Phroso: A Romance

‘Speak the truth, woman,’ I cried. ‘Speak the truth.’

‘Yes, speak the truth,’ said Constantine, his eyes gleaming in triumph as he turned a glance of hatred on me. ‘Tell us truly who killed my uncle.’

My witness failed me. The terror of Constantine, which had locked her tongue when I questioned her at the house, lay on her still: the single word that came from her trembling lips was ‘Vlacho.’ Constantine gave a cry of triumph, Demetri a wild shout; the islanders drew together. My chance looked black. Even St Tryphon would hardly save me from immediate death. But I made another effort.

‘Swear her on the sacred picture,’ I cried. ‘Swear her on the picture. If she swears by the picture, and then says it was Vlacho, I am content to die as a false accuser, and to die here and now.’

My bold challenge won me a respite: it appealed to their rude sense of justice and their strong leaven of superstition.

‘Yes, let her swear on the sacred picture,’ cried several. ‘Then we shall know.’

The priest brought the picture to her and swore her on it with great solemnity. She shook her head feebly and fell to choked weeping. But the men round her were resolute, one of them menacing even Constantine himself when he began to ask whether her first testimony were not enough.

‘Now you are sworn, speak,’ said the priest solemnly.

A hush fell on us all. If she answered ‘Constantine,’ my life still hung by a thread; but by saying ‘Vlacho’ she would cut the thread. She looked at me, at Constantine, then up to the sky, while her lips moved in rapid whispered prayers.

‘Speak,’ said the priest to her gently.

Then she spoke in low fearful tones.

‘Vlacho was there, and his knife was ready. But my lord yielded, and cried that he would not sell the island. When they heard that they drew back, Vlacho with the rest. But my Lord Constantine struck; and when my lord lay dying it was the name of Constantine that he uttered in reproach.’ And the old woman reeled and would have fallen, and then flung herself on the ground at Constantine’s feet, crying, ‘Pardon, my lord, pardon! I could not swear falsely on the picture. Ah, my lord, mercy, mercy!’

But Constantine, though he had, as I do not doubt, a good memory for offences, could not afford to think of the old woman now. One instant he sat still, then he sprang to his feet, crying:

‘Let my friends come round me! Yes, if you will, I killed the old man. Was not the deed done? Was not the island sold? Was he not bound to this man here? The half of the money had been paid! If he had lived, and if this man had lived, they would have brought soldiers and constrained us. So I slew him, and therefore I have sought to kill the stranger also. Who blames me? If there be any, let him stand now by the stranger, and let my friends stand by me. Have we not had enough talk? Is it not time to act? Who loves Neopalia? Who loves me?’

While he spoke many had been gathering round him. With every fresh appeal more flocked to him. There were but three or four left now, wavering between him and me, and Kortes alone stood by my side.

‘Are you children, that you shrink from me because I struck a blow for our country? Was the old man to escape and live to help this man to take our island? Yes, I, Constantine Stefanopoulos, though I was blood of his blood – I killed him. Who blames me? Shall we not finish the work? There the stranger stands! Men of the island, shall we not finish the work?’

‘Well, it’s come at last,’ thought I to myself. St. Tryphon would not stop it now. ‘It’s no use,’ I said to Kortes. ‘Don’t get yourself into trouble!’ Then I folded my arms and waited. But I do not mean to say that I did not turn a little pale. Perhaps I did. At any rate I contrived to show no fear except in that.

The islanders looked at one another and then at Constantine. Friend Constantine had been ready with his stirring words, but he did not rush first to the attack. Besides myself there was Kortes, who had not left his place by me, in spite of my invitation to him. And Kortes looked as though he could give an account of one or two. But the hesitation among Constantine’s followers did not last long. Demetri was no coward at all events, although he was as big a scoundrel as I have known. He carried a great sword which he must have got from the collection on the walls of the hall; he brandished it now over his head and rushed straight at me. It seemed to be all over, and I thought that the best I could do was to take it quietly; so I stood still. But on a sudden I was pulled back by a powerful arm. Kortes flung me behind him and stood between me and Demetri’s rush. An instant later ten or more of them were round Kortes. He struck at them, but they dodged him. One cried, ‘Don’t hurt Kortes,’ and another, running agilely round, caught his arms from behind, and, all gathering about him, they wrested his weapons from him. My last champion was disarmed; he had but protracted the bitterness of death for me by his gallant attempt. I fixed my eyes steadily on the horizon and waited. The time of my waiting must have been infinitesimal, yet I seemed to wait some little while. Then Demetri’s great sword flashed suddenly between me and the sky. But it did not fall. Another flash came – the flash of white, darting across between me and the grim figure of my assailant – and Phroso, pale, breathless, trembling in every limb, yet holding her head bravely, and with anger gleaming in her dark eyes, cried:

‘If you kill him you must kill me; I will not live if he dies.’

Even Demetri paused; the rest gave back. I saw Constantine’s hatchet-face peering in gloomy wrath and trembling excitement from behind the protecting backs of his stout adherents. But Demetri, holding his sword poised for the stroke, growled angrily:

‘What is his life to you, Lady?’

Phroso drew herself up. Her face was away from me, but as she spoke I saw a sudden rush of red spread over her neck; yet she spoke steadily and boldly in a voice that all could hear:

‘His life is my life; for I love him as I love my life – ah, and God knows, more, more, more!’

CHAPTER XI

THE LAST CARD

In most families – at least among those that have any recorded history to boast of or to deplore – there is a point of family pride: with one it is grace of manner; with another, courage; with a third, statecraft; with a fourth, chivalrous loyalty to a lost cause or a fallen prince. Tradition adds new sanction to the cherished excellence; it becomes the heirloom of the house, the mark of the race – in the end, perhaps, a superstition before which greater things go down. If the men cling to it they are compensated by licence in other matters; the women are held in honour if they bear sons who do not fail in it. It becomes a new god, with its worship and its altar; and often the altar is laden with costly sacrifices. Wisdom has little part in the cult, and the virtues that are not hallowed by hereditary recognition are apt to go unhonoured and unpractised. I have heard it said, and seen it written, that we Wheatleys have, as a stock, few merits and many faults. I do not expect my career – if, indeed, I had such an ambitious thing as a career in my life’s wallet – to reverse that verdict. But no man has said or written of us that we do not keep faith. Here is our pride and palladium. Promises we neither break nor ask back. We make them sometimes lightly; it is no matter: substance, happiness, life itself must be spent in keeping them. I had learnt this at my mother’s knee. I myself had seen thousands and thousands poured forth to a rascally friend on the strength of a schoolboy pledge which my father made. ‘Folly, folly!’ cried the world. Whether it were right or not, who knows? We wrapped ourselves in the scanty mantle of our one virtue and went our way. We always – but a man grows tedious when he talks of his ancestors; he is like a doting old fellow, garrulous about his lusty youth. Enough of it. Yet not more than enough, for I carried this religion of mine to Neopalia, and built there an altar to it, and prepared for my altar the rarest sacrifice. Was I wrong? I do not care to ask.

‘His life is my life. For I love him as my life.’ The words rang in my ears, seeming to echo again through the silence that followed them: they were answered in my heart by beats of living blood. ‘Was it true?’ flashed through my brain. Was it truth or stratagem, a noble falsehood or a more splendid boldness? I did not know. The words were strange, yet to me they were not incredible. Had we not lived through ages together in those brief full hours in the old grey house? And the parting in the quiet evening had united while it feigned to sever. I believe I shut my eyes, not to see the slender stately form that stood between death and me. When I looked again, Demetri and his angry comrades had fallen back and stood staring in awkward bewilderment, but the women had crowded in upon us with eager excited faces; one broad-browed kindly creature had run to Phroso and caught her round the waist, and was looking in her eyes, and stroking her hand, and murmuring soft woman’s comforting. Demetri took a step forward.

‘Come, if you dare!’ cried the woman, bold as a legion of men. ‘Is a dog like you to come near my Lady Euphrosyne?’ And Phroso turned her face away from the men and hid it in the woman’s bosom.

Then came a cold rasping voice, charged with a bitter anger that masqueraded as amusement.

‘What is this comedy, cousin?’ asked Constantine. ‘You love this man? You, the Lady of the island – you who have pledged your troth to me?’ He turned to the people, spreading out his hands.

‘You all know,’ said he – ‘you all know that we are plighted to one another.’

A murmuring assent greeted his words. ‘Yes, they are betrothed,’ I heard half-a-dozen mutter, as they directed curious glances at Phroso. ‘Yes, while the old lord lived they were betrothed.’

Then I thought it time for me to take a hand in the game; so I stepped forward, in spite of Kortes’s restraining arm.

‘Be careful,’ he whispered. ‘Be careful.’

I looked at him. His face was drawn and pale, like the face of a man in pain, but he smiled still in his friendly open fashion.

‘I must speak,’ I said. I walked up to within two yards of Constantine, the islanders giving way before me, and I said loudly and distinctly:

‘Was that same betrothal before you married your wife or afterwards?’

He sprang half-way up from his seat, as if to leap upon me, but he sank back again, his face convulsed with passion and his fingers picking furiously at the turf by his side. ‘His wife!’ went round the ring in amazed whisperings.

‘Yes, his wife,’ said I. ‘The wife who was with him when I saw him in my country; the wife who came with him here, who was in the cottage on the hill, whom Vlacho would have dragged by force to her death, who lay last night yonder in the guardhouse. Where is she, Constantine Stefanopoulos? Or is she dead now, and you free to wed the Lady Euphrosyne? Is she alive, or has she by now learnt the secret of the Stefanopouloi?’

I do not know which made more stir among the people, my talk of his wife or my hint about the secret. They crowded round me, hemming me in. I saw Phroso no more; but Kortes pushed his way to my side. Then the eyes of all turned on Constantine, where he sat with face working and nails fiercely plucking the turf.

‘What is this lie?’ he cried. ‘I know nothing of a wife. True, there was a woman in the cottage.’

‘Ay, there was a woman in the cottage,’ said Kortes. ‘And she was in the guardhouse; but I did not know who she was, and I had no commands concerning her; and this morning she was gone.’

‘That woman is his wife,’ said I; ‘but he and Vlacho had planned to kill her, in order that he might marry your Lady and have your island for himself.’

Demetri suddenly cried, with a great appearance of horror and disgust:

‘Shall he live to speak such a slander against my lord?’

But Demetri gained no attention. I had made too much impression.

‘Who was the woman, then,’ said I, ‘and where is she?’

Constantine, tricky and resourceful, looked again on the dead Vlacho.

‘I may not tell my friend’s secrets,’ said he, with an admirable assumption of honour. ‘And a foul blow has sealed Vlacho’s lips.’

‘Yes,’ cried I. ‘Vlacho killed the old lord, and Vlacho brought the woman! Indeed Vlacho serves my lord as well dead as when he lived! For now his lips are sealed. Come, then – Vlacho bought the island, and Vlacho slew Spiro, and now Vlacho has slain himself! Neither Constantine nor I have done anything; but it is all Vlacho – the useful Vlacho – Vlacho – Vlacho!’

Constantine’s face was a sight to see, and he looked no pleasanter when my irony wrung smiles from some of the men round him, while others bit their lips to stop smiles that sought to come.

‘Oh faithful servant!’ I cried, apostrophising Vlacho, ‘heavy are thy sins! May’st thou find mercy for them!’

I did not know what cards Constantine held. If he had succeeded in spiriting away his wife, by fair means or foul, he had the better chance; but if she were still free, alive and free, then he played a perilous hand and was liable to be utterly confounded. Yet he was forced to action; I had so moved the people that they looked for more than mere protests from him.

‘The stranger who came to steal our island,’ said he, skilfully prejudicing me by this description, ‘asks me where the woman is. But I ask it of him – where is she? For it stands with him to put her before you that she may tell you whether I, Constantine Stefanopoulos, am lying to you. Yet how long is it since you doubted the words of the Stefanopouloi and believed strangers rather than them?’

His appeal won on them. They met it with murmured applause.

‘You know me, you know my family,’ he cried. ‘Yet you hearken to the desperate words of a man who fights for his life with lies! How shall I satisfy you? For I have not the woman in my keeping. But have you not heard me when I swore my love for my cousin before you and the old lord who is dead? Am I a man to be forsworn? Shall I swear to you now?’

The current began to run strongly with him. He had called to his aid patriotism, and the old clan-loyalty which bound the Neopalians to his house, and they did not fail him. The islanders were ready to trust him if he would pledge himself to them.

‘Swear then!’ they cried. ‘Swear to us on the sacred picture that what the stranger says is a lie.’

‘On the sacred picture?’ said he. ‘Is it not too great and holy an oath for such a matter? Is not my word enough for you?’

But the old priest stepped forward.

‘It is a great matter,’ said he, ‘for it touches closely the honour of your house, my lord, and on it hangs a man’s life. Is any oath too great when honour and life lie in the balance? Let your life stand against his, for he who swears thus and falsely has no long life in Neopalia. Here we guard the honour of St Tryphon.’

‘Yes, swear on the picture,’ cried the people. ‘It is enough if you swear on the picture!’

I could see that Constantine was not in love with the suggestion, but he accepted it with tolerable grace, acquiescing in the old priest’s argument with a half-disdainful shrug. The people greeted his consent with obvious pleasure, save only Demetri, who regarded him with a doubtful expression. Demetri knew the truth, and, though he would cut a throat with a light heart, he would shrink from a denial of the deed when sworn on the holy picture. Truly conscience works sometimes in strange ways, making the lesser sin the greater, and dwarfing vile crimes to magnify their venial brethren. No, Demetri would not have sworn on the picture; and when he saw it brought to Constantine he shrank away from his leader, and I saw him privily and furtively cross himself. But Constantine, freed by the scepticism he had learnt in the West to practise the crimes the East had taught him, made little trouble about it. When the ceremonies that had attended the old woman’s oath earlier in the day had been minutely, solemnly, and tediously repeated, he swore before them as bravely as you please and thereby bid fair to write my death-warrant in his lying words. For when the oath was done, the most awful names in heaven standing sanction to his perjury, and he ceased, saying, ‘I have sworn,’ the eyes of the men round him turned on me again and seemed to ask me silently what plea for mercy I could now advance. But I caught at my chance.

‘Let Demetri swear,’ said I coolly, ‘that, so far as his knowledge goes, the truth is no other than what the Lord Constantine has sworn.’

‘A subterfuge!’ cried Constantine impatiently. ‘What should Demetri know of it?’

‘If he knows nothing it is easy for him to swear,’ said I. ‘Men of the island, a man should have every chance for his life. I have given you back your island. Do this for me. Make Demetri swear. Ah, look at the man! See, he shakes, his face goes pale, there is a sweat on his brow. Why, why? Make him swear!’

I should not have prevailed without the assisting evidence of the rascal’s face. It was as I said: he grew pale and sweated on the forehead; he cleared his throat hoarsely, but did not speak. Constantine’s eyes said, ‘Swear, fool, swear!’

‘Let Demetri also swear,’ cried some. ‘Yes, it is easy, if he knows nothing.’

Suddenly Phroso sprang forward.

‘Yes, let him swear,’ she cried. ‘Who is Chief here? Have I no power? Let him swear!’ And she signed imperiously to the priest.

They brought the picture to Demetri. He shrank from it as though its touch would kill him.

‘In the name of Almighty God, as you hope for mercy; in the name of our Lord the Saviour, as you pray for pity; in the name of the Most Blessed Spirit, whose Word is Truth; by the Most Holy Virgin, and by our Holy Saint – ’ began the old man. But Demetri cried hoarsely:

‘Take it away, take it away. I will not swear.’

‘Let him swear,’ said Phroso, and this time the whole throng caught up her command and echoed it in fierce urgency.

‘Let him swear to tell the whole truth of what he knows, hiding nothing, according to the terms of the oath,’ said the priest, pursuing his ritual.

‘He shall not swear,’ cried Constantine, springing up. But he spoke to deaf ears and won only looks of new-born suspicion.

‘It is the custom of the island,’ they growled. ‘It has been done in Neopalia time out of mind.’

‘Yes,’ said the priest. ‘Time out of mind has a man been free to ask this oath of whomsoever he suspected. Swear, Demetri, as our Lady and our law bid.’ And he ended the words of the oath.

Demetri looked round to right, to left, and to right again. He sought escape. There was none; his way was barred. His arms fell by his side.

‘Will you let me go unharmed if I speak the truth?’ he asked sullenly.

‘Yes,’ answered Phroso, ‘if you speak the whole truth, you shall go unhurt.’

The excitement was intense now; for Demetri took the oath, Constantine watching, with pale strained face. Then followed a moment’s utter silence, broken an instant later by an irresistible outbreak of wondering cries, for Demetri said, ‘Follow me,’ and turned and began to walk in the direction of the town. ‘Follow me,’ he said again. ‘I will tell the truth. I have served my lord well, but a man’s soul is his own. No master buys a man’s soul. I will tell the truth.’

The change in feeling was witnessed by what happened. At a sign from the priest Kortes and another each took one of Constantine’s arms and raised him. He was trembling now and hardly able to set one foot before the other. The dogs of justice were hard on his heels, and he was a craven at heart. Thus bearing him with us, in procession we followed Demetri from the place of assembly back to the steep narrow street that ran up from the sea. On the way none spoke. In the middle I walked; and in front of me went Phroso, the woman who had come to comfort her still holding her arm in hers.

On Demetri led us with quick decisive steps; but when he came to the door of the inn which had belonged to that Vlacho whose body lay now deserted on the level grass above the seashore, he halted abruptly, then turned and entered. We followed, Constantine’s supporters bringing him also with us. We passed through the large lower room and out of the house again into an enclosed yard, bounded on the seaward side by a low stone wall, towards which the ground sloped rapidly. Here Demetri stopped.

‘By my oath,’ said he, ‘and as God hears me! I knew not who this woman was; but last night Vlacho bade me come with him to the cottage on the hill, and, if he called me, I was to come and help him to carry her to the house of my Lord Constantine. He called, and I, coming with Kortes, found Vlacho dead. Kortes would not suffer me to touch the lady, but bade me stay with Vlacho. But when Kortes was gone and Vlacho dead, I ran and told my lord what had happened. My lord was greatly disturbed and bade me come with him; so we came together to the town and passed together by the guardhouse.’

‘Lies, foul lies,’ cried Constantine; but they bade him be quiet, and Demetri continued in a composed voice:

‘There Kortes watched. My lord asked him whom he held prisoner; and when he heard that it was the Englishman, he sought to prevail on Kortes to deliver him up; but Kortes would not without the command of the Lady Euphrosyne. Then my lord said, “Have you no other prisoner, Kortes?” Kortes answered, “There is a woman here whom we found in the cottage; but you gave me no orders concerning her, my lord, neither you, nor the Lady of the island.” “I care nothing about her,” said my lord with a shrug of his shoulders, and he and I turned away and walked some paces up the street. Then, at my lord’s bidding, I crouched down with him in the shadow of a house and waited. Presently, when the clock had struck two, we saw Kortes come out from the guardhouse; and the woman was with him. Now we were but fifty feet from them, and the wind was blowing from them to us, and I heard what the lady said.’

‘It happened as he says,’ interrupted Kortes in a grave tone. ‘I promised secrecy, but I will speak now.’

‘“I must go to the Lady Euphrosyne,” said she to Kortes,’ continued Demetri. ‘“I have something to say to her.” Kortes answered, “She is lodging at the house of the priest. It is the tenth house on the left hand as you mount the hill.” She thanked him, and he turned back into the guardhouse, and we saw no more of him. The lady came slowly and fearfully up the road; my lord beside me laughed gently, and twisted a silk scarf in his hand; there was nobody in the street except my lord, the lady and me; and as she went by my lord sprang out on her, and twisted the scarf across her mouth before she could cry out. Then he and I lifted her, and carried her swiftly down the street. We came here, to Vlacho’s inn; the door was open, for Vlacho had gone out; it had not yet become known that he would never return. We carried her swiftly through the house and brought her where we stand now, and laid her on the ground. My lord tied her hands and her feet, so that she lay still; her mouth was already gagged. Then my lord drew me aside and took five pieces of gold from his purse and said, looking into my eyes, “Is it enough?” I understood, and said, “It is enough, my lord,” and he pressed my hand and left me, without going again near the woman. And I, having put the five pieces in my purse, drew my knife from its sheath and came and stood over the woman, looking how I might best strike the blow. She was gagged and tied and lay motionless. But the night was bright, and I saw her eyes fixed on mine. I stood long by her with my knife in my hand; then I knelt down by her to strike. But her eyes burned into my heart, and suddenly I seemed to hear Satan by my side, chuckling and whispering, “Strike, Demetri, strike! Art thou not damned already? Strike!” And I did not dare to look to the right or the left, for I felt the Fiend by me. So I shut my eyes and grasped my knife; but the lady’s eyes drew mine open again, although I struggled to keep them shut. Now many devils seemed to be round me; and they were gleeful, saying, “Oh, he is ours! Yes, Demetri is ours. He will do this thing and then surely he is ours!” Suddenly I sobbed; and when my sob came, a gleam lighted the lady’s eyes. Her eyes looked like the eyes of the Blessed Virgin in the church; I could not strike her. I flung down my knife and fell to sobbing. As I sobbed the noise of the devils ceased; and I seemed to hear instead a voice from above that said to me very softly, “Have I died to keep thy soul alive, and thou thyself wouldst kill it, Demetri?” I know not if any one spoke; but the night was very still, and I was afraid, and I cried low, “Alas, I am a sinner!” But the voice said, “Sin no more;” and the eyes of the lady implored me. But then they closed, and I saw that she had fainted. And I raised her gently in my arms and carried her across this piece of ground where we stand.’