Phroso: A Romance

For a moment her voice broke, and sobs supplanted words. But she drew herself up, and after a glance at the old man whom her vehement speech had not availed to waken, she went on.

‘And then those behind cried out that there was enough talk. Would he yield or would he die? And they rushed forward, pressing the nearest against him. And he, an old man, frail and feeble (yet once he was as brave a man as any), cried in his weak tones, “Enough, friends, I yield, I – ” and they fell back. But my lord stood for an instant, then he set his hand to his side, and swayed and tottered and fell; the blood was running from his side. The Lord Constantine fell on his knees beside him, crying, “Who stabbed him?” Vlacho smiled grimly, and the others looked at one another. But I, who had run out from the doorway whence I had seen it all, knelt by my lord and staunched the blood. Then Vlacho said, fixing his eyes straight and keen on the Lord Constantine, “It was not I, my lord.” “Nor I by heaven,” cried the Lord Constantine, and he rose to his feet, demanding, “Who struck the blow?” But none answered; and he went on, “Nay, if it were in error, if it were because he would not yield, speak. There shall be pardon.” But Vlacho, hearing this, turned himself round and faced them all, saying, “Did he not sell us like oxen and like pigs?” and he broke into the death chant, and they all raised the chant, none caring any more who had struck the blow. And the Lord Constantine – ’ The impetuous flow of the old woman’s story was frozen to sudden silence.

‘Well, and the Lord Constantine?’ said I, in low stern tones that quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny’s hand, which was on my arm, jump up and down. ‘And Constantine, woman?’

‘Nay, he did nothing,’ said she. ‘He talked with Vlacho awhile, and then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself to seek the Lady Euphrosyne. Presently he came back with her; her eyes were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord; for she loved him. She sat by him till Constantine came and told her that you would not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if you did not go. Then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying heaven she might find him alive when she returned. “I must go,” she said to me, “for though it is a shameful thing that the island should have been sold, yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not meet death. Kiss him for me if he awakes.” Thus she went and left me with my lord, and I fear he will die.’ She ended in a burst of sobbing.

For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:

‘Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?’

She shrank from me as though I had struck her.

‘I do not know; I do not know,’ she moaned.

But the question she dared not answer was to find an answer.

The stricken man opened his eyes, his lips moved, and he groaned, ‘Constantine! You, Constantine!’ The old woman’s eyes met mine for a moment and fell to the ground again.

‘Why, why, Constantine?’ moaned the wounded man. ‘I had yielded, I had yielded, Constantine. I would have sent them – ’

His words ceased, his eyes closed, his lips met again, but met only to part. A moment later his jaw dropped. The old lord of Neopalia was dead.

Then I, carried away by anger and by hatred of the man who, for a reason I did not yet understand, had struck so foul a blow against his kinsman and an old man, did a thing so rash that it seems to me now, when I consider it in the cold light of memory, a mad deed. Yet then I could do nothing else; and Denny’s face, ay, and the eyes of the others too told me that they were with me.

‘Compose this old man’s body,’ I said, ‘and we will watch it. But do you go and tell this Constantine Stefanopoulos that I know his crime, that I know who struck that blow, that what I know all men shall know, and that I will not rest day or night until he has paid the penalty of this murder. Tell him I swore this on the honour of an English gentleman.’

‘And say I swore it too!’ cried Denny; and Hogvardt and Watkins, not making bold to speak, ranged up close to me; I knew that they also meant what I meant.

The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.

‘You are a bold man, my lord,’ said she.

‘I see nothing to be afraid of up to now,’ said I. ‘Such courage as is needed to tell a scoundrel what I think of him I believe I can claim.’

‘But he will never let you go now. You would go to Rhodes, and tell his – tell what you say of him.’

‘Yes, and further than Rhodes, if need be. He shall die for it as sure as I live.’

A thousand men might have tried in vain to persuade me; the treachery of Constantine had fired my heart and driven out all opposing motives.

‘Do as I bid you,’ said I sternly, ‘and waste no time on it. We will watch here by the old man till you return.’

‘My lord,’ she replied, ‘you run on your own death. And you are young; and the youth by you is yet younger.’

‘We are not dead yet,’ said Denny; I had never seen him look as he did then; for the gaiety was out of his face, and his lips had grown set and hard.

She raised her hands towards heaven, whether in prayer or in lamentation I do not know. We turned away and left her to her sad work; going back to our places, we waited there till dawn began to break and from the narrow windows we saw the grey crests of the waves dancing and frolicking in the early dawn. As I watched them, the old woman was by my elbow.

‘It is done, my lord,’ said she. ‘Are you still of the same mind?’

‘Still of the same,’ said I.

‘It is death, death for you all,’ she said, and without more she went to the great door. Hogvardt opened it for her, and she walked away down the road, between the high rocks that bounded the path on either side. Then we went and carried the old man to a room that opened off the hall, and, returning, stood in the doorway, cooling our brows in the fresh early air. While we stood there, Hogvardt said suddenly,

‘It is five o’clock.’

‘Then we have only an hour to live,’ said I, smiling, ‘if we don’t make for the yacht.’

‘You’re not going back to the yacht, my lord?’

‘I’m puzzled,’ I admitted. ‘If we go this ruffian will escape. And if we don’t go – ’

‘Why, we,’ Hogvardt ended for me, ‘may not escape.’

I saw that Hogvardt’s sense of responsibility was heavy; he always regarded himself as the shepherd, his employers as the sheep. I believe this attitude of his confirmed my obstinacy, for I said, without further hesitation:

‘Oh, we’ll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is, they’ll turn against him. Besides, we said we’d wait here.’

Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined to do a rash thing, there is a great comfort in feeling that you are already committed to it by some previous act or promise.

‘So we did,’ he cried. ‘Then that settles it, Hogvardt’

‘His lordship certainly expressed that intention,’ observed Watkins, appearing at this moment with a big loaf of bread and a great pitcher of milk. I eyed these viands.

‘I bought the house and its contents,’ said I; ‘come along.’

Watkins’ further researches produced a large lump of native cheese; when he had set this down he remarked:

‘In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front door, two cows tethered.’

I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.

‘We can stand a siege, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Well, I hope it won’t come to that.’

Hogvardt rose and began to move round the hall, examining the weapons that decorated the walls. From time to time he grunted disapprovingly; the guns were useless, rusted, out of date; and there was no ammunition for them. But when he had almost completed his circuit, he gave an exclamation of satisfaction and came to me holding an excellent modern rifle and a large cartridge-case.

‘See!’ he grunted in huge delight. ‘“C. S.” on the stock. I expect you can guess whose it is, my lord.’

‘This is very thoughtful of Constantine,’ observed Denny, who was employing himself in cutting imaginary lemons in two with a fine damascened scimitar that he had taken from the wall.

‘As for the cows,’ said I, ‘perhaps they will carry them off.’

‘I think not,’ said Hogvardt, taking an aim with the rifle through the window.

I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.

‘Well, we can’t go now,’ said I. ‘It’s settled. What a comfort!’ I wonder whether I had ever in my heart meant to go!

The next hour passed very quietly. We sat smoking pipes or cigars and talking in subdued tones. The recollection of the dead man in the adjoining room sobered the excitement to which our position might otherwise have given occasion. Indeed I suppose that I at least, who through my whim had led the rest into this quandary, should have been utterly overwhelmed by the burden on me. But I was not. Perhaps Hogvardt’s assumption of responsibility relieved me; perhaps I was too full of anger against Constantine to think of the risks we ourselves ran; and I was more than half-persuaded that the revelation of what he had done would rob him of his power to hurt us. Moreover, if I might judge from the words I heard on the road, we had on our side an ally of uncertain, but probably considerable, power in the sweet-voiced girl whom the old woman called the Lady Euphrosyne; she would not support her uncle’s murderer, even though he were her cousin.

Presently Watkins carried me off to view his pen of goats, and having passed through the lofty flagged kitchen, I found myself in a sort of compound formed by the rocks. The ground had been levelled for a few yards, and the rocks rose straight to the height of ten or twelve feet; from the top of this artificial bank they ran again in wooded slopes towards the peak of the mountain. I followed their course with my eye, and three hundred or more feet above us, just beneath the summit, I perceived a little wooden châlet or bungalow. Blue smoke issued from the chimneys; and, even while we looked, a figure came out of the door and stood still in front of it, apparently gazing down towards the house.

‘It’s a woman,’ I pronounced.

‘Yes, my lord. A peasant’s wife, I suppose.’

‘I daresay,’ said I. But I soon doubted Watkins’ opinion; in the first place, because the woman’s dress did not look like that of a peasant woman; and secondly, because she went into the house, appeared again, and levelled at us what was, if I mistook not, a large pair of binocular glasses. Now such things were not likely to be in the possession of the peasants of Neopalia. Then she suddenly retreated, and through the silence of those still slopes we heard the door of the cottage closed with violence.

‘She doesn’t seem to like the looks of us,’ said I.

‘Possibly,’ suggested Watkins with deference, ‘she did not expect to see your lordship here.’

‘I should think that’s very likely, Watkins,’ said I.

I was recalled from the survey of my new domains – my satisfaction in the thought that they were mine survived all the disturbing features of the situation – by a call from Denny. In response to it I hurried back to the hall and found him at the window, with Constantine’s rifle rested on the sill.

‘I could pick him off pat,’ said Denny laughingly, and he pointed to a figure which was approaching the house. It was a man riding a stout pony; when he came within about two hundred yards of the house, he stopped, took a leisurely look, and then waved a white handkerchief.

‘The laws of war must be observed,’ said I, smiling. ‘This is a flag of truce.’ I opened the door, stepped out, and waved my handkerchief in return. The man, reassured, began to mop his brow with the flag of truce, and put his pony to a trot. I now perceived him to be the innkeeper Vlacho, and a moment later he reined up beside me, giving an angry jerk at his pony’s bridle.

‘I have searched the island for you,’ he cried. ‘I am weary and hot! How came you here?’

I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my house, and added significantly:

‘But has no message come to you from me?’

He smiled with equal meaning, as he answered:

‘No; an old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the village – ’

‘Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos,’ said I with a nod.

‘Well then, if you will, to the Lord Constantine,’ he admitted with a careless shrug, ‘but her message was for his ear only; he took her aside and they talked alone.’

‘You know what she said, though?’

‘That is between my Lord Constantine and me.’

‘And the young lady knows it, I hope – the Lady Euphrosyne?’

Vlacho smiled broadly.

‘We could not distress her with such a silly tale,’ he answered; and he leant down towards me. ‘Nobody has heard the message but the Lord Constantine and one man he told it to. And nobody will. If that old woman spoke, she – well, she knows and will not speak.’

‘And you back up this murderer?’ I cried.

‘Murderer?’ he repeated questioningly. ‘Indeed, sir, it was an accident done in hot blood. It was the old man’s fault, because he tried to sell the island.’

‘He did sell the island,’ I corrected; ‘and a good many other people will hear of what happened to him.’

He looked at me again, smiling.

‘If you shouted it in the hearing of every man in Neopalia, what would they do?’ he asked scornfully.

‘Well, I should hope,’ I returned, ‘that they’d hang Constantine to the tallest tree you’ve got here.’

‘They would do this,’ he said with a nod; and he began to sing softly the chant I had heard the night before.

I was disgusted at his savagery, but I said coolly:

‘And the Lady?’

‘The Lady believes what she is told, and will do as her cousin bids her. Is she not his affianced wife?’

‘The deuce she is!’ I cried in amazement, fixing a keen scrutiny on Vlacho’s face. The face told me nothing.

‘Certainly,’ he said gently. ‘And they will rule the island together.’

‘Will they, though?’ said I. I was becoming rather annoyed. ‘There are one or two obstacles in the way of that. First, it’s my island.’

He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘That,’ he seemed to say, ‘is not worth answering.’ But I had a second shot in the locker for him, and I let him have it for what it was worth. I knew it might be worth nothing, but I tried it.

‘And secondly,’ I went on, ‘how many wives does Constantine propose to have?’

A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! I could have sung in glee. The fellow was dumbfoundered. He turned red, bit his lip, scowled fiercely.

‘What do you mean?’ he blurted out, with an attempt at blustering defiance.

‘Never mind what I mean. Something, perhaps, that the Lady Euphrosyne might care to know. And now, my man, what do you want of me?’

He recovered his composure, and stated his errand with his old cool assurance; but the cloud of vexation still hung heavy on his brow.

‘On behalf of the Lady of the island – ’ he began.

‘Or shall we say her cousin?’ I interrupted.

‘Which you will,’ he answered, as though it were not worth while to wear the mask any longer. ‘On behalf, then, of my Lord Constantine, I am to offer you safe passage to your boat, and a return of the money you have paid – ’

‘How’s he going to pay that?’

‘He will pay it in a year, and give you security meanwhile.’

‘And the condition is that I give up the island?’ I asked; I began to think that perhaps I owed it to my companions to acquiesce in this proposal however distasteful it might be to me.

‘Yes,’ said Vlacho, ‘and there is one other small condition, which will not trouble you.’

‘What’s that? You’re rich in conditions.’

‘You’re lucky to be offered any. It is that you mind your own business.’

‘I came here for the purpose,’ I observed.

‘And that you undertake, for yourself and your companions, on your word of honour, to speak to nobody of what has passed on the island or of the affairs of the Lord Constantine.’

‘And if I won’t give this promise?’

‘The yacht is in our hands; Demetri and Spiro are our men; there will be no ship here for two months.’ The fellow paused, smiling at me. I took the liberty of ending his period for him.

‘And there is,’ I said, returning his smile, ‘as we know by now, a particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island.’

‘Certainly you may chance to find that out,’ said he.

‘But is there no antidote?’ I asked, and I showed him the butt of my revolver in the pocket of my coat.

‘It may keep it off for a day or two – not longer. You have the bottle there, but most of the drug is with your luggage at the inn.’

His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges apiece.

‘But there’s plenty of food for Constantine’s rifle,’ said I, pointing to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.

He suddenly became impatient.

‘Your answer, sir?’ he demanded peremptorily.

‘Here it is,’ said I. ‘I’ll keep the island and I’ll see Constantine hanged.’

‘So be it, so be it,’ he cried. ‘You are warned; so be it!’ Without another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down the road. And I went back to the house feeling, I must confess, not in the best of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed, they applauded me, and we made up our minds to ‘see it through,’ as Denny said.

The day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his house, having wrapped him in a sheet; we dug for him as good a grave as we could in a little patch of ground that lay outside the windows of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the house. There he must lie for the present. This sad work done, we came back and – so swift are life’s changes – killed a goat for dinner, and watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when evening came we ate our goat-flesh and Hogvardt milked our cows; then we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.

But the evening was hot and we adjourned out of doors, grouping ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door. Hogvardt had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape, depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side of the island and finding there a boat which we had no reason to suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying ‘Hark!’

From the direction of the village and the harbour came the sound of a horn, blowing long and shrill and echoed back in strange protracted shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us. And following on the blast we heard, low in the distance and indistinct, yet rising and falling and rising again in savage defiance and exultation, the death-chant that One-Eyed Alexander the Bard had made on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. For a few minutes we sat listening; I do not think that any of us felt very comfortable. Then I rose to my feet, saying:

‘Hogvardt, old fellow, I fancy that scheme of yours must wait a little. Unless I’m very much mistaken, we’re going to have a lively evening.’

Well, then we shook hands all round, and went in and bolted the door, and sat down to wait. We heard the death-chant through the walls now; it was coming nearer.