Phroso Part 15

Phroso! I had forgotten that diminutive of my guest's cla.s.sical 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.

'Circ.u.mstances 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 att.i.tude.

'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 amus.e.m.e.nt on his face.

'What are you grinning at?' I demanded fiercely.

'Oh, nothing,' said Denny, and his face strove to a.s.sume 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 hara.s.s us from there, our perpendicular bank of rock being a difficult obstacle to pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sage, 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 p.r.o.ne on his face before me. I jumped on and over his body, and ran along the dark pa.s.sage; 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 unenc.u.mbered. 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 pa.s.sage.

'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 s.p.a.ce, 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.'