Phroso: A Romance

‘Throw me over,’ I whispered in English. ‘Cry for help.’

‘What?’

‘Cry. The men are there. You may help me afterwards.’

‘What, pretend – ?’

‘Yes. Quick.’

‘But they’ll – ’

‘No, no. Quick, for God’s sake, quick!’

‘God help us,’ she whispered. Then she cried loudly, ‘Help! help! help!’

I sprang towards her. There was the crash of a man leaping through the open window. I turned. Behind him I saw Demetri standing in the moonlight. Other figures hurried up; feet pattered on the hard ground. The man who had leaped in – a very tall, handsome and athletic fellow, whom I had not seen before – held to my head a long old-fashioned pistol. I let my hands drop to my side and faced him with a smile on my lips. It must be death to resist – death to me and death to my new friend; surrender might open a narrow way of safety.

‘I yield,’ said I.

‘Who are you?’ he cried.

‘I am Lord Wheatley,’ I answered.

‘But did you not fly to the – ?’ He stopped.

‘To the passage?’ said I. ‘No, I came here. I was trying to escape. I came in while Madame here was asleep and hid behind the curtain.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said she. ‘It is so, Kortes, it is as he says; and then Vlacho came – ’

‘And,’ said I, ‘when the lady had agreed to go with Vlacho, Vlacho came to the window to call you; and by misadventure, sir, he came on me behind the curtain. And – won’t you see whether he’s dead?’

‘Kill him, Kortes, kill him!’ cried Demetri, fiercely and suddenly, from the window.

Kortes turned round.

‘Peace!’ said he. ‘The man has yielded. Do I kill men who have yielded? The Lady of the island and my Lord Constantine must decide his fate; it is not my office. Are you armed, sir?’

It went to my heart to give up that last treasured shot of mine. But he was treating me as an honourable man. I handed him my revolver with a bow, saying:

‘I depend on you to protect me from that fellow and the rest till you deliver me to those you speak of.’

‘In my charge you are safe,’ said Kortes, and he stooped down and lifted the curtain from Vlacho’s face. The innkeeper stirred and groaned. He was not dead yet. Kortes turned round to Demetri.

‘Stay here and tend him. Do what you can for him. When I am able, I will send aid to him; but I don’t think he will live.’

Demetri scowled. He seemed not to like the part assigned to him.

‘Are you going to take this man to my Lord Constantine?’ he asked. ‘Leave another with Vlacho, and let me come with you to my lord.’

‘Who should better stay with Vlacho than his nephew Demetri?’ asked Kortes with a smile. (This relationship was a new light to me.) ‘I am going to do what my duty is. Come, no questioning. Do not I command, now Vlacho is wounded?’

‘And the lady here?’ asked Demetri.

‘I am not ordered to lay a finger on the lady,’ answered Kortes. ‘Indeed I don’t know who she is.’

Francesca interposed with great dignity:

‘I will come with you,’ said she. ‘I have my story to tell when this gentleman is put on his trial. Who I am you will know soon.’

Demetri had climbed in at the window. He passed me with a savage scowl, and I noticed that one side of his head was bound with a bloodstained bandage. He saw me looking at it.

‘Aye,’ he growled, ‘I owe you the loss of half an ear.’

‘In the passage?’ I hazarded, much pleased.

‘I shall pay the debt,’ said he, ‘or see it paid handsomely for me by my lord.’

‘Come,’ said Kortes, ‘let us go.’

Fully believing that the fact of Kortes being in command instead of Demetri had saved me from instant death, I was not inclined to dispute his orders. I walked out of the house and took the place he indicated to me in the middle of a line of islanders, some ten or twelve in number. Kortes placed himself by my side, and Madame Stefanopoulos walked on his other hand. The islanders maintained absolute silence. I followed their example, but my heart (I must confess) beat as I waited to see in what direction our column was to march. We started down the hill towards the house. If we were going to the house I had perhaps twenty minutes to live, and the lady who was with us would not long survive me. In vain I scanned Kortes’s comely grave features. He marched with the impassive regularity of a grenadier and displayed much the same expressionless steadiness of face. Nearer to the fatal house we came; but my heart gave a sudden leap of hope and excitement, for Kortes cried softly, ‘To the right.’ We turned down the path that led up from the town, leaving the house on the left. We were not going straight to death then, and every respite was pregnant with unforeseen chances of escape. I touched Kortes on the shoulder.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘To the town,’ he answered.

Again in silence we pursued our way down the hillside. The path broadened and the incline became less steep; a few lights twinkled from the sea, which now spread before us. Still we went on. Then I heard the bell of a church strike twelve. The strokes ended, but another bell began to ring. Our escort stopped with one accord. They took off their caps and signed the cross on their breasts. Kortes did the same as the rest. I looked at him in question, but he said nothing till the caps were replaced and we were on our way again. Then he said:

‘To-day is the feast of St Tryphon. Didn’t you know?’

‘No,’ said I. ‘St Tryphon I know, but his feast is not kept always on this day.’

‘Always on this day in Neopalia,’ he answered, and he seemed to look at me as though he were asking me some unspoken question.

The feast of St Tryphon might have interested me very much at any ordinary time, but just now my study of the customs of the islanders had been diverted into another channel, and I did not pursue the subject. Kortes walked in silence some little way farther. We had now reached the main road and were descending rapidly towards the town. I saw again the steep narrow street, empty and still in the moonlight. We held on our way till we came to a rather large square building, which stood back from the road and had thus escaped my notice when we passed it on the evening of our arrival. Before this Kortes halted. ‘Here you must lodge with me,’ said he. ‘Concerning the lady I have no orders.’

Madame Stefanopoulos caught my arm.

‘I must stay too,’ said she. ‘I can’t go back to my house.’

‘It is well,’ said Kortes calmly. ‘There are two rooms.’

The escort ranged themselves outside the building, which appeared to be either a sort of barrack or a place of confinement. We three entered. At a sign from Kortes, Madame Stefanopoulos passed into a large room on the right. I followed him into a smaller room, scantily furnished, and flung myself in exhaustion on a wooden bench that ran along the wall. For an instant Kortes stood regarding me. His face seemed to express hesitation, but the look in his eyes was not unfriendly. The bell, which had continued to ring till now, ceased. Then Kortes said to me in a low voice:

‘Take courage, my lord. For a day you are safe. Nor even Constantine would dare to kill a man on the feast of St Tryphon.’

Before I could answer he was gone. I heard the bolt of the door run home. I was a prisoner.

Yet I took courage as he bade me. Four-and-twenty hours’ life was more than I had been able to count on for some time past. So I also doffed my hat in honour of the holy St Tryphon. And presently I lifted my legs on to the bench, took off my coat and made a pillow of it, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER X

THE JUSTICE OF THE ISLAND

Helplessness brings its own peculiar consolation. After a week’s planning and scheming what you will do to the enemy, it is a kind of relief to sit with hands in pockets and wonder what the enemy may be pleased to do with you. This relaxation was vouchsafed to my brain when I awoke in the morning and found the sun streaming into the whitewashed cell-like room. It was the feast of St Tryphon, all praise to him! Kortes said that I could not be executed that day. I doubted Constantine’s scruples; yet probably he would not venture to outrage the popular sentiment of Neopalia. But nothing forbade my execution to-morrow. Well, to-morrow is to-morrow, and to-day is to-day, and there will be that difference between them so long as the world lasts. I stretched myself and yawned luxuriously. I was, strangely enough, in a hopeful frame of mind. I made sure that Denny had found his way safely, and that the Cypriote fishermen had been benevolent. I proved to myself that with Constantine’s exposure his power would end. I plumed myself on having put Vlacho hors de combat. I believe I said to myself that villainy would not triumph, that honest men would come by their own, and that unprotected beauty would find help from heaven: convictions which showed that relics of youth hung about me, and (I am afraid it depends on this rather) that I was feeling very well after my refreshing sleep.

Alas, my soothing reveries were rudely interrupted.

‘At a touch sweet pleasure melteth,Like to bubbles when rain pelteth!’

And at the sound of a gruff voice outside my dreams melted: harsh reality was pressing hard on me again, crushing hope into resignation, buoyancy into a grim resolve to take what came with courage.

‘Bring him out,’ cried the voice.

‘It’s that brute Demetri,’ said I to myself, wondering what had become of my friendly gaoler, Kortes.

A moment later half-a-dozen men filed into the room, Demetri at their head. I asked him what he wanted. He answered only with a command that I should get up. ‘Bring him along,’ he added to his men; and we walked out into the street.

Evidently Neopalia was en fête. The houses were decked with flags; several windows exhibited pictures of the Saint. Women in their gay and spotlessly clean holiday attire strolled along the road, holding their children by the hand. Everybody made way for our procession, many whispers and pointed fingers proving the interest and curiosity which it was my unwilling privilege to arouse. For about a quarter of a mile we mounted the road, then we turned suddenly down to the left and began to descend again towards the sea. Soon now we arrived at the little church whose bell I had heard. Here we halted; and presently another procession appeared from the building. An old white-bearded man headed it, carrying a large picture of St. Tryphon. The old man’s dress was little different from that of the rest of the islanders, but he wore the gown and cap of a priest. He was followed by some attendants; the women and children fell in behind him, three or four cripples brought up the rear, praying as they went, and stretching out their hands towards the sacred picture which the old man carried. At a sign from Demetri we also put ourselves in motion again, and the whole body of us thus made for the seashore. But some three hundred yards short of the water I perceived a broad level space, covered with short rough turf and surrounded for about half its circuit by a crescent-shaped bank two or three feet high. On this bank sat some twenty people, and crowded in front of it was the same ragged picturesque company of armed peasants that I had seen gather in the street on the occasion of our arrival. The old man with the picture made his way to the centre of the level ground. Thrice he raised the picture towards the sky, every one uncovering his head and kneeling down the while. He began to pray, but I did not listen to what he said; for by this time my attention had wandered from him and was fixed intently on a small group which occupied the centre of the raised bank. There, sitting side by side, with the space of a foot or so between them, were Phroso and her cousin Constantine. On a rude hurdle, covered with a rug, at Constantine’s feet lay Vlacho, his face pale and his eyes closed. Behind Phroso stood my new acquaintance, Kortes, with one hand on the knife in his girdle and the other holding a long gun, which rested on the ground. One figure I missed. I looked round for Constantine’s wife, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then I looked again at Phroso. She was dressed in rich fine garments of white, profusely embroidered, but her face was paler even than Vlacho’s, and when I sought her eyes she would not meet mine, but kept her gaze persistently lowered. Constantine sat motionless, with a frown on his brow but a slight smile on his lips, as he waited with an obviously forced patience through the long rigmarole of the old man’s prayer.

Evidently important business was to be transacted; yet nobody seemed to be in a hurry to arrive at it. When the old priest had finished his prayers the cripples came and prostrated themselves before the sacred picture. No miracle, however, followed; and the priest took up the tale again, pouring forth a copious harangue, in which I detected frequent references to ‘the barbarians’ – a term he used to denote my friends, myself, and all the world apparently, except the islanders of Neopalia. Then he seated himself between Phroso and Constantine, who made room for him. I was surprised to see him assume so much dignity, but I presumed that he was treated with exceptional honour on the feast day. When he had taken his place, about twenty of the men came into the middle of the ring and began to dance, arranging themselves in a semicircle, moving at first in slow rhythmical steps, and gradually quickening their motions till they ended with a wonderful display of activity. During this performance Phroso and Constantine sat still and impassive, while Vlacho’s lifeless face was scorched by the growing heat of the sun. The men who had been told off to watch me leaned on their long guns, and I wondered wearily when my part in this strangely mixed ceremony was to begin.

At last it came. The dance ended, the performers flung themselves fatigued on the turf, there was a hush of expectation, and the surrounding crowd of women and children drew closer in towards where the rest of the men had taken up their position in ranks on either side of the central seats. ‘Step forward,’ said one of my guards, and I, obeying him, lifted my hat and bowed to Phroso. Then replacing my hat, I stood waiting the pleasure of the assembly. All eyes were fixed on Constantine, who remained seated and silent yet a little while longer. Then he rose slowly to his feet, bowed to Phroso, and pointed in a melodramatic fashion at Vlacho’s body. But I was not in the least inclined to listen to an oration in the manner of Mark Antony over the body of Cæsar, and just as Constantine was opening his mouth I observed loudly:

‘Yes, I killed him, and the reason no man knows better than Constantine Stefanopoulos.’

Constantine glared at me, and, ignoring the bearing of my remark, launched out on an eulogium of the dead innkeeper. It was coldly received. Vlacho’s virtues were not recognised by any outburst of grief or indignation; indeed there was a smothered laugh or two when Constantine called him ‘a brave true man.’ The orator detected his failure and shifted his ground dexterously, passing on, in rapid transition, to ask in what quarrel Vlacho had died. Now he was gripping his audience. They drew closer; they became very still; angry and threatening glances were bent on me. Constantine lashed himself to fury as he cried, ‘He died for our island, which this barbarian claims as his!’

‘He died – ’ I began; but a heavy hand on my shoulder and the menace of a knife cut short my protest. Demetri had come and taken his stand by me, and I knew that Demetri would jump at the first excuse to make my silence perpetual. So I held my peace, and the men caught up Constantine’s last point, crying angrily, ‘Ay, he takes our island from us.’

‘Yes,’ said Constantine, ‘he has taken our island, and he claims it for his. He has killed our brethren and put our Lady out of her inheritance. What shall he suffer? For although we may not kill on St Tryphon’s day, we may judge on it, and the sentence may be performed at daybreak to-morrow. What shall this man suffer? Is he not worthy of death?’

It was what lawyers call a leading question, and it found its expected answer in a deep fierce growl, of ‘Death, death!’ Clearly the island was the thing, Vlacho’s death merely an incidental affair of no great importance. I suppose that Phroso understood this as well as I, for now she rose suddenly. Constantine seemed disinclined to suffer the interruption; but she stood her ground firmly, though her face was very pale, and I saw her hands tremble. At last he sank back on to the bank.

‘Why this turmoil?’ she asked. ‘The stranger did not know our customs. He thought that the island was his by right, and when he was attacked he defended himself. I pray you may all fight as bravely as he has fought.’

‘But the island, the island!’ they cried.

‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I also love the island. Well, he has given back the island to me. Behold his writing!’ She held up the paper which I had given to her and read the writing aloud in a clear voice. ‘What have you against him now?’ she asked. ‘His people have loved the Hellenes. He has given back the island. Why shall he not depart in peace?’

The effect was great. The old priest seized the paper and scanned it eagerly: it was snatched from him and passed rapidly from hand to hand, greeted with surprised murmurs and intense excitement. Phroso stood watching its progress. Constantine sat with a heavy scowl on his face, and the frown grew yet deeper when I smiled at him with pleasant urbanity.

‘It is true,’ said the priest, with a sigh of relief. ‘He has given back the island. He need not die.’

Phroso sat down; a sudden faintness seemed to follow on the strain, and I saw Kortes support her with his arm. But Constantine was not beaten yet. He sprang up and cried in bitterly scornful tones:

‘Ay, let him go – let him go to Rhodes and tell the Governor that you sought to slay him and his friends, and that you extorted the paper from him by threat of death, and that he gave it in fear, but did not mean it, and that you are turbulent murderous men who deserve great punishment. How guileless you are, O Neopalians! But this man is not guileless. He can delude a girl. He can delude you also, it seems. Ay, let him go with his story to the Governor at Rhodes, and do you hide in the rocks when the Governor comes with his soldiers. Hide yourselves, and hide your women, when the soldiers come to set this man over your island and to punish you! Do you not remember when the Governor came before? Is not the mark of his anger branded on your hearts?’

Hesitation and suspicion were aroused again by this appeal. Phroso seemed bewildered at it and gazed at her cousin with parted lips. Angry glances were again fixed on me. But the old priest rose and stretched out his hand for silence.

‘Let the man speak for himself,’ he said. ‘Let him tell us what he will do if we set him free. It may be that he will give us an oath not to harm us, but to go away peaceably to his own land and leave us our island. Speak, sir. We will listen.’

I was never much of a hand at a speech, and I did not enjoy being faced with the necessity of making one which might have such important results this way or that. But I was quite clear in my own mind what I wanted to say; so I took a step forward and began:

‘I bear you Neopalians no malice,’ said I. ‘You’ve not succeeded in hurting me, and I suppose you’ve not caught my friends, or they would be here, prisoners as I am a prisoner. Now I have killed two good men of yours, Vlacho there, and Spiro. I am content with that. I’ll cry you quits. I have given back the island to the Lady Euphrosyne; and what I give to a woman – ay, or to a man – I do not ask again either of a Governor or of anybody else. Therefore your island is safe, and I will swear to that by what oath you will. And, so far as I have power, no man or woman of all who stand round me shall come to any harm by reason of what has been done; and to that also I will swear.’

They had heard me intently, and they nodded in assent and approbation when the old priest, true to his part of peacemaker, looking round, said:

‘He speaks well. He will not do what my lord feared. He will give us an oath. Why should he not depart in peace?’

Phroso’s eyes sought mine, and she smiled sadly. Constantine was gnawing his finger nails and looking as sour as a man could look. It went to my heart to go on, for I knew that what I had to say next would give him another chance against me; but I preferred that risk to the only alternative.

‘Wait,’ said I. ‘An oath is a sacred thing, and I swore an oath when I was there in the house of the Stefanopouloi. There is a man here who has done murder on an old man his kinsman, who has contrived murder against a woman, who has foully deceived a girl. With that man I’ll not cry quits; for I swore that I would not rest till he paid the penalty of his crimes. By that oath I stand. Therefore, when I go from here, I shall, as Constantine Stefanopoulos has said, go to Rhodes and to the Governor, and I shall pray him to send here to Neopalia, and take that one man and hang him on the highest tree in the island. And I will come with the Governor’s men and see that thing done. Then I will go peaceably to my own land.’

There was a pause of surprise. Constantine lifted his lids and looked at me; I saw his hand move towards a pocket. I suspected what lay in that pocket. I heard low eager whisperings and questions. At last the old priest asked in a timid hesitating voice:

‘Who is this man of whom you speak?’

‘There he is,’ said I. ‘There – Constantine Stefanopoulos.’

The words were hardly out when Demetri clapped a large hairy hand across my mouth, whispering fiercely, ‘Hold your tongue.’ I drew back a step and struck him fairly between the eyes. He went down. A hoarse cry rose from the crowd; but in an instant Kortes had leapt from where he stood behind Phroso and was by my side. I had some adherents also among the bystanders; for I had been bidden to speak freely, and Demetri had no authority to silence me.

‘Yes, Constantine Stefanopoulos,’ I cried. ‘Did he not stab the old man after he had yielded? Did he not – ’

‘The old man sold the island,’ growled a dozen low fierce voices; but the priest’s rose high above them.

‘We are not here to judge my Lord Constantine,’ said he, ‘but this man here.’

‘We all had a hand in the business of the old man,’ said Demetri, who had picked himself up and was looking very vicious.

‘You lie, and you know it,’ said I hotly. ‘He had yielded, and the rest had left off attacking him; but Constantine stabbed him. Why did he stab him?’

There came no answer, and Constantine caught at this advantage.

‘Yes,’ he cried. ‘Why? Why should I stab him? He was stabbed by some one who did not know that he had yielded.’ Then I saw his eye fall suddenly on Vlacho. Dead men tell no tales and deny no accusations.

‘Since Vlacho is dead,’ Constantine went on with wonderful readiness, ‘my tongue is loosed. It was Vlacho who, in his hasty zeal, stabbed the old man.’

He had gained a point by this clever lie, and he made haste to press it to the full against me.

‘This man,’ he exclaimed, ‘will go to Rhodes and denounce me! But did I kill the old man alone? Did I besiege the Englishman alone? Will the Governor be content with one victim? Is it not one head in ten when he comes to punish? Men of the island, it is your lives and my life against this man’s life!’

They were with him again, and many shouted:

‘Let him die! Let him die!’

Then suddenly, before I could speak, Phroso rose, and, stretching out her hands towards me, said:

‘Promise what they ask, my lord. Save your own life, my lord. If my cousin be guilty, heaven will punish him.’

But I did not listen even to her. With a sudden leap I was free from those who held me; for, in the ranks of listening women, I saw that old woman whom we had found watching by the dying lord of the island. I seized her by the wrist and dragged her into the middle, crying to her:

‘As God’s above you, tell the truth. Who stabbed the old lord? Whose name did he utter in reproach when he lay dying?’

She stood shivering and trembling in the centre of the throng. The surprise of my sudden action held them all silent and motionless.

‘Did he not say “Constantine! You, Constantine”?’ I asked, ‘just before he died?’

The old woman’s lips moved, but no sound came; she was half dead with fear and fastened fascinated eyes on Constantine. He surveyed her with a rigid smile on his pale face.