Phroso: A Romance

‘You must give yourself up to them, and tell them to bring you to me. They couldn’t hurt you then.’

Well, I wasn’t sure of that, but I pretended to believe it. The truth is that I dared not tell Phroso what I had actually resolved to do. It was a risky job, but it was a chance; and it was more than a chance. It was very like an obligation that a man had no right to shrink from discharging. Here was I, planning to make Phroso comfortable; that was right enough. And here was I planning to keep my own skin whole; well, a man does no wrong in doing that. But what of that unlucky woman on the hill? I knew friend Constantine would take care that Phroso should not come within speaking distance of her. Was nobody to set her on her guard? Was I to leave her to her blind trust of the ruffian whom she was unfortunate enough to call husband, and of his tool Vlacho? Now I came to think of it, now that I was separated from my friends and had no lingering hope of being able to beat Constantine in fair fight, that seemed hardly the right thing, hardly a thing I should care to talk about or think about, if I did save my own precious skin. Would not Constantine teach his wife the secret of the Stefanopouloi? Urged by these reflections, I made up my mind to play a little trick on Phroso, and feigned to accept her suggestion that I should rely on her to save me. Evidently she had great confidence in her influence now that she held that piece of paper. I had less confidence in it, for it was clear that Constantine wielded immense power over these unruly islanders, and I thought it likely enough that they would demand from Phroso a promise to marry him as the price of obeying her; then, whether Constantine did or did not promise me my life, I felt sure that he would do his best to rob me of it.

Well, time pressed. I rose and unbolted the door of the house. Phroso sat still. I looked along the road. I saw nobody, but I heard the blast of the horn which had fallen on my ears once before and had proved the forerunner of an attack. Phroso also heard it, for she sat up, saying, ‘Hark, they are summoning all the men to the town! That means they are coming here.’

But it meant something else also to me; if the men were summoned to the town there would be fewer for me to elude in the wood.

‘Will they all go?’ I asked, as though in mere curiosity.

‘All who are not on some duty,’ she answered.

I had to hope for the best; but Phroso went on in distress:

‘It means that they are coming here – here, to take you.’

‘Then you must lose no time in going,’ said I, and I took her hand and gently raised her to her feet. She stood there for a moment, looking at me. I had let go her hand, but she took mine again now, and she said with a sudden vehemence, and a rush of rich deep red on her cheeks:

‘If they kill you, they shall kill me too.’

The words gushed impetuously from her, but at the end there was a choke in her throat.

‘No, no, nonsense,’ said I. ‘You’ve got the island now. You mustn’t talk like that.’

‘I don’t care – ’ she began; and stopped short.

‘Besides, I shall pull through,’ said I.

She dropped my hand, but she kept her eyes on mine.

‘And if you get away?’ she asked. ‘What will you do? If you get to Rhodes, what will you do?’

‘All I shall do is to lay an information against your cousin and the innkeeper. The rest are ignorant fellows, and I bear them no malice. Besides, they are your men now.’

‘And when you’ve done that?’ she asked gravely.

‘Well, that’ll be all there is to do,’ said I, with an attempt at playful gaiety. It was not a very happy attempt.

‘Then you’ll go home to your own people?’

‘I shall go home; I’ve got no people in particular.’

‘Shall you ever come to Neopalia again?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, if you invite me.’

She regarded me intently for a full minute. She seemed to have forgotten the blast of the horn that summoned the islanders. I also had forgotten it; I saw nothing but the perfect oval face, crowned with clustering hair and framing deep liquid eyes. Then she drew a ring from her finger.

‘You have fought for me,’ she said. ‘You have risked your life for me. Will you take this ring from me? Once I tried to stab you. Do you remember, my lord?’

I bowed my head, and Phroso set the ring on my finger.

‘Wear it till a woman you love gives you one to wear instead,’ said Phroso with a little smile. ‘Then go to the edge of your island – you are an islander too, are you not? so we are brethren – go to the edge of your island and throw it into the sea; and perhaps, my dear friend, the sea will bring it back, a message from you to me. For I think you will never again come to Neopalia.’

I made no answer: we walked together to the door of the house, and paused again for a moment on the threshold.

‘See the blue sea!’ said Phroso. ‘Is it not – is not your island – a beautiful island? If God brings you safe to your own land, my lord, as I will pray Him to do on my knees, think kindly of your island, and of one who dwells there.’

The blast of the horn had died away. The setting sun was turning blue to gold on the quiet water. The evening was very still, as we stood looking from the threshold of the door, under the portal of the house that had seen such strange wild doings, and had so swiftly made for itself a place for ever in my life and memory.

I glanced at Phroso’s face. Her eyes were set on the sea, her cheeks had turned pale again, and her lip was quivering. Suddenly came a loud sharp note on the horn.

‘It is the signal for the start,’ said she. ‘I must go, or they will be here in heat and anger, and I shall not be able to stop them. And they will kill my lord. No, I will say “my lord.”’

She moved to leave me. I had answered nothing to all she had said. What was there that an honourable man could say? Was there one thing? I told myself (too eager to tell myself) that I had no right to presume to say that. And anything else I would not say.

‘God bless you,’ I said, as she moved away; I caught her hand and again lightly kissed it. ‘My homage to the Lady of the Island,’ I whispered.

Her hand dwelt in mine a moment, briefer than our divisions of time can reckon, fuller than is often the longest of them. Then, with one last look, questioning, appealing, excusing, protesting, confessing, ay, and (for my sins) hoping, she left me, and stepped along the rocky road in the grace and glory of her youthful beauty. I stood watching her, forgetting the woman at the cottage, forgetting my own danger, forgetting even the peril she ran whom I watched, forgetting everything save the old that bound me and the new that called me. So I stood till she vanished from my sight; and still I stood, for she was there, though the road hid her. And I was roused at last only by a great cry of surprise, of fierce joy and triumph, that rent the still air of the evening, and echoed back in rumblings from the hill. The Neopalians were greeting their rescued Lady.

Then I turned, snatched up Hogvardt’s lance again, and fled through the house to do my errand. For I would save that woman, if I could; and my own life was not mine to lose any more than it was mine to give to whom I would. And I recollect that, as I ran through the kitchen and across the compound, making for the steps in the bank of rocks, I said, ‘God forgive me!’

CHAPTER IX

HATS OFF TO ST TRYPHON!

A man’s mind can move on more than one line; even the most engrossing selfish care may fail entirely to occupy it or to shut out intruding rivals. Not only should I have been wise, but I should have chosen, in that risky walk of mine through the wood that covered the hill-slope, to think of nothing but its risk. Yet countless other things exacted a share of my thoughts and figured amongst my brain’s images. Sometimes I was with Denny and his faithful followers, threading dark and devious ways in the bowels of the earth, avoiding deep waters on the one side, sheer falls on the other, losing the track, finding it again, deluded by deceptive glimmers of light, finding at last the true outlet; now received hospitably by the Cypriote fishermen, now fiercely assailed by them, again finding none of them; now making allies of them, now carried prisoners by them to Constantine, again scouring the sea with vain eagerness for a sight of their sails. Then I was off, far away, to England, to my friends there, to the gaiety of London now in its full rushing tide, to Mrs Hipgrave’s exclusive receptions, to Beatrice’s gay talk and pretty insolence, to Hamlyn’s gilded dulness, in rapid survey of all the panorama that I knew so well. Then I would turn back to the scene I had left, and again bid my farewell under the quiet sky, in prospect of the sea that turned to gold. So I passed back and forward till I seemed myself hardly a thinking man, but rather a piece of blank glass, across which the myriad mites of the kaleidoscope chased one another, covering it with varying colours, but none of them imparting their hue to it. Yet all this time, by the strange division of mental activity of which I have spoken, I was crawling cautiously but quickly up the mountain side, with eyes keen to pierce the dusk that now fell, with ears apt to find an enemy in every rustling leaf and a hostile step in every woodland sound. Of real foes I had as yet seen none. Ah! Hush! I dropped on my knees. Away there on the right – what was it leaning against that tree-trunk? It was a tall lean man; his arms rested on a long gun, and his face was towards the old grey house. Would he see me? I crouched lower. Would he hear me? I was as still as dead Spiro had lain in the passage. But then I felt stealthily for the butt of my revolver, and a recollection so startling came to me that I nearly betrayed myself by some sudden movement. In the distribution of burdens for our proposed journey, Denny had taken the case containing the spare cartridges which remained after we had all reloaded. Now I had one barrel only loaded, one shot only left. That one shot and Hogvardt’s lance were all my resources. I crouched yet lower. But the man was motionless, and presently I ventured to move on my hands and knees, sorely inconvenienced by the long lance, but determined not to leave it behind me. I passed another sentry a hundred yards or so away on the left; his head was sunk on his breast and he took no notice of me. I breathed a little more freely as I came within fifty feet of the cottage.

Immediately about the house nobody was in sight. This however, in Neopalia, did not always mean that nobody was near, and I abated none of my caution. But the last step had to be taken; I crawled out from the shelter of the trees, and crouched on one knee on the level space in front of the cottage. The cottage door was open. I listened but heard nothing. Well, I meant to go in; my entrance would be none the easier for waiting. A quick dart was safest; in a couple of bounds I was across, in the verandah, through the entrance, in the house. I closed the door noiselessly behind me, and stood there, Hogvardt’s lance ready for the first man I saw; but I saw none. I was in a narrow passage; there were doors on either side of me. Listening again, I heard no sound from right or left. I opened the door to the right. I saw a small square room: the table was spread for a meal, three places being laid, but the room was empty. I turned to the other door and opened it. This room was darker, for heavy curtains, drawn, no doubt, earlier in the day to keep out the sun, had not been drawn back, and the light was very dim. For a while I could make out little, but, my eyes growing more accustomed to the darkness, I soon perceived that I was in a sitting-room, sparsely and rather meanly furnished. Then my eyes fell on a couch which stood against the wall opposite me. On the couch lay a figure. It was the figure of a woman. I heard now the slight but regular sound of her breath. She was asleep. This must be the woman I sought. But was she a sensible woman? Or would she scream when I waked her, and bring those tall fellows out of the wood? In hesitation I stood still and watched her. She slept like one who was weary, but not at peace: restless movements and, now and again, broken incoherent exclamations witnessed to her disquiet. Presently her broken sleep passed into half-wakeful consciousness, and she sat up, looking round her with a dazed glance.

‘Is that you, Constantine?’ she asked, rubbing her hands across her eyes. ‘Or is it Vlacho?’

With a swift step I was by her.

‘Neither. Not a word!’ I said, laying my hand on her shoulder.

I was, I daresay, an alarming figure, with the butt of my revolver peeping out of my pocket and Hogvardt’s lance in my right hand. But she did not cry out.

‘I am Wheatley. I have escaped from the house there,’ I went on; ‘and I have come here because there’s something I must tell you. You remember our last meeting?’

She looked at me still in amazed surprise, but with a gleam of recollection.

‘Yes, yes. You were – we went to watch you – yes, at the restaurant.’

‘You went to watch and to listen? Yes, I supposed so. But I’ve been near you since then. Do you remember the man who was on your verandah?’

‘That was you?’ she asked quickly.

‘Yes, it was. And while I was there I heard – ’

‘But what are you doing here? This house is watched. Constantine may be here any moment, or Vlacho.’

‘I’m as safe here as I was down the hill. Now listen. Are you this man’s wife, as he called you that night?’

‘Am I his wife? Of course I’m his wife. How else should I be here?’ The indignation expressed in her answer was the best guarantee of its truth, and became her well. And she held her hand up to me, as she had to the man himself in the restaurant, adding, ‘There is his ring.’

‘Then listen to me, and don’t interrupt,’ said I brusquely. ‘Time’s valuable to me, and even more, I fear, to you.’

Her eyes were alarmed now, but she listened in silence as I bade her. I told her briefly what had happened to me, and then I set before her more fully the conversation between Constantine and Vlacho which I had overheard. She clutched the cushions of the sofa in her clenched hand; her breathing came quick and fast; her eyes gleamed at me even in the gloom of the curtained room. I do not believe that in her heart she was surprised at what she heard. She had mistrusted the man; her manner, even on our first encounter, had gone far to prove that. She received my story rather as a confirmation of her own suspicions than as a new or startling revelation. She was fearful, excited, strung to a high pitch; but astonished she was not, if I read her right. And when I ended, it was not astonishment that clenched her lips and brought to her eyes a look which I think Constantine himself would have shrunk from meeting. I had paused at the end of my narrative, but I recollected one thing more. I must warn her about the secret passage; for that offered her husband too ready and easy a way of relieving himself of his burden. But now she interrupted me.

‘This girl?’ she said. ‘I have not seen her. What is she like?’

‘She is very beautiful,’ said I simply. ‘She knows what I have told you, and she is on her guard. You need fear nothing from her. It is your husband whom you have to fear.’

‘He would kill me?’ she asked, with a questioning glance.

‘You’ve heard what he said,’ I returned. ‘Put your own meaning on it.’

She sprang to her feet.

‘I can’t stay here; I can’t stay here. Merciful heaven, they may come any moment! Where are you going? How are you going to escape? You are in as much danger as I am.’

‘I believe in even greater,’ said I. ‘I was going straight from here down to the sea. If I can find my friends, we’ll go through with the thing together. If I don’t find them, I shall hunt for a boat. If I don’t find a boat – well, I’m a good swimmer, and I shall live as long in the water as in Neopalia, and die easier, I fancy.’

She was standing now, facing me, and she laid her hand on my arm.

‘You stand by women, you Englishmen,’ she said. ‘You won’t leave me to be murdered?’

‘You see I am here. Doesn’t that answer your question?’

‘My God, he’s a fiend! Will you take me with you?’

What could I do? Her coming gave little chance to her and robbed me of almost all prospect of escape. But of course I could not leave her.

‘You must come if you can see no other way,’ said I.

‘Why, what other is there? If I avoid him he will see I suspect him. If I appear to trust him, I must put myself in his power.’

‘Then we must go,’ said I. ‘But it’s a thousand to one that we don’t get through.’

I had hardly spoken when a voice outside said, ‘Is all well?’ and a heavy step echoed in the verandah.

‘Vlacho!’ she hissed in a whisper. ‘Vlacho! Are you armed?’

‘In a way,’ said I, with a shrug. ‘But there are at least two besides him. I saw them in the wood.’

‘Yes, yes, true. There are four generally. It would be death. Here, hide behind the curtains. I’ll try to put him off for the moment. Quick, quick!’

She was hurried and eager, but I saw that her wits were clear. I stepped behind the curtains and she drew them close. I heard her fling herself again on the couch. Then came the innkeeper’s voice, its roughness softened in deferential greeting.

At the same time a strong smell of eau de Cologne pervaded the room.

‘Am I well?’ said Madame Stefanopoulos fretfully. ‘My good Vlacho, I am very ill. Should I sit in a dark room and bathe my head with this stuff if I were well?’

‘My lady’s sickness grieves me beyond expression,’ said Vlacho politely. ‘And the more so because I am come from my Lord Constantine with a message for you.’

‘It is easier for him to send messages than to come himself,’ she remarked, with an admirable pretence of resentment.

‘Think how occupied he has been with this pestilent Englishman!’ said the plausible Vlacho. ‘We have had no peace. But at last I hope our troubles are over. The house is ours again.’

‘Ah, you have driven them out?’

‘They fled themselves,’ said Vlacho. ‘But they are separated and we shall catch them. Oh, yes, we know where to look for most of them.’

‘Then you’ve not caught any of them yet? How stupid you are!’

‘My lady is severe. No, we have caught none yet.’

‘Not even Wheatley himself?’ she asked. ‘Has he shown you a clean pair of heels?’

Vlacho’s voice betrayed irritation as he answered:

‘We shall find him also in time, though heaven knows where the rascal has hidden himself.’

‘You’re really very stupid,’ said Francesca. I heard her sniff her perfume. ‘And the girl?’ she went on.

‘Oh, we have her safe and sound,’ laughed Vlacho. ‘She’ll give no more trouble.’

‘Why, what will you do with her?’

‘You must ask my lord that,’ said Vlacho. ‘If she will give up the island, perhaps nothing.’

‘Ah, well, I take very little interest in her. Isn’t my husband coming to supper, Vlacho?’

‘To supper here, my lady? Surely no. The great house is ready now. That is a more fitting place for my lady than this dog-hole. I am here to escort you there. There my lord will sup with you. Oh, it’s a grand house!’

‘A grand house!’ she echoed scornfully. ‘Why, what is there to see in it?’

‘Oh, many things,’ said Vlacho. ‘Yes, secrets, my lady! And my lord bids me say that from love to you he will show you to-night the great secret of his house. He desires to show his love and trust in you, and will therefore reveal to you all his secrets.’

When I, behind the curtain, heard the ruffian say this, I laid firmer hold on my lance. But the lady was equal to Vlacho.

‘You’re very melodramatic with your secrets,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I am tired, and my head aches. Your secrets will wait; and if my husband will not come and sup with me, I’ll sup alone here. Tell him I can’t come, please, Vlacho.’

‘But my lord was most urgent that you should come,’ said Vlacho.

‘I would come if I were well,’ said she.

‘But I could help you. If you would permit, I and my men would carry you down all the way on your couch.’

‘My good Vlacho, you are very tedious, you and your men. And my husband is tedious also, if he sent all these long messages. I am ill and I will not come. Is that enough?’

‘My lord will be very angry if I return alone,’ pleaded Vlacho humbly.

‘I’ll write a certificate that you did your best to persuade me,’ she said with a scornful laugh.

I heard the innkeeper’s heavy feet move a step or two across the floor. He was coming nearer to where she lay on the couch.

‘I daren’t return without you,’ said he.

‘Then you must stay here and sup with me.’

‘My lord does not love to be opposed.’

‘Then, my good Vlacho, he should not have married me,’ she retorted.

She played the game gallantly, fencing and parrying with admirable tact, and with a coolness wonderful for a woman in such peril. My heart went out to her, and I said to myself that she should not want any help that I could give.

She had raised her voice on the last words, and her defiant taunt rang out clear and loud. It seemed to alarm Vlacho.

‘Hush, not so loud!’ he said hastily. There was the hint of a threat in his voice.

‘Not so loud!’ she echoed. ‘And why not so loud? Is there harm in what I say?’

I wondered at Vlacho’s sudden fright. The idea shot into my head – and the idea was no pleasant one – that there must be people within earshot, perhaps people who had not been trusted with Constantine’s secrets, and would, for that reason, do his bidding better.

‘Harm! No, no harm; but no need to let every one hear,’ said Vlacho, confusedly and with evident embarrassment.

‘Every one? Who is here, then?’

‘I have brought one or two men to escort my lady,’ said he. ‘With these cut-throat Englishmen about’ (Bravo, bravo, Vlacho!) ‘one must be careful.’

A scornful laugh proclaimed her opinion of his subterfuge, and she met him with a skilful thrust.

‘But if they don’t know – yes, and aren’t to know that I am the wife of Constantine, how can I go to the house and stay with him?’ she asked.

‘Oh,’ said he, ready again with his plausible half-truths, ‘that is one of the secrets. Must I tell my lady part of it? There is an excellent hiding-place in the house, where my lord can bestow you most comfortably. You will want for nothing, and nobody will know that you are there, except the few faithful men who have guarded you here.’

‘Indeed, if I am still to be a stowaway, I’ll stay here,’ said she. ‘If my lord will announce me publicly to all the island as his wife, then I will come and take my place at the head of his house; but without that I will not come.’

‘Surely you will be able to persuade him to that yourself,’ said Vlacho. ‘But dare I make conditions with my lord?’

‘You will make them in my name,’ she answered. ‘Go and tell him what I say.’

A pause followed. Then Vlacho said in sullen obstinate tones:

‘I’ll not go without you. I was ordered to bring you, and I will. Come.’

I heard the sudden rustle of her dress as she drew back; then a little cry: ‘You’re hurting me.’

‘You must come,’ said Vlacho. ‘I shall call my men and carry you.’

‘I will not come,’ she said in a low voice, resolute and fierce.

Vlacho laughed. ‘We’ll see about that,’ said he, and his heavy steps sounded on the floor.

‘What are you going to the window for?’ she cried.

‘To call Demetri and Kortes to help me,’ said he; ‘or will you come?’

I drew back a pace, resting against the windowsill. Hogvardt’s lance was protruded before me. At that moment I asked nothing better than to bury its point in the fat innkeeper’s flesh.

‘You’ll repent it if you do what you say,’ said she.

‘I shall repent it more if I don’t obey my lord,’ said Vlacho. ‘See, my hand is on the curtains. Will you come, my lady?’

‘I will not come,’ said she.

There was one last short interval. I heard them both breathing, and I held my own breath. My revolver rested in my pocket; the noise of a shot would be fatal. With God’s help I would drive the lance home with one silent sufficient thrust. There would be a rogue less in the world and another chance for her and me.

‘As you will, then,’ said the innkeeper.

The curtain-rings rattled along the rod; the heavy hangings gave back. The moon, which was newly risen, streamed full in Vlacho’s eyes and on the pale strained face behind him. He saw me; he uttered one low exclamation: ‘Christ!’ His hand flew to his belt. He drew a pistol out and raised it; but I was too quick for him. I drove the great hunting-knife on the end of the sapling full and straight into his breast. With a groan he flung his arms over his head and fell sideways, half-supported by the curtain till the fabric was rent away from the rings and fell over his body, enveloping him in a thick pall. I drew my lance back. The force of the blow had overstrained Hogvardt’s wire fastenings; the blade was bent to an angle with the shaft and shook loosely from side to side. Vlacho’s blood began to curl in a meandering trickle from beneath the curtain. Madame Stefanopoulos glared at me, speechless. But my eyes fell from her to the floor; for there I saw two long black shadows. A sudden and desperate inspiration seized me. She was my ally, I hers. If both were held guilty of this act we could render no service to each other. If she were still unsuspected – and nobody except myself had heard her talk with Vlacho – she might yet help herself and me.