Phroso: A Romance

‘I think the fun’s over for to-night,’ said I, glad to have it over so cheaply.

Indeed what I said seemed to be true, for the next moment the group turned and began to retreat along the road, moving briskly out of our sight. We were left in the thick gloom of a moonless evening and the peaceful silence of still air.

‘They’ll come back and fetch the cows,’ said Hogvardt. ‘Couldn’t we drag one in, my lord, and put it where the goat is, behind the house?’

I approved of this suggestion; Watkins having found a rope, I armed Denny with the rifle took from the wall a large keen hunting-knife, opened the door and stole out, accompanied by Hogvardt and Watkins, who carried their revolvers. We reached the pen without interruption, tied our rope firmly round the horns of one of the dead beasts and set to work to drag it along. It was no child’s play, and our progress was very slow, but the carcase moved, and I gave a shout of encouragement as we got it down on to the smoother ground of the road and hauled it along with a will. Alas, that shout was a great indiscretion! I had been too hasty in assuming that our enemy was quite gone. We heard suddenly the rush of feet; shots whistled over our heads. We had but just time to drop the rope and turn round, when Denny’s rifle rang out, and then – somebody was at us! I really do not know exactly how many there were. I had two at me, but by great good luck I drove my big knife into one fellow’s arm at the first hazard, and I think that was enough for him. In my other assailant I recognised Vlacho. The fat innkeeper had got rid of his gun and had a knife much like the one I carried myself. I knew him more by his voice as he cried fiercely, ‘Come on!’ than by his appearance, for the darkness was thick now. Parrying his fierce thrust – he was very active for so stout a man – I called out to our people to fall back as quickly as they could, for I was afraid that we might be taken in the rear also.

But discipline is hard to maintain in such a force as mine.

‘Bosh!’ cried Denny’s voice.

‘Mein Gott, no!’ exclaimed Hogvardt. Watkins said nothing, but for once in his life he also disobeyed me.

Well, if they would not do as I said I must do as they did. The line advanced – the whole line, as at Waterloo. We pressed them hard. I heard a revolver fired, and a cry follow. Fat Vlacho slackened in his attack, wavered, halted, turned, and ran. A shout of triumph from Denny told me that the battle was going well there. Fired with victory, I set myself for a chase. But, alas, my pride was checked. Before I had gone two yards, I fell headlong over the body for which we had been fighting (as Greeks and Trojans fought for the body of Hector), and came to an abrupt stop, sprawling most ignominiously over the cow’s broad back.

‘Stop! Stop!’ I cried. ‘Wait a bit, Denny! I’m down over this infernal cow.’ It was an inglorious ending to the exploits of the evening.

Prudence or my cry stopped them. The enemy was in full retreat; their steps pattered quick along the rocky road; and Denny observed in a tone of immense satisfaction:

‘I think that’s our trick, Charley.’

‘Anybody hurt?’ I asked, scrambling to my feet.

Watkins owned to a crack from the stock of a gun on his right shoulder, Hogvardt to a graze of a knife on the left arm. Denny was unhurt. We had reason to suppose that we had left our mark on at least two of the enemy. For so great a victory it was cheaply bought.

‘We’ll just drag in the cow,’ said I – I like to stick to my point – ‘and then we might see if there’s anything in the cellar.’

We did drag in the cow; we dragged it through the house, and finally bestowed it in the compound behind. Hogvardt suggested that we should fetch the other also, but I had no mind for another surprise, which might not end so happily, and I decided to run the risk of leaving the second animal till the morning. So Watkins ran off to seek for some wine, for which we all felt very ready, and I went to the door with the intention of securing it. But before I shut it, I stood for a moment on the step, looking out on the night and sniffing the sweet, clear, pure air. It was in quiet moments like these, not in such a tumult as had just passed, that I had pictured my beautiful island; and the love of it came on me now and made me swear that these fellows and their arch-ruffian Constantine should not drive me out of it without some more, and more serious, blows than had been struck that night. If I could get away safely and return with enough force to keep them quiet, I would pursue that course. If not – well, I believe I had very bloodthirsty thoughts in my mind, as even the most peaceable man may, when he has been served as I had and his friends roughly handled on his account.

Having registered these determinations, I was about to proceed with my task of securing the door, when I heard a sound that startled me. There was nothing hostile or alarming about it; rather it was pathetic and appealing, and, in spite of my previous fierceness of mood, it caused me to exclaim, ‘Hullo, is that one of those poor beggars we mauled?’ For the sound was a faint distressed sigh, as of somebody in suffering; it seemed to come from out of the darkness about a dozen yards ahead of me. My first impulse was to go straight to the spot, but I had begun by now to doubt whether the Neopalians were not unsophisticated in quite as peculiar a sense as that in which they were good-hearted, and I called to Denny and Hogvardt, bidding the latter to bring his lantern with him. Thus protected, I stepped out of the door in the direction from which the sigh had come. Apparently we were to crown our victory by the capture of a wounded enemy.

An exclamation from Hogvardt told me that he, aided by the lantern, had come on the quarry; but Hogvardt spoke in disgust rather than triumph.

‘Oh, it’s only the little one!’ said he. ‘What’s wrong with him, I wonder.’ He stooped down and examined the prostrate form. ‘By heaven, I believe he’s not touched – yes, there’s a bump on his forehead, but not big enough for any of us to have given it.’

By this time Denny and I were with him, and we looked down on the boy’s pale face, which seemed almost deathlike in the glare of the lantern. The bump was not such a very small one, but it could hardly have been made by any of our weapons, for the flesh was not cut. A moment’s further inspection showed that it must be the result of a fall on the hard rocky road.

‘Perhaps he tripped on the cord, as you did on the cow,’ suggested Denny with a grin.

It seemed likely enough, but I gave very little thought to the question, for I was busy studying the boy’s face.

‘No doubt,’ said Hogvardt, ‘he fell in running away and was stunned; and they didn’t notice it in the dark, or were afraid to stop. But they’ll be back, my lord, and soon.’

‘Carry him inside,’ said I. ‘It won’t hurt us to have a hostage.’

Denny lifted the lad in his long arms – Denny was a tall powerful fellow – and strode off with him. I followed, wondering who it was that we had got hold of: for the boy was strikingly handsome. I was last in and barred the door. Denny had set our prisoner down in an armchair, where he sat now, conscious again, but still with a dazed look in his large dark eyes as he glanced from me to the rest and back again to me, finally fixing a long gaze on my face.

‘Well, young man,’ said I, ‘you’ve begun this sort of thing early. Lifting cattle and taking murder in the day’s work is pretty good for a youngster like you. Who are you?’

‘Where am I?’ he cried, in that blurred indistinct kind of voice that comes with mental bewilderment.

‘You’re in my house,’ said I, ‘and the rest of your infernal gang’s outside and going to stay there. So you must make the best of it.’

The boy turned his head away and closed his eyes. Suddenly I snatched the lantern from Hogvardt. But I paused before I brought it close to the boy’s face, as I had meant to do, and I said:

‘You fellows go and get something to eat, and a snooze if you like. I’ll look after this youngster. I’ll call you if anything happens outside.’

After a few unselfish protests they did as I bade them. I was left alone in the hall with the prisoner; soon merry voices from the kitchen told me that the battle was being fought again over the wine. I set the lantern close to the boy’s face.

‘H’m,’ said I, after a prolonged scrutiny. Then I sat down on the table and began to hum softly that wretched chant of One-Eyed Alexander’s, which had a terrible trick of sticking in a man’s head.

For a few minutes I hummed. The lad shivered, stirred uneasily, and opened his eyes. I had never seen such eyes; I could not conscientiously except even Beatrice Hipgrave’s, which were in their way quite fine. I hummed away; and the boy said, still in a dreamy voice, but with an imploring gesture of his hand:

‘Ah, no, not that! Not that, Constantine!’

‘He’s a tender-hearted youth,’ said I, and I was smiling now. The whole episode was singularly unusual and interesting.

The boy’s eyes were on mine again; I met his glance full and square. Then I poured out some water and gave it to him. He took it with a trembling hand – the hand did not escape my notice – and drank it eagerly, setting the glass down with a sigh.

‘I am Lord Wheatley,’ said I, nodding to him. ‘You came to steal my cattle, and murder me, if it happened to be convenient, you know.’

The boy flashed out at me in a minute.

‘I didn’t. I thought you’d surrender if we got the cattle away.’

‘You thought!’ said I scornfully. ‘I suppose you did as you were bid.’

‘No; I told Constantine that they weren’t to – ’ The boy stopped short, looked round him, and said in a surprised voice, ‘Where are all the rest of my people?’

‘The rest of your people,’ said I, ‘have run away, and you are in my hands. And I can do just as I please with you.’

His lips set in an obstinate curve, but he made no answer. I went on as sternly as I could.

‘And when I think of what I saw here yesterday, of that poor old man stabbed by your bloodthirsty crew – ’

‘It was an accident,’ he cried sharply; the voice had lost its dreaminess and sounded clear now.

‘We’ll see about that when we get Constantine and Vlacho before a judge,’ I retorted grimly. ‘Anyhow, he was foully stabbed in his own house for doing what he had a perfect right to do.’

‘He had no right to sell the island,’ cried the boy, and he rose for a moment to his feet with a proud air, only to sink back into the chair again and stretch out his hand for water.

Now at this moment Denny, refreshed by meat and drink and in the highest of spirits, bounded into the hall.

‘How’s the prisoner?’ he cried.

‘Oh, he’s all right. There’s nothing the matter with him,’ I said, and as I spoke I moved the lantern, so that the boy’s face and figure were again in shadow.

‘That’s all right,’ observed Denny cheerfully. ‘Because I thought, Charley, we might get a little information out of him.’

‘Perhaps he won’t speak,’ I suggested, casting a glance at the captive who sat now motionless in the chair.

‘Oh, I think he will,’ said Denny confidently: and I observed for the first time that he held a very substantial-looking whip in his hand; he must have found it in the kitchen. ‘We’ll give the young ruffian a taste of this, if he’s obstinate,’ said Denny, and I cannot say that his tone witnessed any great desire that the boy should prove at once compliant.

I shifted my lantern so that I could see the proud young face, while Denny could not. The boy’s eyes met mine defiantly.

‘Do you see that whip?’ I asked. ‘Will you tell us all we want to know?’

The boy made no answer, but I saw trouble in his face, and his eyes did not meet mine so boldly now.

‘We’ll soon find a tongue for him,’ said Denny, in cheerful barbarity; ‘upon my word, he richly deserves a thrashing. Say the word, Charley!’

‘We haven’t asked him anything yet,’ said I.

‘Oh, I’ll ask him something. Look here, who was the fellow with you and Vlacho?’

Denny spoke in English; I turned his question into Greek. But the prisoner’s eyes told me that he had understood before I spoke. I smiled again.

The boy was silent; defiance and fear struggled in the dark eyes.

‘You see he’s an obstinate beggar,’ said Denny, as though he had observed all necessary forms and could now get to business; and he drew the lash of the whip through his fingers. I am afraid Denny was rather looking forward to executing justice with his own hands.

The boy rose again and stood facing that heartless young ruffian Denny – it was thus that I thought of Denny at the moment; then once again he sank back into his chair and covered his face with his hands.

‘Well, I wouldn’t go out killing if I hadn’t more pluck than that,’ said Denny scornfully. ‘You’re not fit for the trade, my lad.’

I did not interpret this time; there was no need; the boy certainly understood. But he had no retort. His face was buried in those slim hands of his. For a moment he was quite still: then he moved a little; it was a movement that spoke of helpless pain, and I heard something very like a stifled sob.

‘Just leave us alone a little, Denny,’ said I. ‘He may tell me what he won’t tell you.’

‘Are you going to let him off?’ demanded Denny, suspiciously. ‘You never can be stiff in the back, Charley.’

‘I must see if he won’t speak to me first,’ I pleaded, meekly.

‘But if he won’t?’ insisted Denny.

‘If he won’t,’ said I, ‘and you still wish it, you may do what you like.’

Denny sheered off to the kitchen, with an air that did not seek to conceal his opinion of my foolish tender-heartedness. Again I was alone with the boy.

‘My friend is right,’ said I gravely. ‘You’re not fit for the trade. How came you to be in it?’

My question brought a new look, as the boy’s hands dropped from his face.

‘How came you,’ said I, ‘who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be working with them?’

I got no answer; only a frightened look appealed to me in the white glare of Hogvardt’s lantern. I came a step nearer and leant forward to ask my next question.

‘Who are you? What’s your name?’

‘My name – my name?’ stammered the prisoner. ‘I won’t tell my name.’

‘You’ll tell me nothing? You heard what I promised my friend?’

‘Yes, I heard,’ said the lad, with a face utterly pale, but with eyes that were again set in fierce determination.

I laughed a low laugh.

‘I believe you are fit for the trade after all,’ said I, and I looked at him with mingled distaste and admiration. But I had my last weapon still, my last question. I turned the lantern full on his face, I leant forward again, and I said in distinct slow tones – and the question sounded an absurd one to be spoken in such an impressive way:

‘Do you generally wear – clothes like that?’

I had got home with that question. The pallor vanished, the haughty eyes sank. I saw long drooping lashes and a burning flush, and the boy’s face once again sought his hands.

At that moment I heard chairs pushed back in the kitchen. In came Hogvardt with an amused smile on his broad face; in came Watkins with his impassive acquiescence in anything that his lordship might order; in came Master Denny brandishing his whip in jovial relentlessness.

‘Well, has he told you anything?’ cried Denny. It was plain that he hoped for the answer ‘No.’

‘I have asked him half-a-dozen questions,’ said I, ‘and he has not answered one.’

‘All right,’ said Denny, with wonderful emphasis.

Had I been wrong to extort this much punishment for my most inhospitable reception? Sometimes now I think that I was cruel. In that night much had occurred to breed viciousness in a man of the most equable temper. But the thing had now gone to the extreme limit to which it could go, and I said to Denny:

‘It’s a gross case of obstinacy, of course, Denny, but I don’t see very well how we can horsewhip the lady.’

A sudden astounded cry, ‘The lady!’ rang from three pairs of lips, while the lady herself dropped her head on the table and fenced her face round about with her protecting arms.

‘You see,’ said I, ‘this lady is the Lady Euphrosyne.’

For who else could it be that would give orders to Constantine Stefanopoulos, and ask where ‘my people’ were? Who else, I also asked myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? And who else would understand English? In all certainty here was the Lady Euphrosyne.

CHAPTER V

THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL

The effect of my remark was curious. Denny flushed scarlet and flung his whip down on the table; the others stood for a moment motionless, then turned tail and slunk back to the kitchen. Euphrosyne’s face remained invisible. On the other hand, I felt quite at my ease. I had a triumphant conviction of the importance of my capture, and a determination that no misplaced chivalry should rob me of it. Politeness is, no doubt, a duty, but only a relative duty; and, in plain English, men’s lives were at stake here. Therefore I did not make my best bow, fling open the door, and tell the lady that she was free to go whither she would, but I said to her in a dry severe voice:

‘You had better go, madam, to the room you usually occupy here, while we consider what to do with you. You know where the room is; I don’t.’

She raised her head, and said in tones that sounded almost eager:

‘My own room? May I go there?’

‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘I shall accompany you as far as the door; and when you’ve gone in, I shall lock the door.’

This programme was duly carried out, Euphrosyne not favouring me with a word during its progress. Then I returned to the hall, and said to Denny:

‘Rather a trump card, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, but they’ll be back pretty soon to look for her, I expect.’

Denny accompanied this remark with such a yawn that I suggested he should go to bed.

‘Aren’t you going to bed?’ he asked.

‘I’ll take first watch,’ said I. ‘It’s nearly twelve now. I’ll wake you at two, and you can wake Hogvardt at five; then Watkins will be fit and fresh at breakfast-time, and can give us roast cow.’

Thus I was again left alone; and I sat reviewing the position. Would the islanders fight for their lady? Or would they let us go? They would let us go, I felt sure, only if Constantine were out-voted, for he could not afford to see me leave Neopalia with a head on my shoulders and a tongue in my mouth. Then probably they would fight. Well, I calculated that so long as our provisions held out, we could not be stormed; our stone fortress was too strong. But we could be blockaded and starved out, and should be very soon unless the lady’s influence could help us. I had just arrived at the conclusion that I would talk to her very seriously in the morning when I heard a remarkable sound.

‘There never was such a place for queer noises,’ said I, pricking up my ears.

This noise seemed to come directly from above my head; it sounded as though a light stealthy tread were passing over the roof of the hall in which I sat. The only person in the house besides ourselves was the prisoner: she had been securely locked in her room; how then could she be on the top of the hall? For her room was in the turret above the doorway. Yet the steps crept over my head, going towards the kitchen. I snatched up my revolver and trod, with a stealth equal to the stealth of the steps overhead, across the hall and into the kitchen beyond. My three companions slept the sleep of tired men, but I roused Denny ruthlessly.

‘Go on guard in the hall,’ said I. ‘I want to have a look round.’

Denny was sleepy but obedient. I saw him start for the hall, and went on till I reached the compound behind the house.

Here I stood deep in the shadow of the wall; the steps were now over my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof, three yards to the left, I saw the flutter of a white kilt.

‘There are more ways out of this house than I know,’ I thought to myself.

I heard next a noise as though of something being pushed cautiously along the flat roof. Then there protruded from between two of the battlements the end of a ladder. I crouched closer under the wall. The light flight of steps was let down; it reached the ground, the kilted figure stepped on it and began to descend. Here was the Lady Euphrosyne again. Her eagerness to go to her own room was fully explained: there was a way from it across the house and out on to the roof of the kitchen; the ladder shewed that the way was kept in use. I stood still. She reached the ground, and, as she touched it, she gave the softest possible little laugh of gleeful triumph; a pretty little laugh it was. Then she walked briskly across the compound, till she reached the rocks on the other side. I crept forward after her, for I was afraid of losing sight of her in the darkness, and yet did not desire to arrest her progress till I saw where she was going. On she went, skirting the perpendicular drop of rock. I was behind her now. At last she came to the angle formed by the rock running north and that which, turning to the east, enclosed the compound.

‘How’s she going to get up?’ I asked myself.

But up she began to go, her right foot on the north rock, her left on the east. She ascended with such confidence that it was evident that steps were ready for her feet. She gained the top; I began to mount in the same fashion, finding the steps cut in the face of the cliff. I reached the top and saw her standing still, ten yards ahead of me. She went on; I followed; she stopped, looked, saw me, screamed. I rushed on her. Her arm dealt a blow at me; I caught her hand, and in her hand there was a little dagger. Seizing her other hand, I held her fast.

‘Where are you going to?’ I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was merely a national trait.

Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle.

‘I was trying to escape,’ she said. ‘Did you hear me?’

‘Yes, I heard you. Where were you going to?’

‘Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?’

I loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed to measure the distance.

‘Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?’ I asked. ‘Have you friends there?’

She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.

‘No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you.’

‘Yet there’s some one in the cottage up there,’ I observed. ‘It belongs to Constantine, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, it does,’ she answered defiantly. ‘Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?’

‘As long as we are four against a hundred I dare only skulk,’ I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. ‘But do you think he’s there?’

‘There! No; he’s in the town; and he’ll come from the town to kill you to-morrow.’

‘Then is nobody there?’ I pursued.

‘Nobody,’ she answered.

‘You’re wrong,’ said I. ‘I saw somebody there to-day.’

‘Oh, a peasant perhaps.’

‘Well, the dress didn’t look like it. Do you really want to go there now?’

‘Haven’t you mocked me enough?’ she burst out. ‘Take me back to my prison.’

Her tragedy-air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up to something which I thought she ought to know.

‘There’s a woman in that cottage,’ said I. ‘Not a peasant; a woman in some dark-coloured dress, who uses opera-glasses.’

I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.

‘It’s false,’ she cried. ‘There’s no one there. Constantine told me no one went there except Vlacho and sometimes Demetri.’

‘Do you believe all Constantine tells you?’ I asked.

‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s my cousin, and – ’

‘And your suitor?’

She flung her head back proudly.

‘I have no shame in that,’ she answered.

‘You would accept his offer?’

‘Since you ask, I will answer. Yes. I had promised my uncle that I would.’

‘Good God!’ said I, for I was very sorry for her.

The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.

‘Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?’ I demanded.