the release of Euphrosyne. And to release
Euphrosyne would, in all likelihood, not save us, while it would leave
Constantine free to play out his relentless game to its appointed end.
I finished my breakfast in some perplexity of spirit. Then I went and
sat in the hall, expecting that Euphrosyne would appear from her room
before long. I was alone, for the rest were engaged in various
occupations, Hogvardt being particularly busy over a large handful of
hunting knives which he had gleaned from the walls; I did not
understand what he wanted with them, unless he meant to arm himself in
porcupine fashion.
Presently Euphrosyne came, but it was a transformed Euphrosyne. The
kilt, knee-breeches, and gaiters were gone; in their place was the
white linen garment with flowing sleeves and the loose jacket over it,
the national dress of the Greek woman; but Euphrosyne’s was ornamented
with a rare profusion of delicate embroidery, and of so fine a texture
that it seemed rather some delicate, soft, yielding silk. The change
of attire seemed reflected in her altered manner. Defiance was gone,
and appeal glistened from her eyes as she stood before me. I sprang
up, but she would not sit. She stood there, and, raising her glance to
my face, asked simply:
‘Is it true?’
In a business-like way I told her the whole story, starting from the
every-day scene at home in the restaurant, ending with the villainous
conversation and the wild chase of the night before. When I related
how Constantine had called Francesca his wife, Euphrosyne started.
While I sketched lightly my encounter with him and Vlacho, she eyed me
with a sort of grave curiosity; and at the end she said:
‘I’m glad you weren’t killed.’
It was not an emotional speech, nor delivered with any _empressement_,
but I took it for thanks and made the best of it. Then at last she sat
down and rested her head on her hand; her absent reverie allowed me
to study her closely, and I was struck by a new beauty which the
fantastic boy’s disguise had concealed. Moreover, with the doffing of
that, she seemed to have put off her extreme hostility; but perhaps
the revelation I had made to her, which showed her the victim of an
unscrupulous schemer, had more to do with her softened air. Yet she
had borne the story firmly, and a quivering lip was her extreme sign
of grief or anger. And her first question was not of herself.
‘Do you mean that they will kill this woman?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid it’s not unlikely that something will happen to her,
unless, of course--’ I paused, but her quick wit supplied the
omission.
‘Unless,’ she said, ‘he lets her live now, because I am out of his
hands?’
‘Will you stay out of his hands?’ I asked. ‘I mean, as long as I can
keep you out of them.’
She looked round with a troubled expression.
‘How can I stay here?’ she said in a low tone.
‘You will be as safe here now as you were in your uncle’s care,’ I
answered.
She acknowledged my promise with a movement of her head; but a moment
later she cried:
‘But I am not with you--I am with the people! The island is theirs
and mine. It’s not yours. I’ll have no part in giving it to you.’
‘I wasn’t proposing to take pay for my hospitality,’ said I. ‘It’ll be
hardly handsome enough for that, I’m afraid. But mightn’t we leave the
question for the moment?’ And I described briefly to her our present
position.
‘So that,’ I concluded, ‘while I maintain my claim to the island, I am
at present more interested in keeping a whole skin on myself and my
friends.’
‘If you will not give it up, I can do nothing,’ said she. ‘Though they
knew Constantine to be all you say, yet they would follow him and not
me if I yielded the island. Indeed they would most likely follow him
in any case. For the Neopalians like a man to follow, and they like
that man to be a Stefanopoulos; so they would shut their eyes to much,
in order that Constantine might marry me and become lord.’
She stated all this in a matter-of-fact way, disclosing no great
horror of her countrymen’s moral standard. The straightforward
barbarousness of it perhaps appealed to her a little; she loathed the
man who would rule on those terms, but had some toleration for the
people who set the true dynasty above all else. And she spoke of her
proposed marriage as though it were a natural arrangement.
‘I shall have to marry him, I expect, in spite of everything,’ she
said.
I pushed my chair back violently. My English respectability was
appalled.
‘Marry him?’ I cried. ‘Why, he murdered the old lord!’
‘That has happened before among the Stefanopouloi,’ said Euphrosyne,
with a calmness dangerously near to pride.
‘And he proposes to murder his wife,’ I added.
‘Perhaps he will get rid of her without that.’ She paused; then came
the anger I had looked for before. ‘Ah, but how dared he swear that he
had thought of none but me, and loved me passionately? He shall pay
for that!’ Again it was injured pride which rang in her voice, as in
her first cry. It did not sound like love; and for that I was glad.
The courtship probably had been an affair of state rather than of
affection. I did not ask how Constantine was to be made to pay,
whether before or after marriage. I was struggling between horror and
amusement at my guest’s point of view. But I take leave to have a will
of my own, even sometimes in matters which are not exactly my concern;
and I said now, with a composure that rivalled Euphrosyne’s:
‘It’s out of the question that you should marry him. I’m going to get
him hanged; and, anyhow, it would be atrocious.’
She smiled at that; but then she leant forward and asked:
‘How long have you provisions for?’
‘That’s a good retort,’ I admitted. ‘A few days, that’s all. And we
can’t get out to procure any more; and we can’t go shooting, because
the wood’s infested with these ruff--I beg pardon--with your
countrymen.’
‘Then it seems to me,’ said Euphrosyne, ‘that you and your friends are
more likely to be hanged.’
Well, on a dispassionate consideration, it did seem more likely; but
she need not have said so. She went on with an equally discouraging
good sense:
‘There will be a boat from Rhodes in about a month or six weeks. The
officer will come then to take the tribute; perhaps the Governor will
come. But till then nobody will visit the island, unless it be a few
fishermen from Cyprus.’
‘Fishermen? Where do they land? At the harbour?’
‘No; my people do not like them; but the Governor threatens to send
troops if we do not let them land. So they come to a little creek at
the opposite end of the island, on the other side of the mountain. Ah,
what are you thinking of?’
As Euphrosyne perceived, her words had put a new idea in my mind. If I
could reach that creek and find the fishermen and persuade them to
help me or to carry my party off, that hanging might happen to the
right man after all.
‘You’re thinking you can reach them?’ she cried.
‘You don’t seem sure that you want me to,’ I observed.
‘Oh, how can I tell what I want? If I help you I am betraying the
island. If I do not--’
‘You’ll have a death or two at your door, and you’ll marry the biggest
scoundrel in Europe,’ said I.
She hung her head and plucked fretfully at the embroidery on the front
of her gown.
‘But anyhow you couldn’t reach them,’ she said. ‘You are close
prisoners here.’
That, again, seemed true, so that it put me in a very bad temper.
Therefore I rose and, leaving her without much ceremony, strolled into
the kitchen. Here I found Watkins dressing the cow’s head, Hogvardt
surrounded by knives, and Denny lying on a rug on the floor with a
small book which he seemed to be reading. He looked up with a smile
that he considered knowing.
‘Well, what does the Captive Queen say?’ he asked with levity.
‘She proposes to marry Constantine,’ I answered, and added quickly to
Hogvardt:
‘What’s the game with those knives, Hog?’
‘Well, my lord,’ said Hogvardt, surveying his dozen murderous
instruments, ‘I thought there was no harm in putting an edge on them,
in case we should find a use for them,’ and he fell to grinding one
with great energy.
‘I say, Charley, I wonder what this yarn’s about. I can’t construe
half of it. It’s in Greek, and it’s something about Neopalia; and
there’s a lot about a Stefanopoulos.’
‘Is there? Let’s see,’ and, taking the book, I sat down to look at it.
It was a slim old book, bound in calf-skin. The Greek was written in
an old-fashioned style; it was verse. I turned to the title page.
‘Hullo, this is rather interesting,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s about the
death of old Stefanopoulos--the thing they sing that song about, you
know.’
In fact I had got hold of the poem which One-Eyed Alexander composed.
Its length was about three hundred lines, exclusive of the refrain
which the islanders had chanted, and which was inserted six times,
occurring at the end of each fifty lines. The rest was written in
rather barbarous iambics; and the sentiments were quite as barbarous
as the verse. It told the whole story, and I ran rapidly over it,
translating here and there for the benefit of my companions. The
arrival of the Baron d’Ezonville recalled our own with curious
exactness, except that he came with one servant only. He had been
taken to the inn as I had, but he had never escaped from there, and
had been turned adrift the morning after his arrival. I took more
interest in Stefan, and followed eagerly the story of how the
islanders had come to his house and demanded that he should revoke the
sale. Stefan, however, was obstinate; it cost the lives of four of his
assailants before his door was forced. Thus far I read, and expected
to find next an account of a _mêlée_ in the hall. But here the story
took a turn unexpected by me, one that might make the reading of the
old poem more than a mere pastime.
‘But when they had broken in,’ sang One-Eyed Alexander, ‘behold the
hall was empty, and the house empty! And they stood amazed. But the
two cousins of the Lord, who had been the hottest in seeking his
death, put all the rest to the door, and were themselves alone in the
house; for the secret was known to them who were of the blood of the
Stefanopouloi. Unto me, the Bard, it is not known. Yet men say they
went beneath the earth, and there in the earth found the lord. And
certain it is they slew him, for in a space they came forth to the
door, bearing his head; this they showed to the people, who answered
with a great shout. But the cousins went back, barring the door again;
and again, when but a few minutes had passed, they came forth, opening
the door, and the elder of them, being now by the traitor’s death
become lord, bade the people in, and made a great feast for them. But
the head of Stefan none saw again, nor did any see his body; but body
and head were gone whither none know, saving the noble blood of the
Stefanopouloi; for utterly they disappeared, and the secret was
securely kept.’
I read this passage aloud, translating as I went. At the end Denny
drew a breath.
‘Well, if there aren’t ghosts in this house there ought to be,’ he
remarked. ‘What the deuce did those rascals do with the old gentleman,
Charley?’
‘It says they went beneath the earth.’
‘The cellar,’ suggested Hogvardt, who had a prosaic mind.
‘But they wouldn’t leave the body in the cellar,’ I objected; ‘and if,
as this fellow says, they were only away a few minutes, they couldn’t
have dug a grave for it. And then it says that they “there in the
earth found the lord.”’
‘It would have been more interesting,’ said Denny, ‘if they’d told
Alexander a bit more about it. However I suppose he consoles himself
with his chant again?’
‘He does. It follows immediately on what I’ve read, and so the thing
ends.’ And I sat looking at the little yellow volume. ‘Where did you
find it, Denny?’ I asked.
‘Oh, on a shelf in the corner of the hall, between the _Iliad_ and a
_Life of Byron_. There’s precious little to read in this house.’
I got up and walked back to the hall. I looked round. Euphrosyne was
not there. I inspected the hall door; it was still locked on the
inside. I mounted the stairs and called at the door of her room; when
no answer came, I pushed it open and took the liberty of glancing
round; she was not there. I called again, for I thought she might have
passed along the way over the hall and reached the roof, as she had
before. This time I called loudly. Silence followed for a moment. Then
came an answer, in a hurried, rather apologetic tone, ‘Here I am.’ But
then--the answer came not from the direction that I had expected, but
from the hall! And, looking over the balustrade, I saw Euphrosyne
sitting in the armchair.
‘This,’ said I, going downstairs, ‘taken in conjunction with
this’--and I patted One-Eyed Alexander’s book, which I held in my
hand--‘is certainly curious and suggestive.’
‘Here I am,’ said Euphrosyne, with an air that added, ‘I’ve not moved.
What are you shouting for?’
‘Yes, but you weren’t there a minute ago,’ I observed, reaching the
hall and walking across to her.
She looked disturbed and embarrassed.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked.
‘Must I give an account of every movement?’ said she, trying to cover
her confusion with a show of haughty offence.
The coincidence was really a remarkable one; it was as hard to account
for Euphrosyne’s disappearance and reappearance as for the vanished
head and body of old Stefan. I had a conviction, based on a sudden
intuition, that one explanation must lie at the root of both these
curious things, that the secret of which Alexander spoke was a secret
still hidden--hidden from my eyes, but known to the girl before me,
the daughter of the Stefanopouloi.
‘I won’t ask you where you’ve been, if you don’t wish to tell me,’
said I carelessly.
She bowed her head in recognition of my indulgence.
‘But there is one question I should like to ask you,’ I pursued, ‘if
you’ll be so kind as to answer it.’
‘Well, what is it?’ She was still on the defensive.
‘Where was Stefan Stefanopoulos killed, and what became of his body?’
As I put the question I flung One-Eyed Alexander’s book open on the
table beside her.
She started visibly, crying, ‘Where did you get that?’
I told her how Denny had found it, and I added:
‘Now, what does “beneath the earth” mean? You’re one of the house and
you must know.’
‘Yes, I know, but I must not tell you. We are all bound by the most
sacred oath to tell no one.’
‘Who told you?’
‘My uncle. The boys of our house are told when they are fifteen, the
girls when they are sixteen. No one else knows.’
‘Why is that?’
She hesitated, fearing, perhaps, that her answer itself would tend to
betray the secret.
‘I dare tell you nothing,’ she said. ‘The oath binds me; and it binds
every one of my kindred to kill me if I break it.’
‘But you’ve no kindred left except Constantine,’ I objected.
‘He is enough. He would kill me.’
‘Sooner than marry you?’ I suggested rather maliciously.
‘Yes, if I broke the oath.’
‘Hang the oath!’ said I impatiently. ‘The thing might help us. Did
they bury Stefan somewhere under the house?’
‘No, he was not buried,’ she answered.
‘Then they brought him up and got rid of his body when the islanders
had gone?’
‘You must think what you will.’
‘I’ll find it out,’ said I. ‘If I pull the house down, I’ll find it.
Is it a secret door or--?
She had coloured at the question. I put the latter part in a low eager
voice, for hope had come to me.
‘Is it a way out?’ I asked, leaning over to her.
She sat mute, but irresolute, embarrassed and fretful.
‘Heavens,’ I cried impatiently, ‘it may mean life or death to all of
us, and you boggle over your oath!’
My rude impatience met with a rebuke that it perhaps deserved. With a
glance of the utmost scorn, Euphrosyne asked coldly,
‘What are the lives of all of you to me?’
‘True, I forgot,’ said I, with a bitter politeness. ‘I beg your
pardon. I did you all the service I could last night, and now--I and
my friends may as well die as live! But, by God, I’ll pull this place
to ruins, but I’ll find your secret.’
I was walking up and down now in a state of some excitement. My brain
was fired with the thought of stealing a march on Constantine through
the discovery of his own family secret.
Suddenly Euphrosyne gave a little soft clap with her hands. It was
over in a minute, and she sat blushing, confused, trying to look as if
she had not moved at all.
‘What did you do that for?’ I asked, stopping in front of her.
‘Nothing,’ said Euphrosyne.
‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ said I.
She looked at me. ‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ she said. ‘But can’t you
guess why?’
‘There’s too much guessing to be done here,’ said I impatiently; and I
started walking again. But presently I heard a voice say softly, and
in a tone that seemed to address nobody in particular--me least of
all:
‘We Neopalians like a man who can be angry, and I began to think you
never would.’
‘I am not the least angry,’ said I with great indignation. I hate
being told that I am angry when I am merely showing firmness.
Now at this protest of mine Euphrosyne saw fit to laugh--the most
hearty laugh she had given since I had known her. The mirthfulness of
it undermined my wrath. I stood still opposite her, biting the end of
my moustache.
‘You may laugh,’ said I, ‘but I’m not angry; and I shall pull this
house down, or dig it up, in cold blood, in perfectly cold blood.’
‘You are angry,’ said Euphrosyne, ‘and you say you’re not. You are
like my father. He would stamp his foot furiously like that, and say,
“I am not angry, I am not angry, Phroso.”’
Phroso! I had forgotten that diminutive of my guest’s classical name.
It rather pleased me, and I repeated gently after her, ‘Phroso,
Phroso!’ and I’m afraid I eyed the little foot that had stamped so
bravely.
‘He always called me Phroso. Oh, I wish he were alive! Then
Constantine--’
‘Since he isn’t,’ said I, sitting on the table by Phroso (I must write
it, it’s a deal shorter),--by Phroso’s elbow--‘since he isn’t, I’ll
look after Constantine. It would be a pity to spoil the house,
wouldn’t it?’
‘I’ve sworn,’ said Phroso.
‘Circumstances alter oaths,’ said I, bending till I was very near
Phroso’s ear.
‘Ah,’ said Phroso reproachfully, ‘that’s what lovers say when they
find another more beautiful than their old love.’
I shot away from Phroso’s ear with a sudden backward start. Her remark
somehow came home to me with a very remarkable force. I got off the
table, and stood opposite to her in an awkward and stiff attitude.
‘I am compelled to ask you, for the last time, if you will tell me the
secret?’ said I, in the coldest of tones.
She looked up with surprise; my altered manner may well have amazed
her. She did not know the reason of it.
‘You asked me kindly and--and pleasantly, and I would not. Now you ask
me as if you threatened,’ she said. ‘Is it likely I should tell you
now?’
Well, I was angry with myself and with her because she had made me
angry with myself; and, the next minute, I became furiously angry with
Denny, whom I found standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen
with a smile of intense amusement on his face.
‘What are you grinning at?’ I demanded fiercely.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Denny, and his face strove to assume a prudent
gravity.
‘Bring a pickaxe,’ said I.
Denny’s eyes wandered towards Phroso. ‘Is she as annoying as that?’ he
seemed to ask. ‘A pickaxe?’ he repeated in surprised tones.
‘Yes, two pickaxes. I’m going to have this floor up, and see if I can
find out the great Stefanopoulos secret.’ I spoke with an accent of
intense scorn.
Again Phroso laughed; her hands beat very softly against one another.
Heavens, what did she do that for, when Denny was there, watching
everything with those shrewd eyes of his?
‘The pickaxes!’ I roared.
Denny turned and fled; a moment elapsed. I did not know what to do,
how to look at Phroso, or how not to look at her. I took refuge in
flight. I rushed into the kitchen, on pretence of aiding or hastening
Denny’s search. I found him taking up an old pick that stood near the
door leading to the compound. I seized it from his hand.
‘Confound you!’ I cried, for Denny laughed openly at me; and I rushed
back to the hall. But on the threshold I paused, and said what I will
not write.
For, though there came from somewhere the ripple of a mirthful laugh,
the hall was empty! Phroso was gone! I flung the pickaxe down with a
clatter on the boards, and exclaimed in my haste:
‘I wish to heaven I’d never bought the island!’
But I did not really mean that.
CHAPTER VII
THE SECRET OF THE STEFANOPOULOI
Was this a pantomime? For a moment I declared angrily that it was no
better; but the next instant changed the current of my feelings,
transforming irritation into alarm and perplexity into the strongest
excitement. For Phroso’s laugh ended--ended as a laugh ends that is
suddenly cut short in its career of mirth--and there was a second of
absolute stillness. Then from the front of the house, and from the
back, came the sharp sound of shots--three in rapid succession in
front, four behind. Denny rushed out from the kitchen, rifle in hand.
‘They’re at us on both sides!’ he cried, leaping to his perch at the
window and cautiously peering round. ‘Hogvardt and Watkins are ready
at the back; they’re firing from the wood,’ he went on. Then he fired.
‘Missed, confound it!’ he muttered. ‘Well, they don’t come any nearer,
I’ll see to that.’
Denny was a sure defence in front. I turned towards the kitchen, for
more shots came from that direction, and although it was difficult to
do worse than harass us from there, our perpendicular bank of rock
being a difficult obstacle to pass in face of revolver-fire, I wanted
to see that all was well and to make the best disposition against this
unexpected onset. Yet I did not reach the kitchen; half way to the
door which led to it I was arrested by a cry of distress. Phroso’s
laugh had gone, but the voice was still hers. ‘Help!’ she cried,
‘help!’ Then came a chuckle from Denny at the window, and a
triumphant, ‘Winged him, by Jove!’ And then from Phroso again,
‘Help!’--and at last an enlightening word, ‘Help! Under the staircase!
Help!’
At this summons I left my friends to sustain the attack or the feigned
attack; for I began to suspect that it was no more than a diversion,
and that the real centre of operations was ‘under the staircase;’
thither I ran. The stairs rose from the centre of the right side of
the hall, and led up to the gallery; they rose steeply, and a man
could stand upright up to within four feet of the spot where the
staircase sprang from the level floor. I was there now; and under me I
heard no longer voices, but a kind of scuffle. The pick was in my
hand, and I struck savagely again and again at the boards; for I did
not doubt now that there was a trap-door, and I was in no mind to
spend my time seeking for its cunning machinery. And yet where
knowledge failed, chance came to my help; at the fifth or sixth blow I
must have happened on the spring, for the boards yawned, leaving a
space of about three inches. Dropping the pick, I fell on my knees and
seized the edge nearest me. With all my strength I tugged and pulled.
My violence was of no avail, the boards moved no more. Impatient yet
sobered I sought eagerly for the spring which my pick had found. Ah,
here it was! It answered now to a touch light as Phroso’s own. At the
slightest pressure the boards rolled away, seeming to curl themselves
up under the base of the staircase; and there was revealed to me an
aperture four feet long by three broad; beneath lay a flight of stone
steps. I seized my pick again, and took a step downwards. I heard
nothing except the noise of retreating feet. I went on. Down six steps
I went, then the steps ended, and I was on an incline. At that moment
I heard again, only a few yards from me, ‘Help!’ I sprang forward. A
loud curse rang out, and a shot whistled by me. The open trap-door
gave a glimmer of light. I was in a narrow passage, and a man was
coming at me. I did not know where Phroso was, but I took the risk. I
fired straight at him, having shifted my pick to the left hand. The
aim was true, he fell prone on his face before me. I jumped on and
over his body, and ran along the dark passage; for I still heard
retreating steps. But then came a voice I knew, the voice of Vlacho
the innkeeper. ‘Then stay where you are, curse you!’ he cried
savagely. There was a thud, as though some one fell heavily to the
ground, a cry of pain, and then the rapid running of feet that fled
now at full pace and unencumbered. Vlacho the innkeeper had heard my
shot and had no stomach for fighting in that rat-run, with a girl in
his arms to boot! And I, pursuing, was brought up short by the body of
Phroso, which lay, white and plain to see, across the narrow passage.
‘Are you hurt?’ I cried eagerly.
‘He flung me down violently,’ she answered. ‘But I’m not hurt
otherwise.’
‘Then I’ll go after him,’ I cried.
‘No, no, you mustn’t. You don’t know the way, you don’t know the
dangers; there may be more of them at the other end.’
‘True,’ said I. ‘What happened?’
‘Why, I came down to hide from you, you know. But directly I reached
the foot of the steps Vlacho seized me. He was crouching there with
Spiro--you know Spiro. And they said, “Ah, she has saved us the
trouble!” and began to drag me away. But I would not go, and I called
to you. I twisted my feet round Vlacho, so that he couldn’t go fast;
then he told Spiro to catch hold of me, and they were just carrying me
off when you came. Vlacho kept hold of me while Spiro went to meet you
and--’
‘It seems,’ I interrupted, ‘that Constantine was less scrupulous about
that oath than you were. Or how did Vlacho and Spiro come here?’
‘Yes, he must have told them,’ she admitted reluctantly.
‘Well, come along, come back; I’m wanted,’ said I; and (without asking
leave, I fear) I caught her up in my arms and began to run back. I
jumped again over Spiro--friend Spiro had not moved--and regained the
hall.
‘Stay there, under the stairs; you’re sheltered there,’ I said hastily
to Phroso. Then I called to Denny, ‘What cheer, Denny?’ Denny turned
round with a radiant smile. I don’t think he had even noticed my
absence.
‘Prime,’ said he. ‘This is a rare gun of old Constantine’s; it carries
a good thirty yards farther than any they’ve got, and I can pick ’em
off before they get dangerous. I’ve got one and winged another, and
the rest have retired a little way to talk it over.’
Seeing that things were all right in that quarter I ran into the
kitchen. It was well that I did so. We were indeed in no danger; from
that side, at all events, the attack was evidently no more than a
feint. There was desultory firing from a safe distance in the wood. I
reckoned there must be four or five men hidden behind trees and
emerging every now and then to pay us a compliment. But they had not
attempted a rush. The mischief was quite different, being just this,
that Watkins, who was not well instructed in the range of fire-arms,
was cheerfully emptying his revolver into space, and wasting our
precious cartridges at the rate of about two a minute. He was so
magnificently happy that it went to my heart to stop him, but I was
compelled to seize his arm and command him very peremptorily to wait
till there was something to fire at.
‘I thought I’d show them that we were ready for them, my lord,’ said
he apologetically.
I turned impatiently to Hogvardt.
‘Why did you let him make a fool of himself like that?’ I asked.
‘He would miss, anyhow, wherever the men were,’ observed Hogvardt
philosophically. ‘And,’ he continued, ‘I was busy myself.’
‘What were you doing?’ I asked in a scornful tone.
Hogvardt made no answer in words; but he pointed proudly to the
table. There I saw a row of five long and strong saplings; to the head
of each of these most serviceable lances there was bound strongly,
with thick wire wound round again and again, a long, keen, bright
knife.
‘I think these may be useful,’ said Hogvardt, rubbing his hands, and
rising from his seat with the sigh of a man who had done a good
morning’s work.
‘The cartridges would have been more useful still,’ said I severely.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘if you would have taken them away from Watkins.
But you know you wouldn’t, my lord. You’d be afraid of hurting his
feelings. So he might just as well amuse himself while I made the
lances.’
I have known Hogvardt for a long while, and I never argue with him.
The mischief was done; the cartridges were gone; we had the lances; it
was no use wasting more words over it. I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Your lordship will find the lances very useful,’ said Hogvardt,
fingering one of them most lovingly.
The attack was dying away now in both front and rear. My impression
was amply confirmed. It had been no more than a device for occupying
our attention while those two daring rascals, Vlacho and Spiro, armed
with the knowledge of the secret way, made a sudden dash upon us,
either in the hope of getting a shot at our backs and finding shelter
again before we could retaliate, or with the design of carrying off
Phroso. Her jest had forestalled the former idea, if it had been in
their minds, and they had then endeavoured to carry out the latter.
Indeed I found afterwards that it was the latter on which Constantine
laid most stress; for a deputation of the islanders had come to him,
proposing that he should make terms with me as a means of releasing
their Lady. Now since last night Constantine, for reasons which he
could not disclose to the deputation, was absolutely precluded from
treating with me; he was therefore driven to make an attempt to get
Phroso out of my hands in order to satisfy her people. This enterprise
I had happily frustrated for the moment. But my mind was far from
easy. Provisions would soon be gone; ammunition was scanty; against an
attack by day our strong position, aided by Denny’s coolness and
marksmanship, seemed to protect us very effectually; but I could feel
no confidence as to the result of a grand assault under the protecting
shadow of night. And now that Constantine’s hand was being forced by
the islanders’ anxiety for Phroso, I was afraid that he would not
wait long before attempting a decisive stroke.
‘I wish we were well out of it,’ said I despondently, as I wiped my
brow.
All was quiet. Watkins appeared with bread, cheese and wine.
‘Your lordship would not wish to use the cow at luncheon?’ he asked,
as he passed me on his way to the hall.
‘Certainly not, Watkins,’ I answered, smiling. ‘We must save the cow.’
‘There is still a goat, but she is a poor thin creature, my lord.’
‘We shall come to her in time, Watkins,’ said I.
But if I were depressed, the other three were very merry over their
meal. Danger was an idea which found no hospitality in Denny’s brain;
Hogvardt was as cool a hand as the world held; Watkins could not
believe that Providence would deal unkindly with a man of my rank.
They toasted our recent success, and listened with engrossed interest
to my account of the secret of the Stefanopouloi. Phroso sat a little
apart, saying nothing, but at last I turned to her and asked, ‘Where
does the passage lead to?’
She answered readily enough; the secret was out through Constantine’s
fault, not hers, and the seal was removed from her lips.
‘If you follow it to the end, it comes out in a little cave in the
rocks on the seashore, near the creek where the Cypriote fishermen
come.’
‘Ah,’ I cried, ‘it might help us to get there!’
She shook her head, answering:
‘Constantine is sure to have that end strongly guarded now, because he
knows that you have the secret.’
‘We might force our way.’
‘There is no room for more than one man to go at a time; and
besides--’ she paused.
‘Well, what besides?’ I asked.
‘It would be certain death to try to go in the face of an enemy’ she
answered.
Denny broke in at this point.
‘By the way, what of the fellow you shot? Are we going to leave him
there, or must we get him up?’
Spiro had been in my mind; and now I said to Phroso:
‘What did they do with the body of Stefan Stefanopoulos? There was not
time for them to have taken it to the end of the way, was there?’
‘No, they didn’t take it to the end of the way,’ said she. ‘I will
show you if you like. Bring a torch; you must keep behind me, and
right in the middle of the path.’
I accepted her invitation eagerly, telling Denny to keep guard. He was
very anxious to accompany us, but another and more serious attack
might be in store, and I would not trust the house to Hogvardt and
Watkins alone. So I took a lantern in lieu of a torch and prepared to
follow. At the last moment Hogvardt thrust into my hand one of his
lances.
‘It will very likely be useful,’ said he. ‘A thing like that is always
useful.’
I would not disappoint him, and I took the lance. Phroso signed to me
to give her the lantern and preceded me down the flight of stairs.
‘We shall be in earshot of the hall?’ I asked.
‘Yes, for as far as we are going,’ she answered, and she led the way
into the passage. I prayed her to let me go first, for it was just
possible that some of Constantine’s ruffians might still be there.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘He would tell as few as possible. You
see, we have always kept the secret from the islanders. I think that,
if you had not killed Spiro, he would not have lived long after
knowing it.’
‘The deuce!’ I exclaimed. ‘And Vlacho?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Constantine is very fond of Vlacho. Still, perhaps,
some day--’ The unfinished sentence was expressive enough.
‘What use was the secret?’ I asked, as we groped our way slowly along
and edged by the body of Spiro which lay, six feet of dead clay, in
the path.
‘In the first place, we could escape by it,’ she answered, ‘if any
tumult arose in the island. That was what Stefan tried to do, and
would have done, had not his own kindred been against him and
overtaken him here in the passage.’
‘And in the second place?’ I asked.
Phroso stopped, turned round, and faced me.
‘In the second place,’ she said, ‘if any one of the islanders became
very powerful--too powerful, you know--then the ruling lord would show
him great favour; and, as a crowning mark of his confidence, he would
bid him come by night and learn the great secret; and they two would
come together down this passage. But the lord would return alone.’
‘And the other?’
‘The body of the other would be found two, three, four days, or a week
later, tossing on the shores of the island,’ answered Phroso. ‘For
look!’ and she held the lantern high above her head so that its light
was projected in front of us, and I could see fifteen or twenty yards
ahead.
‘When they reached here, Stefanopoulos and the other,’ she went on,
‘Stefanopoulos would stumble, and feign to twist his foot, and he
would pray the other to let him lean a little on his shoulder. Thus
they would go on, the other a pace in front, the lord leaning on his
shoulder; and the lord would hold the torch, but he would not hold it
up, as I hold the lantern, but down to the ground, so that it should
light no more than a pace or two ahead. And when they came there--do
you see, my lord--there?’
‘I see,’ said I, and I believe I shivered a bit.
‘When they came there the torch would suddenly show the change, so
suddenly that the other would start and be for an instant alarmed, and
turn his head round to the lord to ask what it meant.’
Phroso paused in her recital of the savage, simple, sufficient old
trick.
‘Yes?’ said I. ‘And at that moment--’
‘The lord’s hand on his shoulder,’ she answered, ‘which had rested
lightly before, would grow heavy as lead and with a great sudden
impulse the other would be hurled forward, and the lord would be alone
again with the secret, and alone the holder of power in Neopalia.’
This was certainly a pretty secret of empire, and none the less
although the empire it protected was but nine miles long and five
broad. I took the lantern from Phroso’s hand, saying, ‘Let’s have a
look.’
I stepped a pace or two forward, prodding the ground with Hogvardt’s
lance before I moved my feet: and thus I came to the spot where the
Stefanopoulos used with a sudden great impulse to propel his enemy
down. For here the rocks, which hitherto had narrowly edged and
confined the path, bayed out on either side. The path ran on, a flat
rock track about a couple of feet wide, forming the top of an
upstanding cliff; but on either side there was an interval of seven or
eight feet between the path and the walls of rock, and the path was
unfenced. Even had the Stefanopoulos held his hand and given no
treacherous impulse, it would have needed a cool-headed man to walk
that path by the dim glimmer of a torch. For, kneeling down and
peering over the side, I saw before me, some seventy feet down as I
judged, the dark gleam of water, and I heard the low moan of its wash.
And Phroso said:
‘If the man escaped the sharp rocks he would fall into the water; and
then, if he could not swim, he would sink at once; but if he could
swim he would swim round, and round, and round, like a fish in a bowl,
till he grew weary, unless he chanced to find the only opening; and if
he found that and passed through, he would come to a rapid, where the
water runs swiftly, and he would be dashed on the rocks. Only by a
miracle could he escape death by one or other of these ways. So I was
told when I was of age to know the secret. And it is certain that no
man who fell into the water has escaped alive, although their bodies
came out.’
‘Did Stefan’s body come out?’ I asked, peering at the dark water with
a fascinated gaze.
‘No, because they tied weights to it before they threw it down, and so
with the head. Stefan is there at the bottom. Perhaps another
Stefanopoulos is there also; for his body was never found. He was
caught by the man he threw down, and the two fell together.’
‘Well, I’m glad of it,’ said I with emphasis, as I rose to my feet. ‘I
wish the same thing had always happened.’
‘Then,’ remarked Phroso with a smile, ‘I should not be here to tell
you about it.’
‘Hum,’ said I. ‘At all events I wish it had generally happened. For a
more villainous contrivance I never heard of in all my life. We
English are not accustomed to this sort of thing.’
Phroso looked at me for a moment with a strange expression of
eagerness, hesitation and fear. Then she suddenly put out her hand,
and laid it on my arm.
‘I will not go back to my cousin who has wronged me, if--if I may stay
with you,’ she said.
‘If you may stay!’ I exclaimed with a nervous laugh.
‘But will you protect me? Will you stand by me? Will you swear not to
leave me here alone on the island? If you will, I will tell you
another thing--a thing that would certainly bring me death if it were
known I had told.’
‘Whether you tell me or whether you don’t,’ said I, ‘I’ll do what you
ask.’
‘Then you are not the first Englishman who has been here. Seventy
years ago there came an Englishman here, a daring man, a lover of our
people, and a friend of the great Byron. Orestes Stefanopoulos, who
ruled here then, loved him very much, and brought him here, and showed
him the path and the water under it. And he, the Englishman, came next
day with a rope, and fixed the rope at the top, and let himself down.
Somehow, I do not know how, he came safe out to the sea, past the
rocks and the rapids. But, alas, he boasted of it! Then, when the
thing became known, all the family came to Orestes and asked him what
he had done. And he said:
‘“Sup with me this night, and I will tell you.” For he saw that what
he had done was known.
‘So they all supped together, and Orestes told them what he had done,
and how he did it for love of the Englishman. They said nothing, but
looked sad; for they loved Orestes. But he did not wait for them to
kill him, as they were bound to do; but he took a great flagon of
wine, and poured into it the contents of a small flask. And his
kindred said: “Well done, Lord Orestes!” And they all rose to their
feet, and drank to him. And he drained the flagon to their good
fortune, and went and lay down on his bed, and turned his face to the
wall and died.’
I paid less attention to this new episode in the family history of the
Stefanopouloi than it perhaps deserved: my thoughts were with the
Englishman, not with his too generous friend. Yet the thing was
handsomely done--on both sides handsomely done.
‘If the Englishman got out!’ I cried, gazing at Phroso’s face.
‘Yes, I mean that,’ said she simply. ‘But it must be dangerous.’
‘It’s not exactly safe where we are,’ I said, smiling; ‘and
Constantine will be guarding the proper path. By Jove, we’ll try it!’
‘But I must come with you; for if you go that way and escape,
Constantine will kill me.’
‘You’ve just as good a right to kill Constantine.’
‘Still he will kill me. You’ll take me with you?’
‘To be sure I will,’ said I.
Now when a man pledges his word, he ought, to my thinking, to look
straight and honestly in the eyes of the woman to whom he is
promising. Yet I did not look into Phroso’s eyes, but stared
awkwardly over her head at the walls of rock. Then, without any more
words, we turned back and went towards the secret door. But I stopped
at Spiro’s body, and said to Phroso:
‘Will you send Denny to me?’
She went, and when Denny came we took Spiro’s body and carried it to
where the walls bayed, and we flung it down into the dark water below.
And I told Denny of the Englishman who had come alive through the
perils of the hidden chasm. He listened with eager attention, nodding
his head at every point of the story.
[Illustration: WE TOOK SPIRO’S BODY AND FLUNG IT DOWN.]
‘There lies our road, Denny,’ said I, pointing with my finger. ‘We’ll
go along it to-night.’
Denny looked down, shook his head and smiled.
‘And the girl?’ he asked suddenly.
‘She comes too,’ said I.
We walked back together, Denny being unusually silent and serious. I
thought that even his audacious courage was a little dashed by the
sight and the associations of that grim place, so I said:
‘Cheer up. If that other fellow got through the rocks, we can.’
‘Oh, hang the rocks!’ said Denny scornfully. ‘I wasn’t thinking of
them.’
‘Then what are you so glum about?’
‘I was wondering,’ said Denny, freeing himself from my arm, ‘how
Beatrice Hipgrave would get on with Euphrosyne.’
I looked at Denny. I tried to feel angry, or even, if I failed in
that, to appear angry. But it was no use. Denny was imperturbable. I
took his arm again.
‘Thanks, old man,’ said I. ‘I’ll remember.’
For when I considered the very emphatic assertions which I had made to
Denny before we left England, I could not honestly deny that he was
justified in his little reminder.
CHAPTER VIII
A KNIFE AT A ROPE
Some modern thinkers, I believe--or perhaps, to be quite safe, I had
better say some modern talkers--profess to estimate the value of life
by reference to the number of distinct sensations which it enables
them to experience. Judged by a similar standard, my island had been,
up to the present time, a brilliant success; it was certainly
fulfilling the function, which Mrs Kennett Hipgrave had appropriated
to it, of whiling away the time that must elapse before my marriage
with her daughter and providing occupation for my thoughts during this
weary interval. The difficulty was that the island seemed disinclined
to restrict itself to this modest sphere of usefulness; it threatened
to monopolise me, and to leave very little of me or my friends, by the
time that it had finished with us. For, although we maintained our
cheerfulness, our position was not encouraging. Had matters been
anything short of desperate above ground it would have been madness to
plunge into that watery hole, whose egress was unknown to us, and to
take such a step on the off-chance of finding at the other end the
Cypriote fishermen, and of obtaining from them either an alliance, or,
if that failed, the means of flight. Yet we none of us doubted that to
take the plunge was the wiser course. I did not believe in the extreme
peril of the passage, for, on further questioning, Phroso told us that
the Englishman had come through, not only alive and well, but also
dry. Therefore there was a path, and along a path that one man can go
four men can go; and Phroso, again attired, at my suggestion, in her
serviceable boy’s suit, was the equal of any of us. So we left
considering whether, and fell to the more profitable work of asking
how, to go. Hogvardt and Watkins went off at once to the point of
departure, armed with a pick, a mallet, some stout pegs, and a long
length of rope. All save the last were ready on the premises, and that
last formed always part of Hogvardt’s own equipment; he wore it round
his waist, and, I believe, slept in it, like a mediæval ascetic.
Meanwhile Denny and I kept watch, and Phroso, who seemed out of
humour, disappeared into her own room.
Our idea was to reach the other end of the journey somewhere about
eight or nine o’clock in the evening. Phroso told us that this hour
was the most favourable for finding the fishermen; they would then be
taking a meal before launching their boats for the fishing-grounds.
Three hours seemed ample time to allow for the journey, for the way
could hardly, however rich it were in windings, be more than three or
four miles long. We determined, therefore, to start at five. At four
Hogvardt and Watkins returned from the underground passage; they had
driven three stout pegs into excavations in the rocky path, and built
them in securely with stones and earth. The rope was tied fast and
firm round the pegs, and the moistness of its end showed the length to
be sufficient. I wished to descend first, but I was at once overruled;
Denny was to lead, Watkins was to follow; then came Hogvardt, then
Phroso, and lastly myself. We arranged all this as we ate a good meal;
then each man stowed away a portion of goat--the goat had died the
death that morning--and tied a flask of wine about him. It was a
quarter to five, and Denny rose to his feet, flinging away his
cigarette.
‘That’s my last!’ said he, regretfully regarding his empty case.
His words sounded ominous, but the spirit of action was on us, and we
would not be discouraged. I went to the hall door and fired a shot,
and then did the like at the back. Having thus spent two cartridges
on advertising our presence to the pickets we made without delay for
the passage. With my own hand I closed the door behind us. The secret
of the Stefanopouloi would thus be hidden from profane eyes in the
very likely event of the islanders finding their way into the house in
the course of the next few hours.
I persuaded Phroso to sit down some little way from the chasm and wait
till we were ready for her; we four went on. Denny was a delightful
boy to deal with on such occasions. He wasted no time in
preliminaries. He gave one hard pull at the rope; it stood the test;
he cast a rapid eye over the wedges; they were strong and strongly
imbedded in the rock. He laid hold of the rope.
‘Don’t come after me till I shout,’ said he, and he was over the side.
The lantern showed me his descending figure, while Hogvardt and
Watkins held the rope ready to haul him up in case of need. There was
one moment of suspense; then his voice came, distant and cavernous.
‘All right! There’s a broad ledge--a foot and a half broad--twenty
feet above the water, and I can see a glimmer of light that looks like
the way out.’
‘This is almost disappointingly simple,’ said I.
‘Would your lordship desire me to go next?’ asked Watkins.
‘Yes, fire away, Watkins,’ said I, now in high good humour.
‘Stand from under, sir,’ called Watkins to Denny, and over he went.
A shout announced his safe arrival. I laid down the lantern and took
hold of the rope.
‘I must hang on to you, Hog,’ said I. ‘You carry flesh, you see.’
Hogvardt was calm, smiling and leisurely.
‘When I’m down, my lord,’ he said, ‘I’ll stand ready to catch the
young lady. Give me a call before you start her off.’
‘All right,’ I answered. ‘I’ll go and fetch her directly.’
Over went old Hogvardt. He groaned once; I suppose he grazed against
the wall; but he descended with perfect safety. Denny called: ‘Now
we’re ready for her, Charley. Lower away!’ And I, turning, began to
walk back to where I had left Phroso.
My island--I can hardly resist personifying it in the image of some
charming girl, full of tricks and surprises, yet all the while
enchanting--had now behaved well for two hours. The limit of its
endurance seemed to be reached. In another five minutes Phroso and I
would have been safely down the rope and the party re-united at the
bottom, with a fair hope of carrying out prosperously at least the
first part of the enterprise. But it was not to be. My eyes had grown
accustomed to the gloom, and when I went back I left the lantern
standing by the rope. Suddenly, when I was still a few yards from
Phroso, I heard a curious noise, a sort of shuffling sound, rather
like the noise made by a rug or carpet drawn along the floor. I stood
still and listened, turning my my head round to the chasm. The noise
continued for a minute. I took a step in the direction of it. Then I
seemed to see a curious thing. The lantern appeared to get up, raise
itself a foot or so in the air, keeping its light towards me, and
throw itself over the chasm. At the same instant there was a rasp.
Heavens, it was a knife on the rope! A cry came from far down in the
chasm. I darted forward. I rushed to where the walls bayed and the
chasm opened. The shuffling sound had begun again; and in the middle
of the isolated path I saw a dark object. It must be the figure of a
man, a man who had watched our proceedings, unobserved by us, and
seized this chance of separating our party. For a moment--a fatal
moment--I stood aghast, doing nothing. Then I drew my revolver and
fired once--twice--thrice. The bullets whistled along the path, but
the dark figure was no longer to be seen there. But in an instant
there came an answering shot from across the bridge of rock. Denny
shouted wildly to me from below. I fired again; there was a groan, but
two shots flashed at the very same moment. There were two men there,
perhaps more. I stood again for a moment undecided; but I could do no
good where I was. I turned and ran fairly and fast.
‘Come, come,’ I cried, when I had reached Phroso. ‘Come back, come
back! They’ve cut the rope and they’ll be on us directly.’
In spite of her amazement she rose as I bade her. We heard feet
running along the passage. They would be across the bridge now. Would
they stop and fire down the chasm? No, they were coming on. We also
went on; a touch of Phroso’s practised fingers opened the door for us;
I turned, and in wrath gave the pursuers one more shot. Then I ran up
the stairs and shut the door behind us. We were in the hall again--but
Phroso and I alone.
A hurried story told her all that had happened. Her breath came quick
and her cheek flushed.
‘The cowards!’ she said. ‘They dared not attack us when we were all
together!’
‘They will attack us before very long now,’ said I, ‘and we can’t
possibly hold the house against them. Why, they may open that
trap-door any moment.’
Phroso stepped quickly towards it, and, stooping for a instant,
examined it. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they may. I can’t fasten it. You spoilt
the fastening with your pick.’
Hearing this, I stepped close up to the door, reloading my revolver as
I went, and I called out, ‘The first man who looks out is a dead man.’
No sound came from below. Either they were too hurt to attempt the
attack, or, more probably, they preferred the safer and surer way of
surrounding and overwhelming us by numbers from outside. Indeed we
were at our last gasp now; I flung myself despondently into a chair;
but I kept my finger on my weapon and my eye on the trap-door.
‘They cannot get back--our friends--and we cannot get to them,’ said
Phroso.
‘No,’ said I. Her simple statement was terribly true.
‘And we cannot stay here!’ she pursued.
‘They’ll be at us in an hour or two at most, I’ll warrant. Those
fellows will carry back the news that we are alone here.’
‘And if they come?’ she said, fixing her eyes on me.
‘They won’t hurt you, will they?’
‘I don’t know what Constantine would do; but I don’t think the people
will let him hurt me, unless--’
‘Well, unless what?’
She hesitated, looked at me, looked away again. I believe that my eyes
were now guilty of neglecting the trap-door which I ought to have
watched.
‘Unless what?’ I said again. But Phroso grew red and did not answer.
‘Unless you’re so foolish as to try to protect me, you mean?’ I asked.
‘Unless you refuse to give them back what Constantine offers to win
for them--the island?’
‘They will not let you have the island,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I
dare not face them and tell them it is yours.’
‘Do you admit it’s mine?’ I asked eagerly.
A slow smile dawned on Phroso’s face, and she held out her hand to me.
Ah, Denny, my conscience, why were you at the bottom of the chasm? I
seized her hand and kissed it.
‘Between friends,’ she said softly, ‘there is no thine nor mine.’
Ah, Denny, where were you? I kissed her hand again--and dropped it
like a red-hot coal.
‘But I can’t say that to my islanders,’ said Phroso, smiling.
Charming as it was, I wished she had not said it to me. I wished that
she would not speak as she spoke, or look as she looked, or be what
she was. I forgot all about the trap-door. The island was piling
sensations on me.
At last I got up and went to the table. I found there a scrap of
paper, on which Denny had drawn a fancy sketch of Constantine (to
whom, by the way, he attributed hoofs and a tail). I turned the blank
side uppermost, and took my pencil out of my pocket. I was determined
to put the thing on a business-like footing; so I began:
‘Whereas’--which has a cold, legal, business-like sound:
‘Whereas,’ I wrote in English, ‘this island of Neopalia is mine, I
hereby fully, freely, and absolutely give it to the Lady Euphrosyne,
niece of Stefan Georgios Stefanopoulos, lately Lord of the said
island--Wheatley.’ And I made a copy underneath in Greek, and, walking
across to Phroso, handed the paper to her, remarking in a rather
disagreeable tone, ‘There you are; that’ll put it all straight, I
hope.’ And I sat down again, feeling out of humour. I did not like
giving up my island, even to Phroso. Moreover I had the strongest
doubt whether my surrender would be of the least use in saving my
skin.
I do not know that I need relate what Phroso did when I gave her back
her island. These southern races have picturesque but extravagant
ways. I did not know where to look while she was thanking me, and it
was as much as I could do not to call out, ‘Do stop!’ However
presently she did stop, but not because I asked her. She was stayed by
a sudden thought which had been in my mind all the while, but now
flashed suddenly into hers.
‘But Constantine?’ she said. ‘You know his--his secrets. Won’t he
still try to kill you?’
Of course he would if he valued his own neck. For I had sworn to see
him hanged for one murder, and I knew that he meditated another.
‘Oh, don’t you bother about that!’ said I. ‘I expect I can manage
Constantine.’
‘Do you think I’m going to desert you?’ she asked in superb
indignation.
‘No, no; of course not,’ I protested, rather in a fright. ‘I shouldn’t
think of accusing you of such a thing.’
‘You know that’s what you meant,’ said Phroso, a world of reproach in
her voice.
‘My dear lady,’ said I, ‘getting you into trouble won’t get me out of
it, and getting you out may get me out. Take that paper in your hand,
and go back to your people. Say nothing about Constantine just now;
play with him. You know what I’ve told you, and you won’t be deluded
by him. Don’t let him see that you know anything of the woman at the
cottage. It won’t help you, it may hurt me, and it will certainly
bring her into greater danger; for, if nothing has happened to her
already, yet something may if his suspicions are aroused.’
‘I am to do all this. And what will you do, my lord?’
‘I say, don’t call me “my lord”; we say “Lord Wheatley.” What am I
going to do? I’m going to make a run for it.’
‘But they’ll kill you!’
‘Then shall I stay here?’
‘Yes, stay here.’
‘But Constantine’s fellows will be here before long.’
‘You must give yourself up to them, and tell them to bring you to me.
They couldn’t hurt you then.’
Well, I wasn’t sure of that, but I pretended to believe it. The truth
is that I dared not tell Phroso what I had actually resolved to do. It
was a risky job, but it was a chance; and it was more than a chance.
It was very like an obligation that a man had no right to shrink from
discharging. Here was I, planning to make Phroso comfortable; that was
right enough. And here was I planning to keep my own skin whole;
well, a man does no wrong in doing that. But what of that unlucky
woman on the hill? I knew friend Constantine would take care that
Phroso should not come within speaking distance of her. Was nobody to
set her on her guard? Was I to leave her to her blind trust of the
ruffian whom she was unfortunate enough to call husband, and of his
tool Vlacho? Now I came to think of it, now that I was separated from
my friends and had no lingering hope of being able to beat Constantine
in fair fight, that seemed hardly the right thing, hardly a thing I
should care to talk about or think about, if I did save my own
precious skin. Would not Constantine teach his wife the secret of the
Stefanopouloi? Urged by these reflections, I made up my mind to play a
little trick on Phroso, and feigned to accept her suggestion that I
should rely on her to save me. Evidently she had great confidence in
her influence now that she held that piece of paper. I had less
confidence in it, for it was clear that Constantine wielded immense
power over these unruly islanders, and I thought it likely enough that
they would demand from Phroso a promise to marry him as the price of
obeying her; then, whether Constantine did or did not promise me my
life, I felt sure that he would do his best to rob me of it.
Well, time pressed. I rose and unbolted the door of the house. Phroso
sat still. I looked along the road. I saw nobody, but I heard the
blast of the horn which had fallen on my ears once before and had
proved the forerunner of an attack. Phroso also heard it, for she sat
up, saying, ‘Hark, they are summoning all the men to the town! That
means they are coming here.’
But it meant something else also to me; if the men were summoned to
the town there would be fewer for me to elude in the wood.
‘Will they all go?’ I asked, as though in mere curiosity.
‘All who are not on some duty,’ she answered.
I had to hope for the best; but Phroso went on in distress:
‘It means that they are coming here--here, to take you.’
‘Then you must lose no time in going,’ said I, and I took her hand and
gently raised her to her feet. She stood there for a moment, looking
at me. I had let go her hand, but she took mine again now, and she
said with a sudden vehemence, and a rush of rich deep red on her
cheeks:
‘If they kill you, they shall kill me too.’
The words gushed impetuously from her, but at the end there was a
choke in her throat.
‘No, no, nonsense,’ said I. ‘You’ve got the island now. You mustn’t
talk like that.’
‘I don’t care--’ she began; and stopped short.
‘Besides, I shall pull through,’ said I.
She dropped my hand, but she kept her eyes on mine.
‘And if you get away?’ she asked. ‘What will you do? If you get to
Rhodes, what will you do?’
‘All I shall do is to lay an information against your cousin and the
innkeeper. The rest are ignorant fellows, and I bear them no malice.
Besides, they are your men now.’
‘And when you’ve done that?’ she asked gravely.
‘Well, that’ll be all there is to do,’ said I, with an attempt at
playful gaiety. It was not a very happy attempt.
‘Then you’ll go home to your own people?’
‘I shall go home; I’ve got no people in particular.’
‘Shall you ever come to Neopalia again?’
‘I don’t know. Yes, if you invite me.’
She regarded me intently for a full minute. She seemed to have
forgotten the blast of the horn that summoned the islanders. I also
had forgotten it; I saw nothing but the perfect oval face, crowned
with clustering hair and framing deep liquid eyes. Then she drew a
ring from her finger.
‘You have fought for me,’ she said. ‘You have risked your life for me.
Will you take this ring from me? Once I tried to stab you. Do you
remember, my lord?’
I bowed my head, and Phroso set the ring on my finger.
‘Wear it till a woman you love gives you one to wear instead,’ said
Phroso with a little smile. ‘Then go to the edge of your island--you
are an islander too, are you not? so we are brethren--go to the edge
of your island and throw it into the sea; and perhaps, my dear friend,
the sea will bring it back, a message from you to me. For I think you
will never again come to Neopalia.’
I made no answer: we walked together to the door of the house, and
paused again for a moment on the threshold.
‘See the blue sea!’ said Phroso. ‘Is it not--is not your island--a
beautiful island? If God brings you safe to your own land, my lord, as
I will pray Him to do on my knees, think kindly of your island, and of
one who dwells there.’
The blast of the horn had died away. The setting sun was turning blue
to gold on the quiet water. The evening was very still, as we stood
looking from the threshold of the door, under the portal of the house
that had seen such strange wild doings, and had so swiftly made for
itself a place for ever in my life and memory.
I glanced at Phroso’s face. Her eyes were set on the sea, her cheeks
had turned pale again, and her lip was quivering. Suddenly came a loud
sharp note on the horn.
‘It is the signal for the start,’ said she. ‘I must go, or they will
be here in heat and anger, and I shall not be able to stop them. And
they will kill my lord. No, I will say “my lord.”’
She moved to leave me. I had answered nothing to all she had said.
What was there that an honourable man could say? Was there one thing?
I told myself (too eager to tell myself) that I had no right to
presume to say that. And anything else I would not say.
‘God bless you,’ I said, as she moved away; I caught her hand and
again lightly kissed it. ‘My homage to the Lady of the Island,’ I
whispered.
Her hand dwelt in mine a moment, briefer than our divisions of time
can reckon, fuller than is often the longest of them. Then, with one
last look, questioning, appealing, excusing, protesting, confessing,
ay, and (for my sins) hoping, she left me, and stepped along the rocky
road in the grace and glory of her youthful beauty. I stood watching
her, forgetting the woman at the cottage, forgetting my own danger,
forgetting even the peril she ran whom I watched, forgetting
everything save the old that bound me and the new that called me. So I
stood till she vanished from my sight; and still I stood, for she was
there, though the road hid her. And I was roused at last only by a
great cry of surprise, of fierce joy and triumph, that rent the still
air of the evening, and echoed back in rumblings from the hill. The
Neopalians were greeting their rescued Lady.
Then I turned, snatched up Hogvardt’s lance again, and fled through
the house to do my errand. For I would save that woman, if I could;
and my own life was not mine to lose any more than it was mine to give
to whom I would. And I recollect that, as I ran through the kitchen
and across the compound, making for the steps in the bank of rocks, I
said, ‘God forgive me!’
CHAPTER IX
HATS OFF TO ST TRYPHON!
A man’s mind can move on more than one line; even the most engrossing
selfish care may fail entirely to occupy it or to shut out intruding
rivals. Not only should I have been wise, but I should have chosen, in
that risky walk of mine through the wood that covered the hill-slope,
to think of nothing but its risk. Yet countless other things exacted a
share of my thoughts and figured amongst my brain’s images. Sometimes
I was with Denny and his faithful followers, threading dark and
devious ways in the bowels of the earth, avoiding deep waters on the
one side, sheer falls on the other, losing the track, finding it
again, deluded by deceptive glimmers of light, finding at last the
true outlet; now received hospitably by the Cypriote fishermen, now
fiercely assailed by them, again finding none of them; now making
allies of them, now carried prisoners by them to Constantine, again
scouring the sea with vain eagerness for a sight of their sails. Then
I was off, far away, to England, to my friends there, to the gaiety of
London now in its full rushing tide, to Mrs Hipgrave’s exclusive
receptions, to Beatrice’s gay talk and pretty insolence, to Hamlyn’s
gilded dulness, in rapid survey of all the panorama that I knew so
well. Then I would turn back to the scene I had left, and again bid my
farewell under the quiet sky, in prospect of the sea that turned to
gold. So I passed back and forward till I seemed myself hardly a
thinking man, but rather a piece of blank glass, across which the
myriad mites of the kaleidoscope chased one another, covering it with
varying colours, but none of them imparting their hue to it. Yet all
this time, by the strange division of mental activity of which I have
spoken, I was crawling cautiously but quickly up the mountain side,
with eyes keen to pierce the dusk that now fell, with ears apt to find
an enemy in every rustling leaf and a hostile step in every woodland
sound. Of real foes I had as yet seen none. Ah! Hush! I dropped on my
knees. Away there on the right--what was it leaning against that
tree-trunk? It was a tall lean man; his arms rested on a long gun, and
his face was towards the old grey house. Would he see me? I crouched
lower. Would he hear me? I was as still as dead Spiro had lain in the
passage. But then I felt stealthily for the butt of my revolver, and
a recollection so startling came to me that I nearly betrayed myself
by some sudden movement. In the distribution of burdens for our
proposed journey, Denny had taken the case containing the spare
cartridges which remained after we had all reloaded. Now I had one
barrel only loaded, one shot only left. That one shot and Hogvardt’s
lance were all my resources. I crouched yet lower. But the man was
motionless, and presently I ventured to move on my hands and knees,
sorely inconvenienced by the long lance, but determined not to leave
it behind me. I passed another sentry a hundred yards or so away on
the left; his head was sunk on his breast and he took no notice of me.
I breathed a little more freely as I came within fifty feet of the
cottage.
Immediately about the house nobody was in sight. This however, in
Neopalia, did not always mean that nobody was near, and I abated none
of my caution. But the last step had to be taken; I crawled out from
the shelter of the trees, and crouched on one knee on the level space
in front of the cottage. The cottage door was open. I listened but
heard nothing. Well, I meant to go in; my entrance would be none the
easier for waiting. A quick dart was safest; in a couple of bounds I
was across, in the verandah, through the entrance, in the house. I
closed the door noiselessly behind me, and stood there, Hogvardt’s
lance ready for the first man I saw; but I saw none. I was in a narrow
passage; there were doors on either side of me. Listening again, I
heard no sound from right or left. I opened the door to the right. I
saw a small square room: the table was spread for a meal, three places
being laid, but the room was empty. I turned to the other door and
opened it. This room was darker, for heavy curtains, drawn, no doubt,
earlier in the day to keep out the sun, had not been drawn back, and
the light was very dim. For a while I could make out little, but, my
eyes growing more accustomed to the darkness, I soon perceived that I
was in a sitting-room, sparsely and rather meanly furnished. Then my
eyes fell on a couch which stood against the wall opposite me. On the
couch lay a figure. It was the figure of a woman. I heard now the
slight but regular sound of her breath. She was asleep. This must be
the woman I sought. But was she a sensible woman? Or would she scream
when I waked her, and bring those tall fellows out of the wood? In
hesitation I stood still and watched her. She slept like one who was
weary, but not at peace: restless movements and, now and again,
broken incoherent exclamations witnessed to her disquiet. Presently
her broken sleep passed into half-wakeful consciousness, and she sat
up, looking round her with a dazed glance.
‘Is that you, Constantine?’ she asked, rubbing her hands across her
eyes. ‘Or is it Vlacho?’
With a swift step I was by her.
‘Neither. Not a word!’ I said, laying my hand on her shoulder.
I was, I daresay, an alarming figure, with the butt of my revolver
peeping out of my pocket and Hogvardt’s lance in my right hand. But
she did not cry out.
‘I am Wheatley. I have escaped from the house there,’ I went on; ‘and
I have come here because there’s something I must tell you. You
remember our last meeting?’
She looked at me still in amazed surprise, but with a gleam of
recollection.
‘Yes, yes. You were--we went to watch you--yes, at the restaurant.’
‘You went to watch and to listen? Yes, I supposed so. But I’ve been
near you since then. Do you remember the man who was on your
verandah?’
‘That was you?’ she asked quickly.
‘Yes, it was. And while I was there I heard--’
‘But what are you doing here? This house is watched. Constantine may
be here any moment, or Vlacho.’
‘I’m as safe here as I was down the hill. Now listen. Are you this
man’s wife, as he called you that night?’
‘Am I his wife? Of course I’m his wife. How else should I be here?’
The indignation expressed in her answer was the best guarantee of its
truth, and became her well. And she held her hand up to me, as she had
to the man himself in the restaurant, adding, ‘There is his ring.’
‘Then listen to me, and don’t interrupt,’ said I brusquely. ‘Time’s
valuable to me, and even more, I fear, to you.’
Her eyes were alarmed now, but she listened in silence as I bade her.
I told her briefly what had happened to me, and then I set before her
more fully the conversation between Constantine and Vlacho which I had
overheard. She clutched the cushions of the sofa in her clenched hand;
her breathing came quick and fast; her eyes gleamed at me even in the
gloom of the curtained room. I do not believe that in her heart she
was surprised at what she heard. She had mistrusted the man; her
manner, even on our first encounter, had gone far to prove that. She
received my story rather as a confirmation of her own suspicions than
as a new or startling revelation. She was fearful, excited, strung to
a high pitch; but astonished she was not, if I read her right. And
when I ended, it was not astonishment that clenched her lips and
brought to her eyes a look which I think Constantine himself would
have shrunk from meeting. I had paused at the end of my narrative, but
I recollected one thing more. I must warn her about the secret
passage; for that offered her husband too ready and easy a way of
relieving himself of his burden. But now she interrupted me.
‘This girl?’ she said. ‘I have not seen her. What is she like?’
‘She is very beautiful,’ said I simply. ‘She knows what I have told
you, and she is on her guard. You need fear nothing from her. It is
your husband whom you have to fear.’
‘He would kill me?’ she asked, with a questioning glance.
‘You’ve heard what he said,’ I returned. ‘Put your own meaning on it.’
She sprang to her feet.
‘I can’t stay here; I can’t stay here. Merciful heaven, they may come
any moment! Where are you going? How are you going to escape? You are
in as much danger as I am.’
‘I believe in even greater,’ said I. ‘I was going straight from here
down to the sea. If I can find my friends, we’ll go through with the
thing together. If I don’t find them, I shall hunt for a boat. If I
don’t find a boat--well, I’m a good swimmer, and I shall live as long
in the water as in Neopalia, and die easier, I fancy.’
She was standing now, facing me, and she laid her hand on my arm.
‘You stand by women, you Englishmen,’ she said. ‘You won’t leave me to
be murdered?’
‘You see I am here. Doesn’t that answer your question?’
‘My God, he’s a fiend! Will you take me with you?’
What could I do? Her coming gave little chance to her and robbed me of
almost all prospect of escape. But of course I could not leave her.
‘You must come if you can see no other way,’ said I.
‘Why, what other is there? If I avoid him he will see I suspect him.
If I appear to trust him, I must put myself in his power.’
‘Then we must go,’ said I. ‘But it’s a thousand to one that we don’t
get through.’
I had hardly spoken when a voice outside said, ‘Is all well?’ and a
heavy step echoed in the verandah.
‘Vlacho!’ she hissed in a whisper. ‘Vlacho! Are you armed?’
‘In a way,’ said I, with a shrug. ‘But there are at least two besides
him. I saw them in the wood.’
‘Yes, yes, true. There are four generally. It would be death. Here,
hide behind the curtains. I’ll try to put him off for the moment.
Quick, quick!’
She was hurried and eager, but I saw that her wits were clear. I
stepped behind the curtains and she drew them close. I heard her fling
herself again on the couch. Then came the innkeeper’s voice, its
roughness softened in deferential greeting.
At the same time a strong smell of eau de Cologne pervaded the room.
‘Am I well?’ said Madame Stefanopoulos fretfully. ‘My good Vlacho, I
am very ill. Should I sit in a dark room and bathe my head with this
stuff if I were well?’
‘My lady’s sickness grieves me beyond expression,’ said Vlacho
politely. ‘And the more so because I am come from my Lord Constantine
with a message for you.’
‘It is easier for him to send messages than to come himself,’ she
remarked, with an admirable pretence of resentment.
‘Think how occupied he has been with this pestilent Englishman!’ said
the plausible Vlacho. ‘We have had no peace. But at last I hope our
troubles are over. The house is ours again.’
‘Ah, you have driven them out?’
‘They fled themselves,’ said Vlacho. ‘But they are separated and we
shall catch them. Oh, yes, we know where to look for most of them.’
‘Then you’ve not caught any of them yet? How stupid you are!’
‘My lady is severe. No, we have caught none yet.’
‘Not even Wheatley himself?’ she asked. ‘Has he shown you a clean pair
of heels?’
Vlacho’s voice betrayed irritation as he answered:
‘We shall find him also in time, though heaven knows where the rascal
has hidden himself.’
‘You’re really very stupid,’ said Francesca. I heard her sniff her
perfume. ‘And the girl?’ she went on.
‘Oh, we have her safe and sound,’ laughed Vlacho. ‘She’ll give no more
trouble.’
‘Why, what will you do with her?’
‘You must ask my lord that,’ said Vlacho. ‘If she will give up the
island, perhaps nothing.’
‘Ah, well, I take very little interest in her. Isn’t my husband coming
to supper, Vlacho?’
‘To supper here, my lady? Surely no. The great house is ready now.
That is a more fitting place for my lady than this dog-hole. I am
here to escort you there. There my lord will sup with you. Oh, it’s a
grand house!’
‘A grand house!’ she echoed scornfully. ‘Why, what is there to see in
it?’
‘Oh, many things,’ said Vlacho. ‘Yes, secrets, my lady! And my lord
bids me say that from love to you he will show you to-night the great
secret of his house. He desires to show his love and trust in you, and
will therefore reveal to you all his secrets.’
When I, behind the curtain, heard the ruffian say this, I laid firmer
hold on my lance. But the lady was equal to Vlacho.
‘You’re very melodramatic with your secrets,’ she said contemptuously.
‘I am tired, and my head aches. Your secrets will wait; and if my
husband will not come and sup with me, I’ll sup alone here. Tell him I
can’t come, please, Vlacho.’
‘But my lord was most urgent that you should come,’ said Vlacho.
‘I would come if I were well,’ said she.
‘But I could help you. If you would permit, I and my men would carry
you down all the way on your couch.’
‘My good Vlacho, you are very tedious, you and your men. And my
husband is tedious also, if he sent all these long messages. I am ill
and I will not come. Is that enough?’
‘My lord will be very angry if I return alone,’ pleaded Vlacho humbly.
‘I’ll write a certificate that you did your best to persuade me,’ she
said with a scornful laugh.
I heard the innkeeper’s heavy feet move a step or two across the
floor. He was coming nearer to where she lay on the couch.
‘I daren’t return without you,’ said he.
‘Then you must stay here and sup with me.’
‘My lord does not love to be opposed.’
‘Then, my good Vlacho, he should not have married me,’ she retorted.
She played the game gallantly, fencing and parrying with admirable
tact, and with a coolness wonderful for a woman in such peril. My
heart went out to her, and I said to myself that she should not want
any help that I could give.
She had raised her voice on the last words, and her defiant taunt rang
out clear and loud. It seemed to alarm Vlacho.
‘Hush, not so loud!’ he said hastily. There was the hint of a threat
in his voice.
‘Not so loud!’ she echoed. ‘And why not so loud? Is there harm in what
I say?’
I wondered at Vlacho’s sudden fright. The idea shot into my head--and
the idea was no pleasant one--that there must be people within
earshot, perhaps people who had not been trusted with Constantine’s
secrets, and would, for that reason, do his bidding better.
‘Harm! No, no harm; but no need to let every one hear,’ said Vlacho,
confusedly and with evident embarrassment.
‘Every one? Who is here, then?’
‘I have brought one or two men to escort my lady,’ said he. ‘With
these cut-throat Englishmen about’ (Bravo, bravo, Vlacho!) ‘one must
be careful.’
A scornful laugh proclaimed her opinion of his subterfuge, and she met
him with a skilful thrust.
‘But if they don’t know--yes, and aren’t to know that I am the wife of
Constantine, how can I go to the house and stay with him?’ she asked.
‘Oh,’ said he, ready again with his plausible half-truths, ‘that is
one of the secrets. Must I tell my lady part of it? There is an
excellent hiding-place in the house, where my lord can bestow you most
comfortably. You will want for nothing, and nobody will know that you
are there, except the few faithful men who have guarded you here.’
‘Indeed, if I am still to be a stowaway, I’ll stay here,’ said she.
‘If my lord will announce me publicly to all the island as his wife,
then I will come and take my place at the head of his house; but
without that I will not come.’
‘Surely you will be able to persuade him to that yourself,’ said
Vlacho. ‘But dare I make conditions with my lord?’
‘You will make them in my name,’ she answered. ‘Go and tell him what I
say.’
A pause followed. Then Vlacho said in sullen obstinate tones:
‘I’ll not go without you. I was ordered to bring you, and I will.
Come.’
I heard the sudden rustle of her dress as she drew back; then a little
cry: ‘You’re hurting me.’
‘You must come,’ said Vlacho. ‘I shall call my men and carry you.’
‘I will not come,’ she said in a low voice, resolute and fierce.
Vlacho laughed. ‘We’ll see about that,’ said he, and his heavy steps
sounded on the floor.
‘What are you going to the window for?’ she cried.
‘To call Demetri and Kortes to help me,’ said he; ‘or will you come?’
I drew back a pace, resting against the windowsill. Hogvardt’s lance
was protruded before me. At that moment I asked nothing better than to
bury its point in the fat innkeeper’s flesh.
‘You’ll repent it if you do what you say,’ said she.
‘I shall repent it more if I don’t obey my lord,’ said Vlacho. ‘See,
my hand is on the curtains. Will you come, my lady?’
‘I will not come,’ said she.
There was one last short interval. I heard them both breathing, and I
held my own breath. My revolver rested in my pocket; the noise of a
shot would be fatal. With God’s help I would drive the lance home with
one silent sufficient thrust. There would be a rogue less in the world
and another chance for her and me.
‘As you will, then,’ said the innkeeper.
The curtain-rings rattled along the rod; the heavy hangings gave back.
The moon, which was newly risen, streamed full in Vlacho’s eyes and on
the pale strained face behind him. He saw me; he uttered one low
exclamation: ‘Christ!’ His hand flew to his belt. He drew a pistol out
and raised it; but I was too quick for him. I drove the great
hunting-knife on the end of the sapling full and straight into his
breast. With a groan he flung his arms over his head and fell
sideways, half-supported by the curtain till the fabric was rent away
from the rings and fell over his body, enveloping him in a thick pall.
I drew my lance back. The force of the blow had overstrained
Hogvardt’s wire fastenings; the blade was bent to an angle with the
shaft and shook loosely from side to side. Vlacho’s blood began to
curl in a meandering trickle from beneath the curtain. Madame
Stefanopoulos glared at me, speechless. But my eyes fell from her to
the floor; for there I saw two long black shadows. A sudden and
desperate inspiration seized me. She was my ally, I hers. If both were
held guilty of this act we could render no service to each other. If
she were still unsuspected--and nobody except myself had heard her
talk with Vlacho--she might yet help herself and me.
‘Throw me over,’ I whispered in English. ‘Cry for help.’
‘What?’
‘Cry. The men are there. You may help me afterwards.’
‘What, pretend--?’
‘Yes. Quick.’
‘But they’ll--’
‘No,
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/41822