Phroso Part 13

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 pa.s.sionately? 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 dispa.s.sionate 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 n.o.body 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sailants before his door was forced. Thus far I read, and expected to find next an account of a _melee_ 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed, 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 n.o.ble blood of the Stefanopouloi; for utterly they disappeared, and the secret was securely kept.'

I read this pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 bal.u.s.trade, 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.'