I satfor some moments in stupefied despair. The fall from hope was so great and sudden, the revelation of my blind folly so cruel. But this mood did not last long. Soon I was busy thinking again. Alas, the matter gave little scope for thought! It was sadly simple. Before the yacht came back, Mouraki would have it settled once for all, if the settling of it were left to him. Therefore I could not wait. The passage might be a trap. True; but the house was a prison, and a prison whose gate I could not open. I had rather meet my fate in the struggle of hot effort than wait for it tamely here in my chair. And I did not think of myself alone; Phroso’s interests also pointed to action. I could trust Mouraki to allow no harm to come to her. He prized her life no less than I did. To her, then, the passage threatened no new danger, while it offered a possible slender chance. Would she come with me? If she would, it might be that Kortes and I, or Kortes or I, might by some kindcaprice of fortune bring her safe out of Mouraki’s hands. On the top of these calculations came a calm, restrained, but intense anger, urging me on to try the issue, hand to hand and man to man, whispering to me that nothing was impossible, and that Mouraki bore no charmed life. For by now I was ready, aye, more than ready, to kill him, if only I could come at him, and I made nothing of the consequences of his death being laid at my door. So is prudence burnt up in the bright flame of a man’s rage.
I knew where to find Kortes. He would be keeping his faithful watch outside his Lady’s room. Mouraki had never raised any objection to this attendance; to forbid it would have been to throw off the mask before the moment came, and Mouraki would not be guilty of such premature disclosure. Moreover the Pasha held the men of Neopalia in no great respect, and certainly did not think that a single islander could offer any resistance to his schemes. I went to the foot of the stairs and called softly to our trusty adherent. He came down to me at once, and I asked him about Phroso.
‘She is alone in her room, my lord,’ he answered. ‘The Governor has sent my sister away.’
‘Sent her away! Where to?’
‘To the cottage on the hill,’ said he. ‘I don’t know why; the Governor spoke to her apart.’
‘I know why,’ said I, and I told him briefly of the crime which had been done.
‘That man should not live,’ said Kortes. ‘I had no doubt that his escape was allowed in order that he might be dangerous to you.’
‘Well, he hasn’t done much yet.’
‘No, not yet,’ said Kortes gravely. I am bound to add that he took the news of Francesca’s death with remarkable coolness. In spite of his good qualities, Kortes was a thorough Neopalian; it needed much to perturb him. Besides he was thinking of Phroso only, and the affairs of everybody else passed unheeded by him. This was very evident when I asked his opinion as to waiting where we were, or essaying the way that Mouraki’s suspicious carelessness seemed to leave open to us.
‘Oh, the passage, my lord! Let it be the passage. For you and me the passage is very dangerous, yet hardly more than here, and the Lady Phroso has her only chance of escape through the passage.’
‘You think it very dangerous for us?’
‘Possibly one of us will come through,’ he said.
‘And at the other end?’
‘There may be a boat. If there is none, she must try (and we with her, if we are alive) to steal round to the town, and hide in one of the houses till a boat can be found,’
‘Mouraki would scour the island.’
‘Yes, but a clear hour or two would be enough if we could get her into a boat.’
‘But he’d send the gunboat after her.’
‘Yes; but, my lord, am I saying that escape is likely? It is possible only; and possibly the boat might evade pursuit.’
I had the highest regard for Kortes, but he was not a very cheering companion for an adventure. Given the same desperate circumstances, Denny would have been serenely confident of success and valiantly scornful of our opponent. I heaved a regretful sigh for him, and said to Kortes, with a little irritation:
‘Hang it, we’ve come out right side up before now, and we may again. Hadn’t we better rouse her?’
During this conversation Kortes had been standing on the lowest step of the staircase, and I facing him, on the floor of the hall, with one hand resting on the balustrade. We had talked in low tones, partly from a fear of eavesdroppers, even more, I think, from the influence which our position exerted over us. In perilmen speak softly. Our voices sounded as no more than faint murmurs in the roomy hall; consequently they could not have been audible—where? In the passage!
But as I spoke to Kortes in a petulant reproachful whisper, a sound struck on my ear, a very little sound. I caught my companion’s arm, imposing silence on him by a look. The sound came again. I knew the sound; I had heard it before. I stepped back a pace and looked round the balustrade to the spot where the entrance to the passage lay.
I should have been past surprise now, after my sojourn in Neopalia; but I was not. I sprang back, with a cry of wonder, almost (must I admit it?) of alarm. Small and faint as the noise had been, it had sufficed for the opening of the door, and in the opening made by the receding of the planks were the head and shoulders of a man. His face was hardly a yard from my face; and the face was the face of Constantine Stefanopoulos.
In the instant of paralysed immobility that followed, the explanation flashed like lightning through my brain. Constantine, buying his liberty and pardon from Mouraki, had stolen along the passage. He had opened the door. He hoped to find me alone—if not alone, yet off my guard—inthe hall. Then a single shot would be enough. His errand would be done, his pardon won. That my explanation was right the revolver in his hand witnessed. But he also was surprised. I was closer than he thought, so close that he started back for an instant. The interval was enough; before he could raise his weapon and take aim I put my head down between my shoulders and rushed at him. I think my head knocked his arm up, his revolver went off, the noise reverberating through the hall. I almost had hold of him when I was suddenly seized from behind and hurled backwards. Kortes had a mind to come first and stood on no ceremony. But in the instant that he was free, Constantine dived down, like a rabbit into a burrow. He disappeared; with a shouted oath Kortes sprang after him. I heard the feet of both of them clattering down the flight of steps.
For a single moment I paused. The report had echoed loud through the hall. The sentries must have heard it—the sentries before the house, the sentries in the compound behind the house. Yet none of them rushed in: not a movement, not a word, not a challenge came from them. Mouraki Pasha kept good discipline. His orders were law, his directions held good, though shots rang loud and startling through the house. Even at thatmoment I gave a short sharp laugh; for I remembered that on no account was Lord Wheatley to be interrupted; no, neither Lord Wheatley nor the man who came to kill Lord Wheatley was to be interrupted. Oh, Mouraki, Mouraki, your score was mounting up! Should you ever pay the reckoning?
Shorter far than it has taken to write my thoughts was the pause during which they galloped through my palpitating brain. In a second I also was down the flight of stairs beyond. I heard still the footsteps in front of me, but I could see nothing. It was very dark that night in the passage. I ran on, yet I seemed to come no nearer to the steps in front of me. But suddenly I paused, for now there were steps behind me also, light steps, but sounding distinct in my ear. Then a voice cried, in terror and distress, ‘My lord, don’t leave me, my lord!’
I turned. Even in the deep gloom I saw a gleam of white: a moment later I caught Phroso by both her hands.
‘The shot, the shot?’ she whispered.
‘Constantine. He shot at me—no, I’m not hurt. Kortes is after him.’
She swayed towards me. I caught her and passed my arm round her; without that she would have fallen on the rocky floor of the dim passage.
‘I heard it and rushed down,’ she panted. ‘I heard it from my room.’
‘Any sign of the sentries?’
‘No.’
‘I must go and help Kortes.’
‘Not without me?’
‘You must wait here.’
‘Not without you.’ Her arms held me now by the shoulders with a stronger grip than I had thought possible. She would not let me go. Well then, we must face it together.
‘Come along, then,’ said I. ‘I can see nothing in this rat hole.’
Suddenly, from in front of us, a cry rang out; it was some distance off. We started towards it, for it was Kortes’s voice that cried.
‘Be careful, be careful,’ urged Phroso. ‘We’re near the bridge now.’
It was true. As she spoke the walls of rock on either side receded. We had come to the opening. The dark water was below us, and before us the isolated bridge of rock that spanned the pool. We were where the Lord of the island had been wont to hurl his enemies headlong from his side to death.
What happened on the bridge, on the narrow bridge of rock which ran in front of us, we could not see; but from it came strange sounds,low oaths and mutterings, the scraping of men’s limbs and the rasping of cloth on the rock, the hard breathings of struggling combatants; now a fierce low cry of triumph, a disappointed curse, a desperate groan, the silence that marked a culminating effort. Now, straining my eyes to the uttermost, and having grown a little more accustomed to the darkness, I discerned, beyond the centre of the bridge, a coiling writhing mass that seemed some one many-limbed animal, but was, in truth, two men, twisted and turned round about one another in an embrace which could have no end save death. Which was Kortes, which Constantine, I could not tell. How they came there I could not tell. I dared not fire. Phroso hung about me in a paroxysm of fear, her hands holding me motionless; I myself was awed and fascinated by the dim spectacle and the confused sounds of that mortal strife.
Backward and forward, to and fro, up and down they writhed and rolled. Now they hung, a protrusion of deeper blackness, over the black gulf on this side, now on that. Now the mass separated a little as one pressed the other downward and seemed about to hurl his enemy over and himself remain triumphant; now that one, in his turn, tottered on the edge as if to fall and leave the other panting on the bridge; again they weremixed together, so that I could not tell which was which, and the strange appearance of a single, writhing, crawling shape returned. Then suddenly, from both at once, rang out cries: there was dread and surprise in one, fierce, uncalculating, self-forgetful triumph in the other. Not even for Phroso’s sake, or the band of her encircling arms, could I rest longer. Roughly I fear, at least with suddenness, I disengaged myself from her grasp. She cried out in protest and in fear, ‘Don’t go, don’t leave me!’ I could not rest. Recollecting the peril, I yet rushed quickly on to the bridge, and moved warily along its narrow perilous way. But even as I came near the two who fought in the middle, there was a deep groan, a second wild triumphant cry, a great lurch of the mass, a moment—a short short moment—when it hung poised over the yawning vault; and then an instant of utter stillness. I waited as a boy waits to hear the stone he has thrown strike the water at the bottom of the well. The stone struck the water: there was a great resounding splash, the water moved beneath the blow; I saw its dark gleam agitated. Then all was still again; and the passage of the bridge was clear.
I walked to the spot where the struggle had been, and whence the two had fallen together.I knelt down and gazed into the chasm. Three times I called Kortes’s name. No answer came up. I could discern no movement of the dark waters. They had sunk, the two together, and neither rose. Perhaps both were wounded to death, perhaps only their fatal embrace prevented all effort for life. I could see nothing and hear nothing. My heart was heavy for Kortes, a brave true man and our only friend. In the death of Constantine I saw less than his fitting punishment; yet I was glad that he was gone, and the long line of his villainies closed. This last attempt had been a bold one. Mouraki, no doubt, had forced him to it; even a craven will be bold where the penalty of cowardice is death. Yet he had not dared to stand when discovered. He had fled, and must have been flying when Kortes came up and grappled with him. For a snapshot at an unwary man he had found courage, but not for a fair fight. He was an utter coward after all. He was well dead, and his wife well avenged.
But it was fatal to linger here. Mouraki would be expecting the return of his emissary. I saw now clearly that the Pasha had prepared the way for Constantine’s attempt. If no news came, he would not wait long. I put my reflections behind me and walked briskly back to where I had left Phroso. I found her lying on the ground;she seemed to be in a faint. Setting my face close to hers, I saw that her eyes were shut and her lips parted. I sat down by her in the narrow passage and supported her head on my arm. Then I took out a flask, and pouring some of the brandy-and-water it contained into the cup forced a little between her lips. With a heavy sigh she opened her eyes and shuddered.
‘It is over,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to be afraid; all is over now.’
‘Constantine?’
‘He is dead.’
‘And Kortes?’
‘They are both gone. They fell together into the pool and must be dead; there’s no sound from it.’
A frightened sob was her answer; she put her hand up to her eyes.
‘Ah, dear Kortes!’ she whispered, and I heard her sob gently again.
‘He was a brave man,’ said I. ‘God rest his soul!’
‘He loved me,’ she said simply, between her sobs. ‘He—he and his sister were the only friends I had.’
‘You have other friends,’ said I, and my voice was well nigh as low as hers.
‘You are very good to me, my lord,’ she said,and she conquered her sobs and lay still, her head on my arm, her hair enveloping my hand in its silken masses.
‘We must go on,’ said I. ‘We mustn’t stay here. Our only chance is to go on.’
‘Chance? Chance of what?’ she echoed in a little despairing murmur, ‘Where am I to go? Why should I struggle any more?’
‘Would you fall into Mouraki’s power?’ I asked from between set lips.
‘No; but I need not. I have my dagger.’
‘God forbid!’ I cried in sudden horror; and in spite of myself I felt my hand tighten and press her head among the coils of her hair. She also felt it; she raised herself on her elbow, turned to me, and sent a straining look into my eyes. What answer could I make to it? I averted my face; she dropped her head between her hands on the rocky floor.
‘We must go,’ said I again. ‘Can you walk, Phroso?’
I hardly noticed the name I called her, nor did she appear to mark it.
‘I can’t go,’ she moaned. ‘Let me stay here. I can get back to the house, perhaps.’
‘I won’t leave you here. I won’t leave you to Mouraki.’
‘It will not be to Mouraki, it will be to—’
I caught her hand, crying in a low whisper, ‘No, no.’
‘What else?’ she asked, again sitting up and looking at me.
‘We must make a push for safety, as we meant to before.’
‘Safety?’ Her lips bent in a sadly derisive little smile. ‘What is this safety you talk about?’ she seemed to say.
‘Yes, safety.’
‘Ah, yes, you must be safe,’ she said, appearing to awake suddenly to a consciousness of something forgotten. ‘Ah, yes, my lord, you must be safe. Don’t linger, my lord. Don’t linger!’
‘Do you suppose I’m going alone?’ I asked, and, in spite of everything, I could not help smiling as I put the question. I believe she really thought that the course in question might commend itself to me.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t go alone. But I—I can’t cross that awful bridge.’
‘Oh yes, you can,’ said I. ‘Come along,’ and I rose and held out my arms towards her.
She looked at me, the tears still on her cheeks, a doubtful smile dawning on her lips.
‘My dear lord,’ she said very softly, and stood while I put my arms round her and lifted her till she lay easily. Then came what I think was thehardest thing of all to bear. She let her head fall on my shoulder and lay trustfully, I could almost say luxuriously, back in my arms; a little happy sigh of relief and peace came from her lips, her eyes closed, she was content.
Well, I started; and I shall not record precisely what I thought as I started. What I ought to have thought about was picking my way over the bridge, and, if more matter for consideration were needed, I might have speculated on the best thing to do when we reached the outlet of the passage. Suppose, then, that I thought about what I ought to have thought about.
‘Keep still while we’re on the bridge,’ said I to Phroso. ‘It’s not over broad, you know.’
A little movement of the head, till it rested in yet greater seeming comfort, was Phroso’s only disobedience; for the rest she was absolutely still. It was fortunate; for to cross that bridge in the dark, carrying a lady, was not a job I cared much about. However we came to the other side; the walls of rock closed in again on either hand, and I felt the way begin to slope downwards under my feet.
‘Does it go pretty straight now?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, quite straight. You can’t miss it, my lord,’ said Phroso, and another little sigh of content followed the words. I had, I suppose,little enough to laugh at, but I did laugh very gently and silently, and I did not propose that Phroso should walk.
‘Are you tired?’ she said presently, just opening her eyes for an instant.
‘I could carry you for ever,’ I answered.
Phroso smiled under lazy lids that closed again.
In spite of Phroso’s assurance of its simple straightness the road had many twists and turns in it, and I had often to ask my way. Phroso gave me directions at once and without hesitation. Evidently she was thoroughly familiar with the track. When I remarked on this she said, ‘Oh, yes, I often used to come this way. It leads to such a pretty cave, you know.’
‘Then it doesn’t come out at the same point as the way my friends took?’
‘No, more than a mile away from that. We must be nearly there now. Are you tired, my lord?’
‘Not a bit,’ said I, and Phroso accepted the answer without demur.
There can, however, be no harm in admitting now that I was tired, not so much from carrying Phroso, though, as from the strain of the day and the night that I had passed through; and I hailed with joy a glimmer of light which danced before my eyes at the end of a long straight tunnel. Wewere going down rapidly now; and, hark, there was the wash of water welcoming us to the outer air and the light of the upper world; for day had just dawned as we came to the end of the way. The light that I saw ahead was ruddy with the rays of the new-risen sun.
‘Ah,’ sighed Phroso happily, ‘I hear the sea. Oh, I smell it. And see, my lord, the light!’
I turned from the light, joyful as was the beholding of it, to the face which lay close by mine. That too I could see now for the first time plainly. I met Phroso’s eyes. A slight tinge of colour dyed her cheeks, but she lay still, looking at me, and she said softly, in low rich tones:
‘You look very weary. Let me walk now, my lord.’
‘No, we’ll go on to the end now,’ I said.
The end was near. Another five minutes brought us where once again the enfolding walls spread out. The path broadened into a stony beach; above us the rocks formed an arch: we were in a little cave, and the waves rolled gently to and fro on the margin of the beach. The mouth of the cave was narrow and low, the rocks leaving only about a yard between themselves above and the water below; there was just room for a boat to pass out and in. Phroso sprang from my arms, and stretched out her hands to the light.
‘Ah, if we had a boat!’ I cried, running to the water’s edge.
Had the luck indeed changed and fortune begun to smile? It seemed so, for I had hardly spoken when Phroso suddenly clapped her hands and cried:
‘A boat! There is a boat, my lord,’ and she leapt forward and caught me by the hand, her eyes sparkling.
It was true—by marvel, it was true! A good, stout, broad-bottomed little fishing boat lay beached on the shingle, with its sculls lying in it. How had it come? Well, I didn’t stop to ask that. My eyes met Phroso’s in delight. The joy of our happy fortune overcame us. I think that for the moment we forgot the terrible events which had happened before our eyes, the sadness of the parting which at the best lay before us. Both her hands were in mine; we were happy as two children, prosperously launched on some wonderful fairy-tale adventure—prince and princess in their cockle boat on a magic sea.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ cried Phroso. ‘Ah, my lord, all goes well with you. I think God loves you, my lord, as much as—’
She stopped. A rush of rich colour flooded her cheeks. Her deep eyes, which had gleamed in exultant merriment, sank to the ground. Her hands loosed mine.
‘—as the lady who waits for you loves you, my lord,’ she said.
I do not know how it was, but Phroso’s words summoned up before my eyes a vision of Beatrice Hipgrave, pursuing her cheerful way through the gaieties of the season—or was she in the country by now?—without wasting very many thoughts on the foolish man who had gone to the horrid island. The picture of her as the lady who waited for a lover, forlorn because he tarried, struck with a bitter amusement on my sense of humour. Phroso saw me smile; her eyes asked a wondering question. I did not answer it, but turned away and walked down to where the boat lay.
‘I suppose,’ I said coldly, ‘that this is the best chance?’
‘It is the only chance, my lord,’ she answered; but her eyes were still puzzled, and her tone was almost careless, as if the matter of our escape had ceased to be the thing which pressed most urgently on her mind. I could say nothing to enlighten her; not from my lips, which longed to forswear her, could come the slightest word in depreciation of ‘the lady who waited.’
‘Will you get in, then?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Phroso; the joy was gone out of her voice and out of her eyes.
I helped her into the boat, then I launched it;when it floated clear on the water of the cave I jumped in myself and took the sculls. Phroso sat silent and now pale-faced in the stern. I struck the water with my blades and the boat moved. A couple of strokes took us across the cave. We reached the mouth. I felt the sun on my neck with its faint early warmth: that is a good feeling and puts heart in a man.
‘Ah, but the sea and the air are good,’ said Phroso. ‘And it is good to be free, my lord.’
I looked at her. The sun had caught her eyes now, and the gleam in them seemed to fire me. I forgot—something that I ought to have remembered. I rested for a moment on my oars, and, leaning forward, said in a low voice:
‘Aye, to be free, and together, Phroso.’
Again came the flash of colour, again the sudden happy dancing of her eyes and the smile that curved in unconquerable wilfulness. I stretched out a hand, and Phroso’s hand stole timidly to meet it. Well—surely the Recording Angel looked away!
Thus were we just outside the cave. There rose a straight rock on the left hand, ending in a level top some four feet above our heads. And as our hands approached and our eyes—those quicker foregatherers—met, there came from the top of the rock a laugh, a low chuckle that I knew well. Idon’t think I looked up. I looked still at Phroso. As I looked, her colour fled, fright leapt into her eyes, her lips quivered in horror. I knew the truth from her face.
‘Very nice! But what have you done with Cousin Constantine?’ asked Mouraki Pasha.
The trap, then, had double jaws, and we had escaped Constantine only to fall into the hands of his master. It was so like Mouraki. I was so much aghast and yet so little surprised, the fall was so sudden, our defeat so ludicrous, that I believed I smiled, as I turned my eyes from Phroso’s and cast a glance at the Pasha.
‘I might have known it, you know,’ said I, aloud.
Theboat still moved a little from the impulse of my last stroke, and we floated slowly past Mouraki who stood, like some great sea-bird on the rock. To his cynical question—for it revealed shamelessly the use he had meant to make of his tool—I returned no answer. I could smile in amused bitterness but for the moment I could not speak. Phroso sat with downcast eyes, twisting one hand round the other; the Pasha was content to answer my smile with his own. The boat drew past the rock and, as we came round its elbow, I found across our path a larger boat, manned by four of Mouraki’s soldiers, who had laid down their oars and sat rifles in hand. In the coxswain’s place was Demetri. It seemed strange to find him in that company. One of the soldiers took hold of the nose of our boat and turned it round, impelling it towards the beach. A moment later we grated on the shingle, where the Pasha, who had leapt down nimbly from his perch,stood awaiting us. Thoughts had been running rapidly through my brain, wild thoughts of resistance, of a sudden rush, of emptying my revolver haphazard into the other boat, aye, even of assassinating Mouraki with an unexpected shot. All that was folly. I let it go, sprang from the boat, and, giving my hand to Phroso, helped her to land, and led her to a broad smooth ledge of rock, on which she seated herself, still silent, but giving me a look of grief and despair. Then I turned to the Pasha.
‘I think,’ said I, ‘that you’ll have to wait a day or two for Cousin Constantine. I’m told that bodies don’t find their way out so soon as living men.’
‘Ah, I thought that must be it! You threw him down into the pool?’ he asked.
‘No, not I. My friend Kortes.’
‘And Kortes?’
‘They fell together.’
‘How very dramatic,’ smiled the Pasha. ‘How came you to let Kortes have at him first?’
‘Believe me, it was unintentional. It was without any design of disappointing you, Pasha.’
‘And there’s an end of both of them!’ said he, smiling at my hit.
‘They must both be dead. Forgive me, Pasha,but I don’t understand your comedy. We were in your power at the house. Why play this farce? Why not have done then what I presume you will do now?’
‘My dear lord,’ said he, after a glance round to see that nobody listened, ‘the conventions must be observed. Yesterday you had not committed the offences of which I regret to say you have now been guilty.’
‘The offences? You amuse me, Pasha.’
‘I don’t grudge it you,’ said Mouraki. ‘Yes, the offences of aiding my prisoner—that lady—to escape, and—well, the death of Constantine is at least a matter for inquiry, isn’t it? You’ll admit that? The man was a rogue, of course, but we must observe the law, my dear Wheatley. Besides—’ He paused, then he added, ‘You mustn’t grudge me my amusement either. Believe me, your joy at finding that boat, which I caused to be placed there for your convenience, and the touching little scene which I interrupted, occasioned me infinite diversion.’
I made no answer, and he continued:
‘I was sure that if—well, if Constantine failed in perpetrating his last crime—you follow me, my dear lord?—you would make for the passage, so I obtained the guidance of that faithful fellow, Demetri, and he brought us round very comfortably.Indeed we’ve been waiting some little while for you. Of course Phroso delayed you.’
Mouraki’s sneers and jocularity had no power in themselves to anger me. Indeed I felt myself cool and calm, ready to bandy retorts and banter with him. But there was another characteristic of his conversation on which my mind fastened, finding in it matter for thought: this was his barefaced frankness. Plainly he told me that he had employed Constantine to assassinate me, plainly he exposed to me the trick by which he had obtained a handle against me. Now to whom, if to any one, does a man like Mouraki Pasha reveal such things as these? Why to men, and only to men, who will tell no tales. And there is a proverb which hints that only one class of men tells no tales. That was why I attached significance to the Governor’s frankness.
I believe the man followed my thoughts with his wonderfully acute intelligence and his power of penetrating the minds of others; for he smiled again as he said:
‘I don’t mind being frank with you, my dear Wheatley. I’m sure you won’t use the little admissions I may seem to make against me. How grieved you must be for your poor friend Kortes!’
‘We’ve both lost a friend this morning, Pasha.
‘Constantine? Ah, yes. Still—he’s as well where he is, just as well where he is.’
‘He won’t be able to use your little admissions either?’
‘How you catch my meaning, my dear lord! It’s a pleasure to talk to you.’ But he turned suddenly from me and called to his men. Three came up at once. ‘This gentleman,’ he said, indicating me, and speaking now in sharp authoritative tones, ‘is in your custody for the the present. Don’t let him move.’
I seated myself on a rock; the three men stood round me. The Pasha bowed slightly, walked down to where Phroso sat, and began to speak with her. So, at least, I supposed, but I did not hear anything that he said. His back was towards me, and he hid Phroso from my view. I took out my flask and had a pull at my brandy-and-water; it was a poor breakfast, but I was offered no other.
Up to this time the fourth soldier and Demetri had remained in the boat. They now landed and hauled their boat up on to the beach; then they turned to the smaller boat which the Pasha had provided in malicious sport for our more complete mortification. The soldier laid hold of its stern and prepared to haul it also out of the water; but Demetri said something—what I could not hear—and shrugged his shoulders. The soldier nodded in apparent assent, and they left the boat where it was, merely attaching it by a rope to the other. Then they walked to the rocks and sat down at a little distance from where I was, Demetri taking a hunch of bread and a large knife from his pocket and beginning to cut and munch. I looked at him, but he refused to meet my eye and glanced in every direction except at me.
Suddenly, while I was idly regarding Demetri, the three fellows sprang on me. One had me by each arm before I could so much as move. The third dashed his hand into the breast-pocket of my coat and seized my revolver. They leapt away again, caught up the rifles they had dropped, and held them levelled towards me. The thing was done in a moment, I sitting like a man paralysed. Then one of the ruffians cried:
‘Your Excellency, the gentleman moved his hand to his pocket, to his pistol.’
‘What?’ asked Mouraki, turning round. ‘Moved his hand to a pistol? Had he a pistol?’
My revolver was held up as damning evidence.
‘And he tried to use it?’ asked Mouraki, in mournful shocked tones.
‘It looked like it,’ said the fellow.
‘It’s a lie. I wasn’t thinking of it,’ said I. I was exasperated at the trick. I had made up my mind to fight it out sooner than give up the revolver.
‘I’m afraid it may have been so,’ said Mouraki, shaking his head. ‘Give the pistol to me, my man. I’ll keep it safe.’ His eye shot triumph at me as he took my revolver and turned again to Phroso. I was now powerless indeed.
Demetri finished his hunch of bread, and began to clean his knife, polishing its blade leisurely and lovingly on the palm of his hand, and feeling its point with the end of his thumb. During this operation he hummed softly and contentedly to himself. I could not help smiling when I recognised the tune; it was an old friend, the chant that One-eyed Alexander wrote on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. Demetri polished, and Demetri hummed, and Demetri looked away across the blue water with a speculative eye. I did not choose to consider what might be in the mind of Demetri as he hummed and polished and gazed over the sea that girt his native island. Demetri’s thoughts were his own. Let Mouraki look to them, if they were worth his care.
There, I have made that confession as plainly as I mean to make it. I put out of my mindwhat Demetri might be planning as he polished his knife and hummed One-eyed Alexander’s chant.
Apparently Mouraki did not think the matter worth his care. He had approached very near to Phroso now, leaning down towards her as she sat on the rock. Suddenly I heard a low cry of terror, and ‘No, no,’ in horrified accents; but Mouraki, raising his voice a little, answered, ‘Yes, yes.’
I strained my ears to hear; nay, I half rose from where I sat, and sank back only under the pointed hint of a soldier’s bayonet. I could not hear the words, but a soft pleading murmur came from Phroso, a short relentless laugh from Mouraki, a silence, a shrug of Mouraki’s shoulders. Then he turned and came across to me.
‘Stand back a little,’ said he to the soldiers, ‘but keep your eyes on your prisoner, and if he attempts any movement—’ He did not finish the sentence, which indeed was plain enough without a formal ending. Then he began to speak to me in French.
‘A beautiful thing, my dear lord,’ said he, ‘is the devotion of women. Fortunate are you who have found two ladies to love you!’
‘You’ve been married twice yourself, I think you told me?’
‘It’s not exactly the same thing—not necessarily. I am very likely to be married a third time, but I fear I should flatter myself if I thought that much love would accompany the lady’s hand. However it was of you that I desired to speak. This lady here, my dear lord, is so attached to you that I believe she will marry me, purely to ensure your safety. Isn’t it a touching sacrifice?’
‘I hope she’ll do nothing of the sort,’ said I.
‘Well, it’s little more than a polite fiction,’ he conceded; ‘for she’ll be compelled to marry me anyhow. But it’s the sort of idea that comforts a woman.’
He fixed his eyes on me as he made this remark, enjoying the study of its effect on me.
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I never meant to marry her. I’m bound, you know. It was only another polite fiction designed to annoy you, my dear Pasha.’
‘Ah, is that so? Now, really, that’s amusing,’ and he chuckled. He did not appear annoyed at having been deceived. I wondered a little at that—then.
‘We have really,’ he continued, ‘been living in an atmosphere of polite fictions. For example, Lord Wheatley, there was a polite fiction that I was grieved at Constantine’s escape.’
‘And another that you were anxious to recapture him.’
‘And a third that you were not anxious to escape from my—hospitality.’
‘And a fourth that you were so solicitous for my friends’ enjoyment that you exerted yourself to find them good fishing.’
‘Ah, yes, yes,’ he laughed. ‘And there is to be one more polite fiction, my dear lord.’
‘I believe I can guess it,’ said I, meeting his eye.
‘You are always so acute,’ he observed admiringly.
‘Though the precise form of it I confess I don’t understand.’
‘Well, our lamented Constantine, who had much experience but rather wanted imagination, was in favour of a fever. He told me that it was the usual device in Neopalia.’
‘His wife died of it, I suppose?’ I believe I smiled as I put the question. Great as my peril was, I still found a pleasure in fencing with the Pasha.
‘Oh, no. Now that’s unworthy of you. Never have a fiction when the truth will serve! Since he’s dead, he murdered his wife. If he had lived, of course—’
‘Ah, then it would have been fever.’
‘Precisely. We must adapt ourselves to circumstances: that is the part of wise men. Now inyour case—’ He bent down and looked hard in my face.
‘In my case,’ said I, ‘you can call it what you like, Pasha.’
‘Don’t you think that the outraged patriotism of Neopalia—?’ he suggested, with a smile. ‘You bought the island—you, a stranger! It was very rash. These islanders are desperate fellows.’
‘That would have served with Constantine alive; but he’s dead. Your patriot is gone, Pasha.’
‘Alas, yes, our good Constantine is dead. But there are others. There’s a fellow whom I ought to hang.’
‘Ah!’ My eye wandered towards where Demetri hummed and polished.
‘And who has certainly not earned his life merely by bringing me to meet you this morning, though I give him some credit for that.’
‘Demetri?’ I asked with a careless air.
‘Well, yes, Demetri,’ smiled the Pasha. ‘Demetri is very open to reason.’
Across the current of our talk came Demetri’s soft happy humming. The Pasha heard it.
‘I hanged his brother three years ago,’ he observed.
‘I know you did,’ said I. ‘You seem to have done some characteristic things three years ago.’
‘And he went to the gallows humming that tune. You know it?’
‘Very well indeed, Pasha. It was one of the first things I heard in Neopalia; it’s going to be one of the last, perhaps.’
‘That tune lends a great plausibility to my little fiction,’ said Mouraki.
‘It will no doubt be a very valuable confirmation of it,’ I rejoined.
The Pasha made no further remark for a moment. I looked past him and past the four soldiers—for the last had now joined his comrades—to Phroso. She was leaning against the cliff side; her head was thrown back and her face upturned, but her eyes were closed. I think she had swooned, or at least sunk into a half-unconscious state. Mouraki detected my glance.
‘Look at her well, use your time,’ he said in a savage tone. You’ve not long to enjoy the sight of her.’
‘I have as long as it may happen to please God,’ said I. ‘Neither you nor I know how long.’
‘I can make a guess,’ observed Mouraki, a quiet smile succeeding his frown.
‘Yes, you can make a guess.’
He stood looking at me a moment longer; then he turned away. As he passed the soldiers he spoke to them. I saw them smile. No doubthe had picked his men for this job and could rely on them.
The little bay in which we were was surrounded by steep and precipitous cliffs except in one place. Here there was a narrow cleft; the rocks did not rise abruptly; the ground sloped gradually upwards as it receded from the beach. Just on this spot of gently-rising ground Demetri sat, and the Pasha, having amused himself with me for as long as it pleased him, walked up to Demetri. The fellow sprang to his feet and saluted Mouraki with great respect. Mouraki beckoned to him to come nearer, and began to speak to him.
I sat still where I was, under the bayonets of the soldiers, who faced me and had their backs to their commander. My eyes were fixed steadily on the pair who stood conferring on the slope; and my mind was in a ferment. Scruples troubled me no more; Mouraki himself had made them absurd. I read my only chance of life in the choice or caprice of the wild passionate barbarian—he was little else—who stood with head meekly bowed and knife carelessly dangled in his hand. This man was he of whom Panayiota had spoken so mysteriously; he was the friend whom I had ‘more than I knew of.’ In his blood feud with the Pasha, in his revengeful wrath, lay my chance. It was only a chance, indeed, for the soldiers might killme; but it was a chance, and there was no other; for if Mouraki won him over by promises or bribes, or intimidated him into doing his will, then Demetri would take the easier task, that which carried no risk and did not involve his own death, as an attack on the Pasha almost certainly would. Would he be prudent and turn his hand against the single helpless man? Or would his long-nursed rage stifle all care for himself and drive him against Mouraki? If so, if he chose that way, there was a glimmer of hope. I glanced at Phroso’s motionless figure and pallid face; I glanced at the little boat that floated on the water (why had Demetri not beached it?); I glanced at the rope which bound it to the other boat; I measured the distance between the boats and myself; I thrust my hand into the pocket of my coat and contrived to open the blade of my clasp-knife, which was now the only weapon left to me.
Mouraki spoke and smiled. He made no gesture but there was just a movement of his eyes towards me. Demetri’s eyes followed his for an instant, but would not dwell on my face. The Pasha spoke again. Demetri shook his head, and Mouraki’s face assumed a persuasive good-humoured expression. Demetri glanced round apprehensively. The Pasha took him by the arm, and they went a few paces further up the slope, so as to be more privatein their talk—but was that the object with both of them? Still Demetri shook his head. The Pasha’s smile vanished, his mouth grew stern, his eyes cold, and he frowned. He spoke in short sharp sentences, the snap of his lips showing when his mind was spoken. Demetri seemed to plead. He looked uneasy, he shifted from foot to foot, he drew back from the imperious man, as though he shunned him and would fain escape from him. Mouraki would not let him go, but followed him in his retreat, step for step. Thus another ten yards were put between them and me. Anger and contempt blazed now on Mouraki’s face. He raised his hand and brought it down clenched on the palm of the other. Demetri held out his hand as though in protest or supplication. The Pasha stamped with his foot. There were no signs of relenting in his manner.
My eyes grew weary with intent watching. I felt like a man who has been staring at a bright white light, too fascinated by its intensity to blink or turn away, even though it pains him to look longer. The figures of the two seemed to become indistinct and blurred. I rubbed my knuckles into my eyes to clear my vision, and looked again. Yes; they were a little further off, even still a little further off than when I had looked before. It could not be by chance and unwittingly thatDemetri always and always and always gave back a pace, luring the Pasha to follow him. No, there was a plan in his head; and in my heart suddenly came a great beat of savage joy—of joy at the chance Heaven gave, yes, and of lust for the blood of the man against whom I had so mighty a debt of wrong. And, as I gazed now, for an instant—a single, barely perceptible instant—came the swiftest message from Demetri’s eyes. I read it. I knew its meaning. I sat where I was, but every muscle of my body was tense and strung in readiness for that desperate leap, and every nerve of me quivered with a repressed excitement that seemed almost to kill. Now, now! Was it now? I was within an ace of crying ‘Strike!’ but I held the word in and still gazed. And the soldiers leant easily on their bayonets, exchanging a word or two now and again, yawning sometimes, weary of a dull job, wondering when his Excellency would let them get home again; of what was going on behind their backs, there on the slope of the cliff, they took no heed.
Ah, there was a change now! Demetri had ceased to protest, to deprecate and to retreat. Mouraki’s frowns had vanished, he smiled again in satisfaction and approval. Demetri threw a glance at me. Mouraki spoke. Demetri answered. For an instant I looked at the soldiers: they weremore weary and inattentive than ever. Back went my eyes. Now Mouraki, with suave graciousness, in condescending recognition of a good servant, stepped right close up to Demetri and, raising his hand, reached round the fellow’s shoulder and patted him approvingly on the back.
‘It will be now!’ I thought; nay, I believe I whispered, and I drew my legs up under me and grasped the hidden knife in my pocket. ‘Yes, it must be now.’
Mouraki patted, laughed, evidently praised. Demetri bowed his head. But his long, lithe, bare, brown right arm that had hung so weary a time in idle waiting by his side—the arm whose hand held the great bright blade so lovingly polished, so carefully tested—the arm began slowly and cautiously to crawl up his side. It bent at the elbow, it rested a moment after its stealthy secret climb; then, quick as lightning, it flew above Demetri’s head, the blade sparkled in the sun, the hand swooped down, and the gleams of the sunlit steel were quenched in the body of Mouraki. With a sudden cry of amazement, of horror and of agony, the Pasha staggered and fell prone on the rocky ground; and Demetri cried, ‘At last, my God, at last!’ and laughed aloud.