Phroso Part 47

'Do you believe what I tell you?' I asked. 'I tried to save the girl from him and in return he meant to kill me. Do you believe me? If not, hang me for his murder; if you do, why am I a prisoner? What have I done? Where is my offence?'

The captain looked down on Mouraki's face, tugged his beard, smiled, was silent an instant. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and he said--he who had not dared, a day before, to lift his voice or raise his finger unbidden in Mouraki's presence:

'Faugh, the Armenian dog!'

There was, I fear, race prejudice in that exclamation, but I did not contradict it. I stood looking down on Mouraki's face, and to my fancy, stirred by the events of the past hours and twisted from sobriety to strange excesses of delusion, the lips seemed once again to curl in their old bitter smile, as he lay still and heard himself spurned, and could not move to exact the vengeance which in his life he had never missed.

So we left him--the Armenian dog!

CHAPTER XX

A PUBLIC PROMISE

On the evening of the next day I was once again with my faithful friends on board the little yacht. Furious with the trick Mouraki had played them, they rejoiced openly at his fall and mingled their congratulations to me with hearty denunciations of the dead man. In sober reality we had every reason to be glad. Our new master was of a different stamp from Mouraki. He was a proud, reserved, honest gentleman, with no personal ends to serve. He had informed me that I must remain on the island till he received instructions concerning me, but he encouraged me to hope that my troubles were at last over; indeed I gathered from a hint or two which he let fall that Mouraki's end was not likely to be received with great regret in exalted circles. In truth I have never known a death greeted with more general satisfaction. The soldiers regarded me with quiet approval. To the people of Neopalia I became a hero: everybody seemed to have learnt something at least of the story of my duel with the Pasha, and everybody had been (so it now appeared) on my side. I could not walk up the street without a shower of benedictions; the islanders fearlessly displayed their liking for me by way of declaring their hatred for Mouraki's memory and their exultation in his fitting death.

In these demonstrations they were not interfered with, and the captain went so far as to shut his eyes judiciously when, under cover of night, they accorded Demetri the tribute of a public funeral. To this function I did not go, although I was informed that my presence was confidently expected; but I sought out Panayiota and told her how her lover died. She heard the story with Spartan calm and pride; Neopalians take deaths easily.

Yet there were shadows on our new-born prosperity. Most lenient and gracious to me, the captain preserved a severe and rigorous att.i.tude towards Phroso. He sent her to her own house--or my house, as with amiable persistence he called it--and kept her there under guard. Her case also would be considered, he said, and he had forwarded my exoneration of her together with the account of Mouraki's death; but he feared very much that she would not be allowed to remain in the island; she would be a centre of discontent there. As for my proposal to restore Neopalia to her, he a.s.sured me that it would not be listened to for a moment. If I declined to keep the island,--probably a suitable and loyal lord would be selected, and Phroso would be deported.

'Where to?' I asked.

'Really I don't know,' said the captain. 'It is but a small matter, my lord, and I have not troubled my superiors with any recommendation on the subject.'

As he spoke he rose to go. He had been paying us a visit on the yacht, where, in obedience to his advice, I had taken up my abode. Denny, who was sitting near, gave a curious sort of laugh. I frowned fiercely, the captain looked from one to the other of us in bland curiosity.

'You take an interest in the girl?' he said, in a tone in which surprise struggled with civility. Again came Denny's half-smothered laugh.

'An interest in her?' said I irritably. 'Well, I suppose I do. It looked like it when I took her through that infernal pa.s.sage, didn't it?'

The captain smiled apologetically and pursued his way towards the door. 'I will try to obtain lenient treatment for her,' said he, and pa.s.sed out. I was left alone with Denny, who chose at this moment to begin to whistle. I glared most ill-humouredly at him. He stopped whistling and remarked:

'By this time to-morrow our friends at home will be taking off their mourning. They'll read in the papers that Lord Wheatley is not dead of fever at Neopalia, and they won't read that he has fallen a victim to the misguided patriotism of the islanders; in fact they'll be preparing to kill the fatted calf for him.'

It was all perfectly true, both what Denny said and what he implied without saying. But I found no answer to make to it.

'What a happy ending it is,' said Denny.

'Uncommonly,' I growled, lighting a cigar.

After this there was a long silence: I smoked, Denny whistled. I saw that he was determined to say nothing more explicit unless I gave him a lead, but his whole manner exuded moral disapproval. The consciousness of his feelings kept me obstinately dumb.

'Going to stay here long?' he asked at last, in a wonderfully careless tone.

'Well, there's no hurry, is there?' I retorted aggressively.

'Oh, no; only I should have thought--oh, well, nothing.'

Again silence. Then Watkins opened the door of the cabin and announced the return of the captain. I was surprised to see him again so soon. I was more surprised when he came at me with outstretched hand and a smile of mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and reproof on his face.

'My dear lord,' he exclaimed, seizing my defenceless hand, 'is this treating me quite fairly? So far as a word from you went, I was left completely in the dark. Of course I understand now, but it was an utter surprise to me.' He shook his head with playful reproach.

'If you understand now, I confess you have the advantage of me,' I returned, with some stiffness. 'Pray, sir, what has occurred? No doubt it's something remarkable. I've learnt to rely on Neopalia for that.'

'It was remarkable in my eyes, I admit, and rather startling. But of course I acquiesced. In fact, my dear lord, it materially alters the situation. As your wife, she will be in a very different--'

'Hallo!' cried Denny, leaping up from the bench where he had been sitting.

'In a very different position indeed,' pursued the captain blandly.

'We should have, if I may say so, a guarantee for her good behaviour.

We should have you to look to--a great security, as I need not tell you.'

'My dear sir,' said I in exasperated pleading, 'you don't seem to think you need tell me anything. Pray inform me of what has occurred, and what this wonderful thing is that makes so much change.'

'Indeed,' said he, 'if I had surprised a secret, I would apologise; but it's evidently known to all the islanders.'

'Well, but I'm not an islander,' I cried in growing fury.

The captain sat down, lit a cigarette very deliberately, and observed:

'It was perhaps stupid of me not to have thought of it. She is, of course, a beautiful girl, but hardly, if I may say so, your equal in position, my lord.'

I jumped up and caught him by the shoulder. He might order me under arrest if he liked, but he should tell me what had happened first.

'What's happened?' I reiterated. 'Since you left us--what?'

'A deputation of the islanders, headed by their priest, came to ask my leave for the inhabitants to go up to the house and see their Lady.'

'Yes, yes. What for?'

'To offer her their congratulations on her betrothal--'

'What?'

'And their a.s.surances of loyalty to her and to her husband for her sake. Oh, it simplifies the matter very much.'

'Oh, does it? And did you tell them they might go?'

'Was there any objection? Certainly. Certainly I told them they might go, and I added that I heard with great gratification that a marriage so--'

What the captain had said to the deputation I did not wait to hear. No doubt it was something highly dignified and appropriate, for he was evidently much pleased with himself. But before he could possibly have finished so ornate a sentence, I was on the deck of the yacht. I heard Denny push back his chair, whether merely in wonder or in order to follow me I did not know. I leapt from the yacht on to the jetty and started to run up the street nearly as quickly as I had run down it on the day when Mouraki was kind enough to send my friends a-fishing. At all costs I must stop the demonstration of delight which the inconvenient innocence of these islanders was preparing.

Alas, the street was a desert! The movements of the captain were always leisurely. The impetuous Neopalians had wasted no time: they had got a start of me, and running up the hill after them was no joke.

Against my will I was at last obliged to drop into a walk, and thus pursued my way doggedly, thinking in gloomy despair how everything conspired to push me along the road which my honour and my pledged word closed to me. Was ever man so tempted? Did ever circ.u.mstances so conspire with his own wishes, or fate make duty seem more hard?

I turned the corner of the road which lead to the old house. It was here I had first heard Phroso's voice in the darkness, here where, from the window of the hall, I had seen her lithe graceful figure when she came in her boy's dress to raid my cows; a little further on was where I had said farewell to her when she went back, the grant of Neopalia in her hand, to soften the hearts of her turbulent countrymen; here where Mouraki had tried her with his guile and intimidated her with his harshness; and there was the house where I had declared to the Pasha that she should be my wife. How sweet that saying sounded in my remembering ears! Yet I swear I did not waver.