Anthony Hope

“ For Mouraki was by birth an Armenian.
‘You must have much to tell me, Lord Wheatley,’ he said with a smile. ‘But first I must assure you with what pleasure I find you alive and unhurt. Be confident that you shall not want redress for the wrongs which these turbulent rascals have inflicted on you. I know these men of Neopalia: they are hard men; but they also know me, and that I, in my turn, can be a hard man if need be.’ His looks did not belie his words, as his sharp eye travelled with an ominous glance over the little town by the harbour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For a gunboat was steaming slowly into the harbour of Neopalia, and the Turkish flag flew over her.
The sight wrought transformation. In a moment, as it seemed to me, the throng round me melted away. The street grew desolate, the houses on either side swallowed their eager occupants; Kortes alone, with his prisoner, knew nothing of the fresh event, only Phroso and Francesca stood their ground. Demetri was slinking hastily away. The old priest was making for his home. The shutters of dead Vlacho’s inn came down, and girls bustled to and fro, preparing food. ”

“ Mouraki, no doubt, had forced him to it; even a craven will be bold where the penalty of cowardice is death. Yet he had not dared to stand when discovered. He had fled, and must have been flying when Kortes came up and grappled with him. For a snapshot at an unwary man he had found courage, but not for a fair fight. He was an utter coward after all. He was well dead, and his wife well avenged.
But it was fatal to linger here. Mouraki would be expecting the return of his emissary. I saw now clearly that the Pasha had prepared the way for Constantine’s attempt. ”

“ Having escaped from Mouraki’s talk, I had watched him go upstairs, and myself had come out to pace again my useless beat. I strayed a few hundred yards from the house, and turned to look at the light in the Governor’s window. It shone bright and steady, seeming to typify his relentless unvarying purpose. A sudden oath escaped from the weary sickness of my heart; there came an unlooked-for answer at my elbow.
‘He acts, you talk, my lord. He works, you are content to curse him. Which will win?’ said a grave voice; and Kortes’s handsome figure was dimly visible in the darkness. ”

“ Mouraki would not let him go, but followed him in his retreat, step for step. Thus another ten yards were put between them and me. Anger and contempt blazed now on Mouraki’s face. He raised his hand and brought it down clenched on the palm of the other. Demetri held out his hand as though in protest or supplication. The Pasha stamped with his foot. There were no signs of relenting in his manner.
My eyes grew weary with intent watching. I felt like a man who has been staring at a bright white light, too fascinated by its intensity to blink or turn away, even though it pains him to look longer. ”

“ At what I saw, forgetting Kortes’s reproof, I again uttered an oath of surprise and dismay. Smoke poured from the funnel of the yacht. See, she moved! She made for the mouth of the harbour. She set her course for the sea. Where was she going? I did not care to answer that. She must not go. It was vital that she should stay ready for me by the jetty. My scruples about leaving the house vanished before this more pressing necessity. Without an instant’s delay, with hardly an instant’s thought, I put my best foot foremost and ran, as a man runs for his life, along the road towards the town. ”

“ But was not Mouraki’s chagrin just a little too visible? It was such a very obvious, hearty, genuine, honest, uncontrollable chagrin; it demanded belief in itself the least bit too loudly.
The Pasha joined me over my cigarette. If Constantine were in the island, said the Pasha, with a blow of his fist on the table, he would be laid by the heels before evening came; not a mole—let alone a man—could escape the soldiers’ search; not a bird could enter the cottage (he seemed to repeat this very often) unobserved, nor escape from it without a bullet in its plumage. ”

“ It was then, and then only, that a sudden gleam of enlightenment, a sudden chilling suspicion, fell upon me, transforming my hope to fear, my triumph to doubt and misgiving. Was Mouraki Pasha the man to be guilty of an oversight, of so plain an oversight? When an enemy leaves open an obvious retreat, is it always by oversight? When he seems to indicate a way of safety, is the way safe? These disturbing thoughts crowded on me as I sat, and I looked now at the entrance to the secret passage with new eyes. ”

“ Can he deny that the old lord was awaiting the return of the Lady Euphrosyne to tell her of the thing, when his mouth was shut for ever by the stroke?’
This disclosure, showing a new and vile motive for what Constantine had tried to play off as a pardonable excess of patriotism, robbed him of his last defenders. He seemed to recognise his plight; his eyes ceased to canvass possible favour, and dropped to the ground in dull despair. There was not a man now to raise a voice or a hand for him; their anger at having been made his dupes and his tools sharpened the edge of their hatred. ”

“ He acquiesced in Phroso’s seclusion, save when he sent for her; he triumphed in watching me spend weary hours in solitary pacing up and down before the house; he would look at me with a covert exultation and amuse himself by a renewal of sympathetic congratulations on my engagement. I do not think that he wished me away. I was the sauce to his dish, the garlic in the salad, the spice in the sweetmeat over which he licked appreciative lips. Thus passed eight or ten days, and I grew more out of temper, more sour, and more determined with every setting sun. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Phroso turned to the woman who had comforted her before, and hid her face. Constantine, seeing the last hope gone, swayed and fell into the arms of the man who, with Kortes, held him, uttering a long low moan of fear and despair, terrible to listen to, even from lips guilty as his. Thus was Constantine Stefanopoulos tried for his life in the yard of Vlacho’s inn in Neopalia. ”

“ Now, straining my eyes to the uttermost, and having grown a little more accustomed to the darkness, I discerned, beyond the centre of the bridge, a coiling writhing mass that seemed some one many-limbed animal, but was, in truth, two men, twisted and turned round about one another in an embrace which could have no end save death. Which was Kortes, which Constantine, I could not tell. How they came there I could not tell. I dared not fire. Phroso hung about me in a paroxysm of fear, her hands holding me motionless ”

“ And she’s so fond of me—oh, I couldn’t resist it!’ I was simpering like any affected young lady-killer.
Mouraki was a clever fellow, but the blow had been a sudden one. It strains the control even of clever fellows when a formidable obstacle springs up, at a moment’s notice, on a path that they have carefully prepared and levelled for their steps. The Pasha’s rage mastered him.
‘You’ve changed your mind rapidly, Lord Wheatley,’ said he.
‘I know nothing,’ I rejoined, ‘that does change a man’s mind so quickly as a pretty girl.’
‘Yet some men hold to their promises,’ said he with a savage sneer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Straining my eyes on the blurred characters I read; and I read aloud, according to my promise, hearing Mouraki’s breathing which accompanied my words.
‘My lord, take care. He is free. Mouraki has set—’
That was all: a blot followed the last word. At that word the pen must have fallen from her fingers as her husband’s dagger stole her life. We had read her last words. The writing of that line saw the moment of her death. Did it also supply the cause? If so, not the old grudge, but rage at a fresh betrayal of a fresh villainy had impelled Constantine’s arm to his foul stroke. ”

“ The wheel goes round, my dear Pasha. Every dog has his day. Forgive me, I am naturally elated. I meant to tell you at breakfast to-morrow, but since you surprised our tender meeting, why, I’ll tell you now. Congratulate me. That charming girl has owned that her avowal of love for me was nothing but bare truth, and has consented to make me happy.’
‘To marry you?’
‘My dear Pasha! What else could I mean?’ I took my hands out of my pockets, lit a cigarette and puffed the smoke luxuriously. Mouraki sat motionless in his chair, his eyes cold and sharp on me, his brow puckered. ”

“ It was now the middle of the afternoon, and, having accomplished my useless inspection of the cottage, I sat down and wrote a note to Denny, bidding him be on the alert day and night. He or Hogvardt must always be on watch, the yacht ready to start at a moment’s notice. I begged him to ask no questions, only to be ready; for life or death might hang on a moment. Thus I paved the way for carrying out my resolution; and my resolution was no other than to make a bold dash for the yacht with Phroso and Kortes, under cover of night. ”

“ I had certainly succeeded in astonishing Mouraki this time. Kortes added to his wonder by springing nimbly up the ladder, and pulling it up after him.
‘I thought you were in bed,’ said I. ‘And when the cat’s away the mice will play, you know. Well, we’re caught!’
‘We?’ asked the Pasha.
‘Well, do you suppose I was alone? Is it the sort of night a man chooses to spend alone on a roof?’
‘Who was with you then?’ he asked, suspicion alive in his crafty eyes.
I took him by the arm and led him into the house, through the kitchen, till we reached the hall, when I said:
‘Am I not a man of taste? ”

“ And then to our amazement we heard, from somewhere in the dark recesses of the hall where the faint light of Hogvardt’s lantern did not reach, a low but distinct groan, as of someone in pain. Watkins shuddered, Hogvardt looked rather uncomfortable; Denny and I listened eagerly. Again the groan came. I seized the lantern from Hogvardt’s hand, and rushed in the direction of the sound. There, in the corner of the hall, on a couch covered with a rug, lay an old man in an uneasy attitude, groaning now and then and turning restlessly. By his side sat an old serving-woman in weary heavy slumber. ”

“ 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.
[Pg 169]
‘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. ”

“ Phroso’s eyes met mine in an appeal. I could give her no hope of escape. There was nothing for it: we must go on, we and Mouraki together. But my heart was buoyant within me and I exulted in the favours of fortune as a lover in his mistress’s smiles. Was not Mouraki lying dead in the stern of the boat and was not I alive?
We drew near to the gunboat. Now I perceived that her steam launch lay by her side and smoke poured from its funnel. Evidently the launch was ready for a voyage. Whither? Could it be to Rhodes? ”

“ PHROSO
CHAPTER I
A LONG THING ENDING IN POULOS ‘Quot homines tot sententiæ;’ so many men, so many fancies. My fancy was for an island. Perhaps boyhood’s glamour hung yet round sea-girt rocks, and ‘faery lands forlorn,’ still beckoned me; perhaps I felt that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buy company, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom’s death had endowed me. ”

“ For the sight of Francesca in Panayiota’s arms came pat in confirmation of the story wrung from Demetri by the power of his oath, and his ‘Behold!’ was not needed to ensure acceptance for his testimony. From women rose compassionate murmurs, from men angry growlings which expressed, while they strove to hide, the shamefaced emotions that the helpless woman’s narrow escape created. Her salvation must bring mine with it; for it was the ruin of her husband and my enemy.
Kortes and another dragged Constantine Stefanopoulos forward till he stood within two or three yards of his wife. ”