CHAPTER IV.THE GIRDLE OF ISIDORA.

“I can’t congratulate you on yourprotégée’smanners,” said the Lady lightly.

“No one is better fitted to improve them than yourself, my beloved Olimpia. And at least she is staunch, and would give her heart’s blood for Janni.”

“What is the danger at which you are always hinting? Is there something new?”

“There is always a certain amount of unpleasantness,” he replied evasively. “And this visit of Theophanis and his brother-in-law will stir up their supporters. My beautiful one, it is my particular wish that you have a proper guard for the present—inside the garden.”

“To guard the Princess—or the Lady?” she asked coldly.

He uttered a furious exclamation. “Olimpia, you are enough to drive a man mad! Do you think I have invited Theophanis here to hand over the crown to him? It will task all my powers to hoodwink him and Glafko as to the promising negociation which is to end by seating you beside me on the throne, and would you have me ruin everything by making him aware of your existence now?”

“Perhaps you are also hoodwinking me on the same subject? No, I will have no guards within these walls. Here, at any rate, I need not see the pointing finger, or hear the things your people say of me. Any danger that may threaten Janni or me is entirely due to your refusing, in defiance of all your promises, to acknowledge us, and I will not accept further protection at your hands while the concealment lasts.”

“Olimpia!” Prince Romanos had thrown himself on his knees, in an attitude that would have been impossibly theatrical in any other man. “You wrong me deeply; I call all the saints to witness to it. Believe me, you should not remain in concealment another hour, if the necessity were not urgent. It is your throne and mine—Janni’s throne, our son’s throne—that is in danger. Trust your husband,” he leaned forward and enfolded her hands in his—“or if not your husband, trust the poet to whom you plighted your troth on the marble terrace among the orange-trees.”

“I do trust you,” she said wearily, allowing her hands to rest in his—“because I must. I remain here because I have nowhere else to go. I have wounded my father grievously for your sake by begging him not to come. You may send your guards here if you will tell them the truth about me. But within these walls everyone must know that I am the Princess and your wife.”

“It is impossible,” he murmured gloomily.

“So I thought. So it will always be when I urge you to make the truth known. You have no intention whatever of acknowledging it.”

“My most beautiful and best beloved, you are cruelly wrong, and I will prove it to you. If I place in your keeping the most sacred treasure of our house, handed down for hundreds of years before the birth of John Theophanis himself, will you believe me then? If anything should happen to me, you have only to produce that jewel to show that I acknowledged you as my honoured wife, and as rightful Empress of the East. Ah, my beloved, you are yielding! I will not ask you to see me again until I can put the treasure into your hands, and you will own how much you have misjudged your Apolis.”

Itwas about ten o’clock in the morning, and Despina was clattering things furiously in the kitchen as she collected baskets and other aids to shopping, for she was late in starting. The Lady sat in the morning-room opening on the verandah, writing a letter which seemed, from her frequent pauses, to be difficult to frame, and Danaë was playing bo-peep with Janni in and out of the window. Above the child’s shouts of laughter came the imperative sound of the door-bell, and Danaë caught him up in her arms, and followed at a discreet distance in Despina’s wake as she went to open the door.

“Aha, old mother, you won’t be able to start just yet!” she cried mockingly, as the Prince rode in, followed by Petros, for Despina would never delegate even to Mariora the duty of keeping the door in her absence.

“May he that is without and afar [i.e., the devil] fly away with that girl! If I catch her, I’ll teach her saucy tongue a lesson!” muttered the old woman furiously.

“I should recommend a red-hot skewer,” was the soothing suggestion of Petros, as he flashed a glance towards Danaë to show that he had understood her intimation. “A monk at the Holy Mountain told me that the worst of scolds could be cured by marking a cross on her tongue with it, if the proper prayers were said at the same time.”

Despina requited his sympathy with another curse, and Danaë laughed as she followed the Prince, who had taken Janni in his arms. He gave the child back to her as they reached the house, and she sat down again on the verandah while he greeted his wife. Reading in her eyes the question she was too proud to ask, he unbuttoned his tunic, and took out something wrapped in linen which had been concealed there. Danaë, her curiosity aroused, watched him with eager eyes while he unrolled it, but she sang mechanically to Janni the while, lest her interest should be observed. One by one he released from the protecting folds a series of circular plaques of gold, gleaming with jewels and translucent enamel, while the Lady looked on, puzzled and a little disappointed, and Danaë’s breath came quick and fast.

“Byzantine, I suppose?” said the Lady, fingering one of the plaques; “and not intentionally comic?”

“Wait!” said Prince Romanos sharply. He was fitting the plaques together by means of the little gold hooks and chains attached to each, until they formed a small portrait-gallery of severe-featured saints, with jewelled halos and dresses. He held it up. “If the people in the streets as I passed had known that I was bringing this to you, Olimpia, they would have torn me limb from limb. It is the girdle of the Empress Isidora.”

Danaë gasped, in spite of herself, at the sound of the name, which was the only word she understood, but she had already guessed what the jewel was. Handed down in the Christodoridi family was a metrical version of the exploits of the famous, and infamous, Empress, in which the girdle figured largely, and Danaë could have named each ill-favoured saint from memory. And this treasure, the badge of Orthodox sovereignty, her infatuated brother was now handing over to the schismatic woman who had bewitched him! Even the Lady, who knew nothing of its legendary fame, was impressed as she took it into her hands.

“It is a magnificent thing!” she said. “Why have you never shown it to me before?”

“Because I have never had it in my possession, or even set eyes upon it, till now. In fact, I did not know that it was still in existence. For your possession of it, my most beautiful, you may thank Prince Theophanis, or rather Lady Eirene, his wife.”

“You will hardly ask me to believe that Princess Theophanis has acknowledged the justice of your claims so far as to send you this by her husband?”

“Very far from it, my dearest. She has no knowledge of its present whereabouts, and if you are to keep it, she had better not know.”

“But to whom does it really belong?”

“To the head of the descendants of John Theophanis. That, my Olimpia, is your husband, as the inhabitants of Emathia testified by their free vote. But the girdle has been preserved since the fall of Czarigrad in the family of the Princess Eirene, and I have reason to believe that she regards it as her own property.”

“And you have contrived to rob her jewel-case during her husband’s absence here?” asked the Lady lightly.

“Your poet does not go to work quite so crudely, Olimpia. No, it seems that it is ten years or more since anyone saw the girdle. Before her marriage the Princess was detained in a sort of honourable captivity at the old Scythian Consulate here, from which she escaped to join Theophanis. Unfortunately for her, knowing that the Scythian Imperial family were most anxious to possess the jewel, in order to support their claims to the heritage of the Cæsars, she contrived a hiding-place for it, from which she had not time to rescue it when the opportunity of escape came. There it must have remained ever since, for even when the Consulate was burnt by the Roumi mob before the bombardment, the walls in great part remained standing. But just lately she saw in the papers that we were clearing away the ruins to make the new boulevard, and immediately hurried her husband off to make inquiries. Knowing Maurice Theophanis, you won’t be surprised to hear that he chose me, in strictest secrecy, as the recipient of his inquiries—for which I should imagine his wife will have a word or two to say to him when he gets home. It seems that Princess Eirene managed to pick a large stone out of the wall with her scissors, and hide the girdle in the rubble behind it. As she had fitted the stone in again neatly enough to escape the observation of the spies who surrounded her, I thought it was very likely the treasure was there still, but I said a good deal to Theophanis about fire and plunderers. We visited the ruins, and Glafko—who has a plaguy exact mind—located as nearly as he could the spot where the Princess’s room had been. In their presence I promised the workmen a large reward if they found anything, and fearful penalties unless they gave it up, and then I carried our friends off to a review. The walls were duly knocked down, and nothing was found. But Daniloff, the chief of police, used himself to be employed at the Scythian Consulate in the old days, and he had visited the spot the night before. He found the girdle and brought it to me, wrapped up in odds and ends of paper, and he and I cleaned it and polished it ourselves. No one else on earth dreams where it is.”

“That girl outside will know,” said the Lady, without looking towards Danaë.

“Nonsense! she doesn’t understand French. All she knows is that I have brought you a present of jewellery to-day—surely a very natural thing to do. It is not as if she had ever heard of the girdle and its history.”

“And the obvious thing, to her, would be that I should put it on at once.” She passed the glittering links round her waist, confining the folds of the loose flowing gown of rich wine-colour she was wearing. Before she could snap the clasp into place the Prince’s hand stopped her.

“Wait, Olimpia. I must tell you that they say the girdle brings ill-luck with it.”

The Lady laughed, and fastened the clasp. “I will risk the ill-luck if it makes me Empress,” she said.

Prince Romanos gazed at her in unfeigned admiration. “Olimpia, you are magnificent! You look the Empress to the life. May I yet see you wear the girdle at our coronation in Hagion Pneuma!” He knelt and lifted the edge of the wine-coloured robe to his lips. “Hail to the Orthodox Empress!” he said fervently in Greek, and Danaë thrilled with horror at the sacrilege. Were there no bounds to her brother’s infatuation?

The Lady blushed slightly at the fervour of her husband’s tone. Perhaps she also saw, as she looked dreamily far beyond him, the dim splendours of the great cathedral of Czarigrad, rescued from the Moslem and restored to Christian uses, and crowded with rejoicing people assembled to welcome back the descendant of John Theophanis to the throne of his ancestors—saw herself in imperial robes beside him, and Janni, grown a goodly youth, acclaimed as the heir of the Eastern Empire. Then she shivered a little, and unfastened the clasp again.

“Don’t speak Greek; it is not safe with the girl about. You have made me almost afraid of letting even Despina know that I have the girdle, yet she has my keys. I will put it here,” she opened a drawer of her bureau by a spring, and laid the jewel inside it, Danaë watching her every movement, “until I can make an excuse to get them and hide it in the safe. And now tell me what it is you want me to do for you in return for it.”

“Most beautiful and beloved, will you not believe that your poet brought you a gift solely that he might feast his eyes upon your beauty adorned with it, and enjoy your pleasure?”

“Not for a moment,” said the Lady decisively.

“Ah, hard-hearted one! will nothing move you? Well, then, dearest, I claim your promise made the other day. You will allow me to quarter a guard for you within these walls?”

“I made no promise!” she said quickly.

“Not in words, I own, but it was implied, in return for the gift I hoped to bring you, and have now brought. Listen, Olimpia; I am in a very difficult position. Theophanis and his brother-in-law have made this week a perfect hell to me. The shifts and excuses to which I have been driven to baulk their curiosity are really humiliating to look back upon. I am compelled—simply for the sake of averting the suspicions I saw beginning to spring up in their minds—to appear to fall in with their scheme for the railway route. Of course it is exactly opposite to the one on which your hopes—our hopes—depend, but I must throw them off the scent for a week or two, or until I can get things definitely settled. Theophanis and Glafko are returning home fairly satisfied, but to make things quite smooth I was obliged to volunteer to go part of the way with them, to see a place where there would be difficulty in getting the line through. It is a Moslem colony—evkaf[orwakf, land set apart for religious uses] land, a mosque and a cemetery—and any sensible person would have seen at once that it was an insuperable obstacle to their pet route, but they want to negociate about it, relying on Glafko’s influence with the Roumis, I suppose, and—in a moment of thoughtlessness, I confess—I proposed enthusiastically to go with them and see what could be done.”

“Which means that you will be away from Therma—how long?”

“Four days, not more; three, if I am lucky.”

“And you have never gone away before without sending Janni and me into safety at Thamnos first!”

“My dear Olimpia, this is such a short time. And the notice was so brief; I start with them to-day, and there was no time to arrange anything. Then consider what is to be gained—the fulfilment of our dearest hopes. You on the throne beside me, Janni acknowledged heir of Emathia—safety and recognition, in short, if I can only keep those two meddlesome Englishmen in the dark till my greatcoupis made.”

“And your police are not capable of protecting this house against the mob, even with the help of the soldiers outside?”

“It is not the mob I am afraid of, but those who are your—our—enemies for political, dynastic reasons.”

She raised her eyebrows. “The Theophanis family?”

“Let me beg you not to consider me altogether a fool, Olimpia. No, not the Theophanis family. But you are aware that your existence is not entirely unknown in the city; you have often complained to me of the fact. I have reason to believe that it has reached the knowledge of the very people with whom I am carrying on my secret negociations. They may not know your real position, but they are quite capable of seeing in you and Janni a possible obstacle to the realisation of their aims, and in that case you and Janni would be sentenced to disappear. Now do you see what I mean? I may have been brutal, but you have forced me to speak plainly.”

The Lady frowned, paying little attention to his excuses. “In plain words, then, you think that opportunity will be taken of your absence to murder your wife and son?”

“I don’t think it will be so, or I should not go, but I think it is possible that such an attempt might be made. Consider Janni, Olimpia, if you will not consider yourself.”

“I am considering myself,” she said quickly; “or rather, I am considering the dignity of your wife. The Princess of Emathia may be pardoned a little pride, Romanos—may she not? But Janni is in danger, you say? Well, then, I well yield as far as this. You may post your guards round the house at night. Arrange matters with Despina, and let me hear nothing of them. They must be gone before I come out of doors in the morning, and they must only arrive after dark—I will not walk in the garden late. I will not see or be seen by any more of your subjects till you acknowledge me; that piece of pride I keep. But we shall be protected, according to your wish; for I suppose even you do not expect a murderous attack to be made upon us in the daytime?”

“No, I think that ought to be enough,” he said reluctantly. “I shall be a little happier in my mind, knowing that the garden is thoroughly patrolled. Accept your poet’s gratitude, my Princess, and vouchsafe him a gracious farewell. I have innumerable things to do before I join Theophanis and Glafko this afternoon. They start this morning, with a patriarchal paraphernalia of tents and baggage-mules, for the fancy for exploring their proposed new route forbids their making use of the railway, and I catch them up, travelling light. But I dare not stay longer.”

“And poor Despina will be distracted by the delay in her marketing,” said the Lady lightly. She took her husband’s arm, and walked with him into the garden, Danaë following with Janni in her arms, and the little iron wedge which Petros had given her clasped tightly in her hand. The Lady remained out of sight of the gate, but while his father was speaking to Despina, Janni clamoured to see the horses, and Danaë carried him to watch the riders mount. She hardly knew how she could contrive to slip the wedge into the lock, for Despina, fuming with impatience, was clearly in a desperate hurry. To add to her irritation, the horse which Petros rode began to dance hither and thither, apparently desiring to go anywhere rather than through the gate, and in his efforts to control it, Petros caught his spur in the old woman’s embroidered apron, and the stuff only yielded with a jagged tear. Then the horse went through the gateway with a bound, and Petros was left sitting on the ground with an expression of such intense astonishment that even Despina, while reviling him loudly, could hardly help laughing.

“Come on, Petraki! What’s the matter?” cried his master, turning round.

“I knew something would happen when we met that priest just as we were starting, my Prince,” moaned Petros lugubriously, noting with the tail of his eye that Danaë, venturing as far as the doorpost in sympathetic curiosity, had slipped the wedge into the hole.

“If you hadn’t been so clumsy, nothing would have happened, fellow,” snapped Despina, contemplating her ruined apron. “I didn’t meet a priest, so why should I be unlucky?”

“And I did meet him, and nothing has happened to me,” said Prince Romanos gaily. “Get yourself a new apron with that, old mother, and don’t croak. Make haste, friend Petros,” as the sentry brought up the horse, which he had captured; “or shall I send the police for you with an ambulance?”

“O my Prince, I think I can get to the Palace,” said Petros, rising with many groans, “but after that——”

“You will have to go on the sick-list instead of coming into the country with me. That’s where my ill-luck comes in,” said the Prince, as his retainer hoisted himself with tremendous difficulty into the saddle.

“Take the little lord in, Eurynomé,” cried Despina wrathfully. “How often have I not told you that no modest girl goes peeping out of gates, and there you are, absolutely outside! You’re a bad one, and I always said so.”

Danaë obeyed, too much excited even to give Despina as good as she gave, so near and clear to her mind was the culmination of the plot. Her brother was going away somewhere, and Petros had contrived to avoid going with him, and the door could be opened by anyone who knew the secret of the obstructed lock. Moreover, the saints—so she gratefully phrased it—had put in her way the means of escape from the fears of Janni’s future in Strio which had been suggested by the words of Petros when last they met. With the Girdle of Isidora in her possession, she could bargain for his safety with her father. Prince Christodoridi was an unsatisfactory person to bargain with—she recognised it quite dispassionately and not without admiration—since he never kept any promises that were not strictly in accordance with his own interests, but with the treasure of the family in her hands, it would be hard if Danaë could not manage to bind him down to tolerance of Janni’s presence, if not to actual recognition of his rights. To leave the girdle where it was, for her brother to bestow on some other schismatic woman, was a thought which only suggested itself to be scouted.

The morning passed quietly. Despina went out with her baskets, shutting the gate with a tremendous bang, since the lock was difficult to manipulate. The Lady compassionated her on having to start so late on such a hot day, and called Mariora to carry her chair and table out of doors. The favourite spot on the lawn in front of the house was not sufficiently shady to-day, and only the thick foliage of the ilexes afforded tolerable shelter. The Lady sat down to finish her letter, with Danaë and Janni playing on the ground beside her, and Mariora returned to her work. As the day grew hotter and the air and the hum of insects more drowsy, the child became sleepy and fretful.

“Carry him indoors, Eurynomé,” said the Lady, looking up from her writing. “It is early for his sleep, but the excitement this morning must have tired him. I will come and sit beside him while you have your dinner.”

“It is done as you command, my Lady,” responded Danaë, with unusual meekness, and she lifted the child to carry him into the house. On the verandah she paused. There were sounds at the gate. The Lady had heard them too, and risen from her chair, just as Mariora rushed through the hall from the kitchen.

“Fly, my Lady, hide yourself! Murderers!” shrieked the old woman. “I will keep them back!” and she pushed her mistress violently inside the house and ran towards the gate, brandishing a chopper. The Lady turned to snatch Janni out of Danaë’s arms, but drew back suddenly.

“Hide him, my Eurynomé, save him! You love him, I know.”

“They will do you no harm, Lady,” responded Danaë confidently, “nor the little lord either.”

“What do you know about it, girl? Listen!” as the clash of weapons and a terrible sobbing shriek reached their ears. “Ah, my poor Mariora! Take him, hide him—you have some place. I will go and meet them and give you time.” She pressed a passionate kiss on Janni’s sleepy eyes. “Save him, I charge you, Eurynomé. Go, go quickly!”

Overmastered by sheer force of will, Danaë fled through the hall and kitchen and out into the ilex-grove, seeing nothing but the tall red figure stepping out with uncovered head into the blinding sunshine. A clamour of words followed her, menaces and evil names, then the Lady’s voice, very clear and distinct in her foreign Greek.

“I am the wife of the Lord Romanos. If you kill me, you kill your Princess.”

Again that clash of steel, and Danaë’s stubborn heart misgave her. Pausing only to wind her shawl firmly round Janni and herself, she began to climb, hurriedly and furiously, and never ceased until she had reached her eyrie, where no one could see her from below. She found a cradle among the branches for Janni, and tied him there safely before she ventured to look out of the window she had made for herself. On the lawn lay a prostrate figure in a red gown, dreadfully still, with a deeper red spreading from it to the grass, and men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were searching eagerly among the trees. Others came rushing out of the house as she watched.

“Not a soul there! Where are they?” was the cry. “What is the use of killing the she-wolf if the cub is left alive?”

Then Petros was false! More than that, it came upon Danaë like a blow that her father had planned this murder all along, and deliberately made use of her to further his plot. In the sudden revulsion of feeling she forgot her own hatred of the Lady, and the ignoble part it had led her to play. Janni was alive, left to her charge by his murdered mother, and she would save him if she died for it. Sick and shaking, she crawled back to where she had left him, and found him peacefully asleep. Seating herself in a fork of the branches beside him, she loosened her dagger in its sheath. If they were tracked to the tree, no one should touch him while she remained alive.

Danaëwoke from the sleep or stupor that had overcome her to find Janni patting her face.

“Wake up, Nono, wake up!” he was saying, as he was wont to do in the early morning. “Breakfast!”

With a horrible spasm of fear, she covered his mouth quickly with the shawl, fearing his voice might have been heard, then listened apprehensively. But no sound came from below, and Janni was struggling to get rid of the shawl, and insisting, in his own language, which only Danaë understood, that he was very hungry, and would shortly roar if breakfast was not forthcoming. Judging by her own sensations that some hours must have passed since she had climbed the tree, she ventured to crawl back to her point of vantage and peer cautiously forth. The dreadful red form still lay where it had fallen, marring the peaceful beauty of the garden with its rigid lines and clenched hands, but of the murderers there was no sign. Could they have guessed that she and Janni were hidden in the grounds, and be lying in wait in the house, ready to pounce upon them when hunger should drive them forth? Danaë shook from head to foot as the thought occurred to her, but a howl from Janni brought her back to him in a panic, and made action inevitable. Quieting him with promises and entreaties, she let herself down from the tree, and starting at every sound, crept through the bushes and reconnoitred the kitchen door. There was no one to be seen, and she ventured inside. Everything was thrown about and broken, but no one was there. Kicking off her slippers, she crept through the hall to the front of the house. Curtains had been roughly pulled down, pieces of furniture dragged from their places, evidently to make sure that no one was hiding behind them, and all receptacles ransacked. The sight of the bureau standing open gave her a shock, but she saw at once that the secret drawer had not been discovered. Approaching noiselessly, she touched the spring, and the Girdle of Isidora, in all its antique and sacred beauty, lay before her worshipping eyes. With a sudden impulse she snatched it up, and fastened it with trembling fingers round her waist, hidden by her long coat and apron, leaving the drawer open.

A distant wail reminded her of her charge, and she returned hastily into the kitchen to look for food. Some milk she was able to rescue from a broken crock, but there was none of the white bread which was always bought for Janni. Surely Despina ought to have returned with her purchases by this time? Danaë ran out towards the gate, avoiding with a shudder the tumbled heap which showed where Mariora had made her gallant and ineffectual stand on behalf of her mistress, but recoiled hastily. Almost at her very feet lay Despina, dead among her baskets. She had been attacked from behind and cut down as soon as she was inside the gate. With iron resolution the girl crushed down the desire that seized her to run away screaming—anywhere, anywhere, away from those three corpses. Janni remained alive and dependent on her, and she must take care of him. Setting her teeth, she stepped forward gingerly until she was able to seize one of the baskets. Happily, it was the one containing the bread, and she hurried back to Janni, and brought him down from the tree and fed him. She found a hiding-place in the bushes, close to the spot where the Lady had sat writing that morning, and tried to get the child to sleep again while she thought things out. How she was to place him in safety she could not tell. She did not even know the way to the Palace, and besides, her brother might even now have started on his expedition. Moreover, there was the disquieting fact that the murderers had all worn the uniform of the guard, which seemed to ring her round with fresh perils. The guard were then in the plot to destroy the Lady and her son, and to go to the Palace would be to walk straight into their clutches. Worse still, they were to provide a detachment to garrison the garden that night, so the Prince had told Despina when he announced his approaching journey before he rode out, and they would no doubt use the opportunity to place the three dead bodies inside the house, and remove all traces of the tragedy from the outside. They were not to come near the house itself, nor to see anything of the inmates, so their orders ran, and therefore the horrible business would in the most natural way remain undiscovered until Prince Romanos returned to Therma and came to see his wife.

And in the meantime? Danaë’s heart sank. Her brother would be away three or four days, as he had told Despina, and it would fall to her to keep Janni safely concealed and fed for that time. The slightest sign of their presence, the faintest wail from the child, and the murderous crew who had killed his mother would be upon them. There would be no more milk, even if she could make the bread last which she had found in the basket, and Janni was not accustomed to bear privation silently. Nor was a tree an ideal sleeping-place for three or four nights, especially when any movement in the branches might betray your presence to bloodthirsty enemies below. Slowly a plan grew up in Danaë’s mind. She and Janni would escape from the garden while there was time, before the guard arrived that evening. The gate was out of the question owing to the presence of the sentry, but the wall was easy to climb, especially where trees grew close to it. Danaë had no mind to trust herself in Therma, but she knew, by longing observation from her treetops, which way lay the open country, and there it must be possible to find villages where she and Janni might be sheltered until she could manage to communicate with her brother. Crawling out of her concealment, she picked up the letter which the Lady had been writing, and which had fallen to the ground, folded it and hid it in her dress. It would be a credential should she be forced to approach Prince Romanos through a third person, less likely by far to arouse suspicion or to provoke danger than the famous girdle. Then she ventured back into the house to collect a few clothes for herself and Janni, which she made into a bundle with the rest of the bread, and hid among the trees at the point she thought best for crossing the wall. Returning to fetch the child, she was horrified to hear violent blows upon the gate. The guard had arrived early—the mob of the city were attacking the house—the conjectures, both equally alarming, chased one another through her brain as she caught up Janni, and rushed with him once more to the tree of refuge. But before she could mount it she heard her brother’s voice.

“Open the door, Despina! it is I. The lock will not work. Unfasten the bolt. Are you all asleep?”

Saved as by a miracle! Danaë left Janni on the ground, and ran joyfully to the gate, where she struggled vainly with the lock, while the Prince demanded impatiently why the door was not opened.

“It is I, lord—Eurynomé; and the bolts are not fastened, but the key will not turn.”

“The key? What are you doing with the key? Where is Despina? She knows how to open it.”

“Alas, lord! I found it in the door. An evil fate has overtaken Despina.”

“Holy Basil! what do you mean, girl? Call Mariora, then. What has happened? Will you fumble to all eternity?”

“Lord, there is no one to call.” In spite of herself, tears were very near Danaë’s voice. “There came men——”

“Men? what men? What did they do? Open the door, girl! What of my wife—of the Lady?”

“The little lord is safe, lord.”

The words were spoken very low, and they were downed by the noise of a vigorous assault on the door. Evidently Prince Romanos had called the sentry to his help, for the stout planks gave way with a crash, and he burst in. “Where is your mistress?” he cried fiercely, seizing Danaë by the shoulder.

“She lies there, lord. She has not moved,” she faltered.

“A doctor! fetch a doctor!” cried Prince Romanos to the sentry, “and, Christos,” to the guard who was holding his horse, “the police—no, the chief of police. He is to come alone. Show me where your mistress is, Eurynomé. You say she has fainted?”

He passed the bodies of the two old women without heeding them, dragging Danaë with him at a pace which almost whirled her off her feet, until he released her with a suddenness that sent her staggering among the bushes. He had seen the rigid red figure on the grass. For the moment Danaë thought he would have fled, unable to face it, but he pulled himself together and went on, treading with fearful, uncertain steps. He was kneeling beside his dead wife, laying a hand on heart and brow, assuring himself of the awful truth, and then he broke into a wild lamentation which thrilled Danaë to the core, for its rough island Greek showed her the primitive Striote under the mask of the denationalised European.

“Alas, Olimpia, my fairest! Dear love of my heart, whom I wooed under the orange-trees in the twilight, who shouldst have sat beside me on the throne! Beloved, thou hast left me too soon; thou, who didst lay a healing hand upon my tortured brow, shouldst have worn with me the diadem of New Rome. Like a shy proud fawn wast thou when I first beheld thee, fearing to hear of the love to which thine own heart leaped out in response; like the stricken deer wounded by the huntsman do I see thee now. In thy glory did I behold thee last, beautiful exceedingly, worthily apparelled—not Helen’s self could have excelled thee. But now thou liest low; cruel Charon has snatched thee from me, who wast my eyes, my soul, my life, my all——”

Danaë could bear no more. Her brother was unconscious of her presence, and she burst through the bushes and ran across the lawn to the spot where she had left Janni. Catching him up, she hastened back and tried to put him into his father’s arms.

“See, lord, you are not left wholly desolate. There is yet one to love and that loves you.”

“Take the child away!” said Prince Romanos angrily.

“But, lord, your little son!”

“Take him away. What do I care for him? It is his mother I want—not a baby that cannot speak.” He turned again to the Lady’s body. “Sweet, hast thou no word for thy lover? How has he sinned that those lips are closed and silent which have so often overflowed with words of love? But no, it is neither his sin nor thine, but the iniquity of those who sought to strike him through thee——”

A howl from Janni, whom the indignant and perplexed Danaë had been vainly endeavouring to console for his father’s repulse, broke into the lament.

“Will you take that child away, girl? Is this a scene for his young eyes? Take him to the nursery, and keep him there until I send for you.”

“You bid me go, lord, and take with me the little lord?” demanded Danaë, thrilling with outraged pride and affection on behalf of her little charge.

“Yes, go, in the name of the All-Holy Mother of God, and leave me alone with my dead!”

“I go, lord!” said Danaë impressively, but she doubted whether he even heard her. He was bending over his wife again.

“Most beloved, open those lips but for an instant, and tell me to whose cursed treachery I owe this blow. Let thy spirit visit me at night, my beautiful one, and keep vengeance ever in my mind. If there be one left alive of those who slew thee——”

The familiar voice, raised in a half chant, grew faint in Danaë’s ears. She was stalking majestically across the grass, hushing the protesting Janni in her arms, and listening greedily for some word of recall. No one should say she had stolen away secretly, but if she was driven out she would go. His son, his heir, was nothing to Prince Romanos in comparison with the dead body of the schismatic woman! He would leave him without protection in the house, till the conspirators returned and finished their deadly work! Very well, then; he should see no more of Janni until he had learnt to value him properly. Danaë would at once save the child and punish the father. Mingled with her lofty resolves was perhaps a vague idea of averting retribution. The death of the Lady was without doubt in some measure due to her; she would blot out her guilt by saving the Lady’s son.

Prince Romanos did not call her back, and when she looked round from the edge of the wood he was still kneeling over his wife’s body. Her heart hardened against him, and she picked up the bundle she had left under the trees and went on as far as the wall. She climbed up easily enough, and dropped the bundle over, then returned for Janni, and wound him closely in her shawl. The ground outside was happily soft, for on this side the garden adjoined a large piece of land belonging to the Prince which he had planted with trees, with the intention of making it into a park in future, and she was able to let herself down safely by her hands. She had often longed to explore this piece of woodland, and when it was once crossed she would be well away from the city. She started very happily, beguiling the way by conversation with Janni, though after a time it occurred to her that there was nothing very interesting in the rows of young trees and the growing shrubs. Janni was heavy to carry, too, when it was not a question of merely rambling about the garden, but she held on stoutly, sustained by her very mingled motives.

Sitting down at last to rest at the top of a hill up which she had laboured with considerable difficulty, she looked back over the way she had come. The sea in the distance gave her a moment’s wild longing for Strio, but there would be no safety there for Janni, she saw that now. Rather must she look nearer, to the new Therma, with its streets of tall white houses crossing and recrossing with mathematical regularity, and the Emathian flag flying over the Palace, the position of which she could easily distinguish now, dominating the broad road leading from the great square called the Place de l’Europe Unie. But between the Palace and herself was the villa among its woods, with her brother mourning over the tragedy she had helped to bring upon him, and she wondered hopelessly how the tangle was ever to be unravelled, how she could keep Janni in her own charge, and yet see him restored to his proper position. But her desultory musings were suddenly focussed into a keen and pressing anxiety. Among the young trees between her and the wall of the garden something was moving. At first it looked like a bright bird flying low, but as she watched it she realised that it was the gay fez and golden tassel of a man of the Prince’s guard. There was no need to ask herself who it could be. Petros had guessed that she had fled with the child, had tracked her path, and was following hard on her heels, that he might finish his evil work, and make sure of the victim who had been snatched from him in the morning.

Terror lent wings to Danaë’s tired feet, and catching up Janni, she hurried on down the hill. There was no time to look for villages, and what village would shelter her against the demand of a servant of the Prince? She stumbled along wildly, looking hopelessly round for some hiding-place that might enable her to evade the pursuer. But he had reached the top of the hill while she was still full in view, and his shouts of “Eurynomé! stop, girl!” his adjurations and threats of vengeance, came to her faintly on the wind, though she strove to shut her ears to them. Tired as she was, and burdened with the child, she had no hope of outdistancing him, but she struggled on, though it seemed to her that he was now so close that she could hear his heavy footsteps. Then, as she reached the foot of the hill, and an artfully contrived glade opened before her, she saw one single chance of safety, for there were the figures of men and horses under the trees. Two men wearing “European” clothes, and evidently not Emathians, were walking up and down impatiently, as though waiting for somebody, and behind them were four horses under the charge of two armed guards. There was no doubt in Danaë’s mind as to the identity of the strangers. They must be the Englishmen whom Prince Romanos had told Despina he was to meet and accompany on their journey—and therefore they were an additional danger. The single subject on which Danaë and the two old women were in agreement was that of the preposterous baselessness of the claims of the schismatic Englishman who dared to put himself forward as heir of the Eastern Empire by right of direct descent from the Emperor John Theophanis. When the Orthodox position was triumphantly vindicated by the election of Prince Romanos, who could trace his lineage only in the female line, to the throne of Emathia, he had relegated the rival claimant, so Danaë firmly believed, to a species of honourable imprisonment in a remote part of the principality. Here he could amuse himself by playing the ruler under strict supervision, and was even allowed to visit Therma on asking permission. Judging him by herself, however, Danaë had no faith in his gratitude for this considerate treatment, and saw in him merely another menace to Janni’s safety if he discovered who he was. But the danger of Petros hot on her heels was more pressing, since she had always understood that Englishmen were easily to be deceived. Yet how, in any case, was Petros to be kept from publishing the perilous truth? Her quick scheming brain worked at tremendous pressure during the last agitated minutes of her stumbling run.

“Come back, girl! Will you ruin everything?” she heard Petros cry, as he made a final attempt to head her off, and only found himself at the top of a slope too steep to descend. He was obliged to go round, and she reached the two Englishmen, who had paused, astonished, in their walk, and threw herself panting at the feet of one of them, a keen hard-faced man with noticeably blue eyes.

“Mercy, lord! justice! protection!” she sobbed.

“This is Prince Theophanis, if you want to speak to him.” The blue-eyed man indicated his companion, and Danaë transferred her plea to him almost mechanically, her tired arms loosing their hold of Janni, who slid to the ground and began to investigate the strangers’ boots with much interest.

“Save us, lord, this poor child and me, from the evildoer who pursues us! He will tell you that he is my uncle, but it is not true. I have nothing to do with him, nothing whatever.”

“Why, it is Petros!” said Prince Theophanis in surprise, as the guardsman made his appearance, hot and angry. “Do you say that this girl is your niece, friend Petros?”

“Why should I say it, lord, when it is not true? Thank the saints, she is no kin of mine!”

He stopped abruptly, and Danaë could have cried aloud with joy. She had Petros in her power; he was afraid of her, or he would have contradicted her words. He was waiting for her to tell her story; obviously, then, he did not wish these strangers to know of his treachery to his master, and she might use her hold over him to save Janni. With an admirable transport of gratitude, she flung herself down and kissed the ground before the Prince’s feet.

“Ah, lord, what power is yours since even this wicked wretch must tell the truth in your presence! You will permit your suppliant to lay her woes before you?”

“Tell me your trouble, by all means, if I can help you, but don’t kneel there. What is your name?”

“Lord, it is meet for me to kneel at your gracious feet, and this child with me.” She captured Janni’s hands, and made him embrace the Prince’s boots, then sat up and poured forth her tale. “Lord, my name is Kalliopé Vlasso, and I dwell in Therma with my sister and her husband, who is in the Prince’s guard—a comrade of that ruffian there. He it was who led my brother-in-law into the love of strong drink—notmastika, lord, butrakiand such horrible things—so that he would come home and frighten and grievously abuse my sister and me. But last night he was like one possessed of a demon, and after beating us both, he dragged my unhappy sister out of the house by the hair of her head, and beat and kicked her till she died—the neighbours all looking on and fearing to interfere. Then, terrified lest he should kill us also, I snatched up the child, my nephew, and fled away, out of the street and the city, seeking only safety. But why this evil wretch should have pursued us I know not, save that it can be for no good reason.”

“You come from the islands, as he does, and he meant to take care of you, perhaps?” suggested the blue-eyed man. Danaë repudiated the suggestion with terrified vigour.

“Nay, lord, I have never been out of Therma in my life. I speak but as the people in our street speak.”

“Well, friend Petros, what have you to say?” asked Prince Theophanis. “Why were you chasing the girl?”

“For no pleasure of my own, I assure you, lord,” responded Petros, with excellent indignation. “The ungrateful minx may say what she likes, but I came merely because I was sworn by the holy cross to do it, and I wish I had never promised. All the morning I was busy helping—busy, I mean—” he paused, embarrassed.

“Helping the murderer to escape, I suppose?” said the blue-eyed man, and he brightened up.

“There is no deceiving the Lord Glafko, I know that of old. Well, lord, my unhappy comrade found means to entreat me to seek out this girl and the child, his son, and see that they did not starve, so I tracked them as far as this. Your excellencies can see that compassion alone made me do it. The girl has the tongue of a demon, and the brat is too young to work. I have nowhere to put them, but I came, and you see my reward.”

“The girl will be wanted as a witness, surely?” said the Prince.

Petros shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, as to that, there will be witnesses enough,” he said. “But it will relieve me of her. The police will clap her into prison and keep her safe.”

“My Prince!” cried Danaë frantically, “you will not let them throw me into prison, and rob me of the child entrusted to me with her last breath by my dying sister?”

She stopped abruptly, for the dramatic instinct was leading her into possible pitfalls, but the two Englishmen were consulting apart for a moment, and had not noticed the slip. An Emathian prison, though better than in Roumi days, was not an ideal training-school for a respectable girl.

“The place is overrun with servants already,” said the blue-eyed man.

“One more would not make much difference. Zoe might find work for her in the nursery, and the child is about your boy’s age. Make a good playfellow for him.”

“H’m! we had better leave that to Zoe,” remarked the blue-eyed man, with distinct hesitation. “A child from the slums of Therma——”

“Lord,” interposed Danaë tearfully, aware that her case was being discussed, “you will not give me up to him?”

“See, lord,” said Petros, with the air of one conferring a vast benefit, “why not take the girl to serve in your house? She has been taught to work, and a good beating now and then will keep her up to it. If her witness should be needed, I will get a letter written to say so, but I should be glad to let my poor comrade know that she and the child were safely away from the city, and not getting into mischief.”

“We will see,” said Prince Theophanis. “Will you come to Klaustra, Kalliopé, to serve my wife, or my sister, the Lord Glafko’s wife, as they shall decide? You can bring the child with you, of course.”

Danaë bowed her head again at his feet. “Your handmaid could ask no better, lord,” she said.

“Youunderstand, then,” said Prince Theophanis to Petros, “that I will take the girl into my service for the present, but that if she is required as a witness, the police have only to let me know, and the Princess will see that she is sent down under proper escort to Therma?”

“The Lady Eirene will hardly thank you for burdening her with such trash, lord,” said Petros, with the familiarity of old acquaintance; “but my poor comrade will kiss theiconsfor you night and morning, in gratitude for your protection granted to his son. When the matter has been forgotten, he will obtain pardon from the Lord Romanos, and come and claim the child.”

“Ah, by the bye, what has happened to Prince Romanos?” asked the man called Glafko quickly. “He was to join us here at three, and we have waited nearly two hours.”

“Truly, lord, I know not. I have not seen my master since the early morning, when I was thrown from my horse while in attendance upon him, and he graciously excused me from duty for the rest of the day.”

Danaë listened with delight. Petros was a worthy fellow-conspirator, after all. He was taking pains to round off her story neatly, and provide against any chance allusion to the fact of his having been seen out in this direction.

“You pursued the girl all the way from Therma after getting a bad fall?” said the blue-eyed man. “Truly, you are a stout-hearted fellow, friend Petros!”

Petros looked down, with admirably simulated confusion. “Perhaps I may have been glad to get the day to myself, lord,” he admitted. “There was the promise to my poor comrade—and I could not broach the matter to my master, lest he should feel compelled to hand over to the police one whom he would much prefer to protect.”

“Exactly. Prince Romanos knows nothing.” But Danaë detected a mocking undercurrent in the blue-eyed man’s speech. He was suspicious about something, she saw, and she wished she had not told that purposeless lie about the islands. However, since it was told, it must be maintained.

“If I might venture to offer counsel, it would be that the Lord Theophanis and the Lord Glafko should ride on to the end of to-day’s short stage, and wait for the Lord Romanos at the inn,” said Petros respectfully. “Since he is late, he will doubtless ride fast thither by the road, but if not, I shall meet him in my return to Therma, and can tell him where they are.”

“I suppose we can’t do better,” said Prince Theophanis, beckoning to the guards to bring up the horses.

“Many be your years, friend Petraki!” said Danaë triumphantly, prudence forgotten for the moment.

“Wait, my lady, only wait!” he responded, with heartfelt warmth. The blue-eyed man called Glafko was watching them closely, so that no more was possible.

“Logofet,” said the Prince, as the guards came up, “you had better walk, and let the girl ride your horse as far as the inn. To-morrow we can find her a place on one of the mules.”

The man called Logofet obeyed without demur, much to Danaë’s astonishment, for she had expected nothing better than to trudge alongside holding a stirrup. The guards were Thracian Emathians, she knew by their dress and equipment, and she was prepared to regard them, as Exarchists, as rather worse than ordinary schismatics, but they seemed to treat women better than the staunch Patriarchists to whom she was accustomed. She was just making up her prejudiced little mind that this was due to poorness of spirit, when she was forcibly undeceived. She had never mounted a horse before—there were none in Strio—and when Logofet swung her into the saddle, it was with such unnecessary force that she went over on the other side. Happily his comrade was there, and caught her.

“Fool!” he growled, as he restored her to her place. “If the Prince had seen thee——!”

“The devil fly away with the Prince and the girl too!” snarled Logofet. “If I had known we were to be ruled by women, I would never have joined thee, Gavril.”

“Peace! thou art a wild savage from the hills,” said Gavril contemptuously, “and both the Prince and I can do very well without thee, if the honour of serving him and Glafko is not enough for thee. There! Glafko looks round. Thou hast delayed us both with thy foolishness, and we shall not again be chosen to attend the Prince.”

“So much the better!” muttered Logofet, inciting the horse to a disquieting prance as he led it. “Hold tight, girl! Is it not enough for thee to be taken to Klaustra, where kitchen-wenches must be treated like queens, that thou shouldst try to dismount every step of the way?”

Horribly frightened, and much encumbered by the necessity of holding Janni firmly on her knee, Danaë did her best to obey, but the horse’s movements under Logofet’s leading made her perfectly sick with terror, until she cried out a despairing appeal to be allowed to walk. The Prince and his brother-in-law turned instantly, and Logofet received a sharp rebuke, while Gavril was ordered to lead both horses. Thus relieved, Danaë succeeded in maintaining her position for an hour or more, until, as dusk was falling, they reached a wayside inn, the inner courtyard of which was full of horses and mules and guards and servants. Those of the latter who wore the livery of Prince Romanos were separating themselves and their beasts from the rest, so that there was much confusion.

“No sign of him yet, Wylie,” said the Prince to his companion.

“No, but here is a messenger, I imagine,” as one of the Therma guardsmen swaggered up with a note.

“He says he can’t come—sudden severe personal bereavement,” said the Prince, after reading it.

“Ah, he’s playing us false, as I expected. Well, let us get rid of his fellows, and then I will commend Miss Kalliopé Vlasso to the special care of the landlord’s wife. I mean to keep an eye on that young lady.”

* * * * * * * *

“What maggot have you got in your head about this luckless girl?” asked the Prince, when he and his brother-in-law met at supper. They spoke English, as was usual when they were alone together.

“I presume that even you can see there’s something remarkably fishy about her. Why did she and friend Petros, after breathing such violent mutual hostility, fall like lambs into the same story, and back each other up?”

“Because it was true, I suppose. But I see. You think they were both in the plot, and that the hostility was only a blind?”

“And very badly carried out. What makes me certain is the girl’s denying that she comes from the islands. If ever I heard an island voice, it’s hers.”

“But her ancestors may have come from there.”

“But she has the type of face. Look here, we’ll ask Armitage when he comes. If he doesn’t say it is an island type——”

“Yes, but if he does, what does it prove?”

“That she and Petros are acquainted, and probably related, in spite of her strenuous denials.”

“I suppose you mean me to understand that she was an accomplice in the sister’s murder, and that we are helping her to fly from justice?”

“By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder,” cried Wylie. “No, I hadn’t thought of that, though it did cross my mind that the philanthropic Petros was in all probability the murderous husband of the story. We are certainly introducing a novel element into our home circle.”

“But that’s absurd. We won’t take her with us.”

“What are we to do—leave her here? That’s exactly what I don’t want to do. You don’t see my point. What will you take that there has been no murder at all?”

“I don’t see what you mean.”

“Well, listen. I will send a man back to Therma to-night to bring out the earliest issues of the papers in the morning. If the girl was concerned in the affair the fact will have come out by this time. By her account, the thing was public enough. But if there is no murder in the papers at all?”

“Because it has been hushed up?”

“No, because it never happened. Because the story was ingeniously contrived to furnish a reason for the girl’s foisting herself on us, and going with us to Klaustra.”

“But why burden herself with the child?”

“To make it look more natural, I suppose. How can I tell what’s at the back of their minds? But you can see that Romanos has contrived to make us introduce of our own accord the spy who is to keep an eye on us.”

“We send her back with compliments, I suppose?”

“Not a bit of it. We take her home—the little serpent!—and cherish her in our collective bosom, keeping a sharp look-out as to her possibilities of stinging. In other words, we’ll put her where she can see everything—in the nursery, if I can get Zoe to agree—and take good care that she tells nothing but the truth. The more she lives in our very midst, the easier it will be to supervise her correspondence and her comings and goings.”

“I don’t see making things easy for her, Wylie.”

“Why, what harm can she do, provided she tells the truth? We have nothing to be ashamed of. And surely it’s better to have our spy labelled, than not to know who could be trusted and who not?”

“Wylie, I don’t like it. The child—it occurs to me—what if there is some design against your boy?”

Colonel Wylie’s face showed signs of wavering for a moment, then regained its decisive lines. “Can’t help that, Maurice. If Zoe and I and Linton can’t look after the child, why, we deserve to lose him. At any rate, there’s no plan of substitution, for this baby would be a puny creature beside him. But I’ll warn Zoe, of course, and get her help in keeping a watch on the girl. We must sift this thing to the bottom, for it’s all part and parcel of the disloyalty which I am convinced Romanos is plotting, and which you won’t believe in.”

“And if the papers confirm the girl’s story in the morning?”

“Why shouldn’t he have had the whole thing made up and inserted? No, perhaps that’s a little too much. I will beg the young woman’s pardon if it is so.”

But the papers were entirely on Wylie’s side in the morning, containing not a word of any such tragedy as Danaë had described. On the other hand, the landlord’s wife beckoned him mysteriously aside, and expressed it as her opinion that there was something very queer about that girl who said she was going to Klaustra to wait on the Princesses. She had cried out in the night so loud as to wake the servant-girls who slept with her, and one of them who understood Greek said that her cries were all of knives and blood, and her own share in some dreadful deed. The others had teased her to tell them about it, but she refused to say a word, and they were now sending her to Coventry in consequence. The news was perplexing, for Wylie could scarcely believe the girl to be such a practised plotter as even to support her story by the simulation of nightly terrors. In the faint hope of clearing up the mystery, he tried to take her by surprise.

“Why did you call out in the night that your sister’s death was your fault, Kalliopé?” he asked her.

The questioning of the girls had prepared Danaë for further curiosity, and she answered demurely, “Alas, lord! it is true. I stirred up my sister to scold her husband when he came home drunk, or she would have received him meekly, and he would not have killed her.”

He was not prepared with further questions, and she retired in mild triumph, to take her place with Janni on one of the mules. Wylie’s obvious suspicions put her on her mettle. She was far too clever to make palpable efforts to disarm them, but set herself to learn all she could of her new surroundings, that she might provide against further attempts to take her by surprise. From some of the guards who could speak Greek she discovered, much to her astonishment, that the position of the Theophanis family was by no means that of dependants upon Prince Romanos. They were the recognised rulers of the northern or Slav portion of the principality, raising troops and administering justice, though in subjection to the Therma Government. Danaë’s assertion of their inferior lot was laughed to scorn, and she was informed, to her great indignation, that the brunt of the struggle for freedom in the Hagiamavra peninsula, the glory of which she had always believed to be her brother’s peculiar possession, had been borne by them. Why they had allowed themselves to be defeated in theplébiscitethat followed, when their followers would gladly have manipulated the voting in their favour, no one quite knew, but it was understood that they had weighty and cunning reasons for accepting temporarily a subordinate place, from which they would emerge as undisputed masters of the whole of Emathia. Danaë’s heart leaped when she heard this. To the glory of saving Janni should be added that of unmasking the plot which threatened her brother’s rule, and she would return to Therma doubly a deliverer.

Information regarding the family life of her hereditary foes was equally easy to obtain. Prince Theophanis and the Lord Glafko were inseparable friends, neither taking any action without consulting the other. It was shrewdly suspected that this complete unity was not altogether to the taste of the Lady Eirene, the Prince’s wife. Her title to represent the Imperial line was equal, if not superior, to his, and she was believed to advocate a much more energetic policy than that pursued by her husband and his friend. But much less had been heard of her views and wishes since the death of her little son at the time of the apparent collapse of the family fortunes, and the guards considered that she had learnt to accept the inferior place proper to a childless woman. Her sister-in-law, the Lady Zoe, ranked far higher in the estimation of the Emathians, since in the veins of her son ran the blood not only of the Theophanis Emperors but of their adored Glafko, whom they handsomely credited with having led them to victory in Hagiamavra. To Danaë’s ears this feeling supplied only the crowning proof of the impiety and heresy of the Slavs among the Emathians. They could welcome a mere ordinary Englishman, schismatic to the backbone, without one drop of royal blood, as the ancestor of their future Emperors! Little did they know that the child she held in her arms could trace his descent through a succession of Despots of Strio and Venetian Patricians of unbroken Orthodoxy, until—— A chill seized her as she remembered Janni’s schismatic mother, but after all, that mother was dead, and the obvious course was to declare that she had been Orthodox from her youth up.

A new idea for Janni’s future suggested itself to Danaë’s active mind on the journey. The child had taken a great fancy to Prince Theophanis, and held out his arms whenever he came near—an invitation which the bereaved father could never neglect. The jealous pang which seized Danaë at first soon gave place to approval. If Prince Theophanis should wish to adopt Janni! The ironical prospect of his bringing up his rival’s son to supplant himself, and unconsciously destroying the prospects of his own nephew, gave her the keenest delight. She spared no pains to deepen the fondness of the man and the child for each other, but it was impossible to find out whether the Prince had any such thought as she desired in his mind.

“Ah, lord, take care of him!” she said impulsively one day, as he bent to lift Janni before him on his horse. “He is greater than he seems.”

A whimsical smile crossed the Prince’s face. “And are you also greater than you seem, Kalliopé?” he asked her.

“I am only a poor servant-girl, lord. Do not mock me!” she entreated, covering her very real confusion by a hasty retreat.

“There’s something mighty queer about her, whatever she is,” said Wylie, looking after her. “If she has been coached in all she says, the plot is too deep for my poor brain.”

“It was awfully good of the plotters to send us this little chap, at any rate,” said the Prince. “I wonder whether Eirene could bring herself to take to him?”

“I don’t know whether she could, but she certainly won’t. No, I beg your pardon, Maurice; I had no right to say that. When she sees how fond you are of him——”

“That would make no difference,” said Maurice sharply.

“Well, we can’t tell. Don’t force the idea on her. She may think of it for herself. I’ll take the little chap and Kalliopé straight to Zoe when we get in, so that your wife can just come in and see them casually.”

“Thanks, Wylie. You and Zoe are really frightfully good——”

“Oh, shut up, old man! I thought we agreed long ago that there was to be no more of that sort of thing. It’s little enough we can do to make things easier for you—and your wife, and we’re heartily glad to do it.”

Danaë, unaware of these arrangements, was rather taken aback on her arrival at the Konak at Klaustra. The place had been the abode of the Roumi Governor in the days before liberation, and had been adapted to European use by the erection of a second storey on three sides of the hollow square of buildings surrounding the paved court. The central portion, facing the gateway, was evidently the residence of the Prince, and a lady in black stood at the top of the steps, with a background of gaily dressed servants. She came forward to welcome her husband, and bestowed also a greeting—not a specially cordial one—on Wylie, who saluted in return, and reined his horse round as soon as Prince and Princess Theophanis had gone indoors. Danaë was preparing to dismount and follow them, but he told her hastily to stay where she was, and turned the mule. The buildings on the left-hand side of the square formed another dwelling, of less pretensions, and here also a lady was waiting on the steps. Before Wylie could dismount she ran down to him, and Danaë watched their greeting with curiosity and interest. The Lady Zoe was not beautiful, nor particularly young, but she was unaccountably reminded of another couple she would fain have forgotten—Janni’s mother and Prince Romanos, now sundered for ever through her instrumentality.

“And where is the autocrat?” inquired Wylie gaily of his wife.

“Just inside. I would not let Linton bring him out here, lest Maurice should see—and be reminded——”

“Of course. Let’s go in and pay our respects. Oh, by the bye, Zoe, what do you say to starting an understudy for him? We have picked up rather a jolly little waif of about his age, and brought him along with his nurse.”

“Graham! what an extraordinary thing to do! A child that you know nothing of? Show him to me at once. He looks clean, at any rate,” she admitted reluctantly, “and he has rather a dear little face. Are you sure he hasn’t been anywhere where there’s infection?”

“I can only say that he hasn’t come out with anything between Therma and here. The girl is tremendously careful of him, too, but I don’t know anything about his surroundings before we got him. It is a queer business altogether.”

“Lady, my little lord is tired and hungry,” said Danaë piteously, as Janni’s eyes began to wrinkle up, and his mouth to open, while the lady addressed as Zoe stood undecided.

“Poor little man! so he is.” She took him into her arms, and the impending yell collapsed as if by magic. “He shall share Harold’s supper, at any rate. Come in, nurse. What is your name? Kalliopé? Have you had charge of him long?”

“Since he was born, my lady,” lied Danaë with her usual hardihood, resisting the impulse to snatch her darling from the stranger’s arms, and following meekly up the steps. At the top stood an elderly English maid holding a child of about Janni’s age, and dark-haired like him, but more strongly built, and with his father’s deep blue eyes.

“Hasn’t he grown?” demanded the mother ecstatically, as Wylie took the child, with a kind word to the maid. “He gets more like you every day. You must see it.”

“Never was such a likeness, sir,” corroborated the nurse dutifully. “And so knowing, bless his little heart!”

“Here’s a companion for him. Let’s see what they think of one another,” said Wylie, waiving judiciously the question of likeness. “Put yours down here, Zoe. Nonsense! why shouldn’t they like it?”

His wife had demurred, and as it proved, with reason, for when the two children were set face to face upon the divan, their first acknowledgment of each other’s presence, after one horrified stare, was a simultaneous yell. Danaë flew to the rescue of her charge, and the English nurse of hers, and Wylie stood astonished, while his wife laughed.

“They will make friends over their bread and milk,” she said. “Come, Kalliopé.”

Mounting the steps to the roof of the original buildings, they reached the modern rooms, fitted up in English style, which formed the home of the Wylies. Danaë glanced round with something like awe at the appointments of the nursery. She had thought Janni’s nursery at the villa “European” in the extreme, but it had been nothing like this. Wylie brought in a second high chair from another room, and the two nurses were speedily engaged in feeding their respective charges with bread and milk. Very quickly Danaë observed, to her confusion, that Janni’s table manners were not producing a favourable impression. He grabbed at the spoon, filled his mouth too full, and choked, to the great scandal of his neighbour opposite, who commented on his behaviour obviously, though unintelligibly, in the nurse’s ear.

“There, there, Master Harold! he don’t know no better,” she said reprovingly, turning to the parents to add admiringly, “Did you ever see anybody so quick to notice things, ma’am?”

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