The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan (2024)



The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan

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Title: The Dancing Floor
Author: Buchan, John (1875-1940)
Cartographer: Anonymous
Date of first publication: July 1926
Edition used as base for this ebook:London, Edinburgh, Paris, Melbourne, Toronto,and New York: Thomas Nelson, 1945
Date first posted: 18 November 2012
Date last updated: 18 November 2012
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1012

This ebook was produced by:David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Al Haines& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Teamat http://www.pgdpcanada.net

JOHN BUCHAN

"Quisque suos patimur Manes"
Virgil, Æneid, vi. 743

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LTD

LONDON EDINBURGH PARIS MELBOURNE
TORONTO AND NEW YORK

First printed July 1926
Reprinted 1926 (eleven times), 1927 (twice)
Cheap edition September 1928
First printed in this edition September 1928
Reprinted 1935, 1938, 1945

TO
HENRY NEWBOLT

An episode in this tale is taken from a short story of mine entitled"Basilissa," published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1914.

J. B.

The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan (1)

THE ISLAND OF PLAKOS AS SEEN FROM THE NORTH

THE DANCING FLOOR

PART I

CHAPTER I

This story was told me by Leithen, as we were returning rather late inthe season from a shooting holiday in North Ontario. There were fewpassengers, the weather was a succession of snow blizzards and gales,and as we had the smoking-room for the most part to ourselves, we stokedup the fire and fell into a mood of yarns and reminiscences. Leithen,being a lawyer, has a liking for careful detail, and his tale took longin the telling; indeed, snatches of it filled the whole of that roughOctober passage. The version I have written out is amplified from hisnarrative, but I think it is accurate, for he took the trouble to reviseit.

Romance (he said) is a word I am shy of using. It has been so staled andpawed by fools that the bloom is gone from it, and to most people itstands for a sugary world as flat as an eighteenth-century Arcadia. But,dry stick as I am, I hanker after my own notion of romance. I suppose itis the lawyer in me, but I define it as something in life which happenswith an exquisite aptness and a splendid finality, as if Fate hadsuddenly turned artist—something which catches the breath because it isso wholly right. Also for me it must happen to youth. I do not complainof growing old, but I like to keep my faith that at one stage in ourmortal existence nothing is impossible. It is part of my belief that theuniverse is on the whole friendly to man, and that the ordering of theworld is in the main benevolent.... So I go about expecting things,waiting like an old pagan for the descent of the goddess. And once—onlyonce—I caught the authentic shimmer of her wings.

I

My story begins in January 1913, when I took my nephew Charles to dinewith the Amysforts for a ball they were giving. Balls are not much in myline, for when I came first to London it was the foolish fashion ofyoung men not to dance, but to lounge superciliously in doorways, whiletheir elders took the floor. I had a good deal of work on hand, and Imeant to leave immediately after dinner, but the necessity of launchingCharles made me linger through the first few dances. My nephew was acheerful young gentleman in his second year at Oxford, and it presentlyappeared that he did not want for friends of his own age. There was aperpetual bandying of nicknames and occult chaff with otherfresh-coloured boys.

One in particular caught my attention. He was a tall young man of aboutCharles's age, who was not dancing but stood beside one of the windowswith his head silhouetted against a dark curtain. He was uncommonlyhandsome after the ordinary English pattern, but our youth is mostlygood to behold, and that would not have fixed my attention. What struckme was his pose. He was looking at the pretty spectacle with a curiousaloofness—with eyes that received much but gave out nothing. I havenever seen any one so completely detached, so clothed with his ownatmosphere, and since that is rare at the age of twenty, I asked Charlesif he knew him.

"Rather. It's old Milburne. He's up at Magdalen with me. First stringfor the 'Varsity mile. Believed"—his voice became reverential—"to begoing to knock five seconds off his last year's time. Most awful goodchap. Like me to introduce you?"

The young man in response to my nephew's beckoning approached us."Hullo, Vernon, how's life?" said my nephew. "Want to introduce you tomy uncle—Sir Edward Leithen—big legal swell, you know—good fellow tohave behind you if you run up against the laws of England."

Charles left us to claim a partner, and I exchanged a few commonplaceswith his friend, for I too—consule Planco—had run the mile. Ourshort talk was the merest platitudes, but my feeling about his odddistinction was intensified. There was something old-fashioned in hismanner—wholly self-possessed yet with no touch of priggishness—alittle formal, as if he had schooled himself to be urbanely anddelicately on his guard. My guess at the time was that he had foreignblood in him, not from any difference of colouring or feature, but fromhis silken reserve. We of the North are apt to be angular in oursilences; we have not learned the art of gracious reticence.

That boy's face remained clearly fixed in my memory. It is a thing thatoften happens to me, for without any reason on earth I will carry aboutwith me pictures of some casual witnesses or clients whom I am bound torecognize if I ever see them again. It is as freakish a gift as thatwhich makes some men remember scraps of doggerel. I saw the face sovividly in my mind that, if I had been an artist, I could have drawn itaccurately down to the finest lines of the mouth and the wary courtesyof the eyes. I do not suppose I gave the meeting another consciousthought, for I was desperately busy at the time, but I knew that I hadadded another portrait to the lumber-room of my absurd memory.

I had meant to go to Scotland that Easter vacation to fish, but a suddenpressure of Crown cases upset all my plans, and I had to limit myholiday to four days. I wanted exercise, so I took it in the mostviolent form, and went for a walk in the Westmorland hills. The snow laylate that year, and I got the exercise I sought scrambling up icygullies and breasting north-easters on the long bleak ridges. All wentwell till the last day, which I spent among the Cartmel fells intendingto catch a train at an obscure station which would enable me to join thenight mail for London at Lancaster. You know how those little hillsbreak down in stony shelves to the sea. Well, as luck would have it, Istepped into a hole between two boulders masked with snow, and crawledout with the unpleasing certainty that I had either broken or badlywrenched my ankle. By the time I had hobbled down to the beginning ofthe stone-walled pastures I knew that it was a twist and not a break,but before I reached a road I knew also that I would never reach thestation in time for my train.

It had begun to snow again, the spring dusk was falling, and the placewas very lonely. My watch told me that even if I found a farm or inn andhired a trap I should miss my train. The only chance was to get amotor-car to take me to Lancaster. But there was no sign of farm orinn—only interminable dusky snowy fields, and the road was too smalland obscure to make a friendly motor-car probable. I limped along in avery bad temper. It was not a matter of desperate urgency that I shouldbe in London next morning, though delay would mean the postponement of apiece of business I wanted to get finished. But the prospect was blackfor my immediate comfort. The best I could look forward to was a bed ina farm- or a wayside public-house, and a slow and painful journey nextday. I was angry with myself for my clumsiness. I had thought my anklesbeyond reproach, and it was ridiculous that after three days on roughand dangerous mountains I should come to grief on a paltry hillock.

The dusk thickened, and not a soul did I meet. Presently woods began tocreep around the road, and I walked between two patches of blackness ina thin glimmer of twilight which would soon be gone. I was cold andhungry and rather tired, and my ankle gave me a good deal of pain. Itried to think where I was, and could only remember that the station,which had been my immediate objective, was still at least six milesdistant. I had out my map and wasted half a dozen matches on it, but itwas a map of the hill country and stopped short of my presentwhereabouts. Very soon I had come to a determination to stop at thefirst human habitation, were it a labourer's cottage, and throw myselfupon the compassion of its inmates. But not a flicker of light could Isee to mark the presence of man.

Then something white glimmered faintly on my left, and I saw that it wasa wicket gate. This must mean a house near at hand, so I hopefullypushed it open and entered. I found myself in a narrow path runningamong fir trees. It was nearly pitch-dark in that place, and I was infear of losing the road, which was obscured by the fallen snow, andgetting lost in a wood. Soon, however, I was clear of the firs and inmore open country among what looked like beeches. The wind, too, hadswept the path bare, and there was just enough light to make it out asit twined up and down a little glade. I suspected that I was in ademesne of some considerable house, and the suspicion became a certaintywhen my track emerged on a broad gravel drive. After that my way wasclear. The drive took me into a park—I knew it was a park because ofthe frequent swing-gates for cattle—and suddenly it bore to the rightand I saw half a dozen irregularly placed lights high up in the airbefore me. This was the house, and it must be a large one, for some ofthe lights were far apart.

Five minutes later I found myself ringing the bell in a massive pillaredporch, and explaining my case to a very old butler, to whom I gave mycard.

"I've had an accident on the hills," I said, "and twisted my anklerather badly. I wonder if I might ask for some assistance—to get to aninn or a station. I'm afraid I don't in the least know where I am."

"This is Severns Hall, sir," said the man. "My master is Mr. VernonMilburne. If you will come in, sir, I will acquaint him with theposition."

"Mr. Vernon Milburne?" I cried. "I believe I have met him. I think he isat Oxford with my nephew."

"Mr. Milburne is a member of the University of Oxford," said the ancientman. He led me into a vast hall of the worst kind of Victorian Gothic,in which a big bright wood fire crackled. When he saw me clearly thebutler proved a very angel of mercy. "I think, sir, you should firsthave a little refreshment," he said, and brought me a whisky-and-soda.Then, while I thawed my frozen bones before the logs, he departed toseek his master.

I was too preoccupied with my own grievances to feel much interest inthe fact that I had stumbled upon the dwelling of the boy who had sointrigued me at Lady Amysfort's ball. But as I warmed my hands at theblaze it did occur to me that this was the last kind of house I wouldhave linked him with—this sham-mediæval upholstered magnificence. Itwas Gothic with every merit of Gothic left out, and an air of dullecclesiasticism hung about it. There was even an organ at one end, uglyand staring, as if it had come out of some nouveau riche provincialchurch. Every bit of woodwork was fretted and tortured into fancyshapes.

I heard a voice at my elbow.

"I think we have met before, Sir Edward," it said. "I am so sorry foryour misfortune. Let's get the boot off and look at the ankle."

"It's only a sprain," I said. "I really don't want to bother you. If youwould be so very kind as to lend me a car to take me to Lancaster, I canmanage to travel all right. I ought to be in London to-morrow morning."

"Nonsense!" He smiled in a pleasant boyish way. "You are going to stayhere to-night, and if you're well enough I'll send you into Lancasterto-morrow. You look simply fagged out. Let's get the boot off and see ifwe need a doctor."

He summoned the butler, and the two of them soon had my foot bare, whilethe boy, who seemed to know something about sprains, ran a light handover the ankle bone.

"Nothing very bad here," he said; "but it must have been jolly painfulto walk with. We'll bandage it and you need only limp for a day or two.Beaton, find out if Sir Edward's room is ready. You'd better have a hotbath and then we'll do the bandaging. After that you'll want some food.I'll lend you a dressing-gown and dry clothes."

The next hour was spent in restoring me to some ease of body. Severnsmight be an ugly house, but whoever built it had a pretty notion ofcomfort in bedrooms. I had two rooms, each with a cheerful fire, andwhen I had had my bath the two Samaritans bandaged my ankle as neatly asa hospital nurse, and helped me into a suit of flannels. Then Vernondisappeared, and when he returned he was dressed for dinner. A table hadbeen laid for me in the sitting-room, and Beaton was waiting to ask mewhat I would drink.

"Champagne," said Vernon. "I prescribe it."

"But you're making far too much fuss about me," I protested. "I caneasily dine downstairs with you."

"I think you ought to dine here. You've put yourself in my hands and I'myour medical adviser."

He saw me start my meal before he left me.

"Do you mind if I say good-night now?" he said. "You ought to get to bedpretty soon, and I have some work I want to do after dinner. Sound sleepand pleasant dreams."

I dined excellently, and after a single pipe was resolutely put to bedby Beaton the butler. They were benevolent despots in this house whowere not to be gainsaid. I was sufficiently weary to be glad to go tosleep, but before I dropped off I wondered just a little at the natureof my reception. There were no other guests, Beaton had told me, and itseemed odd that a boy of nineteen alone in this Gothic mausoleum shouldshow so little desire for human companionship. I should have expected,even if I were not allowed downstairs, to have had him come and talk tome for an hour or so before turning in. What work had he to which he wasso faithful? I remembered that Charles had mentioned that he was a bitof a swell at his books, but, as Charles himself had been ploughed forPass Mods, that might mean very little. Anyhow, there was somethingmorbid about a conscience which at nineteen forced its possessor to workin vacation time after dinner. He had been immensely hospitable, butobviously he had not wanted my company. That aloofness which I hadremarked at Lady Amysfort's ball had become a heavy preoccupation. Hisattitude had been courteously defensive; there had been a screen whichrobbed his kindness of all geniality. I felt quite distinctly that therewas something in or about the house, something connected with himself,from which I was being resolutely excluded.

I slept well, and was awakened by Beaton bringing my early tea. He hadundrawn the curtains and opened one of the windows, and a great flood ofsunlight and spring airs was pouring through. The storm had passed, andApril was in her most generous mood. My ankle felt lumpish and stiff,but when Beaton examined it he pronounced that it was mending nicely."But you can't press on it to-day, sir," he added. "Mr. Vernon won't letyou move to-day.... Breakfast will be laid in the sitting-room, and Mr.Vernon's compliments and he proposes to join you at nine o'clock. I willreturn and bandage the ankle and assist you to rise as soon as Prayersare over."

Presently, as I lay watching a ridge of distant hill seen through thewindow and trying to decide what it could be, the sound of singing rosefrom some room below me. It must be Prayers. The old-fashioned hymn tunereminded me of my childhood, and I wondered how many young men of to-daykept up the fashion of family worship when alone in a country house. Andthen I suddenly remembered all about the Milburnes, for they had been mymother's friends.

Humphrey Milburne had been a rich Lancashire cotton-spinner, whosefather or grandfather—I forget which—had been one of the pioneers ofthe industry. I don't think he had ever concerned himself greatly withbusiness, for his métier had always been that of the devout laymanwho is more occupied with church affairs than any bishop. He had been aleader of the Evangelical party, a vigorous opponent of ritualistpractices, and a noted organizer of religious revivals. Vague memoriesof him came back to me from my childhood, for my own family had been ofthe same persuasion. I had a recollection of a tall, bearded man who, ona visit to us, had insisted on seeing the children, and had set me onhis knee, and had asked me, a shivering, self-conscious mite,embarrassing questions about my soul. I remembered his wife, LadyAugusta, more clearly. She was a thin little woman who never seemed tobe separated from a large squashy Bible stuffed with leaflets andsecured by many elastic bands. She had had a knack of droppingeverything as she moved, and I had acted as page to retrieve herbelongings. She had been very kind to me, for to her grief she had thenno children.... I remembered that a son had at last been born—"a childof many prayers," my mother had called him. And then came a vaguerecollection of a tragedy. Lady Augusta had died when the boy was aninfant, and her husband had followed within the year. After that theMilburnes passed out of my life, except that their nurse had come to uswhen I was at Oxford, and had had much to say of young Master Vernon.

My vague remembrance seemed to explain my host. The child of ageingparents and an orphan from his early years—that would account for hislack of youthful spontaneity. I liked the notion of him I was acquiring;there was something quaint and loyal in his keeping up the familyritual—an evangelical athlete with the looks of Apollo. I had fanciedsomething foreign in his air, but that of course was nonsense. He cameof the most prosaic British stock, cotton-spinning Milburnes, and forhis mother a Douglas-Ernott, whose family was the quintessence of Whigsolidity.

I found Vernon waiting for me in the sunny sitting-room, dressed inrough grey homespun, and with an air of being ready for a long day inthe open. There was a change in him since the night before. His eyeswere a little heavy, as if he had slept badly, but the shutters werelifted from them. His manner was no longer constrained, and the slightawkwardness I had felt in his presence was gone. He was now a cheerfulcommunicative undergraduate.

"Beaton says you had a good night, sir, but you mustn't use that foot ofyours. You can't think of London to-day, you know. I've nothing to doexcept look after you, so you'd better think of me as Charles with anephew's privileges. It's going to be a clinking fine day, so what doyou say to running up in the car to the moors above Shap and listeningto the curlews? In the spring they're the jolliest things alive."

He was a schoolboy now, looking forward to an outing, and we might havebeen breakfasting in Oxford rooms before going out with the Bicester. Ifell into his holiday mood, and forgot to tell him that I had long agomet his parents. He lent me an ulster and helped me downstairs, where hepacked me into the front of a big Daimler and got in beside me. In theclear spring sunshine, with the park a chessboard of green grass andmelting snow, and the rooks cawing in the beech tops, Severns lookedalmost venerable, for its lines were good and the stone was weatheringwell. He nodded towards the long façades. "Ugly old thing, when youthink of Levens or Sizergh, but it was my grandfather's taste, and Imean to respect it. If we get a fine sunset you'll see it light up likean enchanted castle. It's something to be able to see the hills fromevery window, and to get a glimpse of the sea from the top floor.Goodish sport, too, for we've several miles of salmon and sea trout, andwe get uncommon high birds in the upper coverts."

We sped up by winding hill-roads to the moors, and there were thecurlews crying over the snow-patched bent with that note which is atonce eerie, and wistful, and joyful. There were grouse, too, busy abouttheir nesting, and an occasional stone-chat, and dippers flashing theirwhite waistcoats in every beck. It was like being on the roof of theworld, with the high Lake hills a little foreshortened, like shipscoming over the horizon at sea. Lunch we had with us, and ate on a drybank of heather, and we had tea in a whitewashed moorland farm. I havenever taken to any one so fast as I took to that boy. He was in thehighest spirits, as if he had finished some difficult task, and in therebound he became extraordinarily companionable. I think he took to mealso, for he showed a shy but intense interest in my doings, theeagerness with which an undergraduate prospects the channels of theworld's life which he is soon to navigate. I had been prepared to find atouch of innocent priggishness, but there was nothing of the kind. Heseemed to have no dogmas of his own, only inquiries.

"I suppose a lawyer's training fits a man to examine all kinds ofproblems—not only legal ones," he asked casually at luncheon. "I meanhe understands the value of any sort of evidence, for the principles oflogical truth are always the same?"

"I suppose so," I replied, "though it's only legal conundrums that comemy way. I was once asked my opinion on a scientific proof—in the highermathematics—but I didn't make much of it—couldn't quite catch on tothe data or understand the language."

"Yes, that might be a difficulty," he admitted. "But a thing like aghost story, for instance—you'd be all right at that, I suppose?"

The boy had clearly something in his head, and I wondered if the rawmagnificence of Severns harboured any spooks. Could that be the reasonof his diffidence on the previous evening?

When we got home we sat smoking by the library fire, and while I skimmedthe Times Vernon dozed. He must have been short of his sleep and wasnow making up for it in the way of a healthy young man. As I watchedhis even breathing I decided that here there could be no abnormality ofbody or mind. It was like watching a tired spaniel on the rug, too tiredeven to hunt in his dreams.

As I lifted my eyes from the paper I saw that he was awake and waslooking at me intently, as if he were hesitating about asking me somequestion.

"I've been asleep," he apologized. "I can drop off anywhere after a dayon the hills."

"You were rather sleepless as a child, weren't you?" I asked.

His eyes opened. "I wonder how you know that?"

"From your old nurse. I ought to have told you that in my boyhood I knewyour parents a little. They stayed with us more than once. And Mrs.Ganthony came to my mother from you. I was at Oxford at the time, and Iremember how she used to entertain us with stories about Severns. Youmust have been an infant when she left."

"I was four. What sort of things did she tell you?"

"About your bad nights, and your pluck. I fancy it was by way of censureof our declamatory habits. Why, after all these years I remember some ofher phrases. How did the thing go? 'What fidgeted me was the way hislordship 'eld his tongue. For usual he'd shout as lusty as a whelp, buton these mornings I'd find him with his eyes like moons and his skinwhite and shiny, and never a cheep the whole blessed night, with melying next door, and a light sleeper at all times, Mrs. Wace, ma'am.'Was Mrs. Wace a sort of Mrs. Harris?"

He laughed merrily. "To think that you should have heard that! No, shewas our housekeeper, and Ganthony, who babbled like Sairey Gamp, made alitany of her name. That's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard."

"You've outgrown that childish ailment anyhow," I said.

"Yes. I have outgrown it." My practice with witnesses made me detectjust a shade of hesitation.

At dinner he returned to the subject which seemed to interest him, theexact nature of the legal training. I told him that I was an advocate,not a judge, and so had no need to cultivate a judicial mind.

"But you can't do without it," he protested. "You have to advise yourclient and pronounce on his case before you argue it. The bulk of yourwork must be the weighing of evidence. I should have thought that thattalent could be applied to any subject in the world if the facts weresufficiently explained. In the long run the most abstruse business willboil down to a fairly simple deduction from certain data. Yourprofession enables you to select the relevant data."

"That may be true in theory, but I wouldn't myself rate legal talent sohigh. A lawyer is apt to lack imagination, you know." Then I stopped,for I had suddenly the impression that Vernon wanted advice, help ofsome kind—that behind all his ease he was profoundly anxious, and thata plea, almost a cry, was trembling on his lips. I detest confidencesand labour to avoid them, but I could no more refuse this boy than stopmy ears against a sick child. So I added, "Of course lawyers make goodconfidants. They're mostly decent fellows, and they're accustomed tokeeping their mouths shut."

He nodded, as if I had settled some private scruple, and we fell totalking about spring salmon in the Tay.

"Take the port into the library," he told Beaton. "Sir Edward doesn'twant coffee. Oh, and see that the fire is good. We shan't need you againto-night. I'll put Sir Edward to bed."

There was an odd air of purpose about him, as he gave me his arm to thelibrary and settled me with a cigar in a long chair. Then he disappearedfor a minute or two and returned with a shabby little clasped leatherbook. He locked the door and put the key on the mantelpiece, and when hecaught me smiling he smiled too, a little nervously.

"Please don't think me an ass," he said. "I'm going to ask a tremendousfavour. I want you to listen to me while I tell you a story, something Ihave never told to any one in my life before.... I don't think you'lllaugh at me, and I've a notion you may be able to help me. It's aconfounded liberty, I know, but may I go on?"

"Most certainly," I said. "I can't imagine myself laughing at anythingyou had to tell me; and if there's anything in me that can help you it'syours for the asking."

He drew a long breath. "You spoke of my bad nights as a child and I saidI had outgrown them. Well, it isn't true."

II

When Vernon was a very little boy he was the sleepiest and healthiest ofmortals, but every spring he had a spell of bad dreams. He slept at thattime in the big new night-nursery at the top of the west wing, which hisparents had built not long before their death. It had three windowslooking out to the moorish flats which run up to the fells, and from onewindow, by craning your neck, you could catch a glimpse of the sea. Itwas all hung, too, with a Chinese paper whereon pink and green parrotssquatted in wonderful blue trees, and there seemed generally to be awood fire burning. He described the place in detail, not as it isto-day, but as he remembered it.

Vernon's recollection of his childish nightmares was hazy. They varied,I gathered, but narrowed down in the end to one type. He used to findhimself in a room different from the nursery and bigger, but with thesame smell of wood smoke. People came and went, such as his nurse, thebutler, Simon the head keeper, Uncle Appleby his guardian, CousinJennifer, the old woman who sold oranges in Axby, and a host of others.Nobody hindered them from going away, and they seemed to be pleadingwith him to come too. There was danger in the place; something was goingto happen in the big room, and if by that time he was not gone therewould be mischief.... But it was quite clear to him that he could notgo. He must stop there, with the wood smoke in his nostrils, and awaitthe advent of the something. But he was never quite sure of the natureof the compulsion. He had a notion that if he made a rush for the doorat Uncle Appleby's heels he would be allowed to escape, but that somehowhe would be behaving badly. Anyhow, the place put him into a sweat offright, and Mrs. Ganthony looked darkly at him in the morning.

Those troubled springs continued—odd interludes in a life of nearlyunbroken health. Mrs. Ganthony left because she could not control hertongue and increased the boy's terrors, and Vernon was nine—hethought—before the dream began to take a really definite shape. Thestage was emptying. There was nobody in the room now but himself, and hesaw its details a little more clearly. It was not any apartment inSeverns. Rather it seemed like one of the big old panelled chamberswhich he remembered from visits to the Midland country houses of hismother's family, when he had arrived after dark and had been put tosleep in a great bed in a place lit with dancing firelight. In themorning it had looked only an ordinary big room, but at that hour of theevening it had seemed an enchanted cave. The dream-room was not unlikethese, for there was the scent of a wood fire and there were dancingshadows, but he could not see clearly the walls or the ceiling, andthere was no bed. In one corner was a door which led to the outer world,and through this he knew that he might on no account pass. Another doorfaced him, and he knew that he had only to turn the handle for it toopen.

But he did not want to, for he understood quite clearly what was beyond.There was a second room just like the first one; he knew nothing aboutit except that opposite the entrance another door led out of it. Beyondwas a third chamber, and so on interminably. There seemed to the boy tobe no end to this fantastic suite. He thought of it as a great snake ofmasonry, winding up hill and down dale away to the fells or the sea....Yes, but there was an end. Somewhere far away in one of the rooms wasa terror waiting on him, or, as he feared, coming towards him. Even nowit might be flitting from room to room, every minute bringing its softtread nearer to the chamber of the wood fire.

About this time of his life the dream was an unmitigated horror. Once itcame while he was ill with a childish fever, and it sent his temperatureup to a point which brought Dr. Moreton galloping from Axby. In hiswaking hours he did not, as a rule, remember it clearly; but during thefever, asleep and awake, that sinuous building, one room thick, witheach room opening from the other, was never away from his thoughts. Itamazed him to think that outside were the cheerful moors where he huntedfor plovers' eggs, and that only a thin wall of stone kept him frompleasant homely things. The thought used to comfort him when he wasawake, but in the dream it never came near him. Asleep, the whole worldseemed one suite of rooms, and he, a forlorn little prisoner, doomedgrimly to wait on the slow coming through the many doors of a fear whichtranscended word and thought.

He became a silent, self-absorbed boy, and, though the fact of hisnightmares was patent to the little household, the details remainedlocked up in his head. Not even to Uncle Appleby would he tell them,when that gentleman, hurriedly kind, came to visit his convalescentward. His illness made Vernon grow, and he shot up into a lanky, leggyboy. But the hills soon tautened his sinews, and all the time at hispreparatory school he was a healthy and active child. He told me that hetried to exorcise the dream through his religion—to "lay his burden onthe Lord," as the old evangelical phrase has it; but he signally failed,though he got some comfort from the attempt. It was borne in on him, hesaid, that this was a burden which the Lord had laid quite definitely onhim and meant him to bear like a man.

He was fifteen and at Eton when he made the great discovery. The dreamhad become almost a custom now. It came in April at Severns aboutEastertide—a night's discomfort (it was now scarcely more) in the rushand glory of the holidays. There was a moment of the old wildheart-fluttering; but a boy's fancy is more quickly dulled than achild's, and the endless corridors were now more of a prison than awitch's ante-chamber. By this time, with the help of his diary, he hadfixed the date of the dream; it came regularly on the night of the firstMonday of April. Now the year I speak of he had made a long expeditioninto the hills, and had stridden home-ward at a steady four miles anhour among the gleams and shadows of an April twilight. He was alone atSeverns, so he had had his supper in the big library, where afterwardshe sat watching the leaping flames on the open stone hearth. He was veryweary, and sleep fell upon him in his chair. He found himself in thewood-smoke chamber, and before him the door leading to the unknown....But it was no indefinite fear that now lay beyond. He knewclearly—though how he knew he could not tell—that each year thesomething came a room nearer, and was even now but twelve rooms off. Intwelve years his own door would open, and then——

He woke in the small hours, chilled and mazed, but with a curious newassurance in his heart. Hitherto the nightmare had left him in grossterror, unable to endure the prospect of its recurrence, till the kindlyforgetfulness of youth relieved him. But now, though his nerves werefluttering, he perceived that there was a limit to the mystery. Some dayit must declare itself and fight on equal terms.

The discovery opened a new stage in his life. As he thought over thematter in the next few days he had the sense of being forewarned andprepared for some great test of courage. The notion exhilarated as muchas it frightened him. Late at night, or on soft dripping days, or at anymoment of lessened vitality, he would bitterly wish that he had beenborn an ordinary mortal. But on a keen morning of frost, when he rubbedhimself warm after a cold tub, or at high noon of summer, the adventureof the dream almost pleased him. Unconsciously he must have bracedhimself to a harder discipline. His fitness, moral and physical, becamehis chief interest for reasons that would have been unintelligible tohis friends or his masters.

He passed through school—as I knew from Charles—an aloof and rathersplendid figure, a magnificent athlete with a brain as well as a body, agood fellow in every one's opinion, but a grave one. He could have hadno real intimates, for he never shared the secret of the spring dream.At this period, for some reason which he could not tell, he would haveburned his hand off sooner than breathe a hint of it. Pure terrorabsolves from all conventions and demands a confidant, so terror, Ithink, must have largely departed from the nightmare as he grew older.Fear, indeed, remained, and awe and disquiet, but these are humanemotions, whereas terror is of hell.

Had he told any one, he would no doubt have become self-conscious andfelt acutely his difference from other people, so it was a soundinstinct which kept him silent. As it was, he seems to have been anordinary schoolboy, much liked, and, except at odd moments, unaware ofany brooding destiny. As he grew older, and his ambition awoke, themoments when he remembered the dream were apt to be disagreeable, for aboy's ambitions are strictly conventional and his soul revolts at theabnormal. By the time he was ready for the university he wanted aboveall things to run the mile a second faster than any one else, and he hadhopes of academic distinction, for he was an excellent classic. For mostof the year he lived with these hopes and was happy; then came April,and for a short season he was groping in dark places. Just before andafter each dream he was in the mood of exasperation; but when itactually came he was plunged in a different atmosphere, and felt thequiver of fear and the quick thrill of expectation.

During his first year at Oxford he had made an attempt to avoid it. Heand three others were on a walking tour in Brittany in gusty springweather, and came late one evening to an inn by an estuary wheresea-gulls clattered about the windows. Youth-like they made a great andfoolish feast, and sat all night round a bowl of punch, while schoolsongs and "John Peel" contended with the dirling of the gale. Atdaylight they took the road again, without having closed an eye, andVernon told himself that he was rid of his incubus. He wondered at thetime why he was not more cheerful, for to his surprise he had a sense ofloss, of regret, almost of disappointment.

"That was last year," he said, and he opened the little locked diary andshowed me the entry. "Last night I went to bed not knowing what tothink, but far more nervous than I had been since I was a baby. I hope Ididn't show it, but I wasn't much in the mood for guests when you turnedup."

"What happened?" I asked eagerly. "Did the dream come back?"

He nodded and passed me the diary so that I could read that morning'sentry. The dream had not failed him. Once more he had been in thechamber with the wood fire; once again he had peered at the door andwondered with tremulous heart what lay beyond. For the something hadcome nearer by two rooms, and was now only seven doors away. I read thebare account in his neat, precise handwriting, and it gave me a strongimpression of being permitted to peep through a curtain at a stagemysteriously set. I noticed that he had added some lines from Keats'sIndian Maid's Song:

"I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind."

There was a mark of exclamation against the "she," as if he found someirony in it.

III

He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, waiting shyly and tensely likea child expecting the judgment of an elder. But I found it hard to knowwhat to say.

"That is a very wonderful story!" I ventured at last. "I am honouredthat you should have chosen me to tell it to. Perhaps it will be arelief to you to know that some one else understands what you are goingthrough.... I don't suppose you want sympathy, but I would like tocongratulate you on your fortitude."

"I don't need sympathy—or congratulation. But I want help—the help ofyour brain and your experience.... You see, in seven years sometremendous experience is coming to me, and I want—I'd like—to knowwhat it is."

"I wonder if a good doctor wouldn't be the best person to consult."

"No, no," he cried almost angrily. "I tell you there's nothingpathological about it—not now that I'm a man. I don't want it exorcisedas if it were an evil spell. I think—now—that I'd break my heart if itall vanished into moonshine.... I believe in it as I believe in God, andI'm ready to face whatever is coming. But I want to be forewarned andforearmed, if possible, for it's going to be a big thing. If I onlyknew something about what was coming—even the smallest something!"

Those were the days before psycho-analysis had become fashionable, buteven then we had psychologists, and in my bewilderment I tried thattack.

"Might not it all spring from some fright—some strange experience atany rate—which you had as a baby? Such things often make an abidingimpression."

He smiled. "You're still thinking it is pathological. Fright wouldaccount for recurring nightmares, but surely not for a thing so rationalas this—a fixed day every year, the same room, the time limit. It wouldnot explain the thing moving on a room last year when I had no dream."

"I suppose not," I admitted. "Have you looked up your family history? Ihave heard stories of inherited obsessions and premonitions—what theycall a 'weird' in Scotland."

"I thought of that, but there's nothing—nothing. There are no Milburnerecords much beyond my grandfather, and by all accounts they were themost prosaic kind of business men. My mother's family—well, there'splenty of records there, and I've waded through most of the munimentroom at Appleby. But there's no hint of anything mysterious in theDouglas-Ernotts. They were a time-serving lot, who knew how the cat wasgoing to jump, but they kept out of crime and shunned anythingimaginative like the plague. I shouldn't think one of them had ever anambition which couldn't be put in terms of office or money, or a regretexcept that he had missed a chance of getting at the public purse.True-blue Whigs, all of them."

"Then I'm hanged if I know what to say. But, now you've told me, I wantyou to remember that you can always count on me. I may not be able tohelp, but I'm there whenever you want me. Perhaps—you never know—thething will reveal itself more clearly in the next seven years and comewithin the scope of my help. I've taken a tremendous liking to you, mydear chap, and we're going to be friends."

He held out his hand.

"That's kind of you.... Shall I tell you what I think myself? I wastaught to believe that everything in our lives is foreordained by God.No caprice of our own can alter the eternal plan. Now, why shouldn'tsome inkling of this plan be given us now and then—not knowledge, butjust an inkling that we may be ready? My dream may be a heavenlywarning, a divine foreshadowing—a privilege, not a cross. It is areminder that I must be waiting with girt loins and a lit lamp when thecall comes. That's the way I look on it, and it makes me happy."

I said nothing, for I did not share his Calvinism, but I felt thatsuddenly that library had become rather a solemn place. I had listenedto the vow of the young Hannibal at the altar.

CHAPTER II

I

I have a preposterous weakness for youth, and I fancy there is somethingin me which makes it accept me as a coæval. It may be my profession. Ifyou are a busy lawyer without any outside ambitions you spend your daysusing one bit of your mind, and the rest remains comparatively young andunstaled. I had no wife and few near relations, and while I was dailygrowing narrower in my outlook on the present and the future I cherisheda wealth of sentiment about the past. I welcomed anything which helpedme to recapture the freshness of boyhood, and Vernon was like a springwind in my arid life. Presently we forgot that I was nearly twice hisage, and slipped into the manner of contemporaries. He was far more athis ease with me than with the men of his own year. I came to think thatI was the only person in the world who knew him, for though he had aninfinity of acquaintances and a good many people who ranked as friends,I suppose I was his only comrade. For I alone knew the story of hisdreams.

My flat in Down Street became his headquarters in London, and I neverknew when he would stick his head into my Temple chambers and insist onour dining or lunching together. In the following winter I went toOxford occasionally, nominally to visit Charles; but my nephew led amuch occupied life, and it generally ended by my spending my time withVernon. I kept a horse with the Bicester that season and we huntedoccasionally together, and we had sometimes a walk which filled theshort winter day, and dined thereafter and talked far into the night. Iwas anxious to learn how his contemporaries regarded him, and I soonfound that he had a prodigious reputation, which was by no meansexplained by his athletic record. He at once impressed and puzzled hislittle world. I think it was the sense of brooding power about him whichattracted people and also kept them at a respectful distance. Hisridiculous good looks and his gentle courtesy seemed to mark him out foruniversal popularity, but there was too much austerity for a reallypopular man. He had odd ascetic traits. He never touched wine now, hedetested loose talk, and he was a little intolerant of youthful follies.Not that there was anything of the prig in him—only that his characterseemed curiously formed and mature. For all his urbanity he had a plain,almost rugged, sagacity in ordinary affairs, a tough core like steelharness under a silk coat. That, I suppose, was the Calvinism in hisblood. Had he been a less brilliant figure, he would probably have beenset down as "pi."

Charles never professed to understand him, and contented himself withprophesying that "old Vernon would be the devil of a swell some day." Oninquiry I found that none of his friends forecast any special career forhim; it would have seemed to them almost disrespectful to condescendupon such details. It was not what Vernon would do that fired theirsluggish imaginations, but what they dimly conceived that he alreadywas.

There was the same fastidiousness about all his ways. I have never knowna better brain more narrowly limited in its range. He was a first-class"pure" scholar, and had got a Craven and been proxime for theHertford. But he was quite incapable of spreading himself, and hisprospects looked bad for "Greats" since he seemed unable to acquire thesmattering of loose philosophy demanded by that school. He was strictlycircumscribed in his general reading; I set it down at first toinsensitiveness, but came soon to think it fastidiousness. If he couldnot have exactitude and perfection in his knowledge, he preferred toremain ignorant. I saw in him the makings of a lawyer. Law was just thesubject for a finical, exact, and scrupulous mind like his. Charles hadonce in his haste said that he was not a man of the world, and Charleshad been right. He was a man of his own world, not the ordinary one. Sowith his intellectual interests. He would make his own culture, quiteregardless of other people. I fancy that he felt that his overmasteringprivate problem made it necessary to husband the energies of his mind.

During that year I think he was quite happy and at peace about thedream. He had now stopped hoping or fearing; the thing had simply becomepart of him, like his vigorous young body, his slow kindliness, hispatient courage. He rarely wanted to talk of it, but it was so much inmy thoughts that I conducted certain researches of my own. I began bytrying the psychological line, and plagued those of my acquaintances whohad any knowledge of that dismal science. I cannot say I got muchassistance. You see I had to state a hypothetical case, and was alwaysmet by a demand to produce the patient for cross-examination—areasonable enough request, which of course I could not comply with. Oneman, who was full of the new Vienna doctrine, talked about "complexes"and "repressions" and suggested that the dream came from a child havingbeen shut up by accident in a dark room. "If you can dig the memory ofit out of his subconsciousness, you will lay that ghost," he said. Itried one evening to awake Vernon's earliest recollections, but nothingemerged. The dream itself was the furthest-back point in hisrecollection. In any case I didn't see how such an explanation wouldaccount for the steady development of the thing and its periodicity. Ithought I might do better with family history, and I gave up a good dealof my leisure to the Douglas-Ernotts. There was nothing to be made ofthe Ernotts—gross utilitarian Whigs every one of them. The Douglasstrain had more mystery in it, but the records of his branch of thegreat Scottish house were scanty, and sadly impersonal. Douglases manyhad endured imprisonment and gone to the scaffold, but history showedthem as mere sounding names, linked to forays and battles and strangesoubriquets, but as vague as the heroes of Homer. As for the Milburnes,I got an ancient aunt who had known Vernon's father to give me herrecollections, and a friend on the Northern Circuit collected for me theLancashire records. The first of them had been a small farmer somewhereon the Ribble; the second had become a mill-owner; and the third, in theearly nineteenth century, had made a great fortune, had been a friend ofWilliam Wilberforce and later of Richard Cobden, and had sat in thefirst Reform parliament. As I looked at the portrait of that whiskeredreformer, bland and venerable in his stiff linen and broadcloth, or atthe early Millais of his son, the bearded Evangelical, I wondered whatin them had gone to the making of Vernon. It was like seeking for theancestry of a falcon among barnyard fowls.

II

In the spring of 1914 I badly needed a holiday, and Lamancha asked me togo cruising in his yacht. He gave me permission to bring Vernon, whom heknew slightly, for I wanted to be near him on the first Monday of April.We were to join the yacht at Constantinople, and cruise through theNorthern Ægean to Athens, and then by way of the Corinth canal to Corfu,where we would catch the steamer for Brindisi and so home. Vernon was atfirst a little disinclined, for he had a notion that he ought to be atSeverns, but when he allowed himself to be persuaded he grew very keenabout the trip, for he had been little out of England.

He and I travelled by the Orient Express to Constantinople, and afterthree days there and one day at Brousa shaped our course westward. Welanded one morning on the Gallipoli peninsula, and found birds' eggs onAchi Baba where, in a year's time, there was to be nothing but barbedwire and trenches. We spent a day at Lemnos, which at that time fewpeople had visited except the British Navy, and then turned south. Onthe first Monday of April we had half a gale, an uncomfortable thing inthose shallow seas. It blew itself out in the afternoon, and after teawe anchored for the night under the lee of a big island. There was alittle bay carved out of the side of a hill; the slopes were coveredwith heath and some kind of scrub, and the young green of crops showedin the clearings. Among the thyme of the nearest headland a flock ofgoats was browsing, shepherded by a little girl in a saffron skirt, whosang shrilly in snatches. After the yeasty Ægean the scene was an idyllof pastoral peace. Vernon had all day shown signs of restlessness, andhe now proposed a walk; so, leaving the others playing bridge, we twowere put ashore in the dinghy.

We walked northward towards the other horn of the bay, past littlecloses of fruit blossom, and thickets of wildwood, and stony patches ofdownland bright with anemones and asphodel. It was a strange, hauntedworld, bathed in a twilight of gold and amethyst, filled with a thousandaromatic scents, and very silent except for the wash of the waves and afar-off bleating of goats. Neither of us wanted to talk, being contentto drink in the magic of the evening. Vernon walked like a man in adream, stopping now and then to lift his head and stare up the longscrubby ravines to the sharp line of the crest.

Suddenly a cuckoo's note broke into the stillness and echoed along thehillside. When it died away it seemed to be answered by a human voice,sweet and high and infinitely remote, a voice as fugitive as a scent ora colour.

Vernon stopped short.

"Listen to that," he cried. "It is the Spring Song. This has probablybeen going on here since the beginning of time. They say that nothingchanges in these islands—only they call Demeter the Virgin Mary andDionysos St. Dionysius."

He sat down on a boulder and lit his pipe. "Let's burn tobacco to thegods," he said. "It's too enchanted to hurry through.... I suppose it'sthe way I've been educated, but I could swear I've known it all before.This is the season of the Spring Festival, and you may be sure it's thesame here to-day as it was a thousand years before Homer. The winter isover, and the Underworld has to be appeased, and then the Goddess willcome up from the shades."

I had never heard Vernon talk like this before, and I listened with somecuriosity. I am no classical scholar, but at that moment I too felt thespell of a very ancient and simple world.

"This was the beginning of the year for the Greeks, remember," he wenton—"for the Greeks as we know them, and for the old Mediterraneanpeoples before them whose ritual they absorbed. The bones of that ritualnever altered.... You have to begin with purification—to feed theghosts of the dead in the pot-holes with fireless and wine-lesssacrifices and so placate them, and to purify your own souls and bodiesand the earth by which you live. You have your purgation herbs likebuckthorn and agnus castus, and you have your pharmakos, yourscapegoat, who carries away all impurities. And then, when that is done,you are ready for the coming of the Maiden. It is like Easter after GoodFriday—the festival after the fast and penitence. It is always thewoman that simple folk worship—the Mother who is also the Maid. Longago they called her Pandora or Persephone, and now they call her theBlessed Virgin, but the notion is the same—the sinless birth of thedivine. You may be sure it is she whom the peasants in this islandworship, as their fathers did three thousand years ago—not God theFather.

"The Greeks had only the one goddess," he went on, "though she had manynames. Later they invented the Olympians—that noisy, middle-classfamily party—and the priests made a great work with their male gods,Apollo and the like. But the woman came first, and the woman remained.You may call her Demeter, or Aphrodite, or Hera, but she is the same,the Virgin and the Mother, the 'mistress of wild things,' the priestessof the new birth in spring. Semele is more than Dionysos, and even tosophisticated Athens the Mailed Virgin of the Acropolis was more thanall the pantheon.... Don't imagine it was only a pretty fancy. The thinghad all the beauty of nature, and all the terror too." He flung back hishead and quoted some sonorous Greek.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Euripides," he replied. "It has been well translated," and he quoted:

"'For her breath is on all that hath life, and she floats in the air
Bee-like, death-like, a wonder.'

"I can see it all," he cried. "The sacred basket, the honey and oil andwine, the torches crimsoning the meadows, the hushed, quiet peoplewaiting on the revelation. They are never more than a day or two fromstarvation all the winter, and the coming of the Maiden is a matter forthem of life and death. They wait for her as devout souls to-day waitfor the Easter Resurrection. I can hear the ritual chant and the thin,clear music of the flutes.... Yes, but they were seeing things which arenow hid from us—Dionysos with his thyrsus, and goat-feet in thethickets, and the shadows of dancing nymphs! If you starve for threemonths and put your soul into waiting for the voice from heaven, you arein the mood for marvels. Terror and horror, perhaps, but unspeakablebeauty, too, and a wild hope. That was the Greek religion, not theOlympians and their burnt offerings. And it is the kind of religion thatnever dies."

I thought this pretty good for the scion of an evangelical family, and Isaid so.

He laughed. "It isn't my own creed, you know. I dislike all kinds ofpriestcraft. But, though I'm a stout Protestant, I'm inclined to thinksometimes that it is a pity that we have departed from the practice ofall other religions and left out the Mother of God.... Let's go on—Iwant to see what is on the other side of the cape."

Beyond the little headland we came suddenly on a very different scene.Here was the harbour of the island. Beside a rude quay some fisher-boatslay at anchor with their brown sails furled. Along the water-front ran apaved terrace, a little dilapidated and with bushes growing in thecracks of the stones. Above rose a great building, showing to seaward asa blank white wall pierced with a few narrow windows. At first sight Itook it for a monastery, but a second glance convinced me that itspurpose had never been religious. It looked as if it had once beenfortified, and the causeway between it and the sea may have mountedguns. Most of it was clearly very old, but the architecture was ajumble, showing here the enriched Gothic of Venice, and there thestraight lines and round arches of the East. It had once, I conjectured,been the hold of some Venetian sea-king, then the palace of a Turkishconqueror, and was now, perhaps, the manor-house of this pleasantdomain. The owners, whoever they might be, were absent, for not achimney smoked.

We passed the quay and wandered along the great terrace, which was assolidly masoned as a Roman road. For a little the house hung sheer aboveus, its walls level with the rock, with in three places flights of stepsfrom the causeway ending in small postern doors. Obviously the mainentrance was on the other side. There were no huts to be seen, and nosign of life except a little group of fishermen below on the shore, whowere sitting round a fire over which a pot was boiling. As we continuedalong the terrace beyond the house we came to orchards and olive yards,no doubt part of the demesne, and had a glimpse of a rugged coastrunning out into the sunset.

The place impressed even my sluggish fancy. This great silent castle inthe wilds, hung between sky and earth, and all rosy in the last fires ofthe sun, seemed insubstantial as a dream. I should not have beensurprised if it had vanished like a mirage and left us staring at abare hillside. Only the solid blocks of the causeway bound us toreality. Here, beyond doubt, men had lived and fought far back in theages. The impression left on my mind was of a place inhabited for æons,sunk for the moment in sleep, but liable to awake suddenly to a fiercelife. As for Vernon he seemed positively rapt.

"There's your castle in Spain," he cried. "Odd thing! but I seem to haveseen all this before. I knew before we turned the corner that there wereolive trees there, and that the rocks tumbled just in that way into thecove. Listen!"

The sound of voices drifted up from the beach, and there was a snatch ofa song.

"That's Antiphilos of Byzantium—you remember in the Anthology—thefisher-boys singing round the broth-pot. Lord! what a haunted spot! I'dlike to spend the night here."

I can give no reason for it, but I suddenly felt a strange uneasiness,which made me turn back and stride at a good pace along the terrace. Weseemed to have blundered outside the ordinary natural world. I had afeverish desire to get away from the shadow of that pile of masonry, toget beyond the headland and in sight of the yacht. The place waswonderful, secret, beautiful, yet somehow menacing. Vernon clearly feltnothing of all this, for he grumbled at my haste. "Hang it, we're notwalking for a wager," he complained. "There's loads of time beforedinner.... I want to stay on here a bit. I never saw such a place."

At the beginning of the paved terrace, close to the quay, we camesuddenly upon two men, probably from the fishermen's party we had seenon the shore. They were well-set-up fellows, with handsome, clear-cutfaces, for the true Greek strain is still found in the islands. We cameon them by surprise as we turned the corner of a rock, and they may havethought from our direction that we were coming from the house. Anyhowthey seemed to get the fright of their lives. Both leaped aside andlooked at us with startled angry eyes. Then they flung up their righthands; and for a moment I thought they were going to attack us.

But they contented themselves with spitting on their breasts and eachholding out a clenched fist with the little finger and the thumbextended. I had seen this before—the ancient protection against theevil eye. But what impressed me was the expression in their faces. Itwas at Vernon that they stared, and when their stare moved from him ittook in the pile of the house above. They seemed to connect us in someway with the house, and in their eyes there was an almost animal fearand hate.... I looked after them when they had passed, and observed thatthey were hurrying with bent heads up the path which may have led totheir village.

Vernon laughed. "Queer chaps! They looked as scared as if they had seenPan."

"I don't like this place," I told him when we were approaching thedinghy. "Some of your infernal gods and goddesses have got loose in it.I feel as if I want to run."

"Hullo!" he cried. "You're getting as impressionable as a minor poet....Hark! There it is again! Do you hear? The Spring Song?"

But the thin notes which drifted down from the upland no longer seemedto me innocent. There was something horrible about that music.

Next morning, when we were steaming south in calm weather with theisland already dim behind us, I found Vernon smoking peacefully on deckand looking at sea-birds through a glass. He nodded gaily as I sat downbeside him.

"I had the dream all right—one room nearer. But the room in which Iwait has changed. It must be due to being out here, for hitherto I'vealways spent April in England. I suppose I furnished it unconsciouslywith things I had seen at home—there was a big lacquer cabinet for onething, and something like pictures or tapestry on the walls—and therewere great silver fire-dogs. But now it's quite bare. The same room ofcourse—I couldn't mistake it—but scarcely any furniture in it except adark lump in a corner.... Only the fire-dogs are the same.... Looks asif the decks were being cleared for action."

I had expected to find him a little heavy about the eyes, but heappeared as fresh as if he had just come from a morning swim, and hisvoice had a boyish carelessness.

"Do you know," he said, "I've lost every scrap of funk or nervousnessabout the dream? It's a privilege, not an incubus. Six years to wait! Iwish I knew how I was going to put them in. It will be a dull businesswaiting."

III

Fate contrived that to Vernon, as to several million others, the nextfour years should scarcely deserve the name of dull. By the middle ofAugust I was being cursed by a Guards sergeant in Chelsea barrack yard,and Vernon was training with his Yeomanry somewhere in Yorkshire.

My path was plain compared to that of many honest men. I was a bachelorwithout ties, and though I was beyond the statutory limit for service Iwas always pretty hard trained, and it was easy enough to get over theage difficulty. I had sufficient standing in my profession to enable meto take risks. But I am bound to say I never thought of that side. Iwanted, like everybody else, to do something for England, and I wantedto do something violent. For me to stay at home and serve in some legaljob would have been a thousand times harder than to go into thetrenches. Like everybody else, too, I thought the war would be short,and my chief anxiety was lest I should miss the chance of fighting. Iwas to learn patience and perspective during four beastly years.

I went to France in October '14, and Vernon dined with me before Istarted. He had got a curious notion into his head. He thought that thewar would last for full six years, and his reason was that he wasconvinced that his dream had to do with it. The opening of the last doorwould be on the battlefield—of that he was convinced. The consequencewas that he was in no hurry. My nephew Charles, who was in the sameYeomanry, spent his days pleading to be sent abroad and trying toexchange into any unit he thought would get away first. On the fewoccasions I met him he raved like a lunatic about the imbecility of aGovernment that kept him kicking his heels in England. But Vernon, thenight he dined with me, was as placid as Buddha. "I'm learning my job,"he said, "and I've a mighty lot to learn. I ought to be a fair soldierin six years' time—just when the crisis is due." But he was veryanxious about me, and wanted to get into the Guards to be beside me.Only his fatalism kept him from agitating for a change, for he felt thatas he had begun in the Yeomanry, Providence most likely meant him tocontinue there. He fussed a good deal about how we were to correspond,for I seemed to have taken the place of his family. But on the whole Iwas happy about him, his purpose was so clear and his mind so perfectlybalanced. I had stopped thinking seriously about the dream, for itseemed only a whimsy in the middle of so many urgent realities.

I needn't tell you the kind of time I had in France. It was a longdismal grind, but I had the inestimable advantage of good health, and Iwas never a day off duty because of sickness. I suppose I enjoyed it ina sense; anyhow I got tremendously keen about my new profession, androse in it far quicker than I deserved. I was lucky, too. As you know, Istopped something in every big scrap—at Festubert, Loos, Ginchy, ThirdYpres, Cambrai, and Bapaume—so that I might have covered my sleeve withwound-stripes if I had been so minded. But none of the damage wasserious, and I can hardly find the marks of it to-day. I think my worsttrial was that for more than three years I never had a sight of Vernon.

He went out in the summer of '15 to the Dardanelles and was in theYeomanry fight at Suvla, where a bit of shrapnel made rather a mess ofhis left shoulder. After that he was employed on various staff jobs, andduring '16 was engaged in some kind of secret service in the Ægean andthe Levant. I heard from him regularly, but of course he never spoke ofhis work. He told me he had learned modern Greek and could speak it likea native, and I fancy he had a hand in Venizelos's revolution. Then hewent back to his regiment, and was in the "Broken Spurs" division whenthe Yeomanry were dismounted. He was wounded again in Palestine in '17,just before the taking of Jerusalem, and after that was second incommand of a battalion.

When I was on leave in February '18 Charles dined with me at the Club—amuch older and wiser Charles, with an empty sleeve pinned to his tunic,who was now employed in home training.

"It's a bloody and disgusting war," said my nephew, "and if any fellowsays he likes it, you can tell him from me that he's a liar. There'sonly one man I ever met who honestly didn't mind it, and that was oldVernon, and everybody knows that he's cracked."

He expatiated on the exact nature of Vernon's lunacy.

"Cracked—as—cracked, and a very useful kind of insanity, too. I oftenwish I had half his complaint. He simply didn't give a hang for the oldwar. Wasn't interested in it, if you see what I mean. Oh, brave asyou-be-damned, of course, but plenty of other chaps were brave. His wasthe most cold-blooded, unearthly kind of courage. I've seen the samething in men who were sick of life and wanted to be killed and knew theywere going to be killed, but Vernon wasn't that sort. He had no notionof being killed—always planning out the future and talking of what hewas going to do after the war. As you know, he got badly mauled atSuvla, and he nearly croaked with malaria in Crete, and he had his headchipped at Neby Samwil, so he didn't bear what you might call a charmedlife. But some little bird had whispered in his ear that he wasn't goingto be killed, and he believed that bird. You never saw a fellow in yourlife so much at his ease in a nasty place.

"It wasn't that he was a fire-eater," Charles went on. "He never wentout to look for trouble. It was simply that it made no difference to himwhere he was or what he was doing—he was the same composed old fish,smiling away, and keeping quiet and attending to business, as if hethought the whole thing rather foolishness."

"You describe a pretty high class of soldier," I said. "I can'tunderstand why he hasn't gone quicker up the ladder."

"I can," said Charles emphatically. "He was a first-class battalionofficer but he wasn't a first-class soldier. The trouble with him, as Isay, is that he wasn't interested in the war. He had no initiative, youunderstand—always seemed to be thinking about something else. It's likeRugby football. A man may be a fine player according to the rules, butunless his heart is in the business and he can think out new tactics forhimself he won't be a great player. Vernon wasn't out to do anythingmore than the immediate situation required. You might say he wasn'tdead-set enough on winning the war."

I detected in Charles a new shrewdness. "How did the others get on withhim?" I asked.

"The men believed in him and would have followed him into hell, and ofcourse we all respected him. But I can't say he was exactly popular. Toodashed inhuman for that. He ought to fall in love with a chorus-girl andgo a regular mucker. Oh, of course, I like him tremendously and knowwhat a rare good fellow he is! But the ordinary simple-minded,deserving lad jibs at Sir Galahad crossed with the low-church parsonand the 'Varsity don."

The Broken Spurs came to France in the early summer of '18, but I had nochance of meeting them. My life was rather feverish during the lastweeks of the campaign, for I was chief staff-officer to my division, andwe were never much out of the line. Then, as you know, I nearly came bymy end in September, when the Boche made quite a good effort in the wayof a gas attack. It was a new gas, which we didn't understand, and Ifaded away like the grin of the Cheshire cat, and was pretty ill for atime in a base hospital. Luckily it didn't do me any permanent harm, butmy complexion will be greenery-yallery till the day of my death.

I awoke to consciousness in a tidy little bed to learn that the war wasall but over and the Boche hustling to make peace. It took me some daysto get my head clear and take notice, and then, one morning, I observedthe man in the bed next to me. His head was a mass of bandages, butthere was something about the features that showed which struck me asfamiliar. As luck would have it, it turned out to be Vernon. He had beenbadly hit, when commanding his battalion at the crossing of the Scheldt,and for a day or two had been in grave danger. He was recovering allright, but for a time neither of us was permitted to talk, and we usedto lie and smile at each other and think of all the stories we wouldpresently tell.

It was just after we got the news of the Armistice that we were allowedto say how d'ye do. We were as weak as kittens, but I, at any rate, feltextraordinarily happy. We had both come through the war without seriousdamage, and a new world lay before us. To have Vernon beside me put thecoping-stone on my contentment, and I could see that he felt the same. Iremember the thrill I had when we could stretch out our arms and shakehands.

Slowly we began to build up each other's records for the four years. Isoon knew, what I had guessed before, the reason of that inhumancomposure which Charles had described. Vernon had had a completeassurance that his day of fate was not due yet awhile, and therefore thewar had taken a second place in his thoughts. Most men who fought borethe marks of it in harder lines about the mouth and chin and older eyes.But Vernon had kept his youth intact. His face had always had a certainmaturity beyond his years, and his eyes had been curiously watchful.These traits were perhaps slightly intensified, but otherwise I noticedno difference.

"You remember what I told you when we last met in October '14?" he said."I was wrong and I'm rather sorry. I thought the war would last for sixyears, and that the last stage of my dream would be in the field. Thatwould have been such a simple and right solution. As it is, I mustwait."

I asked if the dream had come regularly in the past four years.

"Quite regularly," was the answer. "The room hasn't changed either,except that the dark shadow in the corner has moved, so I think it mustbe a human figure. The place is quite bare and empty now, except for thesilver fire-dogs.... I think there is a little window in the wall,rather high up."

"You have only two years more to wait," I said, "less—a year and ahalf." It was then November '18.

"I know.... But I am impatient again. I thought the climax would come inthe war, so I stopped speculating about it.... I thought I would becalled on as a soldier to do something very difficult, and I was quiteready.... But that has all gone, and I am back in the fog. I must thinkit all out again from the beginning."

CHAPTER III

The immediate consequence of peace was to keep Vernon and myself apart.You see, we neither of us got better very quickly. When his wounds werehealed a kind of neuritis remained; he was tortured with headaches,didn't sleep well and couldn't recover his lost weight. He was verypatient and cheerful about it, and did obediently what he was told, forhis one object seemed to be to get fit again. We returned to Englandtogether, but presently the doctors packed him off abroad withinstructions to bask in the sun and idle at a Riviera villa which hadbeen dedicated to such cases. So I spent a lonely Christmas in London.

Heaven knows I had nothing to complain of compared with most fellows,but I count the six months after the Armistice the most beastly in mylife. I had never been seriously ill before, all the four years of war Ihad been brimming over with energy, and it was a new experience for meto feel slack and under-engined. The gas had left a sort of poison in myblood which made every movement an effort. I was always sleepy, and yetcouldn't sleep, and to my horror I found myself getting jumpy andneurotic. The creak of a cart in the street worried me so that I wantedto cry; London noise was a nightmare, and when I tried the country I hada like horror of its silence. The thing was purely physical, for I foundI could think quite clearly and sanely. I seemed to be two persons, oneself-possessed enough watching the antics of the other with disgust andyet powerless to stop them.

Acton Croke was reassuring. "You're a sick man, and you've got to behaveas such," he told me. "No attempt to get back into harness. Behave as ifyou were recovering from a severe operation—regular life, no overstrainphysical or mental, simply lie fallow and let nature do its work. Youhave a superb constitution which, given a chance, will pick up itsbalance. But don't forget that you're passing through a crisis. If youplay the fool you may have indifferent health for the rest of yourdays."

I was determined that at all events that mustn't happen, so I was asdocile as a good child. As I say, I had mighty little to complain of,when you consider the number of good men who, far seedier than I, cameback to struggle for their daily bread. I had made a bit of money, so Ihad a solid hump to live off. There was a dearth at the time of leadersat the Bar, and I could have stepped at once into a bigger practice thanI had ever dreamed of. Also, I had a chance, if I wished, of becomingone of the law officers of the Crown. I was still a member ofParliament, and at the December election, though I had never gone nearthe place, my old constituency had returned me with a majority of morethan ten thousand. A pretty gilded position for a demobbed soldier! Butfor the present I had to put all that aside and think only of gettingwell.

There has been a good deal of nonsense talked about the horror of warmemories and the passionate desire to bury them. The vocal people wereapt to be damaged sensitives, who were scarcely typical of the averageman. There were horrors enough, God knows, but in most people'srecollections these were overlaid by the fierce interest and excitement,even by the comedy of it. At any rate that was the case with most of myfriends, and it was certainly the case with me. I found a positivepleasure in recalling the incidents of the past four years. The war hadmade me younger. You see—apart from regular officers—I had met few ofmy own year and standing. I had consorted chiefly with youth, and hadrecovered the standpoint of twenty years ago. That was what made myfeeble body so offensive. I could not regard myself as a man in middleage, but as a sick undergraduate whose malady was likely to keep him outof the Boat or the Eleven.

You would have laughed if you could have seen the way I spent my time. Iwas so angry with my ill-health that I liked to keep on reminding myselfof the days when I had been at the top of my form. I remember I made outa complete record of my mountaineering exploits, working them out withdiagrams from maps and old diaries, and telling myself furiously thatwhat I had once done I could do again.... I got out my old Oxford textsand used to construe bits of the classics, trying to recapture the moodwhen those things meant a lot to me.... I read again all the books whichused to be favourites, but which I hadn't opened for a score of years. Iturned up the cram books for the Bar exams, and the notes I had taken inmy early days in chambers, and the reports of my first cases. It wasn'tsentiment, but a deliberate attempt to put back the clock, and, byrecalling the feelings of twenty-five, to convince myself that I hadonce been a strong man.... I even made risky experiments. I went up toOxford in vacation and managed to get put up in my old diggings in theHigh. That would have been intolerable if they had recalled wartragedies, but they didn't. The men who had shared them with me were allalive—one a Colonial bishop, one a stockbroker, another high up in theIndian Civil Service. It did me good to see the big shabby sitting-roomwhere, in my day, a barrel of beer had adorned one corner. In March,too, I spent three nights at a moorland inn on the Borders which hadonce been the headquarters of a famous reading-party. That was not quiteso successful, for the weather and the food were vile, and I was drivento reflect on the difference of outlook between twenty and forty-three.

Still my childishness did me good, and I began slowly to gain ground.The spring helped me, which was early that year, you remember, so thatthe blossom had begun on the fruit trees in the first days of April. Ifound that it was the time just before the war that it comforted me mostto recall, for then I had been healthy enough and a creature more nearmy present state than the undergraduate of twenty. I think, too, it wasbecause those years were associated with Vernon. He was never much outof my mind, and the reports from him were cheering. The headaches hadgone, he had recovered his power of sleep, and was slowly putting onweight. He had taken to sailing a small boat again, had bought a racingcutter, and had come in third in one of the events at the CannesRegatta.

I had this last news in a letter which reached me while I was staying atMinster Carteron, and it turned my mind back to the yachting trip I hadmade with Vernon in 1914 in the Ægean. It revived the picture I hadalmost forgotten—the green island flushed with spring, the twilighthaunted with wild music, the great white house hanging like a cliff overthe sea. I had felt the place sinister—I remembered the two men withscared faces and their charm against the evil eye—and even after fiveyears a faint aura of distaste lingered about the memory. That wassufficient to awake my interest, and one afternoon I rummaged in thelibrary. Plakos had been the island's name, and I searched for it ingazetteers.

It was the day of the famous April snowstorm which wrought such havocamong English orchards. The windows of the great room were blurred withfalling snow, and the fires on the two hearths were hissing andspluttering while I pursued my researches. Folliot, I remember, wasdozing beside one of them in an arm-chair. You know old Folliot, withhis mild cattish ways and his neat little Louis Napoleon beard. He wantsto be the Horace Walpole of our time, and publishes every few years abook of reminiscences, from which it would appear that he has been theconfidant of every great man in Europe for the last half-century. He hasnot much of a mind, but he has a good memory, and after all there is afaint interest about anybody who has dined out in good company for fiftyyears.

I woke the old fellow when I dropped by misadventure a big atlas on thefloor, and he asked testily what I was after.

"I'm trying to find a beastly Greek islet," I said. "You haven't by anychance in your travels visited a place called Plakos?"

The name roused him. "No," he said, "but of course I have often heard ofit. It belonged to Shelley Arabin."

"Now, who on earth was Shelley Arabin?"

"You young men!" old Folliot sighed. "Your memories are so short andyour ignorance so vast. Shelley Arabin died last year, and had half acolumn in the Times, but he will have a chapter in my memoirs. He wasone of the most remarkable men of his day. Shelley Arabin—to think younever heard of him! Why, I knew his father."

I drew up an arm-chair to the hearth opposite him. "It's a foulafternoon," I said, "and there's nothing to do. I want to hear aboutShelley Arabin. I take it from his name that he was a Levantine."

Folliot was flattered by my interest. He had begun to bore people, forthe war had created a mood unfavourable to his antique gossip. He stillstayed a good deal in country houses, but spent most of his time in thelibraries and got rather snubbed when he started on his reminiscences.

"Bless you, no! A most ancient English house—the Arabins of Irtling inEssex. Gone out for good now, I fear. As a boy I remember old TomArabin—a shabby old bandit, who came to London once in five years andinsulted everybody and then went back again. He used to dine with myfamily, and I remember watching him arrive, for I had a boyish romanceabout the man who had been a friend of Byron. Yes, he was with Byronwhen he died at Missolonghi, and he was an intimate of all the poets ofthat time—Byron, Shelley—he called his son after Shelley—Keats too, Ithink—there's a mention of him in the Letters I'm almost sure—and helived with Landor in Italy till they quarrelled. A most picturesquefigure, but too farouche for comfort. With him a word was a blow, youunderstand. He married—now, who did he marry?—one of the Manorwaters,I fancy. Anyhow, he led her the devil of a life. He bought or stole oracquired somehow the island of Plakos, and used it as a base from whichto descend periodically upon the civilized world. Not a pleasant oldgentleman, but amazingly decorative. You may have seen his translationof Pindar. I have heard Jebb say that it was a marvellous piece ofscholarship, but that his English style was the exact opposite ofeverything that Pindar stood for. Dear me! How short the world's memoryis!"

"I want to hear about his son," I said.

"You shall—you shall! Poor Shelley, I fear he had not the kind ofupbringing which is commonly recommended for youth. Tom disliked hisson, and left him to the care of the family priest—they were Catholicsof course. All his boyhood he spent in that island among the peasantsand the kind of raffish company that his father invited to the house.What kind of company? Well, I should say all the varieties of humbugthat Europe produces—soldiers of fortune, and bad poets, and the gentrywho have made their native countries too hot for them. Plakos was therefuge of every brand of outlaw, social and political. Ultimately theboy was packed off to Cambridge, where he arrived speaking English ageneration out of date, and with the tastes of a Turkish pasha, but withthe most beautiful manners. Tom, when he wasn't in a passion, had thegraciousness of a king, and Shelley was a young prince in air andfeature. He was terribly good-looking in a way no man has a right tobe, and that prejudiced him in the eyes of his young contemporaries.Also there were other things against him."

"How long did Cambridge put up with him?" I asked.

"One year. There was a scandal—rather a bad one, I fancy—and he leftunder the blackest kind of cloud. Tom would not have him at home, but hegave him a good allowance, and the boy set up in London. Not in the bestsociety, you understand, but he had a huge success in the half-world.Women raved about him, and even when his reputation was at its worst, hewould be seen at a few good houses.... I suppose a lawyer does notconcern himself with poetry, but I can assure you that Shelley Arabinmade quite a name for himself in the late eighties. I believebibliophiles still collect his first editions. There was his epic on theFall of Jerusalem—a very remarkable performance as a travesty ofhistory. And there were his love sonnets, beautiful languid things,quite phosphorescent with decay. He carried Swinburne and Beaudelaire astage further. Well, that mood has gone from the world, and ShelleyArabin's reputation with it, but at one time sober critics felt obligedto praise him even when they detested him. He was a red-hotrevolutionary, too, and used to write pamphlets blackguarding Britishpolicy.... I saw quite a lot of him in those days, and I confess that Ifound him fascinating. Partly it was his beauty and his air, partly thathe was like nobody I had ever met. He could talk wonderfully in hisbitter, high-coloured way. But I never liked him. Oh no, I never likedhim. There was always a subtle cruelty about him. Old Tom had been ablackguard, but he had had a heart—Shelley, behind all his brilliance,was ice and stone. I think most people came to feel this, and he hadcertainly outstayed his welcome before he left London."

"What made him leave?"

"His father's death. Tom went out suddenly from old age just before thewar between Greece and Turkey. Shelley left England with a greatgasconade of Greek patriotism—he was going to be a second Byron andsmite the infidel. By all accounts he did very little. I doubt if he hadold Tom's swashbuckling courage: indeed I have heard ugly stories of thewhite feather.... Anyhow England knew him no more. He married a girl hemet in Rome—Scotch—a Miss Hamilton, I think, but I never knew of whatHamiltons. He treated her shamefully after the Arabin tradition. She didnot live long, and there were no children, I believe, and now Shelley isdead and the Arabins are extinct. Not a pleasant family, you will say,and small loss to the world. But there was a certain quality, too, whichunder happier circumstances might have made them great. And assuredlythey had looks. There was something almost unholy about Shelley's beautyin his early days. It made men instinctively dislike him. If I had had ason I should have liked him to be snub-nosed and bullet-headed, forugliness in the male is a security for virtue and a passport topopularity."

This was probably a sentence from one of Folliot's silly books ofreminiscences. My curiosity about Plakos was not exhausted, and I askedwhat kind of life had been lived there. "The house is a tremendousaffair," I said, "with room for a regiment."

"I know," said Folliot, "and it was often full. I had always a greatcuriosity to go there, though I daresay I should have found theatmosphere too tropical for my taste. Shelley never invited me, but if Ihad arrived he could scarcely have turned me away. I entertained thenotion at one time, but I kept putting it off till my taste for thatkind of adventure declined.... No, I have never been nearer Plakos thanAthens, where I once spent a fortnight when Fanshawe was our Ministerthere. I asked about Shelley, of course, and Fanshawe gave me an uglyreport. Plakos, you must know, is a remote and not over-civilized islandwhere the writ of the Greek Government scarcely runs, so it was verymuch a patriarchal despotism. I gathered that Shelley was not a popularlandlord. There had been many complaints, and one or two really horridstories of his treatment of the peasantry. It seemed that he saw a gooddeal of company, and had made his house a resort for the rascality ofEurope. The rascality—not merely the folly, as in his father's time.The place fairly stank in Fanshawe's nostrils. 'The swine still callshimself an Englishman,' he told me, 'still keeps his English domicile,so we get the blame of his beastliness. And all the while, too, he issluicing out venom about England. He is clever enough to keep justinside the tinpot Greek law. I'd give a thousand pounds to see himclapped in gaol.'"

I had heard all I wanted to know, and picked up a book, while Folliotbusied himself with the newspaper. A little later he interrupted me.

"I have just remembered something else. You knew Wintergreen, thearchæologist? He was at the British school in Athens, and then excavatedHittite remains in Asia Minor. Poor fellow, he died of dysentery as anintelligence officer in Mesopotamia. Well, Wintergreen once spoke to meof Plakos. I suppose he had been there, for he had been everywhere. Wewere talking, I remember, one night in the club about Gilles deRais—the French Bluebeard, you know, the friend of Joan of Arc—and Iasked if anything approaching that kind of miscreant still existed onthe globe. Somebody said that the type was fairly common in the East,and mentioned some Indian potentate. Wintergreen broke in. 'You don'tneed to go to the East,' he said. 'You can find it in Europe,' and hestarted to speak of Shelley Arabin. I don't recollect what exactly hesaid, but it was pretty bad, and of course strictly libellous. By hisaccount Shelley had become a connoisseur and high priest of theuttermost evil, and the cup of his iniquities was nearly full. It seemedthat Wintergreen had been in the island excavating some ancient remainsand living among the peasants, and had heard tales that sickened him.He thought that some day soon the great house would go flaming toheaven, set alight by an outraged people.

"Well, it hasn't happened." Folliot returned to his Times. "Shelleyhas died in his bed, which is perhaps more than he deserved. Notagreeable people, I fear. It is a good thing that he left no posterity."

That evening I thought a good deal about Plakos. I was glad to havediscovered the reason for the aversion which I had felt on our visit,and was inclined to believe that I must be a more sensitive person thanmy friends would admit. After that the subject passed from my mind.

By the end of April I was so much recovered that I went back to mypractice at the Bar, and was almost snowed under by the briefs whichdescended on my shoulders as soon as there was a rumour of my return. Itwould have been a difficult job to select, and I daresay I should haveslipped into overwork, had I not been made a Law Officer. That, so tospeak, canalized my duties, and since my task was largely novel and, atthe moment, of extraordinary interest, the change completed myconvalescence. In May I was my normal self, and when Vernon returned toEngland in June he found me eating, sleeping, and working as in the olddays—a fitter man, indeed, than in 1914, for the war seemed to havedrawn off the grosser humours of middle life.

Vernon, too, was fit again. If a young man starts with a fineconstitution and a strong character, and applies all the powers of hismind to the task of getting well, he is almost certain to succeed. Hecame back to London a lean, sun-burnt creature, with an extraordinarilyrarified look about him. He had lost nothing of his youth, indeed hescarcely looked his twenty-five years; but he had been fined down andtautened and tested, so that his face had a new spirituality in it as ifthere was a light shining behind. I have noticed the same thing in othercases of head wounds. You remember how Jim Barraclough, who used to be aheavy red-haired fellow, came out of hospital looking like a saint in anItalian primitive.

Vernon was changed in other ways. You see, he belonged to a generationwhich was nearly cleaned out by the war, and he had scarcely a friend ofhis own year left except my nephew Charles. That should not have meantso much to him as to other people, for he had never depended greatly onfriends, but I think the thought of all the boys who had been at schooland college with him lying under the sod gave him a feeling of desperateloneliness, and flung him back more than ever on himself. I could seethat even I meant less to him than before, though I still meant a gooddeal.

I was partly to blame for that, perhaps. The war had altered everybody'ssense of values, and unconsciously I had come to take his dream lessseriously. I had got into a mood of accepting things as they came andliving with short horizons, and the long perspective which dominated histhoughts seemed to me a little out of the picture. I was conscious ofthis change in myself, and strove not to show it, but he must have feltit, and the blinds came down ever so little between us. For it was clearthat the dream meant more than ever to him. He was in the last lap now,had rounded the turn and was coming up the straight, and every nerve andsinew were on the stretch. I couldn't quite live up to this ardour,though I tried hard, and with that lightning instinct of his he wasaware of it, and was sparing of his confidences. The thing made memiserable, for it increased his loneliness, and I longed for the nextyear to be over and the apocalyptic to be driven out of his life. Themere fact that I took for granted that nothing would happen showed thatI had lost my serious interest in his dream. Vernon had to outgrow achildish fancy, as one outgrows a liability to chicken-pox—that wasall.

He had become harder too, as a consequence of loneliness. You rememberthat curious summer of 1919 when everybody was feverishly trying toforget the war. They were crazy days, when nobody was quite himself.Politicians talked and writers wrote clotted nonsense, statesmen chasedtheir tails, the working man wanted to double his wages and halve hisworking hours at a time when the world was bankrupt, youth tried to makeup for the four years of natural pleasure of which it had been cheated,and there was a general loosening of screws and a rise in temperature.It was what I had looked for, and I sympathized with a good deal of it,but, Lord bless me! Vernon was like an Israelitish prophet at a feast ofBaal. I recalled what Charles had said about him in the war, and Iwondered if Charles had not been right. Vernon seemed destitute ofcommon humour.

I took him to dine at the Thursday Club, which had just been started.There he behaved well enough, for he found people who could talk his ownlanguage. But I noticed how complete was his apathy when politics werethe subject of conversation. He was as uninterested in the setting torights of the world as a hermit in a cell. He was oddly uncompanionable,too. Burminster's rollicking chaff got nothing out of him but a MonaLisa smile. "What has happened to the boy?" that worthy asked meafterwards. "Shell-shock or what? Has he left a bit of his mind out inFrance? He's the most buttoned-up thing I ever struck."

He was worse with the ordinary young man. I gave a dinner or two forhim, and, as we had one club in common, we occasionally found ourselvestogether in smoking-room gatherings. I had an immense pity for youthstruggling to adjust its poise, and often I could have found it in myheart to be annoyed with Vernon's uncanny balance, which was not farfrom egotism. These poor lads were splashing about in life, trying tofind their feet, and for their innocent efforts he had only a calmcontempt. He sat like a skeleton at the feast, when they chattered abouttheir sporting and amorous ventures, and discussed with abysmalignorance how money was to be made in a highly expensive world. I have avivid recollection of his courteous, insulting aloofness.

"What rot to say that the war has done any good," he remarked to me onceas we walked back to the flat. "It has killed off the men, and left onlythe half-wits."

Charles, now endeavouring without much success to earn a living in theCity, was vehement on the subject, and he had a characteristicexplanation. "Vernon has become a wonderful old fossil," he said. "Notgone to seed, like some of the rest, but a fossil—dried up—mummified.It isn't healthy, and I'm pretty certain about the cause. He's gotsomething on his mind, and I shouldn't be surprised if he was preparingto come an everlasting cropper. I think it's a girl."

It certainly was not a girl. I often wished it had been, for to a fellowas lonely as Vernon the best cure, as I saw it, would have been to fallin love. People had taken furiously to dancing, and that summer, thoughthere were no big balls, every dinner-party seemed to end in a dance,and every restaurant was full of rag-time music and ugly transatlanticshuffling. For youth it was a good way of working off restlessness, andfoolish middle age followed the guiding of youth. I had no fault to findwith the fashion. The poor girls, starved for four years of theirrights, came from dull war-work and shadowed schoolrooms determined towin back something. One could forgive a good deal of shrillness and badform in such a case. My one regret was that they made such guys ofthemselves. Well-born young women seemed to have taken for their modelsthe cretinous little oddities of the film world.

One night Vernon and I had been dining at the house of a cousin of mineand had stayed long enough to see the beginning of the dance thatfollowed. As I looked on, I had a sharp impression of the change whichfive years had brought. This was not, like a pre-war ball, part of theceremonial of an assured and orderly world. These people were dancing assavages danced—to get rid of or to engender excitement. Apollo had beenousted by Dionysos. The nigger in the band, who came forward now andthen and sang some gibberish, was the true master of ceremonies. I saidas much to Vernon, and he nodded. He was watching with a curiousintensity the faces that passed us.

"Everybody is leaner," I said, "and lighter on their feet. That's whythey want to dance. But the women have lost their looks."

"The women!" he murmured. "Look at that, I beseech you!"

It was a tall girl, who was dancing with a handsome young Jew, anddancing, as I thought, with a notable grace. She was very slim, andclearly very young, and I daresay would have been pretty, if she had letherself alone. I caught a glimpse of fine eyes, and her head was set onher neck like a flower on its stalk. But some imp had inspired her todesecrate the gifts of the Almighty. Her hair was bobbed, she had toomuch paint and powder on her face, she had some kind of barbaric jewelsin her ears which put her head out of drawing, and she wore apreposterous white gown. Don't ask me to describe it, for I am not anexpert on dress; but it seemed to me wrong by every canon of decency andart. It had been made, no doubt, with the intention of beingprovocative, and its audacious lines certainly revealed a great deal ofits wearer's body. But the impression was rather of an outrageperpetrated on something beautiful, a foolish ill-bred joke. There wasan absurd innocence about the raddled and half-clad girl—like a childwho for an escapade has slipped down to the drawing-room in hernightgown.

Vernon did not feel as I felt. His eyes followed her for a little, andthen he turned to me with a face like stone.

"So much for our righteous war," he said grimly. "It's to produce thatthat so many good fellows died."

CHAPTER IV

Early in November I went down to Wirlesdon for the first big covertshoot. I am not a great performer with the gun, and you will not find meoften in the first flight in the hunting-field, but, busy as I was, Imade time now for an occasional day's shooting or hunting, for I hadfallen in love with the English country, and it is sport that takes youclose to the heart of it. Is there anything in the world like the cornerof a great pasture hemmed in with smoky brown woods in an autumntwilight: or the jogging home after a good run when the moist air isquickening to frost and the wet ruts are lemon-coloured in the sunset;or a morning in November when, on some upland, the wind tosses thedriven partridges like leaves over tall hedges, through the gaps ofwhich the steel-blue horizons shine? It is the English winter thatintoxicates me more even than the English May, for the noble bones ofthe land are bare, and you get the essential savour of earth and woodand water.

It was a mild evening as we walked back from the last stand to thehouse, and, though so late in the year, there was still a show in thegarden borders. I like the rather languid scent of autumn flowers whenit is chastened by a touch of wood smoke from the gardeners' bonfires;it wakes so many memories and sets me thinking. This time my thoughtswere chiefly of Vernon, whom I had not seen for several months. We werecertainly drawing apart, and I didn't see how it could be avoided. I wasback in the ordinary world again, with a mighty zest for it, and he wasvowed and consecrated to his extraordinary obsession. I could not takeit seriously myself, but about one thing I was grave enough—its effecton Vernon. Nothing would happen when next April came—of that I wasconvinced, but if nothing happened what would Vernon do? The linch-pinwould be out of his life. At twenty-six, with a war behind him, a manshould have found his groove in life, but at twenty-six Vernon would bederelict, like one who has trained himself laboriously for an occupationwhich is gone. I put aside the notion that anything could happen, for inmy new mood I was incredulous of miracles. But my scepticism did notdispel my anxiety.

The hall at Wirlesdon is a big, comfortable, stone-flagged Georgianplace, and before one of the fire-places, with two great Coromandelscreens for a shelter, there was the usual encampment for tea. It was ajolly sight—the autumn dusk in the tall windows, the blazing logs, andthe group of fresh-coloured young faces. I had gone straight to thecovert-side that morning, so I had still to greet my hostess, and I wasnot clear who were staying in the house. Mollie Nantley, busied inmaking tea, muttered some indistinct introductions, and I bowed toseveral unfamiliar young women in riding-habits who were consumingpoached eggs. I remembered that this was the Saturday country for theMivern, and presently one of the red backs turned towards me, and I sawthat it was Vernon.

The Mivern cut-away became him uncommonly well, and his splashedbreeches and muddy boots corrected the over-precision which was apt tobe the fault of his appearance. Once he would have made a bee-linetowards me, but now he contented himself with a smile and a wave of hishand. We were certainly drifting apart.... He was talking to one of theNantley girls, a pretty shy creature, just out of the schoolroom, andTom Nantley, her father, made a third in the conversation. As I drank mytea I looked round the little gathering. There were Bill Harcus andHeneage Wotton and young Cheviot who had been of the shooting party.Lady Altrincham was there with her wonderful pearls—she is one of thosepeople whose skin nourishes pearls, and she is believed to take them tobed with her. Young Mrs. Lamington, who had been walking with the guns,was kicking the burning logs with her mannish shoes and discussingpolitics with the son of the house, Hugo Brune, who was in Parliament.There were several girls, all with clear skins and shorn curls, andslim, straight figures. I found myself for the first time approving thenew fashion in clothes. These children looked alert and vital likepleasant boys, and I have always preferred Artemis to Aphrodite.

But there was one girl who caught and held my eyes. She had beenhunting, and her flat-brimmed hat was set deep on her small head andrather tilted back, for her bobbed hair gave it no support. Her figure,in a well-cut coat and habit, was graceful and workmanlike, and therewas a rakish elegance about her pose, as she stood with one foot on thestone curb of the hearth, holding a tea-cup as a Wise Virgin may havecarried a lamp. But there was little of the Wise Virgin about her face.Any colour the weather might have whipped into it had disappeared undera recent powdering, and my impression was of very red lips against adead white background. She had been talking over her left shoulder toher hostess, and now her eyes were roaming about the place, with a kindof arrogant nonchalance. They met mine, and I saw that they werecuriously sullen and masterful. Then they passed from me, for amiddle-aged lawyer did not interest them, dwelt for a moment on Cheviotand Wotton, who were having an argument about woodcock, and finallyrested on Vernon. She had the air of being bored with her company.

Vernon, talking idly to Tom Nantley, suddenly found himself addressed.

"Your mare wants practice in jumping stone walls," she said. "You'll cuther knees to ribbons. Better try her in caps next time."

You can cut into a conversation gracefully, and you can cut in rudely.This girl did it rudely. I could see Vernon's face harden as he repliedthat this bit of the Mivern country was strange to him.

"It's the only decent going in the shire. I'm sick of the rottenpastures in the vale country. What on earth does one hunt for except forpace?"

"Some of us hunt to follow hounds," was Vernon's curt rejoinder.

She laughed—a rather ugly, hard little laugh. "Follow your grandmother!If hounds are all you care about you may as well go beagling! Give me acigarette, will you?"

"Sorry. I haven't any," he replied.

Several men proffered cases. "You'll find heaps, Corrie dear," MollieNantley said, "in the box behind you." The girl reached behind her forthe box and offered it to Vernon. When he declined she demanded a match,and Vernon, with an ill grace, lit her cigarette. It was plain that hedetested her manners.

So most certainly did I. The little incident I had witnessed was oddlyill-bred and brazen. And yet "brazen" was not quite the word, for itimplies self-consciousness. This masterful girl had no shadow of doubtas to her behaviour. She seemed to claim the right to domineer, like abarbaric princess accustomed to an obsequious court. Yes, "barbaric" wasthe right epithet. Mollie had called her "Corrie," and the name fittedher. No doubt she had been baptized Cora or Corisande, names which forme recalled the spangles and sawdust of a circus.

She had decided that Vernon was the most interesting of the lot of us,and she promptly annexed him, moving to his side and swinging on an armof a tapestry chair. But Vernon was a hard fellow to drive against hiswill. His air was a frigid courtesy, and presently he went up to hishostess. "We must be off, Lady Nantley," he said, "for it's gettingdark, and we are eight miles from home." He collected two of the men andthree of the hunting girls, like a chaperone at a ball, shook hands withMollie and Tom, nodded to me, and marched to the door.

The girl, who was apparently my fellow-guest, followed him with hereyes, and her scarlet lips seemed to twitch in a flicker of amusement.If she had been rude, so had been Vernon, and, had she known it, it wassomething of a triumph to have cracked his adamantine good manners. Whenthe party had gone, she strolled to the front of the hearth, stretchedher arms above her head, and yawned.

"Lord, how stiff I am!" she proclaimed. "Heigho for a bath! I hopeyou've the right kind of bath salts, Mollie, or I'll be on crutchesto-morrow. Come and talk to me, Dolly!" She picked up her crop, made anoose with the lash around the waist of one of the daughters of thehouse and drew her with her. The child, to my surprise, went smilingly.

I, too, had a bath, and read papers till it was time to dress. I felthappier about Vernon, for the sight of his unmistakable ill-temperseemed to bring him into the common human category. I had never seenhim show dislike so markedly to any human being as to that atrociousgirl, and I considered that it would be a good thing if his Olympiancalm could be ruffled more often in the same way. I wondered casuallywho she could be, and why the Nantleys should have her to stay. Probablyshe was some daughter of profiteers who had bought her way into anunfamiliar world, though that would not explain her presence atWirlesdon. But an ill-bred young woman did not interest me enough for mythoughts to dwell long on her, and my only prayer was that I might notbe placed next her at dinner.

It was a very young party which I found assembled in Mollie'ssitting-room, and a hasty glance convinced me that I would be sent inwith Mrs. Lamington. Old Folliot was there, and presently he sidled upto me to tell me a new piece of gossip. Having been out all day instrong air I was ravenous, and impatient for the announcement of dinner.

"Now, who are we waiting for?" Tom Nantley fussed around. "Oh, Corrie,of course. Corrie is always late. Confound that girl, she has probablygone to sleep in her bath. Pam, you go and dig her out.... Hullo, hereshe comes at last!"

In her hunting-kit she had looked handsome in an outlandish way, but asshe swept down—without any apology—on our hungry mob there was noquestion of her beauty. For one thing she walked superbly. Few women canwalk, and the trouble about the new fashion in clothes is that itemphasizes ugly movement. She wore a gown of a shade of green whichwould have ruined most people's looks, but she managed to carry it off,and something more. For a young girl she was far too heavily made up,but that, too, she forced one to accept. I suddenly had a new view ofher, and realized that there was quality here, a masterfulness whichmight charm, an arrogance which perhaps was not blasé but virginal.

I realized, too, that I had seen her before. This was the girl whomVernon and I had watched at my cousin's dance in July. I wondered if hehad understood this in their encounter at the tea-table.

I had barely recovered from this surprise, when I had another. Folliot'shand was on my arm and he was purring in my ear:

"We talked once of Shelley Arabin, and I told you he left no children.My memory betrayed me, for that young lady is his daughter. She has thetrue Arabin eyes and all their unfathomable conceit. She is what in myday we would have called 'shocking bad form.' Rather common, I think."

From which I knew that she must have dealt hardly with old Folliot.

At dinner I sat between Mollie and Mrs. Lamington, and since my hostesshad the garrulous Cheviot on her right hand, I devoted myself to myother neighbour. That charming lady, who gives to political intriguewhat time she can spare from horseflesh, had so much to tell me that Ihad no need to exert myself. She was eloquent on the immense importanceof certain pending Imperial appointments, especially on the need ofselecting men with the right kind of wives, the inference being thatGeorge Lamington's obvious deficiencies might be atoned for by themerits of his lady. I must have assented to everything that she said,for she told Mollie afterwards that the war had improved me enormouslyand had broadened my mind. But as a matter of fact I was thinking ofMiss Arabin.

She sat nearly opposite to me, and I could watch her without staring.Her manner seemed to alternate between an almost hoydenish vivacity andcomplete abstraction. At one moment she would have her young neighbourslaughing and protesting volubly, and then she would be apparently deafto what they said, so that they either talked across her or turned totheir other partners.... In these latter moods her eyes seemed almostsightless, so wholly were they lacking in focus or expression. Sometimesthey rested on the table flowers, sometimes on the wall before her,sometimes on Mrs. Lamington and myself—but they were always unseeing.Instead of their former sullenness, they seemed to have a broodinginnocence.... I noticed, too, the quality of her voice when she spoke.It was singularly arresting—clear, high, and vital. She talked theusual staccato slang, but though she rarely finished a sentencegrammatically, the cadence and intonation were always rounded off to asatisfying close. Only her laugh was ugly, as if it were a forcedthing. Every other sound that came from her had a musical completeness.

She had the foreign trick of smoking before the close of dinner, and, asif to preserve her beautiful fingers from contamination, before lightinga cigarette she would draw on her right hand a silk glove of the samecolour as her gown. The Nantley's seemed to be accustomed to this habit,but it at last withdrew Mrs. Lamington from her Imperial propaganda.

"What an extraordinary young woman!" she whispered to me. "Who is she?Is she a little mad, or only foreign?"

I paraphrased old Folliot in my reply: "Pure English, but lives abroad."

The green glove somehow recalled that April evening at Plakos. Thisoutlandish creature was interesting, for God knew what strange thingswere in her upbringing and her ancestry. Folliot was an old fool; shemight be odious, but she was assuredly not "common." As it chanced theend of dinner found her in one of her fits of absent-mindedness, and shetrailed out of the room with the other women like a sleep-walker. Thetwo youngsters who had been her companions at table stared after hertill the door closed.

Later in the drawing-room I returned to my first impression. The girlwas detestable. I would have liked a sleepy evening of bridge, but theyoung harpy turned the sober halls of Wirlesdon into a cabaret. Shebehaved like a man-eating shark, and swept every male, except TomNantley, Folliot, and myself, into her retinue. They danced in thelibrary, because of its polished empty floor, and when I looked in I sawthat the kind of dances were not what I should have chosen for youth,and was glad that Pam and Dolly had been sent to bed. I heard a clearvoice declaring that it was "devilish slow," and I knew to whom thevoice belonged. At the door I passed old Folliot on his way to his room,and he shook his head and murmured "Common." This time I almost agreedwith him.

In the drawing-room I found my hostess skimming the weekly press, anddrew up a chair beside her. Mollie Nantley and I count cousinship,though the relation is slightly more remote, and she has long been myvery good friend. She laid down her paper and prepared to talk.

"I was so glad to see Colonel Milburne again. He looks so well too. But,Ned dear, you ought to get him to go about more, for he's really alittle old-maidish. He was scared to death by Corrie Arabin."

"Well, isn't she rather—shall we say disconcerting? More by token, whois she?"

"Poor little Corrie! She's the only child of a rather horrible man whodied last year—Shelley Arabin. Did you never hear of him? He married asort of cousin of mine and treated her shamefully. Corrie had the mostmiserable upbringing—somewhere in Greece, you know, and in Rome andParis, and at the worst kind of girls' school where they teach thechildren to be snobs and powder their noses and go to confession. Theschool wouldn't have mattered, for the Arabins are Romans, and Corriecouldn't be a snob if she tried, but her home life would have ruined St.Theresa. She was in London last summer with the Ertzbergers, and I wasrather unhappy about her living among cosmopolitan Jew rastaquouères,so I am trying to do what I can for her this winter. Fortunately she hastaken madly to hunting, and she goes most beautifully. She has never hada chance, poor child. You must be kind to her, Ned."

I said that I was not in the habit of being brutal to young women, butthat she was not likely to want my kindness. "She seems to be a successin her way. These boys follow her like sheep."

"Oh, she has had one kind of success, but not the best kind. She castsan extraordinary spell over young men, and does not care a straw for oneof them. I might be nervous about Hugo, but I'm not in the least, forshe is utterly sexless—more like a wild boy. It is no good trying toimprove her manners, for she is quite unconscious of them. I don't thinkthere is an atom of harm in her, and she has delightful things abouther—she is charming to Pam and Dolly, and they adore her, and she issimply the most honest creature ever born. She must get it from hermother, for Shelley was an infamous liar."

Mollie's comely face, with her glorious golden-red hair slightlygreying at the temples, had a look of compassionate motherliness. Withall her vagueness, she is one of the shrewdest women of my acquaintance,and I have a deep respect for her judgment. If she let her adored Pamand Dolly make friends of Miss Arabin, Miss Arabin must be somethingmore than the cabaret girl of my first impression.

"But I'm not happy about her," Mollie went on. "I can't see her future.She ought to marry, and the odds are terribly against her marrying theright man. Boys flock after her, but the really nice men—like ColonelMilburne—fly from her like the plague. They don't understand that herbad form is not our bad form, but simply foreignness.... And she's soterribly strong-minded. I know that she hates everything connected withher early life, and yet she insists on going back to that Greek place.Her father left her quite well off, I believe—Tom says so, and he haslooked into her affairs—and she ought to settle down here andacclimatize herself. All her superficial oddities would soon drop off,for she is so clever she could make herself whatever she wanted. It iswhat she wants, too, for she loves England and English ways. But thereis a touch of 'daftness' about her, a kind of freakishness which I cannever understand! I suppose it is the Arabin blood."

Mollie sighed.

"I try to be tolerant about youth," she added, "but I sometimes long tobox its ears. Besides, there is the difficulty about the others. I amquite sure of Corrie up to a point, but I can't be responsible for theyoung men. George Cheviot shows every inclination to make a fool ofhimself about her, and what am I to say to his mother? Really, havingCorrie in the house is like domesticating a destroying angel."

"You're the kindest of women," I said, "but I think you've taken on ajob too hard for you. You can't mix oil and wine. You'll never fit MissArabin into your world. She belongs to a different one."

"I wonder what it is?"

"A few hours ago I should have said it was the world of cabarets andRiviera hotels and Ertzbergers. After what you have told me I'm not sosure. But anyhow it's not our world."

As I went to bed I heard the jigging of dance music from the library,and even in so large a house as Wirlesdon its echoes seemed to pursue meas I dropped into sleep. The result was that I had remarkable dreams, inwhich Miss Arabin, dressed in the spangles of a circus performer andriding a piebald horse, insisted on my piloting her with the Mivern,while the Master and Vernon looked on in stony disapproval.

The next morning was frosty and clear, and I came down to breakfast tofind my hostess alone in the dining-room.

"Corrie behaved disgracefully last night," I was informed. "She startedsome silly rag with George Cheviot, and made hay of Mr. Harcus'sbedroom. Tom had to get up and read the Riot Act in the small hours. Ihave been to her room and found her asleep, but as soon as she wakes Iam going to talk to her very seriously. It is more than bad manners—itis an offence against hospitality."

I went to church with Tom and his daughters, and when we returned wefound Miss Arabin breakfasting before the hall fire on grapes andcoffee, with the usual young men in attendance. If she had been given alecture by her hostess, there was no sign of it in her face. She lookedamazingly brilliant—all in brown, with a jumper of brown arabesque andlong amber ear-rings. A russet silk glove clothed the hand in which sheheld her cigarette.

Vernon came over to luncheon and sat next to Mollie, while at the otherend of the table I was placed between Miss Arabin and Lady Altrincham.The girl scarcely threw a word to me, being occupied in discussing,quite intelligently, with Hugo Brune the international position ofTurkey. I could not avoid overhearing some of their talk, and I realizedthat when she chose she could behave like a civilized being. It might bethat Mollie's morning discourse had borne fruit. Her voice wasdelightful to listen to, with its full, clear tones and delicatemodulations. And then, after her habit, her attention wandered, andHugo's platitudes fell on unheeding ears. She was staring at a pictureof a Jacobean Nantley on the wall, and presently her eyes moved up thetable and rested on Vernon.

She spoke to me at last.

"Who is the man next to Mollie—the man who came to tea last night? Youknow him, don't you?"

I told her his name.

"A soldier?" she asked.

"Has been. Does nothing at present. He has a place in Westmorland."

"You are friends?"

"The closest." There was something about the girl's brusqueness whichmade me want to answer in monosyllables. Then she suddenly took mybreath away.

"He is unhappy," she said. "He looks as if he had lost his way."

She turned to Hugo and, with an urbanity which I had thought impossible,apologized for her inattention, and took up the conversation at thepoint at which she had dropped it.

Her words made me keep my eyes on Vernon. Unhappy! There was little signof it in his lean smiling face, with the tanned cheeks and steady eyes.Mollie was clearly delighted with him; perhaps her maternal heart hadmarked him down for Dolly. Lost his way? On the contrary he seemed atcomplete ease with the world. Was this strange girl a sorceress todiscover what was hidden deep in only two men's minds? I had a sensethat Vernon and Miss Arabin, with nothing on earth in common, had yet acertain affinity. Each had a strain of romance in them—romance and theunpredictable.

Vernon had motored over to Wirlesdon and proposed to walk back, so Iaccompanied him for part of the road. I was glad of a chance for a talk,for I was miserably conscious that we were slipping away from eachother. I didn't see how I could help it, for I was immersed in practicalaffairs, while he would persist in living for a dream. Before the war Ihad been half under the spell of that dream, but four years' campaigninghad given me a distaste for the fantastic and set my feet very solidlyon the rock of facts. Our two circles of comprehension, which used tointersect, had now become self-contained.

I asked him what he was doing with himself, and he said hunting, andshooting, and dabbling in books. He was writing something—I think aboutprimitive Greek religion, in consequence of some notions he had pickedup during his service in the Ægean.

"Seriously, old fellow," I said, "isn't it time you settled down tobusiness? You are twenty-five, you have first-class brains, and you arequite fit now. I can't have you turning into a flâneur."

"There is no fear of that," he replied rather coldly. "I am eager forwork, but I haven't found it yet. My training isn't finished. I mustwait till after next April."

"But what is going to happen after that?"

"I don't know. I must see what happens then."

"Vernon," I cried, "we are old friends, and I am going to speak bluntly.You really must face up to facts. What is going to happen next April?What can happen? Put it at its highest. You may pass through somestrange mental experience. I can't conceive what it may be, but supposethe last door does open and you see something strange and beautiful oreven terrible—I don't know what. It will all happen inside your mind.It will round off the recurring experiences you have had from childhood,but it can't do anything more."

"It will do much more," he said. "It will be the crisis of my life....Why have you become so sceptical, Ned? You used to think as I do aboutit."

"It will only be a crisis if you make it so, and it's too risky.Supposing, on the other hand, that nothing happens. You will have keyedyour whole being up to an expectation which fails. You will be derelict,cut clean from your moorings. It's too risky, I tell you."

He shook his head. "We have fallen out of understanding each other. Yoursecond alternative is impossible. I know it in my bones. Something willhappen—must happen—and then I shall know what I have to do with mylife. It will be the pistol-shot for the start."

"But, my dear old man, think of the hazard. You are staking everythingon a wild chance. Heaven knows, I'm not unsympathetic. I believe inyou—I believe in a way in the reality of the dream. But life is aprosaic thing, and if you are to have marvels in it you should take themin your stride. I want to see you with some sort of policy for thefuture, and letting the last stage of your dream drop in naturally intoa strategic plan. You can't, at twenty-six, sit waiting on a revelation.You must shape your own course, and take the revelation when it comes.If you don't, you'll find yourself derelict. Damn it, you're far toogood to be a waif."

He smiled a little sadly. "We're pretty far apart now, I'm afraid. Can'tyou see that the thing is too big a part of me to be treated as aside-show? It's what I've been sent into the world for. I'm waiting formy marching orders."

"Then you're waiting for a miracle," I said testily.

"True. I am waiting for a miracle," he replied. "We needn't argue aboutit, Ned, for miracles are outside argument. In less than six months Iwill know. Till then I am content to live by faith."

After leaving him, I walked back to the house in an uncomfortable frameof mind. I realized that the affection between us was as deep as ever,but I had a guilty sense of having left him in the lurch. He was alonenow, whereas once I had been with him, and I hated to think of hisloneliness.

As I crossed the bridge between the lakes I met Miss Arabin saunteringbareheaded in the autumn sunlight. I would have passed on, with a curtgreeting, for I was in no mood to talk trivialities to a girl Idisliked, but to my surprise she stopped and turned with me up the longgrassy aisle which led to the gardens.

"I came out to meet you," she said. "I want to talk to you."

My response cannot have been encouraging, but she took no notice ofthat.

"You're a lawyer, aren't you?" she went on. "Mollie says you are veryclever. You look clever."

I daresay I grinned. I was being comprehensively patronized.

"Well, I want you to help me. I have some tiresome legal complicationsto disentangle, and my solicitor is a sheep. I mean to sack him."

I explained the etiquette of my profession.

"Oh, then you can tell him what to do. You'll understand his silly talk,which I don't. You make him obey you."

"My dear young lady," I said, "I cannot undertake private business. Yousee I'm in the employ of the Government."

"Don't be afraid, I can pay you all right." The words were too naïve tobe insulting.

I said nothing, and she darted before me and looked me in the face.

"You mean that you won't help me?" she asked.

"I mean that I'm not allowed," I replied.

Without another word she swung round and disappeared up a side glade. Asshe vanished among the beech trees, a figure as russet as the drift ofleaves, I thought I had never seen anything more quick and slender, andI fervently hoped that I should never see her again.

CHAPTER V

In that hope I was mistaken. A fortnight later the Treasury Solicitorsent me the papers in one of those intricate international cases whichwere the debris of the war. It was a claim by a resident abroad, who hadnot lost his British nationality, for compensation for some oppressiveact of one of the transient Greek Governments. I left the thing to my"devil," and just skimmed his note before the necessary conference withthe plaintiff's solicitors. To my surprise I saw that it had to do withthe island of Plakos and the name of Arabin.

Mr. Mower, of the reputable firm of Mower and Lidderdale, was not unlikea sheep in appearance—a Leicester ewe for choice. He had a large palehigh-boned face, rimless spectacles, a crop of nice fleecy white hair,and the bedside manner of the good family solicitor. My hasty study ofthe papers showed me that the oppressive acts were not denied, but thatthe title of the plaintiff was questioned.

"This is a matter of domestic law," I said—"the lex loci rei sitæ. Ifthe title to the land is disputed, it is a case for the Greek courts."

"We have reason to believe that the defence is not seriously putforward, for the title is beyond dispute, and we are at a loss tounderstand the attitude of the Greek Government. The documents are allin our possession, and we took Mr. Blakeney's advice on them. Hisopinion is among the papers left with you—and you will see that he hasno doubt on the matter."

Mr. Blakeney certainly had not, as I saw from his opinion, nor had my"devil." The latter characterized the defence as "monstrous." It seemedto be based on an arbitrary act of the old Greek National Assembly of1830. My note said that the title was complete in every respect, andthat the attempt to question it seemed to be a species of insanity. Aname caught my attention.

"What is Koré?" I asked.

"It is Miss Arabin's Christian name. Greek, I presume," said Mr. Mower,very much in the tone in which Mr. Pecksniff observed, "Pagan, I regretto say."

I read the note again, and Blakeney's opinion. Blakeney was an authorityfrom whom I was not disposed to differ, and the facts seemed too patentfor argument. As I turned over the papers I saw the name of anothersolicitor on them.

"You have not always acted for the Arabin family?" I asked.

"Only within the last few months. Derwents were the family solicitors,but Miss Arabin was dissatisfied with them and withdrew her business.Curiously enough, they advised that the claim of the Greek Governmentwas good, and should not be opposed."

"What!" I exclaimed. Derwents are one of the best firms in England, andthe senior partner, Sebastian Derwent, was my oldest client. He was notonly a sound lawyer, but a good scholar and a good fellow. What on earthhad induced him to give such paradoxical advice?

I told Mr. Mower that the matter seemed plain enough, but that for myown satisfaction I proposed to give further consideration to the papers.I took them home with me that evening, and the more I studied them theless I could understand Derwent's action. The thing seemed a bluff soimpudent as to be beyond argument. The abstract of title was explicitenough, and Blakeney, who had had the original documents, was emphaticon the point. But the firm of Derwents was not in the habit of actingwithout good cause.... I found myself becoming interested in the affair.Plakos was still a disquieting memory, and the outrageous girl atWirlesdon was of a piece with its strangeness.

A day or two later I was dining at the Athenæum before going down to theHouse, and I saw Sebastian Derwent eating a solitary meal at an adjacenttable. I moved over beside him, and after some casual conversation Iventured to sound him on the subject. With another man it might havebeen a delicate task, but we were old and confidential friends.

I told him I had had the Plakos case before me. "You used to act for theArabins?" I said.

He nodded, and a slight embarrassment entered his manner. "My father andgrandfather, too, before me. The firm had a difficult time with old TomArabin. He had a habit of coming down to the office with a horsewhip,and on one occasion my grandfather was compelled to wrest it from him,break it over his knee, and pitch it into the fire."

"I can imagine easier clients. But I am puzzled about that preposterousGreek claim. I can't think how it came to be raised, for it is sheerbluff."

He reddened a little, and crumbled his bread.

"I advised Miss Arabin not to dispute it," he said.

"I know, and I can't imagine why. You advised her to sit down under apiece of infamous extortion."

"I advised her to settle it."

"But how can you settle a dispute when all the rights are on one side?Do you maintain that there was any law or equity in the Greek case?"

He hesitated for a second. "No," he said, "the claim was bad in law. Butits acceptance would have had certain advantages for Miss Arabin."

I suppose I looked dumbfounded. "It's a long story," he said, "and I'mnot sure that I have the right to tell it to you."

"Let us leave it at that, then. Of course it's no business of mine." Idid not want to embarrass an old friend.

But he seemed disinclined to leave it. "You think I have actedunprofessionally?" he ventured.

"God forbid! I know you too well, and I don't want to poke my nose intoprivate affairs."

"I can tell you this much. Miss Arabin is in a position of extremedifficulty. She is alone in the world, without a near relation. She isvery young, and not quite the person to manage a troublesome estate."

"But surely that is no reason why she should surrender her patrimony toa bogus demand?"

"It would not have been exactly surrender. I advised her not to submitbut to settle. Full compensation would have been paid if she had givenup Plakos."

"Oh, come now," I cried. "Who ever heard of voluntary compensation beingpaid by a little stony-broke Government in Eastern Europe?"

"It would have been arranged," he said. "Miss Arabin had friends—afriend—who had great influence. The compensation was privately settled,and it was on a generous scale. Miss Arabin has fortunately othersources of income than Plakos: indeed, I do not think she draws anyserious revenue from the island. She would have received a sum of moneyin payment, the interest on which would have added substantially to herincome."

"But I still don't see the motive. If the lady is not worried aboutmoney, why should her friends be so anxious to increase her income?"

Mr. Derwent shook his head. "Money is not the motive. The fact is thatPlakos is a troublesome property. The Arabin family have never beenpopular, and the inhabitants are turbulent and barely civilized. Thething is weighing on her mind. It is not the sort of possession for ayoung girl."

"I see. In order to rid Miss Arabin of a damnosa hæreditas you enteredinto a friendly conspiracy. I gather that she saw through it."

He nodded. "She is very quick-witted, and was furious at the questioningof her title. That was my mistake. I underrated her intelligence. Ishould have had the thing more ingeniously framed. I can assure you thatmy last interview with her was very painful. I was forced to admit thethinness of the Greek claim, and after that I had a taste of TomArabin's temper. She is an extraordinary child, but there is wonderfulquality in her, wonderful courage. I confess I am thankful as a lawyerto be rid of her affairs, but as a friend of the family I cannot helpbeing anxious.... She is so terribly alone in the world."

"That is a queer story," I said. "Of course you behaved as I should haveexpected, but I fancy that paternal kindliness is thrown away on thatyoung woman. I met her a few weeks ago in a country house, and shestruck me as peculiarly able to look after herself. One last question.Who is the friend who is so all-powerful at Athens?"

"That I fear I am not at liberty to tell you," was the answer.

This tale whetted my curiosity. From old Folliot I had learned somethingof the record of the Arabins, and I had my own impression of Plakos asclear as a cameo. Now I had further details in my picture. Koré Arabin(odd name! I remembered from my distant schooldays that Koré was Greekfor a "maiden"—it had nothing to do with Corisande of the circus) wasthe mistress of that sinister island and that brooding house of a peoplewho detested her race. There was danger in the place, danger so greatthat some friend unknown was prepared to pay a large price to get herout of it, and had involved in the plot the most decorous solicitor inEngland. Who was this friend? I wanted to meet him and to hear more ofPlakos, for I realized that he and not Derwent was the authority.

Speculation as to his identity occupied a good deal of my leisure, tillsuddenly I remembered what Lady Nantley had told me. Miss Arabin hadbeen living in London with the Ertzbergers before she came to Wirlesdon.The friend could only be Theodore Ertzberger. He had endless Greekconnections, was one of the chief supporters of Venizelos, and it wasthrough his house that the new Greek loan was to be issued. I had methim, of course, and my recollection was of a small bright-eyed man witha peaked grey beard and the self-contained manner of the high financier.I had liked him, and found nothing of the rastaquouère in him to whichMollie objected. His wife was another matter. She was a large,flamboyant Belgian Jewess, a determined social climber, and a greatpatron of art and music, who ran a salon, and whose portraits were to befound in every exhibition of the young school of painters. It was bornein on me that my curiosity would not be satisfied till I had had a talkwith Ertzberger.

Lady Amysfort arranged the meeting at a Sunday luncheon, when MadameErtzberger was mercifully stricken with influenza.

Except for the hostess, it was a man's party, and afterwards shemanœuvred that Ertzberger and I should be left alone in a corner of thebig drawing-room.

I did not waste time beating about the bush, for I judged from his facethat this man would appreciate plain dealing. There was something simpleand fine about his small regular features and the steady regard of hisdark eyes.

"I am glad to have this chance of a talk with you," I said. "I havelately been consulted about Plakos, and Miss Arabin's claim against theGreek Government. Also, a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meetingMiss Arabin. The whole business interests me strongly—not as a lawyerbut as a human being. You see, just before the war I happened to visitPlakos, and I can't quite get the place out of my head. You are a friendof hers, and I should like to know something more about the island. Igather that it's not the most comfortable kind of estate."

He looked me straight in the face. "I think you know Mr. SebastianDerwent," he said.

"I do. And he gave me a hint of Miss Arabin's difficulties, and thesolution proposed. His conduct may not have been strictly professional,but it was extraordinarily kind. But let me make it quite clear that henever mentioned your name, or gave me any sort of clue to it. I guessedthat you were the friend, because I knew that Miss Arabin had beenstaying in your house."

"You guessed rightly. It is not a thing that I naturally want madepublic, but I am not in the least ashamed of the part I played. Iwelcome the opportunity of discussing it with you. It is a curiousthing, but Miss Arabin has already spoken of you to me."

"She asked me to advise her, and I'm afraid was rather annoyed when Itold her that I couldn't take private practice."

"But she has not given up the notion. She never gives up any notion. Shehas somehow acquired a strong belief in your wisdom."

"I am obliged to her, but I am not in a position to help."

He laid his hand on my arm. "Do not refuse her," he said earnestly."Believe me, no woman ever stood in more desperate need of friends."

His seriousness impressed me. "She has a loyal one in you, at any rate.And she seems to be popular, and to have a retinue of young men."

He looked at me sharply. "You think she is a light-headed girl, devotedto pleasure—rather second-rate pleasure—a little ill-bred perhaps. Butyou are wrong, Sir Edward. Here in England she is a butterfly—dancingtill all hours, a madcap in town and in the hunting-field, a bewitcherof foolish boys. Oh, bad form, I grant you—the worst of bad form. Butthat is because she comes here for an anodyne. She is feverishly gaybecause she is trying to forget—trying not to remember that there istragedy waiting behind her."

"Where?" I asked.

"In the island of Plakos."

Tragedy—that was the word he used. It had an incongruous sound to me,sitting in a warm London drawing-room after an excellent luncheon, withthe sound of chatter and light laughter coming from the group around myhostess. But he had meant it—his grave voice and burdened face showedit—and the four walls seemed to fade into another picture—a twilightby a spring sea, and under a shadowy house two men with up-lifted handsand hate and fear in their eyes.

"If you will do me the honour to listen," Ertzberger was speaking, "Ishould like to tell you more about Miss Arabin's case."

"Have you known her long?" I asked. A sudden disinclination had comeover me to go further in this affair. I felt dimly that if I became therecipient of confidences I might find myself involved in somedistasteful course of action.

"Since she was a child. I had dealings with her father—businessdealings—he was no friend of mine—but there was a time when I oftenvisited Plakos. I can claim that I have known Miss Arabin for nearlyfifteen years."

"Her father was a bit of a blackguard?"

"None of the words we use glibly to describe evil are quite adequate toShelley Arabin. The man was rotten to the very core. His father—Iremember him too—was unscrupulous and violent, but he had a heart. Andhe had a kind of burning courage. Shelley was as hard and cold as astone, and he was also a coward. But he had genius—a genius forwickedness. He was beyond all comparison the worst man I have everknown."

"What did he do?" I asked. "I should have thought the opportunities forwrong-doing in a remote island were limited."

"He was a student of evil. He had excellent brains and much learning,and he devoted it all to researches in devilry. He had hisfriends—people of his own tastes, who acknowledged him as their master.Some of the gatherings at Plakos would have made Nero vomit. Men andwomen both.... The place stank of corruption. I have only heard theorgies hinted at—heathenish remnants from the backstairs of the MiddleAges. And on the fringes of that hell the poor child grew up."

"Unsmirched?"

"Unsmirched! I will stake my soul on that. A Muse, a Grace, a nymphamong satyrs. Her innocence kept her from understanding. And then as shegrew older and began to have an inkling of horrors, she was in flamingrevolt.... I managed to get her sent away, first to school, then to mywife's charge. Otherwise I think there would have been a tragedy."

"But surely with her father's death the danger is gone."

He shook his head. "Plakos is a strange place, for the tides ofcivilization and progress seem to have left it high and dry. It is arelic of old days, full of wild beliefs and pagan habits. That was whyShelley could work his will with it. He did not confine his evil-doingto his friends and the four walls of his house. He laid a spell ofterror on the island. There are horrid tales—I won't trouble you withthem—about his dealings with the peasants, for he revelled incorrupting youth. And terror grew soon into hate, till in his last daysthe man's nerve broke. He lived his last months in gibbering fear. Thereis something to be said after all for mediæval methods. Shelley was thekind of scoundrel whom an outraged people should have treated withboiling oil."

"Does the hatred pursue his daughter?" I asked.

"Most certainly. It took years for Plakos to recognize Shelley'senormities, and now the realization has become cumulative, growing withevery month. I have had inquiries made—it is easy for me since I haveagents everywhere in the Ægean—and I can tell you the thing has becomea mania. The war brought the island pretty near starvation, for thefishing was crippled and a succession of bad seasons spoiled thewretched crops. Also there was a deadly epidemic of influenza. Well, theunsettlement of men's minds, which is found all over the world to-day,has become in Plakos sheer madness. Remember, the people are primitive,and have savagery in their blood and odd faiths in their hearts. I donot know much about these things, but scholars have told me that in theislands the old gods are not altogether dead. The people have suffered,and they blame their sufferings on the Arabins, till they have made amonstrous legend of it. Shelley is in hell and beyond their reach, butShelley's daughter is there. She is the witch who has wronged them, andthey are the kind of folk who are capable of witch-burning."

"Good God!" I cried. "Then the girl ought never to be allowed toreturn."

"So I thought, and hence my little conspiracy which failed. I may tellyou in confidence that it was I who prompted the action of the GreekGovernment, and was prepared to find the compensation. But I was met bya stone wall. She insists on holding on to the place. Worse, she insistson going back. She went there last spring, and the spring is a periloustime, for the people have had the winter to brood over their hatred. Ido not know whether she is fully conscious of the risk, for sometimes Ithink she is still only a child. But last year she was in very realdanger, and she must have felt it. Behind all her bravado I could seethat she was afraid."

It was an odd tale to hear in a commonplace drawing-room, and it wasodder to hear it from such a narrator. There was nothing romantic aboutErtzberger. I daresay he had the imaginative quickness of his race, butthe dominant impression was of solid good sense. He looked at the thingfrom a business man's point of view, and the cold facts made himshudder.

"What on earth is her reason?" I asked. "Has she any affection forPlakos?"

"She hates it. But there is some stubborn point of honour which forbidsher to let it go. She has her grandfather's fierce obstinacy. Fate hasdared her to defend her own, and she has accepted the challenge.... Itis not merely the sense of property. I think she feels that she has aduty—that she cannot run away from the consequences of her father'sdevilry. Her presence there at the mercy of the people is a kind ofatonement."

"Has she any friends in the island?"

"An old steward is the only man in the house. She may have herwell-wishers outside, but they cannot be many, for she has not livedcontinuously there for years. Last spring I tried to have her guarded,but she saw through my plan and forbade it. All I could do was to havethe place watched on my own account. This winter my information is thatthings are worse. There is famine in the hills, and the hillmen arelooking with jealous eyes towards the house by the sea. The stories growwilder, too."

"What kind?"

"Oh, witchcraft. That the Arabins are sorcerers, and that she herself isa witch. Every misfortune in the island is laid to her account. Godknows what may happen this spring, if she persists in going back! Myhope was that she might find some lover who would make her forget theobsession, but on the contrary the obsession has made her blind tolovers. Perhaps you have noticed it.... She seems to flirt outrageously,but she keeps every man at a distance.... Now, do you understand MissArabin a little better?"

I was beginning to. A picture was growing up in my mind of somethinginfinitely pathetic, and terribly alone. A child terrified by anightmare life which she did not understand—carried off to a newenvironment from which she extracted what was most feverish and vulgar,for she had no canons, yet keeping through it all a pitifulinnocence—returning to a half-comprehension which revolted hersoul—resolute to face the consequences of the past with an illogicalgallantry. I did not know when I had heard a tale that so moved me.

"You will not refuse her if she asks your help?" Ertzberger pleaded.

"But what can I do?" I said. "I'm a lawyer, and she doesn't want legaladvice, even if I were free to give it her."

"She has got the notion that you can help her. Don't ask me why or how.Call it a girl's fancy and make the best of it. I cannot influence her,Derwent couldn't, but you may, because for some reason or other shebelieves that you are wise.... I think... I think that she thinks thatyou can tell her what precisely she has to fear in Plakos. There is amass of papers, you know."

"What to fear!" I exclaimed. "Surely you have just made that plain. Afamished and half-civilized peasantry with a long record of illtreatment. Isn't that enough?"

"There may be something more," Ertzberger said slowly. "She has an ideathat there is something more ... and she is terrified of that something.If you can get rid of her terrors you will be doing a humane act, SirEdward. The trouble, as I have told you, is that she will take so fewinto her confidence."

"Look here, Mr. Ertzberger," I said. "I will be quite frank with you.Miss Arabin did not attract me—indeed I have not often been morerepelled by a young woman. But what you have said puts a new complexionon her behaviour. Tell her I am willing to do my best for her, to adviseher, to help her in any way I can. But if she wouldn't listen to you,you may be certain she won't listen to me."

"That's very good of you," he said, rising. "She proposes to go toPlakos in March. Pray God we can put some sanity into her in the nextthree months."

CHAPTER VI

Two days later I had to go north by an early train from Euston, andopposite my platform a special was waiting to take a hunting party downto somewhere in the Shires. Around the doors of the carriages stood anumber of expensive-looking young people, among whom I recognized MissArabin. She wore a long fur coat, and sniffed at a bunch of violets,while in her high, clear voice she exchanged badinage with two youngmen. As she stood with one foot on the carriage step, her small headtilted backward, her red lips parted in laughter, it was hard to connecther with the stricken lady of Ertzberger's story. Just as the specialwas leaving, I saw Vernon hurry up, also in hunting-kit. He cast oneglance at Miss Arabin, and found a seat in another carriage. I hoped thePytchley would have a fast day, for I did not see these two fraternizingduring waits at covert-side.

Curiously enough I saw the girl again the same week, also in a railwaytrain. I was returning from Liverpool, and our trains halted beside eachother at Rugby. She was alone in her carriage, the winter dusk wasfalling, but the lights were not yet lit, and I saw her only faintly,silhouetted against the farther window. She was not asleep, but herhead was sunk as if in a dream. In the few seconds during which Iwatched I had a strong impression of loneliness, almost of dejection.She was alone with her thoughts, and they were heavy.

That evening, on my return to my flat, I found a big parcel of papers.Characteristically there was no covering letter or identification of anysort, but a glance showed me what they were. My time after dinner thatnight was at my own disposal, and I devoted it to reading them. Ibelieve I would have put aside work of whatever urgency for thatpurpose, for Plakos had begun to dominate my thoughts.

The papers were a curious jumble—no legal documents, but a mass offamily archives and notes on the island. I observed that there wasnothing concerned with Shelley. Most of the things had to do with oldTom Arabin—correspondence, original and copied, which had passedbetween him and his friends or enemies. There were letters from Byronand Shelley and Trelawny, one from no less a person than Sir WalterScott, many from John Cam Hobhouse, official dispatches from the BritishForeign Office, a formal note or two from Castlereagh, and several longand interesting epistles from Canning, who seemed to have had somefriendship for the old fellow. There was a quantity, too, ofcorrespondence with Continental statesmen, and I observed several famousnames. All this I put on one side, for it did not concern my purpose.

Then there was old Tom Arabin's diary, which I skimmed. It was a veryhuman and explosive document, but there was little about Plakos in it.Tom was more interested in the high politics of Europe than in thelittle domain he had acquired. Next I turned up a manuscript history ofthe island in French, written apparently about 1860 by a Greek of thename of Karapanos. This was a dull work, being merely a summary of theisland's record under Venetian and Turkish rule, and the doings of itspeople in the War of Liberation. Then came a bundle of earlynineteenth-century maps and charts, and some notes on olive culture.There was a batch, too, of verses in Greek and English, probably Tom'swork and not very good. There was a pedigree of the Arabin family in theold Irtling days, and a great deal more junk which had not even anantiquarian interest. I shoved away the papers with a sense of failure.There was nothing here to throw light on Plakos; if such materialexisted it must have been in Shelley's papers, of which his daughter haddoubtless made a bonfire.

Then I noticed something among the notes on olive culture, and drew outa thick, old-fashioned envelope heavily sealed with green wax, whichbore the Arabin device of a Turk's head. I opened it and extracted asheet of yellowish parchment, covered closely with Greek characters. Iwas taught Greek at school, though I have forgotten most of it, but Inever professed to be able to read even the printed Greek of thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This document seemed to be of thatdate, and its insane ligatures and contractions completely defeated me.But there might be something in these hieroglyphics, so I bundled up therest of the papers and locked the envelope in a dispatch box.

Next day I paid a visit to a Chancery barrister of my acquaintance whosehobby was mediæval Greek, and who had written a monograph on AldusManutius. He examined the thing with delight, pronounced the calligraphyfifteenth century, and promised to write out the contents for me indecent Greek script.

It was not till early in the New Year that I got the manuscript backfrom him. The task, he said, had been very difficult, and though he waspretty certain that he had got the transliteration correct, he did notprofess to be able to construe it. "I'm a typographer," he wrote, "not ascholar. The thing, too, is obviously corrupt, and I should call it thework of an uneducated man who copied what he did not understand. But itis very curious. It seems to be an account of a place called Kynætho.Better show it to——" and he mentioned several names.

I did not happen to know any of the people he cited, and it occurred tome that I might consult Vernon. He was, I knew, a fine scholar, and hehad kept up his interest in Greek literature. So I sent the original andthe modern version to him, saying that the document had come into myhands professionally and I should like to know if he could make anythingof it.

Next day I had Vernon on the telephone and he seemed to be excited."Where on earth did you pick up that thing?" he asked. "I suppose itisn't a fake?"

"Genuine enough," I replied, "but I can't tell you its story yet. Canyou make sense of it?"

"I wouldn't say exactly 'sense,' but I can translate it after a fashion.I worked at it last night till the small hours. If I knew theprovenance of the manuscript, I might be able to understand it better.Come and dine to-night, and we'll talk about it."

Vernon had taken a flat in Cleveland Row, and it was a proof of ourgradual estrangement that till that evening I had never been inside itsdoors. Indeed we had not met since that Sunday at Wirlesdon.

"I saw you at Euston one morning before Christmas," I said. "Miss Arabinwas going to hunt in the same train."

"Miss Arabin?" he puzzled. "I don't think I know——"

"The queer girl who was at Wirlesdon."

"Is that her name? I didn't know it. She rides well, but her manners areatrocious. Lord, how I dislike these déracinés! Let's get dinner over,for I've a lot to say to you about your jigsaw puzzle. It's extremelyinteresting, you know."

Later in the evening he put before me several sheets of foolscap onwhich he had written the translation in his small beautiful hand.

"The thing is headed Ta Exotika," he said. "That puzzled me at first,till I remembered the phrase in Basil of Cæsarea. It was the word usedby the early Christians to describe the old divinities. Whoever wrotethis—I don't mean the fifteenth-century scribe, but the originalauthor—was no doubt a Christian, and he is describing a belief and arite which existed in his time at a place called Kynætho."

"Where is that?"

"I'm hanged if I know. It's a fairly common place name in Greece.There's one in Arcadia."

I read his translation and could not make much of it. It reminded me ofa schoolboy's version of a bit of Herodotus. "In Kynætho," said thewriter, "there is a custom at the Spring Festival of welcoming the Queen(Despoina was the word) with the rites of the tympanon and the kestos,such as they use in the Mysteries. There is a certain sacred place, awell beside a white cypress, from which all save the purified areexcluded. In Kynætho the Queen is known as Fairborn (Kalligenia). Inwinter the Queen is asleep, but she wakes in Spring, wherefore theSpring month is called by her name...." After this came a fullerdescription of the rites and a lot of talk about "mantic birds."

"There's nothing much in the first part," said Vernon. "It's theordinary ceremony of the rebirth of Demeter. But notice that she iscalled 'Lady of the Wild Things.' There was a mighty unpleasant side toDemeter as well as an idyllic one, and it didn't do to take libertieswith the Queen of the Shades. But read on."

The writer went on to say that in time of great distress at Kynæthothere was a different ceremony. It then became necessary to invite notonly the Mistress but the Master. For this purpose a virgin and a youthmust be chosen and set apart in a hallowed place, and fed upon sacredfood. The choosing was done by the victor in a race, who was given thename of King. Then on the appointed day, after the purification, whenthe dithyramb had been sung, Bromios would be born from Semele in thefire, and with him would come the Mistress. After that the place wouldbe loved by the Gods, and corn, and oil, and wine would be multiplied.

That was the gist of the story. The manuscript must have been imperfect,for there were gaps and some obvious nonsense, and there were fragmentsof verse quoted which I took to be part of the dithyramb. One ran likethis:

"Io, Kouros most great. I give thee hail.
Come, O Dithyrambos, Bromios come, and bring with thee
Holy hours of thy most holy Spring....
Then will be flung over earth immortal a garland of flowers,
Voices of song will rise among the pipes,
The Dancing Floor will be loud with the calling of crowned Semele."

I laid the paper down. Vernon was watching me with bright eyes.

"Do you see what it is? Some of those lines I recognize. They come fromthe Hymn of the Kouretes, which was discovered the other day in Crete,and from the Pæan to Dionysos found at Delphi, and there is a fragmentof Pindar in them too. We know Koré, the Maiden, and we know the Kouros,who might be any male god—Dionysos or Zeus, or Apollo—but this is theonly case I ever heard of where both Koré and Kouros are found in thesame ceremony. Kynætho, wherever it was, must have fairly gone on thebust.... It's amazingly interesting, and that's why I want to know thestory of the manuscript. I tell you it's a find of the first importanceto scholarship. Look at the other things too—the sacred race, and thewinner called the King, just like the Basileus at the Olympic games.

"And there's more," he went on. "Look at the passage about the hallowingof the maiden and the youth. How does it go?" He picked up the paper andread: "'Then the Consecrator shall set aside a youth and a virgin, whoshall remain consecrate in a sanctity which for all others shall be aplace unapproachable. For seven days they shall be fed with pure food,eggs, and cheese, and barley-cakes, and dried figs, and water from thewell by the white cypress.' Do you see what that means? It was a humansacrifice. The fellow who wrote this skates lightly over the facts—Idon't believe he was a Christian after all, or he wouldn't have taken itso calmly. The boy and the girl had to die before the Gods could bere-born. You see, it was a last resource—not an annual rite, but onereserved for a desperate need. All the words are ritual words—horkos,the sanctuary, and abatos, the tabu place, and hosioter, theconsecrator. If we knew exactly what hosiotheis meant we should know agood deal about Greek religion. There were ugly patches in it. Peopletry to gloss over the human sacrifice side, and of course civilizedGreeks, like the Athenians, soon got rid of it; but I haven't a doubtthe thing went on all through classical times in Thessaly, and Epirus,and Arcadia, and some of the islands. Indeed, in the islands it survivedtill almost the other day. There was a case not so long ago inSantorini."

He pressed me to tell him the origin of the paper, but I felt reluctantto mention Miss Arabin. He was so deeply prejudiced against the girl,that it seemed unfair to reveal to him even the most trivial of herprivate affairs. I put him off by saying it was the property of aclient, and that I would find out its history and tell him later.

"I have made a copy of the Greek text," he said. "May I keep it?"

I told him, certainly. And that was all that happened during theevening. Formerly we would have sat up talking and smoking till allhours, but now I felt that the curtain was too heavy between us to allowof ordinary conversation. We would get at once into difficult topics.Besides, I did not want to talk. The fact was that I was acquiring anobsession of my own—a tragic defiant girl moving between mirthlessgaiety and menaced solitude. She might be innocent of the witchcraft inwhich Plakos believed, but she had cast some outlandish spell over me.

Before the end of the week Miss Arabin rang me up.

"You're Sir Edward Leithen? I sent you some papers. Have you looked atthem?"

I told her I had.

"Then you had better come and talk to me. Come on Saturday and I'll giveyou luncheon. Half-past one."

There was no word of thanks for my trouble, but I obeyed the summons asif it had been a royal command. She had taken a flat in a block offBerkeley Square, and I wondered what sort of environment she had madefor herself. I think I expected a slovenly place full of cushions andFrench novels and hot-house flowers. Instead I found a large room whollywithout frippery—a big bare writing-table, leather arm-chairs like aman's smoking-room, and on the walls one or two hunting prints and somewater-colour sketches of English landscape. There were few books, andthose I looked at were county history. It was a mild frosty day, and thewindows were wide open. The only decorations were some dogwood branchesand hedgerow berries—the spoil which townsfolk bring back in winterfrom country week-ends.

She was in tweeds, for she was off to Wirlesdon that afternoon,and—perhaps in my honour—she had forborne to powder her face. Onceagain I was struck by the free vigour of her movements, and the quickvitality of her eyes. The cabaret atmosphere was clearly no part of thereal woman; rather, as I now saw her, she seemed to carry with her abreath of the fields and hills.

At luncheon we talked stiltedly of the Nantleys and hunting, but nosooner was coffee served than she came to business.

"Theodore has told you about me? You see the kind of fence I'm upagainst. What I want to know is just exactly how high and thick it is,and that no one can tell me. I liked your looks the first time I sawyou, and every one says you are clever. Now, understand one thing aboutme, I'm not going to show the white feather. Whatever it is, I'm goingto stick it out. Have you that clear in your head?"

As I looked at the firm little chin I believed her.

"Well, can you enlighten me about the fence? You've heard all thatTheodore has to say, and you know the cheerful sort of family I belongto. Did you find anything in the papers?"

"You've read them yourself?" I asked.

"I tried to, but I'm not clever, you see. I thought my grandfather'sjournal great nonsense. I had never heard of most of the names. Butyou're good at these things. Did you make nothing of them?"

"Nothing." I ran over the items in the bundle, not mentioning the Greekmanuscript, which seemed to me to have nothing to do with the subject."But there must be other papers."

She flushed slightly. "There were many others, but I burned them.Perhaps you can guess why."

"Miss Arabin," I said, "I want to help you, but I don't think we needbother about the papers. Let's go back to the beginning. I suppose it'sno use my urging you to get out of Plakos, settle in England, and wipeall the past out of your memory?"

"Not the slightest."

"I wonder why. After all, it's only common sense."

"Common cowardice," she retorted, with a toss of her head. "I have knownTheodore all my life, and I have forbidden him to raise that question. Ihave known you about a month, and I forbid you."

There was something so flat-footed and final about her that I laughed.She stared at me haughtily for a moment, and then laughed also.

"Go on with what you were saying," she said. "I stay at Plakos, and youmust make your book for that. Now then."

"Your family was unpopular—I understand, justly unpopular. All sorts ofwild beliefs grew up about them among the peasants, and they have beentransferred to you. The people are half savages, and half starved, andtheir mood is dangerous. They are coming to see in you the cause oftheir misfortunes. You go there alone and unprotected, and you have nofriends in the island. The danger is that, after a winter of brooding,they may try in some horrible way to wreak their vengeance on you. Thatis what I learned from Mr. Ertzberger."

The summary, as I made it, sounded unpleasant enough, but the girl didnot seem to feel it so. She nodded briskly. "That, at any rate, is whatTheodore says. He thinks they may make me a sacrifice. Stuff andnonsense, I say."

The word "sacrifice" disquieted me. It reminded me of the Greek whichVernon had translated.

"Some risk there must be," I went on, "but what I cannot tell is theexact moment of it. Even among a savage people unpopularity need notinvolve tragedy. You were in Plakos last spring. Tell me what happened."

She fitted a cigarette into a long amber holder, and blew a cloud ofsmoke which she watched till it disappeared.

"Nothing much. I was left entirely to myself. There was only one servantin the house, old Mitri the steward, and I had also my maid. The wholeestablishment was sent to Coventry. We had to get our food from themainland, for we could buy nothing, except now and then a little milkthrough Mitri's married daughter. It wasn't pleasant, I can tell you.But the worst was when I went for a walk. If I met a man he would makethe sign of the evil eye and spit. If I spoke to a child its motherwould snatch it up and race indoors with it. The girls and women allwore blue beads as a charm against me, and carried garlic. I couldsmell it wherever I went. Sometimes I wanted to cry, and sometimes Iwanted to swear, but you can do nothing with a silent boycott. I couldhave shaken the fools."

"What had they against you? Did you ever find out?"

"Oh, Mitri used to tell us gossip that he had heard through hisdaughter, but Mitri isn't too popular himself, and he is old and can goabout very little. It seemed they called me Basilissa. That means Queen,and sounds friendly enough, but I think the word they really used wasdiabolissa, which means a she-devil. The better disposed ones thoughtI was a Nereid—that's what they call fairies—but some said I was astrigla—that's a horrible kind of harpy, and some thought I was avrykolakas, which is a vampire. They used to light little fires in thegraveyards to keep me away. Oh, I got very sick of my reputation. It wasa hideous bore not to be able to go anywhere without seeing scaredpeople dodging up byways, and making the sign of the cross, andscreaming for their children—simply damnable."

"It must have been damnable. I should have thought it rather terrifyingtoo."

"Don't imagine that they frightened me. I was really more sorry thanangry. They were only foolish people scared half out of their minds,and, after all, my family has done a good deal to scare them. It isfolly—nothing but folly, and the only way to beat folly is to live itdown. I don't blame the poor devils, but I'm going to bring them to abetter mind. I refuse to run away because of a pack of fairy tales."

"There were no hostile acts?" I asked.

She seemed to reflect. "No," she answered. "One morning we found asplash of blood on the house door, which sent old Mitri to his prayers.But that was only a silly joke."

"Mr. Ertzberger hinted that there might be trouble this year from thepeople in the hills?"

Her face hardened.

"I wish to Heaven I knew that for certain. It would be the best news Iever got. Those hillmen are not my people, and if they interfere I willhave them whipped off the place. I will not have any protection againstmy own peasantry—Theodore is always pressing me, but I won't haveit—it would spoil everything—it wouldn't be the game. But if thosefilthy mountaineers come within a mile of Plakos I will hire a regimentto shoot them down. Pray God they come. We of the coast have alwayshated the mountains, and I believe I could rally my people."

"But I thought you owned the whole island?"

"No one owns the hills. My grandfather obtained the seigneury of Plakos,but he never claimed more than the good land by the sea. The hills havealways been a no-man's-land full of bandits. We paid them dues—I stillpay them—and we did not quarrel, but there was no coming and goingbetween us. They are a different race from our pure Greekstock—mongrels of Slav and Turk, I believe."

The spirit of the girl comforted me. If Ertzberger's news was true, itmight save the situation, and bring the problem out of the realm ofgroping mystery to a straightforward defence of property.... But, afterall, the hills were distant, and the scared tenants were at the housedoor. We must face the nearer peril.

"Is there no one in the village," I said, "whom you can have it outwith? No big farmer? What about the priests?"

She shook her head. "No one. The priests do not love my family, for theycall themselves Christians, while we are Catholics."

Twenty years spent in examining witnesses has given me an acute instinctabout candour. There was that in the girl's eyes and voice as she spokewhich told me that she was keeping something back, something which madeher uneasy.

"Tell me everything," I said. "Has no priest talked to you?"

"Yes, there was one. I will tell you. He is an old man, and very timid.He came to me at night, after swearing Mitri to tell no one. He urged meto go away for ever."

Her eyes were troubled now, and had that abstracted look which I hadnoted before.

"What was his reason?"

"Oh, care for his precious church. He was alarmed about what hadhappened at Easter."

She stopped suddenly.

"Have you ever been in Greece at Easter—during the Great Week? No? Thenyou cannot imagine how queer it is. The people have been starved allLent, living only on cuttle-fish soup and bread and water. Every one ispale and thin and ill-tempered. It is like a nightmare."

Then in rapid staccato sentences she sketched the ritual. She describedthe night of Good Friday, when the bier with the figure of the crucifiedChrist on it stands below the chancel step, and the priests chant theirsolemn hymn, and the women kiss the dead face, and the body is borne outto burial. With torches and candles flickering in the night wind, it iscarried through the village streets, while dirges are sung, and thetense crowd breaks now and then into a moan or a sigh. Next day there isno work done, but the people wander about miserably, waiting onsomething which may be either death or deliverance. That night thechurch is again crowded, and at midnight the curtains which screen thechancel are opened, and the bier is revealed—empty, but for a shroud."Christ is risen," the priest cries, as a second curtain is drawn back,and in the sanctuary, in an ineffable radiance, stands the figure of therisen Lord. The people go mad with joy, they light their tapers at thepriest's candle, and, like a procession of Bacchanals, stream out,shouting "He is risen indeed." Then to the accompaniment of the firingof guns and the waving of torches the famished peasants, maddened by themiracle they have witnessed, feast till morning on wine and lamb's fleshin the joy of their redemption.

She drew the picture for me so that I saw it as if with my own eyes, andmy imagination quickened under the spell of her emotion. For here was nolonger the cool, matter-of-fact young woman of the world, with no morethan tolerance for the folly of superstition. It was some one who couldenter into that very mood, and feel its quivering nerves and alternatedespair and exultation.

"What had the priest to complain of?" I asked.

"He said that the people were becoming careless of the Easter holiness.He said that last year the attendance at the rite was poor. He fearedthat they were beginning to think of something else."

"Something else!" Two of the most commonplace words in the language. Shespoke them in an even voice in an ordinary London dining-room, withoutside the wholesome bustle of London and the tonic freshness of anEnglish winter day. She was about to go off to a conventional Englishweek-end party at a prosaic country house. But the words affected mestrangely, for they seemed to suggest a peril far more deadly than anyturbulence of wild men from the hills—a peril, too, of which she wasaware.

For she was conscious of it—that was now perfectly clear to me—acutelyconscious. She had magnificent self-command, but fear showed out frombehind it, like light through the crack of a shutter. Her courage wasassuredly not the valour of ignorance. She was terrified, and stillresolute to go on.

It was not my business to add to that terror. Suddenly I had come tofeel an immense pity and reverence for this girl. Ertzberger was right.Her hardness, her lack of delicacy and repose, her loud frivolity, wereonly on the surface—a protective sheathing for a tormented soul. Out ofa miserable childhood and a ramshackle education she had made forherself a code of honour as fine and as hard as steel. It was wildlyfoolish, of course, but so perhaps to our dull eyes the innocent and theheroic must always be.

Perhaps she guessed my thoughts. For when she spoke again it was gently,almost hesitatingly.

"I scarcely hoped that you could tell me anything about Plakos. But Irather hoped you would say I am right in what I am doing. Theodore hasbeen so discouraging.... I rather hoped from your face that you wouldtake a different view. You wouldn't advise me to run away from myjob——?"

"God forbid that I should advise you at all," I said. "I see yourargument, and, if you will let me say so, I profoundly respect it. But Ithink you are trying yourself—and your friends also—too high. You mustagree to some protection."

"Only if the hill folk give trouble. Don't you see, protection wouldruin everything if I accepted it against my own people? I must trustmyself to them—and—and stick it out myself. It is a sort ofatonement."

Then she got up briskly and held out her hand. "Thank you very much,Sir Edward. It has done me good to talk to you. I must be off now orI'll miss my train. I'll give your love to Mollie and Tom."

"We shall meet again. When do you leave England?"

"Not till March. Of course we'll meet again. Let me know if you have anybright idea.... Élise, Élise! Where's that fool woman?"

Her maid appeared.

"Get a taxi at once," she ordered. "We haven't any time to waste, for Ipromised to pick up Lord Cheviot at his flat."

I asked one question as I left. "Have you ever heard of a place calledKynætho?"

"Rather. It's the big village in Plakos close to the house."

CHAPTER VII

I once read in some book about Cleopatra that that astonishing lady owedher charm to the fact that she was the last of an ancient anddisreputable race. The writer cited other cases—Mary of Scots, I think,was one. It seemed, he said, that the quality of high-coloured ancestorsflowered in the ultimate child of the race into something likewitchcraft. Whether they were good or evil, they laid a spell on men'shearts. Their position, fragile and forlorn, without the wardenship ofmale kinsfolk, set them on a romantic pinnacle. They were more feminineand capricious than other women, but they seemed, like Viola, to be allthe brothers as well as all the daughters of their father's house, fortheir soft grace covered steel and fire. They were the true sorceressesof history, said my author, and sober men, not knowing why, followedblindly in their service.

Perhaps Koré Arabin was of this sisterhood. At any rate one sober manwas beginning to admit her compelling power. I could not get the girlfrom my thoughts. For one thing I had awakened to a comprehension of herbeauty. Her face was rarely out of my mind, with its arrogantinnocence, its sudden brilliancies and its as sudden languors. Hermovements delighted me, her darting grace, the insolent assurance of hercarriage, and then, without warning, the relapse into the child or thehoyden. Even her bad manners soon ceased to annoy me, for in my eyesthey had lost all vulgarity. They were the harshnesses of a creaturestaving off tragedy. Indeed it was her very extravagances that allured,for they made me see her as a solitary little figure set in a patch oflight on a great stage among shadows, defying of her own choice theterrors of the unknown.

What made my capture complete was the way she treated me. She seemed tohave chosen me as her friend, and to find comfort and security in beingwith me. To others she might be rude and petulant, but never to me.Whenever she saw me she would make straight for me, like a docile childwaiting for orders. She would dance or sit out with me till her retinueof youth was goaded to fury. She seemed to guess at the points in herbehaviour which I did not like and to strive to amend them. We hadbecome the closest friends, and friendship with Koré Arabin was adangerous pastime.

The result was that I was in a fair way of making a fool of myself.No ... I don't think I was in love with her. I had never been in love inmy life, so I was not an expert on the subject, but I fancied that lovetook people in a different way. But I was within measurable distance ofasking her to be my wife. My feeling was a mixture of affection and pityand anxiety. She had appealed to me, and I had become her champion. Iwanted to protect her, but how was a middle-aged lawyer to protect adetermined girl from far-away perils which he did not comprehend? Thedesperate expedient of marriage occurred to me, but I did not believeshe would accept me, and, if she did, would not the mating of age andyouth be an outrage and a folly? Nevertheless I was in a mood to ventureeven on that.

I must have presented a strange spectacle to my friends. There wereother men of forty in London at the time who behaved as if they weretwenty-five—one buxom Cabinet Minister was to be seen at everydance—but none, I am certain, cut an odder figure than I. The dancingCabinet Minister sought the ballroom for exercise, because he preferreddancing to golf. I had no such excuse, for I danced comparativelylittle; my object was patently the society of one particular lady. InKoré's train I found myself in strange haunts. I followed her into theBohemian coulisses to which Shelley Arabin's daughter had anentrée—queer studio parties in Chelsea where the women were shorn andthe men left shaggy: the feverish literary and artistic salons of theemancipated and rather derelict middle-class: dances given atextravagant restaurants by the English and foreign new-rich, where I didnot know or wish to know one single soul. Also we appeared together athouses which I had frequented all my life, and there my friends saw me.Of course they talked. I fancy that for about two months I was theprime subject of London gossip. I didn't care a hang, for I was in aqueer, obstinate, excitable mood. We hunted together, too, and there isno such nursery of scandal as the hunting-field. With a great deal ofwork on hand I found this new life a considerable strain, and I wasperfectly conscious that I was playing the fool. But, though I don'tthink I was in love with her, I simply could not let the girl out of mysight.

Now and then my conscience awoke, and I realized with a shock that thetime was slipping past, and that the real problem was still unsolved. Iknew that I could not shake Koré in her resolution, and I suppose Ihoped blindly that something would occur to prevent her acting on it.That something could only be a love affair. I was perfectly certain thatshe was not in love with me, but she might accept me, and at the back ofmy head I had the intention of putting it to the test. Ertzberger haddivined what was going on and seemed to approve. "A boy is no use toher," he said more than once. "Besides, she wouldn't look at one. Shemust marry a grown man." He implied that I filled the bill, and theman's assumption gave me an absurd pleasure. If any one had told me thatI would one day go out of my way to cultivate a little Jew financier, Iwould have given him the lie, yet the truth is that, when I was not withKoré, I hungered for Ertzberger's company. He alone understood what wasin my mind, and shared my anxieties. "She must not go back," he keptdeclaring; "at all costs she must be kept away from Plakos—at any rateduring this spring. I get disquieting reports. There is mischief brewingin the hills, and the people of the coast have had a bitter winter offamine. There has been a lot of sickness, too, and in the village at thehouse gates the mortality among the children has been heavy."

"You mean Kynætho?" I asked.

"Kynætho." He looked at me curiously. "You seem to have been getting upthe subject.... Well, I don't like it. If she goes there in April theremay be a disaster. Upon my soul, we should be justified in having herkidnapped and shut up in some safe place till the summer. So far as Ican learn, the danger is only in the spring. Once let the people see thecrops springing and the caiques bringing in fish, and they will forgettheir grievances."

Early in March I was dining with the Nantleys, and after dinner Mollietook me aside for a talk. As I have told you, she is one of my oldestfriends, for when I was a grubby little private schoolboy and she was agirl of thirteen, we used to scamper about together. I had had her sonHugo in my chambers, before he went into Parliament, and Wirlesdon hadalways been a sort of home to me. Mollie was entitled to say anythingshe liked, but when she spoke it was rather timidly.

"I hear a good deal of talk about you," she said, "and I can't helpnoticing too. Do you think it is quite fair, Ned?"

"Fair to whom?" I asked.

"To Koré Arabin. You're different from the boys who run after her.You're a distinguished man with a great reputation. Is it fair to her toturn her head?"

"Is that very likely? What if she has turned mine?"

"Do you really mean that?" she cried. "I never thought of it in thatway. Do you honestly want to marry her?"

"I don't know ... I don't know what I want except that I must stand byher. She's in an appallingly difficult position, and badly needs afriend."

"Yes. But there's only one way in which a man can protect a young woman.Do you mean to marry her?"

"She wouldn't accept me."

"But you mean to ask her?"

"It may come to that," I said.

"But, Ned dear, can't you see it wouldn't do? Koré is not the right sortof wife for you. She's—she's too——Well, you've a career before you.Is she the woman to share it with you?"

"It's not many months since, at Wirlesdon, you implored my charity forMiss Arabin."

"Oh, I don't want to say a word against her, and if you were reallydesperately in love I would say nothing and wish you luck. But I don'tbelieve you are. I believe it's what you say—charity, and that's a mostrotten foundation to build on."

Mollie, in such affairs, is an incurable romantic.

"I promise never to ask her to marry me unless I am in love," I said.

"Well, that means you are not quite in love yet. Hadn't you better drawback before it is too late? I can't bear to see you making a badblunder, and Koré, dear child, would be a bad blunder for you. She'sadorably pretty, and she has wonderful qualities, but she is a littlesavage, and very young, and quite unformed. Really, really it wouldn'tdo."

"I admit the difficulties, my dear Mollie. But never mind me, and thinkof Miss Arabin. You said yourself that she was English at heart andwould be very happy settled in England."

"But not with you."

"She wouldn't accept me, and I may never propose. But if I did, and sheaccepted me, why not with me?"

"Because you're you—because you're too good for a rash experiment."

"I'm not good enough for her, for I'm too old, as you've just told me.But anyhow your argument thinks principally of me, not of Miss Arabin.It is she who matters."

Mollie rose with a gesture of impatience. "You are hopeless, Ned. I'msick of you hard, unsusceptible, ambitious people. You never fall inlove in your youth, but wait till after forty, and then make idiots ofyourselves."

I had a different kind of remonstrance from Vernon. We saw little ofeach other in these days beyond a chance word in the street or a casualwave of the hand in the club smoking-room. When I thought of him it waswith a sense of shame that I had let him slip so hopelessly out of mylife. Time had been when he was my closest friend, and when his problemwas also my problem. Now the whole story of his dream seemed a childishfancy.

One night in March I found him waiting for me in my rooms.

"I came round to say good-bye," he said. "I shall probably leave Londonvery soon."

It shows how completely I had forgotten his affairs that I did notremember that his particular crisis was drawing near, that, as hebelieved, the last door of his dream-world would soon be opened.

Then, before I could ask about his plans, he suddenly broke out:

"Look here, I hope there's no truth in what people tell me."

His tone had the roughness of one very little at his ease, and itannoyed me. I asked coldly what he meant.

"You know what I mean—that you're in love with MissWhat's-her-name—the girl I met at Wirlesdon."

"I don't know that you've any right to ask the question, and I'mcertainly not going to answer it."

"That means that you are in love," he cried. "Good God, man, don't tellme that you want to marry that—that tawdry girl!"

I must have reddened, for he saw that he had gone too far.

"I don't mean that—I apologize. I have no reason to say anythingagainst her."

Then his tone changed.

"Ned, old man, we have been friends for a long time, and you mustforgive me if I take liberties. We have never had any secrets from eachother. My own affairs give me a good deal to think about just now, but Ican't go away with an easy mind till I know the truth about you. ForGod's sake, old fellow, don't do anything rash. Promise me you won'tpropose to her till I come back in April."

His change of manner had softened me, and as I saw the trouble in hishonest eyes I felt a return of the old affection.

"Why are you anxious on my account?"

"Because," he said solemnly, "I know that if you married that girl ourfriendship would be over. I feel it in my bones. She would always comebetween us."

"I can't make any promises of that kind. But one thing I canpromise—that no woman will ever break our friendship."

"You don't understand. Some women wouldn't, but that girl——! Well, Ican say no more. Good-bye, Ned. I'll hunt you up when I come back."

He left me with a feeling of mingled regret and irritation. I hated togo against Vernon's wishes, but his manner when he had spoken of Koré,the look in his eyes, the inflection in his voice, conveyed an utterdistaste which made me angry. I pictured him at Severns nursing hisunreasoning dislike of the poor child. Vernon, as my nephew Charles hadsaid, was a prig, and his narrow world had room only for blameless andvapid virginity. The promise he had asked of me was an outrage.

Yet I kept a promise which I had never made. For suddenly Cinderelladisappeared from the ball. After a country-house dance I drove her backto town in my car, and left her at the door of her flat. During the longdrive she had talked more seriously than I had ever known her to talkbefore, had spoken of herself and her affairs with a kind of valiantsimplicity. The only sophisticated thing about her was her complexion.All day afterwards my conviction was growing that she was the woman forme, that I could make her not only secure but happy. We were by way ofdining with the Lamanchas, and I think if we had met that night I shouldhave asked her to marry me.... But we did not meet, for by the eveningshe was gone.

I looked for her in vain in the Lamanchas' drawing-room, and my hostessguessed what I sought. "I'm so sorry about Koré Arabin," she whisperedto me. "She was coming to-night, but she telephoned this afternoon thatshe was unexpectedly called out of town." I did not enjoy my dinner, andas soon as I could decently leave I hurried off to her flat. It was shutup, and from the porter on the ground floor I learned that she and hermaid had left with a quantity of luggage to catch the night boat toFrance. He was positive that she had gone abroad, for he had seen theforeign labels, and Miss Arabin had told him she would not be back formonths. The keys of the flat had been sent to her solicitors.

With a very uneasy mind I drove to the Ertzbergers' house in BelgraveSquare. Ertzberger had just come in from a City dinner, and his wifeseemed to be giving some kind of musical party, for the hall was full ofcoats and hats and extra footmen, and the jigging of fiddles drifteddown the staircase. He took me to his study at the back of the house,and when he heard my news his face grew as solemn as my own. There wasnothing to be done that night, for the Continental mail had long sincegone, so I went back to my chambers with a pretty anxious mind. I feltthat I had let something rare and precious slip out of my hand, but farmore that this preciousness was in instant danger. Honestly I don'tthink that I was much concerned about myself. I wanted Koré Arabinsaved—for me—for every one—for the world. If I was in love with herit was with an affection more impersonal than usually goes by that name.It was as if an adored child had gone amissing.

Regardless of our many engagements, Ertzberger and I appeared on thedoorstep of Messrs. Mower and Lidderdale, the solicitors, at the hourwhen, according to the information given me by telephone, the seniorpartner usually arrived. Mr. Mower confirmed our fears. Miss Arabin hadreturned to Plakos; she had been preparing for some weeks for thejourney; he had not advised it—indeed he had not been asked his advicenor would he have dared to volunteer it. "A very strong-minded younglady," he repeated—"I might almost say strong-headed." She had sold thelease of her flat, and had left no instructions about her return. Yes,she was well supplied with money. Miss Arabin was her own mistressabsolutely, for her father had created no trust. He had nothing more totell us, and Ertzberger departed for the City and I for the Temple.

In the afternoon I was rung up by Ertzberger in my room in the House ofCommons. He had been making inquiries, he said—he had his own ways ofdoing that sort of thing—and he had discovered that Koré had recentlysold large parcels of stocks. She had been selling out steadilythroughout the winter, and now had practically no investments left. Theproceeds had been deposited on current account in her bank. There hisinformation stopped, but he was profoundly disquieted. "That child hasall her fortune in cash under her hand," he said, "and God knows whatshe means to do with it. Any moment she may beggar herself, and no onecan prevent her."

That night I understood that my infatuation was over, if indeed it hadever existed. I wanted the girl safe, and I did not care who saved her,but I wanted it so much that at the moment nothing in heaven or earthseemed to matter in comparison.

It was now near the end of March, the Courts had just risen, andParliament was about to adjourn for the Easter vacation. I had a gooddeal of important work on hand, but I was entitled to a holiday, and Ithought I could arrange for at any rate a fortnight's absence from town.But whether I could arrange it or not I meant to go, for I could no moresettle to my tasks than a boy can settle to Tacitus on the day he isplaying for his school. When Ertzberger, according to our arrangement,turned up at my chambers that night after dinner, he found me busy withan atlas and a Continental Bradshaw.

"I am going to Plakos," I said.

"That is good. You are still a young man, and you have been a soldier.It is very good. But if you had not gone, I had decided to go myself."

"This is Wednesday. Miss Arabin left last night. She will getthere—when?"

He made some calculations. "Not before Tuesday. You might overtake her,but I do not think that is necessary. Easter is the danger-point, andthe Greek Easter is still a fortnight off. Besides you must stop a dayin Athens."

"I shall want help. Can you get me half a dozen handy fellows I cantrust?"

"I had thought of that. Indeed I telegraphed about it this afternoon. Ican find you the men—and money, of course, if you want it. I will findyou a lieutenant, too, and make all arrangements about transport. Thatat least I can do. You realize, Sir Edward, that there is a certaindanger in this enterprise?"

"I realize that Miss Arabin in a week's time will be in deadlydanger.... I must have a day or two to wind up my work here. I think Ican leave on Saturday morning."

As a matter of fact I left London on the Friday night.

PART II

CHAPTER VIII

I came to Plakos in a blind sea-fog. After a day and a night of stormthe wind died utterly, and we made the isle on a compass course, feelingour way in by constant soundings. A thick salt dew hung on every stayand hawser, the deck and bulwarks swam with moisture, and our coats werein an instant drenched as if we had been out in a hurricane. Sea andland alike were invisible. The air was thick and oppressive to thebreath, and every muscle in the body felt weak and flaccid. Also therewas a strange quiet—only the ripple caused by our slow movement and thecreak of sodden cordage. I might have been a shade looking on an islandof the dead.

I had reached Athens in record time, but there I found a weariful delay.In spite of Ertzberger's influence the wheels were clogged. I was met atthe Piræus by his agent, one Constantine Maris, whose instructions wereto hold himself at my disposal. I took to Maris at once—a young fellowof thirty, who had been in the Greek regular army and had been theright-hand man of Zimbrakis when at Salonika his troops declared forVenizelos. He had been all through the war till it ended in Bulgaria'ssubmission, had been twice wounded and once in prison, and had beenchosen by Ertzberger to represent him in Athens because of his truculenthonesty and tireless energy. Both in character and appearance he wasmore like a Frenchman than a Greek—a Norman, for choice, for he hadreddish-brown hair and a high-bridged northern nose. He had theadditional merit of being well educated, having put in two years at theSorbonne: and he talked excellent French. His family were of Athens, buthis mother, I think, was from one of the islands. He had the looks andmanners of a soldier.

But Maris had found the task set him almost impossible. Ertzberger hadbidden him get together a batch of reliable fellows who would obeyorders and ask no questions, but as we rumbled Athens-ward from thePiræus in the little train he confessed that such men were not to befound. In the war it was otherwise, but the best had all gone back tothe country villages. He had collected a dozen, but he was notenthusiastic about them, except a certain Janni, who had been a corporalin his old battalion. When he paraded them for my inspection I wasinclined to agree with him. They were an odd mixture—every kind ofclothes from the dirty blue jeans of the stoker to the black coat andpointed yellow shoes of the clerk—ages from nineteen to sixty—physiquefrom prize-fighter to sneak-thief. All had served in the war, however,and the best of them, Janni, had an empty left sleeve. After muchconsultation we dismissed two and were left with ten who at any ratelooked honest. Whether they would be efficient was another matter. Marisproposed to arm them with revolvers, but not till we got to Plakos, incase they started shooting up the town. They were told that they werewanted as guards for an estate which was threatened by brigands, but Idoubt if they believed it. The younger ones seemed to think that ourobject was piracy.

Transport was another problem. I had hoped to be able to hire a smallsteam yacht, but such a thing was not to be had, and the best we coulddo was to induce a dissolute-looking little Leghorn freighter, named theSanta Lucia, to go out of its way and touch at Plakos. Maris told thecaptain a yarn about men being needed there for making a new sea-wall.The boat was bound for the Dodecanese, and would pick us up on herreturn a fortnight later.

Before we rounded Cape Sunium we got into foul weather, a heavynorth-easter and violent scurries of rain. Our ruffians were allsea-sick and lay about like logs, getting well cursed by the Italiansailors, while Maris and I, in the one frowsy little cabin, tried tomake a plan of campaign. I found out at once that Maris was wellinformed about the situation in Plakos, partly from Ertzberger andpartly from his own knowledge. He knew about Shelley Arabin's career,which seemed to be the common talk of the Ægean. Of Koré he had heardnothing save from Ertzberger, but he had much to tell me of Plakos andits people. They had a name for backwardness and turbulence, and theGovernment seemed to leave them very much to themselves. There weregendarmes, of course, in the island, but he fancied they didn'tfunction. But the place had sent good soldiers to Venizelos, and itspeople were true Hellenes. After an interval when he expatiated on thatHellenic empire of the islands which was the dream of good Venizelists,he returned to their superstition. "That is the curse of my countrymen,"he cried. "They are priest-ridden." He was himself, he told me, afree-thinker and despised all mumbo-jumbo.

I told him that the trouble was not with the priests, but he did notseem to understand, and I did not attempt to explain.

Our task, as we saw it, was straightforward enough—to protect the Houseduring the Easter season when fear of the girl as a witch and the memoryof Shelley's misdeeds might induce some act of violence. There was alsothe trouble with the hill folk, and this seemed to him the greaterdanger. The dwellers in the stony mountains which filled the centre andsouth of the island had always been out of hand, and, since the winterhad been cruel and the war had unsettled the whole earth, he thought itlikely that they might have a try at looting the House, which they nodoubt held to be full of treasure, since the Arabins had a name forwealth. I could see that he didn't quite believe in danger from thecoast folk, however beastly their superstitions might be. He had theGreek respect for a mountaineer and contempt for the ordinary peasant.

We studied the map—a very good one prepared for the British Navy—andon Maris's advice I decided to begin by dividing our forces. My firstbusiness was to get into the House and discover how things were going.But with danger threatening from the hills it would be unwise for all ofus to concentrate in a place from which egress might be difficult. Nowthe House stood at the north-west corner of the island, and the hillcountry began about ten miles to the south-east. He proposed to sendfive of our men, under Corporal Janni, to a little port called Vano onthe west coast some miles south of the House. They would take supplieswith them—we were well provided with these—and reconnoitre towards thehills, giving out that they were a Government survey party. The rest ofus would land at the House, and, after satisfying ourselves about theposition, would get in touch with Janni by the overland route. Our firstbusiness was strictly reconnaissance; Janni could not hope to preventmischief from the hills if it were really on its way, but he couldsatisfy himself as to its extent and character, and then join us in thedefence of the House, which was our main task. Maris was confident aboutthis. He did not see how a dozen armed men in a strong place could failto hold off a mob of undisciplined peasants.

For an extra payment the captain of the Santa Lucia was induced tocarry Janni and his men to Vano. Weapons were served out to all, and Igave Janni a map which he professed to be able to read. Then in theshrouding fog Maris and I and our five got into the ship's one boat andwere rowed ashore. We had our supplies both of food and ammunition inhalf a dozen wooden cases, and the wretched cockle was pretty low in thewater. I knew from my former visit that the landing-place was just belowthe House, and the fog seemed to me a godsend, for it would enable us toget indoors unobserved. My only doubt was the kind of reception we mightget from Koré.

As it turned out, the mist was our undoing. We were landed at a stonejetty in a dead white blanket which made it difficult to see a yardahead. Our baggage was put on shore, the boat started back, and in amoment both sound and sight of it were swallowed up. It was an eeriebusiness, and I felt the craziness of our errand as I stood blinking onthe wet cobbles. There was no human being about, but the dim shapes ofseveral caiques and some kind of lugger seemed to show below us as westarted along the jetty. Our five ruffians had recovered from theirsea-sickness, and, feeling solid ground beneath them, were inclined tobe jolly. One of them started a song, which I promptly checked. Marisordered them to wait behind with the boxes, and to keep dead quiet,while he and I prospected inland.

My recollection of that visit in 1914 was hazy, for I had only seen thelanding-place from the causeway above it, and at the time I had beentoo preoccupied to observe accurately. But I was pretty certain that atthe shore end of the jetty there were some rough stone steps which ledto the causeway. I groped for them in the mist but could not find them.Instead I came on a broad track which bore the mark of wheels and whichled away to the left. I waited for the steep to begin, but found no signof it. The land was dead flat for a long way, and then I came on a roughboundary wall.

It was an orchard with blossoming trees—that much I could see throughthe brume—and at the end was a cottage. My first thought was to retracemy steps and try a cast to the right, for I still believed that we hadfound the proper landing-place, and had somehow missed the causeway.But, as I hesitated, there came one of those sudden clearings in the airwhich happen in the densest fogs, and I had a prospect of some hundredsof yards around me. We were on the edge of a village, the cottage we hadreached was at the extreme seaward end, a little detached from the rest;beyond lay what seemed to be a shallow valley with no sign of the Houseand its embattled hill.

It would have been well for us if, there and then, we had turned andgone back to the jetty, even at the risk of relinquishing our suppliesand having to scramble for miles along a difficult shore. For, ofcourse, we had come in that infernal fog to the wrong place. The skipperhad landed us at Kynætho instead of below the House, and though I knewfrom the map that Kynætho was at the House's gates, yet it was on theeast side, distant at least two miles by coast from the spot whichVernon and I had visited.

It was Maris who decided me. The cottage seemed a solitary place wherediscreet inquiries might be made without rousing attention. He hadlittle stomach for wandering around Plakos in fog, and we had our fivemen and the baggage to think of. I followed him into the roughcourtyard, paved with cobbles, and strewn with refuse. The low wallswere washed with red ochre and above the lintel a great black pentaclewas painted. Also over the door was hung a bunch of garlic.

There was a woman standing in the entry watching us. Maris took off hishat with a flourish, and poured out a torrent of soft-sounding dialect.She replied in a harsher accent, speaking with the back of her throat.She seemed to be inviting us to enter, but her face was curiouslywithout expression, though her eyebrows worked nervously. She was amiddle-aged woman, terribly disfigured by smallpox; her features wereregular, and she had large, prominent, vacant black eyes. She was not inthe least repulsive, but somehow, she was not reassuring.

As we entered the cottage she called out to some one at the back. Asecond later I heard footsteps as of a child running.

Maris, as I learned afterwards, told her the story we had agreedon—that we were a Government survey party sent from Athens to make amap of the island. Then he felt his way to more delicate subjects. Thiswas Kynætho, he understood? There was a large house near which belongedto some foreigners? English, weren't they? Where, exactly, did it liefrom the village, for, if he might venture to explain what madam nodoubt knew, one must have a starting-point for a survey, and theGovernment had chosen that house?

The woman's eyebrows twitched, and she crossed herself. She flung a handover her left shoulder. "The place is there," she said. "I know nothingof it. I do not speak of it."

All the time she was looking at us with her staring empty eyes, and Irealized that she was in an extreme fright. There was certainly nothingin our appearance to discompose her, and I had the uneasy feeling whichone has in the presence of a human being who is suffering from anemotion that one cannot fathom. Maris whispered to me that he did notlike the look of things. "She has not offered us food," he said.

Her ear must have caught some sound from out of doors, for her facesuddenly showed relief. She walked to the window and cried to some oneoutside. Then she turned to us. "There are men now to speak with you."She had found her tongue, for as she hustled us out she kept muttering,with sidelong glances at us, what seemed to be an invocation to SaintNicolas. Also she gripped Maris violently by the shoulder and spat wordsinto his ear. He told me afterwards that she was advising him not to bea fool and to go home.

The little courtyard had filled with people, most of them men, but withtwo or three old crones in the forefront. Their aspect was notthreatening, but rather puzzled and timid. The men took off their hatsin response to Maris's bow, and politely waited for him to speak. Inoticed that they were a well-made, upstanding lot, but with the sameflat expressionlessness as the woman of the cottage, and I guessed thatthat was a mask to hide fear.

Maris told them the same story of our errand. He said—I repeat what hetold me later—that our men and baggage were still down by the beach,and that he wanted to be directed to the inn. There was dead silence.The little crowd stared at us as if their lives depended on it, but nota syllable came in reply.

This made Maris angry. "Are you dumb mules," he asked, "not to answer asimple question? I have heard that you of the islands boasted of yourhospitality. Is this the way to treat strangers?"

Still no answer. His taunts were as futile as his exposition. But, sinceI had nothing to do but to look on, I saw something which made meuneasy. The crowd was drawing together, and each was covertly touchingthe other's sleeve. There was a purpose in this mob, a purpose ofaction, and I don't like that kind of purpose when it is accompanied byfear.

"Since you will not speak," Maris cried, "I will go to your priest.Where is his dwelling? Or do you treat your church as you treat yourvisitors?"

This time he got a reply. A dozen voices spoke, and a dozen handspointed towards the village.

"It seems you are not dumb after all? We will seek a lodging from thepriest, who doubtless has some regard for his country's Government. Wehave baggage with us—boxes of instruments and food—and they are now atthe jetty. I want two able-bodied fellows to help carry them, and I willpay them well. Who offers?"

But no one offered. Once again they were like gaping cattle. And then anold beldam in the foreground, who had been crossing herself vigorously,cried out a monosyllable, and instantly it was taken up in a shout.

Maris turned to me with an angry smile. "They are advising us to gohome. I can mention an island, my friend, in which there is going to betrouble. Let us go back to the shore. Perhaps the sight of ourbelongings will change their mind."

They did not obstruct us, but opened a lane for us to pass—opened itwith feverish haste, as if they were afraid of coming too near us. Thefog had now thinned to a light haze, through which I already felt theglow of the sun. As we moved shorewards they trailed after us, keepingalways a respectful distance, and halted fifty yards from the jetty.

Our five fellows were sitting smoking on the boxes, and since we couldget no help from the villagers, there was nothing for it but to carrythe baggage ourselves. My first notion was to go straight to the House,of which by this time I could judge the whereabouts, and it would havebeen well for us perhaps if I had acted on that impulse. But, until Ihad prepared the way, I was shy of facing Koré Arabin with a defenceforce which would make her furious, and I had a notion, too, that if Imarched in broad daylight to the House gates there might be trouble withthese scared and sullen natives. So I decided to go first to the inn,where we could leave our stuff, and then to interview the priest. Afterall, I knew from Koré that the priest was alarmed about the localsituation, and from him I might get some counsel. It seemed to me a casefor wary walking.

I could have laughed at that progress village-wards, if I hadn't been soanxious. The mob in front of us had doubled in size, and retreatedmechanically before us till we were in the village street. The sun wasnow bright in the sky, and I had a view of the straggling houses,grouped thickly in the centre where there seemed to be a kind ofplace, and thinning out into farms and enclosures on the slopes of thegreen hills. It was a wide, shallow vale bounded on the south by lowridges; but on the west rose a higher tree-clad hill, and there wereglimpses of white masonry which I took to be the House. Once we were inthe village the crowd was enlarged by women and children. They kept agood distance, retiring a pace for every step we took, and when weentered the untidy square they huddled against the house doors as ifthey were forming guard. They were perfectly silent, even the children.It was an eerie business, I can assure you, promenading before thatspeechless, staring gallery. They were not an ill-looking race, as Ihave said, for the men were mostly well-built and upstanding, and thoughthe old wives looked like the Witch of Endor, the young ones were oftencomely. But you could see that they were bitter poor, for their cheekswere thin and their eyes hollow. And beyond doubt they were in thethroes of some nervous terror. I felt as if at any moment somethingmight snap and the air be filled with a wild screaming.

The inn was easy enough to find. A big plane tree grew before it, and inthe yard behind the low whitewashed walls grew a second, beside a stonefountain which had not been erected within these last five hundredyears. The place was only a wine-shop, with no guest-rooms fortravellers, but there were ample outbuildings where our men couldencamp. But there was no sign of any landlord. Maris and I pushedindoors and found no trace of life in the big drinking-room with itssanded floor, or in the purlieus beyond. The inn folk must have gone toswell the crowd in the street. But we found a reasonably clean barn atthe back of the yard, and there Maris bade our fellows make theirquarters, get ready their breakfast and await our return. Then the twoof us set out to find the priest.

The villagers had not pressed nearer. When we emerged into the streetthey were standing as we had left them, patiently staring. Maris criedout, asking to be shown the priest's house, and at that the spell seemedto be broken, for there was a shout in reply. A visit to the priestseemed to be in the popular view the right course for us to take. Wewere directed to a house a hundred yards on, next door to a squatchurch, and to my surprise we were not followed. Once they had seen usenter, the crowd remained to watch the inn door.

The priest had evidently been apprised of our coming. His dwelling wasonly a bigger cottage, but in the furnishing of it there were a fewsigns of a class above the peasantry—a shelf of books, one or two gaudyreligious pictures, a Swiss cuckoo clock, and, incongruously enough, twoof the cheap copies of Tanagra statuettes which they sell in the Athensshops. I daresay he imagined that they were figures of saints. He was anold man, nearer eighty than seventy to my eye, and much bent in theshoulders. An unkempt beard fell over his chest, and his white hair waslong and brushed back from his forehead like a recent fashion amongyoung men in England. The skin was waxen white, and the lines on hisface were like the grey shadows in a snowdrift. His eyes were mild,benevolent, and fanatical. He looked stupid but kind and, like everybodyelse in that mad place, horribly frightened.

With him Maris went straight to the point.

"We are a Government survey party, Pappa," he said. "But that story isfor the peasants. To you we open our hearts. This gentleman is a colonelin the army of Britain, and likewise a member of the British Government.He is also a friend of the lady in the House of Plakos. What gadfly hasbitten the people of this island? Come! We know much already, but wewould hear your tale."

The priest—his venerable name was Hieronymos—was ready enough to tell.With a wealth of gesticulation remarkable in one so ancient, but alwayswith a lowered voice, he repeated crudely what we already knew. Thepeople of Plakos had suffered much and long, and were now resolved tomake an end of their incubus. The girl was a witch, and they haddetermined that she must die. They were only waiting till the convenientseason. All this he said in the most matter-of-fact tone, as if it werea natural sequence of cause and effect.

"But you would not consent to such barbarity?" Maris asked.

"My consent is not asked," he replied. "Beyond doubt the woman is eviland comes of an evil stock. But the Scriptures teach mercy, and, thoughdoubtless death is deserved, I would not counsel it. For if she is evilshe is also witless. Why else did she return here, when she knew thatthe whole island desired her death? Did I not go to her secretly, asNicodemus went to our Lord, and besought her never to return? And shehas given immense sums of money to her enemies. Me she gave gold for theChurch and that I have secure, but she has given it to others who havebought guns. The men from the hills, who are most bitter against her,carry rifles bought with her money."

Now I knew why the foolish child had realized her investments.

The priest was gaining confidence.

"The death of a witch may be a righteous deed," he said, "but the heartsof this people are not righteous. They are dabbling in a blacker magicthan hers, for they are following the Outland Things. And that is heresyand blasphemy, which in the eyes of Holy Church are sins not less mortalthan witchcraft."

Real anger, the jealous anger of a priest for his own prerogatives,blazed in his old eyes. He used for "outland things" the word exotika,the very word which had puzzled Vernon in the manuscript I gave him,till he found help from Basil of Cæsarea. The word caught my ear, and Imade Maris translate for me. He had clearly no compassion for poor Koré,but he was up in arms for his Church. Maris tried to probe the trouble,but he got the vaguest answers. The man seemed eager to unburden hissoul, and yet terrified to speak, and his eyes were always turning tothe window and the closed street door.

Last Eastertide there had been a lamentable neglect of sacred rites.This year the carelessness was complete. Holy Week had begun, but theminds of the people were not on its solemnities. "They fast indeed," hesaid, "but they do not pray." They had gone a-whoring after other gods,and what those other gods were it did not become a Christian man toconsider. They meditated a sacrifice, but they had forgotten thesacrifice on which their salvation hung. "There is a madness whichsurges up at times in these islands. It happened so in my grandfather'sday in Santorini, and there is no quelling it till some black deed hasbeen done and the people come to their right minds in a bitterrepentance." He, their priest, had become less regarded than a cur dog.Men stopped talking in the streets when he drew near, and would not meethis eyes. If he spoke, they moved off. They were conscious of a guiltypurpose, and yet resolved on it, and he was powerless to check them."They will come back, doubtless, and bemoan their folly, but in themeantime they are breaking the hearts of the saints and loading theirmiserable souls with sin."

Then he broke off, and his face took an expression of shrewdness.

"You have brought men with you. How many?"

Maris told him ten stout fellows all armed.

"What foolishness!" he cried. "The Government should have sent aregiment—a regiment with cannons. The madmen in Plakos are fifty timesyour number, and they have the hill folk at their back, and that is athousand more."

"Nevertheless," said Maris, "we may be sufficient to garrison the House,and protect the lady. I have heard that it is a strong place."

He looked at us queerly. "No garrison is sufficient against fire. Theywill burn the House and all that is in it.... Listen to me, sirs. I donot think as you think. I have no care for the woman nor for any of heraccursed race, but I have much care for the souls of this waywardpeople, and would save them from mortal sin. There are no two ways aboutit—the woman must burn, or she must depart. Can you carry her off?"

Maris translated to me rapidly. "Things look ugly," he said, "and Irather think this old one talks sense. But to carry off the lady we musthave a ship, and God knows where we shall find one. At Vano perhaps?Maybe we did wrong to separate our forces. It strikes me that the soonerwe get into touch with friend Janni the better. It is indicated that oneof us must presently make his way into the House, and that one hadbetter be you. Let us interrogate the old one about the topography ofthis damned village."

"You must enter the House," said the priest, in reply to Maris'squestion, "but it will be a task, I promise you, for Digenes theCyprian. The place is guarded at all hours, and no one enters or leavesit without the knowledge of the warders. But it might be achieved bybold men under cover of dark. The moon is nearing its full, and when ithas set in the small hours there might be a chance."

I got out the map of the island, and tried to get him to give me mybearings. But he was hopeless with a map, and instead on the whitehearthstone he drew a plan of his own. The main road to the House fromKynætho ran west from the village square, up a lane lined with croftsand past a big olive grove, till it reached the wood of chestnuts whichwas the beginning of the demesne. All the ground on this side rosesteeply, and there were dwellings almost to the gates, so that it wouldbe hard to escape detection. To the left the slopes curved in a shallowvale, bounded on the east by the main road to the hills and to Vano, andto south and west by a rim of upland beyond which lay the ruggedcoast-line and the sea. This vale was broad and flat, and tilted upgently towards the west, and it bore the curious name of the DancingFloor. In the old days, said the priest, the Panegyria were held in it,the island festivals before poverty and madness came to Plakos. TheDancing Floor bordered on the demesne, and he thought that a way ofentry might be found there.

I made Maris ask about the shore road, but the priest was emphaticagainst it. There was no way into the House on that side except by thestaircases from the jetty, which Vernon and I had seen in 1914, andthere it was certain the watchers would be most vigilant. Besides thestaircases were disused, and he believed that the postern doors had beenwalled up. The cliffs could not be climbed, and if the coast wasfollowed towards the south the difficulties increased. From myrecollection of the place, I thought he exaggerated, but I was notprepared to bank on a dim memory.

"There is no time to lose," he said, with an earnestness which convincedme that, though our motives might be different, our purposes were alike."In two days it will be Good Friday, and the night after comes thesolemn hour when our Lord breaks the bonds of death. I grievously fearthat that is the hour which my foolish folk have fixed for thissacrilege. If great sin is to be averted, the woman must be gone by thenand the House given to the flames. The flames, I say, for whateverhappens, there will be no peace in Plakos till it is in ashes. But letit be burned honestly and religiously, and not made an altar to theoutland devils whom Holy Church has long ago cast into the darkness."

The problem seemed to me to be clarifying itself. I was inclined tothink that the priest was too badly scared to take a balanced view ofthings, and also too wrapped up in his religious anxieties. I agreedthat we must somehow induce Koré to come away, and that for this purposewe must get all our ten men together and beg, borrow, or steal some kindof boat. It was also plain that the sooner I got inside the House thebetter, for Koré would need some persuading. I was not able to view theblack magic of the villagers quite seriously. It was obviously a realperil, but it was so wholly outside the range of my mental conceptionthat I took it as a straightforward risk, like that from a wild animalor a thunderstorm.

Maris and I had a short talk in French, and settled our plans. He wouldgo back to the inn and see our fellows fixed up for the night. Then hewould make his way on foot towards Vano and get into touch with Janni.We fixed a point on his map, on the edge of the cliffs about two milessouth of the House, where he was to bring Janni and his posse, and wherenext morning I was to take out the others to join him. There seemed norisk in leaving the five men in the inn for the night. The villagerswould scarcely interfere with strangers who purported to be a Governmentsurvey party and had no desire to move. Nor was it likely that anyobstacle would be set in the way of Maris's own journey. After all hewas moving towards Vano and away from the prohibited area.

My own case was more intricate. If I went back to the inn, it would beharder to make my way from it to the Dancing Floor, for I should havethe village street to go through. We put this to the priest, and heproved unexpectedly helpful. Why should I not stay on in his house tillthe evening? The church was adjacent, and behind the church lay thegraveyard, by which a road could be found to the Dancing Floor. He wouldgive me food, if I cared to share his humble meal. The old fellow mightbe a bigot, but he was honest and friendly and patently on our side. Ibeamed on him and thanked him in dumb show, while Maris made ready tostart.

"Get into the House somehow and fix up a plan with the lady," he said."That is the first job. You are quite clear about the rendezvous on thecliffs? You had better get back to the inn somehow, and to-morrowmorning bring the men to join me there. The village will think we'vestarted on our surveying—and a long way off the danger-point. You willhave to open the boxes and make each man carry his own supplies. Youhave your gun?"

I patted my pocket. "Yes, but there isn't going to be any shooting. Wehaven't a dog's chance at that game, with Miss Arabin arming the nativeswith Mauser rifles."

CHAPTER IX

Many times that day I wished that my education had included modernGreek. Through the hot afternoon and evening I remained in the littleroom, bored and anxious and mystified, while the priest sat opposite me,a storehouse of vital knowledge which I could not unlock. I raked up myrecollection of classical Greek, and tried him with a sentence or two,but he only shook his head. Most of the time he read in a little book, abreviary no doubt, and his lips muttered. An old woman came in and madeready a meal. We lunched off onion soup and black bread, and I was givena glass of some wine which smacked of turpentine. I smoked one of thetwo cigarettes left in my case, and afterwards fell asleep. When I wokethe old man was sitting just as I had left him, but he had laid down hisbook and seemed to be praying. There was no reserve now in the old face;I saw the age of it, and the innocence, and also the blind fear. Heseemed to be pleading fiercely with his God, and his mouth worked like achild's in a passion of disquiet.

Of course I might have strolled out of doors, and gone back to the inn,where I could have seen our five men and retrieved my pipe and pouch.It struck me that we were behaving like fools; we had come to visit theHouse, and we ought to lose no time in getting there. My nap had put ourprevious talk out of my head, and I found myself on my feet in a suddenimpulse. Then I remembered how Maris had enjoined the utmost caution,and I remembered, too, the look of those queer people in the street. TheHouse was tabu, and if I was seen going towards it I should bestopped, and I might even precipitate some wild mischief without Maristo help me. There in the priest's homely kitchen, with a belt of goldenlight on the floor and the hum of flies in the window, I had an acutesense of being among shadows which might suddenly turn into monstrousforms of life. The whole island seemed to me like a snake still numbfrom the winter cold, but thawing fast into a malignant activity. Andmeantime Koré was all alone in that ill-omened House with the circle ofhate closing around her, and I, who had come there to protect her, wasstill outside the cordon. I cursed the infernal fog which had brought usso fatally out of our course; and I resolved that no power on earthwould hinder me, when the dark came, from piercing the barrier.

The presbytery opened into a narrow lane with outbuildings in front ofit, but from the window I could see a corner of the main street. The sunpoured into the lane, and I watched the little green lizards on the wallbeyond. There was scarcely a sign of life in the segment I saw of themain street; indeed there was a silence strange in a village, so thatevery tiny natural noise—the chirping of grasshoppers, the slow flightof a dove—came with a startling clearness. Once a woman with a shawlover her head hurried past the opening. There should have been childrenplaying at the corner, but there were no children nor any sound of them.Never a cart rumbled by, nor mule nor horse crossed my line of vision.The village seemed to be keeping an eerie fast.

One man indeed I saw—a big fellow with a white blouse and long boots ofuntanned leather. He stood staring down the alley, and I noticed that hecarried a rifle. I beckoned to the priest, and we watched him togetherout of a corner of the window. The old man shook his head violently andmuttered something which ended in "bounos." Then he added between histeeth a word which sounded like "Callicantzari." I had heard that wordfrom Maris as a term of abuse—he had said, I remember, that it meantmen who become beasts, like the ancient Centaurs. I guessed that thisfellow must be one of the mountain men who were now in league with theirold enemies of the coast. If they were among the besiegers, Koré couldno longer refuse our help. "I will hire a regiment to shoot them down,"she had furiously told me. But what good was our help likely to be?

The sight of that fellow put an edge to my discomfort, and before theshadows had begun to fall I was roaming about the little room like a catin a cage. The priest left me, and presently I heard the ringing of abell. In the quiet, now deepened by the hush of twilight, the homelysound seemed a mockery—like the striking of the bells of a navalbattery I once heard on the Yser. Then, in the midst of mud and death,it had incongruously suggested tea on the cool deck of a liner; now thistintinnabulation, with its call to a meek worship, had the samegrotesque note of parody. Clearly there were no worshippers. I went tothe back of the cottage, and from the window of the bare little bedroomhad a view of the church in that amethyst gloaming. It was a baroqueedifice, probably five centuries old, but renovated during the lastfifty years, and in part painted a violent red. Beside it was a tinybell-tower, obviously far more ancient. I could see a faint light in thewindow, and beyond that a dark clump of ilex above which the eveningstar was rising.

When the priest returned it was almost dark. He lit a lamp and carefullylocked the door and shuttered the window. His barren service seemed toweigh heavily on him, for he moved wearily and did not raise hislong-lidded eyes. It was borne in on me that at any price I must findsome means of communicating with him, for my hour of action wasapproaching.

I tried him in French, but he never lifted his head.

Then it occurred to me that even a priest of the Greek Church must knowa little Latin. I used the English pronunciation, and though he did notunderstand me, he seemed to realize what tongue I was talking, for hereplied in a slow, broad Latin. I could not follow it, but at any ratewe had found a common speech. I tore a page from my notebook and wasabout to write, when he snatched it and the pencil from my hand. Therewas something he badly wanted to say to me. He hesitated a good deal,and then in laborious capitals he wrote:

"Si populus aliquid periculi tibi minatur, invenies refugiumin ecclesia." Then he scored out "refugium" and wrote in"sanctuarium."

"Quid periculi?" I wrote.

He looked at me helplessly, and spread out his hands. Danger, he seemedto suggest, lay in every quarter of the compass.

We used up five pages in a conversation in the dodgiest kind of style.My Latin was chiefly of the legal type, and I often used a word thatpuzzled him, while he also set me guessing with phrases which I supposewere ecclesiastical. But the result was that he repeated theinstructions he had given me through Maris. If I was to enter the House,the only way was by the Dancing Floor—it took me some time to identify"locus saltatorum"—and to climb the great wall which separated itfrom the demesne. But it would be guarded, probably by the "incolœmontium" and I must go warily, and not attempt it till the moon wasdown. Also I must be back before the first light of dawn.

I showed him my pistol, but he shook his head violently and went througha pantomime, the meaning of which was clear enough. I was not to shoot,because, though the guards were armed, there would be no shooting. Butall the same I was in some deadly danger. He scribbled in abusive Latinthat the people I had to fear were "pagani, nefasti, mysteriorumabominabilium cultores." If I were seen and pursued my only hope was toreach the church. Not his house—that was no use—but the church. Twicehe printed in emphatic capitals: "Pete sanctuarium ecclesiæ."

Then he took me into his little bedroom, and showed me the lie of theland. The moon was now up, the fog of the morning had gone out of theair, and the outline of the church and the bell-tower and the ilex grovebeyond might have been cut in amber and jet. Through the trees thereappeared a faint reddish glow as if fires were burning. I asked whatthis might be, and after a good deal of biting the stump of my pencil hewrote that there lay the graveyard, and the lights were burning "utvrykolakes absint." He seemed to doubt whether I could follow hismeaning, but I did, for I knew about this from Koré—how the peasantskept lamps at the grave-heads to ward off vampires.

He was clear that I must traverse the valley of the Dancing Floor whilethe moon was up, for otherwise I should miss my way. He looked at meappraisingly and wrote "You are a soldier," implying, as I took it, thatthere was cover for a man accustomed to use cover. Then he drew a planon which he marked my road. If I skirted the graveyard I should findmyself on a hillside which sloped towards the Dancing Floor. I must keepthis ridge, which was the northern containing wall of the place, till Ireached the boundaries of the House. On no account must I go down intothe valley, and when I asked why, he said that it was "nefasta." Thatcould not mean merely that it was well-guarded, but that it was held indread by the people of Kynætho, a dread which their priest shared.

I left the house just after eleven o'clock. Our long, silent sederunthad made the two of us good friends, for he wept at parting, andinsisted on blessing me and kissing me on the forehead. I was on hisside, on the side of his Church, a crusader going into peril in a strifewith heathenish evil.

It was a marvellous night for scent and colour, but as silent as thedeeps of the sea. I got with all speed into the shade of the ilexes, andclimbed up a rocky slope so that I looked down on the village graveyardbeyond the trees. Dozens of little lights twinkled in it like fireflies,those undying lamps which were lit to preserve the inmates from outrageby the terrible demons that enter into the bodies of the dead. SuddenlyI remembered with horror that it was Koré against whom these precautionswere taken—Koré, now because of her crazy gallantry alone in a doomedHouse, dreaming perhaps that she was winning back the hearts of herpeople, and knowing little of the dark forces massing against her out ofthe ancientry of time. There was that in this mania of superstitionwhich both infuriated and awed me; it was a thing against which a mancould find no weapon. And I had the ironic recollection of how littlemore than a week earlier, in a case before the Judicial Committee of thePrivy Council, I had been defending the legalization of certain Africanrites, on the ground that what to one man was superstition might toanother be an honest faith. I had struck a belief which had thecompelling power of a fanatical religion, though it was born of theblackness of night.

The hillside was a mass of scrub and boulder, giving excellent cover,and, since the ridge shut me off from the village, I could move withreasonable speed and safety. My spirits were rising with the exercise,and the depression which had overwhelmed me in the priest's house waslifting. Then suddenly I topped a rise and found myself looking down onthe Dancing Floor.

It was not a valley so much as an upland meadow, for there was no streamin it nor had there ever been one, and, though tilted up gently towardsthe west, most of it was as flat as a cricket-field. There it lay in themoonlight, yellow as corn in its cincture of broken ridges, a placeplainly hallowed and set apart. All my life I have cherished certainpictures of landscape, of which I have caught glimpses in my travels, asbroken hints of a beauty of which I hoped some day to find thearchetype. One is a mountain stream running in broad shallows and comingdown through a flat stretch of heather from a confusion of bluemountains. Another is a green meadow, cut off like a garden fromneighbouring wildernesses, secret and yet offering a wide horizon, aplace at once a sanctuary and a watch-tower. This type I have found inthe Scottish Borders, in the Cotswolds, once in New Hampshire, andplentifully in the Piedmont country of Virginia. But in the DancingFloor I had stumbled upon its archetype. The moonlight made the fartherhills look low and near, and doubtless lessened the size of the levelground, but the constriction only served to increase its preciousness.

I sat down and stared at the scene, and in that moment I underwent agreat lightening of spirit. For this meadow was a happy place, the homeof gentle and kindly and honourable things. Mildness and peace broodedover it. The priest had said that it was "nefasta," but he could onlyhave meant that it was sacred. Sacred indeed it must be, what the Greeksof old called a temenos, for the dullest could not be blind to thedivinity that dwelt here. I had a moment of wonder why the Arabins,lords of the island, had not included a spot so gracious in theirdemesne, until I saw that that could not be. The Dancing Floor must beopen to the winds and the starry influences and the spirits of earth; nohuman master could own or enclose it.

You will call me fantastic, but, dull dog as I am, I felt a sort ofpoet's rapture as I looked at those shining spaces, and at the skyabove, flooded with the amber moon except on the horizon's edge, wherea pale blue took the place of gold, and faint stars were pricking. Theplace was quivering with magic drawn out of all the ages since the worldwas made, but it was good magic. I had felt the oppression of Kynætho,the furtive, frightened people, the fiasco of Eastertide, thenecromantic lamps beside the graves. These all smacked evilly of panicand death. But now I was looking on the Valley of the Shadow of Life. Itwas the shadow only, for it was mute and still and elusive. But thepresage of life was in it, the clean life of fruits and flocks, andchildren, and happy winged things, and that spring purity of the earthwhich is the purity of God.

The moon was declining, but it would be at least two hours before Icould safely approach the House. The cover was good, I was protected bythe ridge from the side of the village, and no human being was likely tobe abroad on the Dancing Floor. I decided that I must get within sightof my destination before the light failed and spy out the land. It wasrough going among the ribs of rock and stone-falls and dense thickets ofthorn and arbutus, but sometimes I would come on a patch of turfdrenched with dew and scented with thyme. All the myrrh of Arabia was inthe place, for every foot of sward I trod on and every patch of scrub Ibrushed through was aromatic, and in the open places there was the cleansavour of night and the sea. Also at my left hand and below lay theDancing Floor, lambent under the moon like the cool tides of a river.

By-and-by I came to the end of the ridge, and had a view of the crestwhere the House stood. There was a blur of ebony which must be the woodthat surrounded it, and bounding it a ribbon of silver-grey. I puzzledat this, till I realized that it was the wall of which the priest hadspoken—a huge thing, it seemed, of an even height, curving from the dipwhere the village lay and running to what seemed to be the seaward scarpof the island. I was now in the danger zone, and it behoved me to gowarily, so I found a shelter where the cover of the ridge ended andstudied the details of the scene. The wall could not be less thatfifteen feet in height, and it appeared to be regularly masoned and assmooth as the side of a house. In that landscape it was a startlingintrusion of something crude and human, a defiance of nature. ShelleyArabin had built it for the sake of his sinister privacy, but why had hebuilt it so high? And then I guessed the reason. He wanted to shut outthe Dancing Floor from his life. That blessed place would have been amute protest against his infamies.

There was a black patch in the even sheen of the wall. I wormed my way alittle nearer and saw that for perhaps a dozen yards the wall had beenbroken down. I could see the ragged edges and the inky darkness of theshrubberies beyond. This had been done recently, perhaps within the lastmonth. And then I saw something more. There were men—guards—stationedat the gap. I made out their figures, and they seemed to have the baggywhite shirts of the mountaineer I had seen in the village. Also theywere armed. One stood in the gap, and the two others patrolled thesides, and I could see that they carried rifles at the trail. It seemedabsurd that three men were needed for that tiny entrance, and Iconcluded that they wanted each other's company. There must be somethingin the task which put a heavy strain on their courage. I noticed, too,that they kept their faces resolutely averted from the Dancing Floor.When one moved he walked with his head screwed round facing the House.The shining meadow might be nefastus, as the priest had said, or itmight be too sacred at this solemn hour of night for the profane gaze.

When I had watched them for a little it seemed to me that, though themoon had not set, these fellows were too preoccupied to be dangerous,and that I might safely continue my reconnaissance. There was not muchcover, but the declining moon made an olive shadow at the upper end ofthe Dancing Floor, and I proceeded to crawl across it like a gillieafter deer. I went very cautiously, stopping every now and then toprospect, but I found the wall now beyond my range, and I had to chancethe immobility of the sentries. My breeches were sopping with dew beforeI reached the point which I judged to be out of sight of the gap. Thewall, as I had observed, curved at the sea end, and once there—unlessthere were further guards—I should be at liberty to test my climbingpowers. The thing looked a most formidable barrier, but I was in hopesthat it might be turned where it abutted on the cliffs.

Before I realized it, I was looking down on the sea.

The coast bent inward in a little bight, and a hundred feet below me thewater lapped on a white beach. It was such a revelation of loveliness ascomes to a man only once or twice in his lifetime. I fancy that theshort commons on which I had subsisted all day and the sense of dwellingamong portents had keyed me up to a special receptiveness. Behind me wasthe Dancing Floor, and in front a flood of translucent colour, theshimmer of gold, the rarest tints of sapphire and amethyst, fading intothe pale infinity of the sky. I had come again into a world which spoke.From below came the sound of dreamily moving water, of sleepy pigeons inthe rocks. Recollections of poetry fleeted through my mind:

"where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea....

Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice——"

Yes, but something was wanting. There should have been white flocks onthe sward, something to link up nature with the homely uses of man, inorder to produce the idyllic. This place was not idyllic, it was magicaland unearthly. Above me was a walled mystery, within which evil hadonce been followed and a greater evil might soon be done, and therewere men with quaking hearts bent upon ancient devilries.

I followed the edge of the scarp as it rose to the highest point wherethe wall ended. There I had a sharp disappointment. The wall ran sheerto the edge of the cliff, and a steep buttress descended to the face ofthe limestone crag. The stone was as smooth as a water-worn pebble. Ihave been a rock-climber since I was an undergraduate, and have faced inmy time some awkward problems, but this was starkly impossible. Evenwith a companion and a rope I do not believe it could have been done,and to attempt it alone meant the certainty of a broken neck.

I prospected eastward along the wall, and found no better hope there.The thing was simply not to be climbed except by a lizard. If I had hadMaris with me I might have stood on his shoulders and made a jump forthe coping; as it was it might have been a hundred feet high instead offifteen for all the good it was to me. There were no branches about tomake a ladder, or loose stones to make a cairn—nothing but the shortdownland turf.

The sight of this insuperable obstacle effectively put a stop to mybrief exhilaration of spirit. I felt small, and feeble, and futile. Itwas imperative that I should get into the House without further delayand see Koré, and yet the House was as impracticable as the moon, nowswiftly setting. The rapid darkening of the world pointed out the onlyroad. I must dodge the sentries and get through the breach in the wall.It was a wild notion, but my growing ill-temper made me heedless ofrisks. The men had no pistols, only rifles, and were probably not tooready in the use of them. After all, I had played this game before withsuccess. In the first winter of the war, when I was a subaltern, I usedto be rather good at wriggling across No-man's-land and eavesdroppingbeside the German trenches.

I didn't give my resolution time to weaken, but in the shadow of thewall made the best pace I could towards the gap. It was now really dark,with only a faint glow from the stars, and I moved in what seemed to myeyes impenetrable shade after the brightness of the moon. I was wearingrubber-soled boots and cloth gaiters, my garments were subfuse incolour, and I have always been pretty light on my feet. I halted manytimes to get my bearings, and presently I heard the sound of a man'stread. So far as I could judge before, two of the sentries had theirpatrol well away from the wall, and I might escape their notice if Ihugged the stones. But one had had his stand right in the breach, andwith him I would have difficulty. My hope was to dart through into theshelter of the thick shrubbery. Even if they fired on me they would belikely to miss, and I believed that they would not follow me into thedemesne.

I edged my way nearer, a foot at a time, till I guessed by the soundthat I was inside the beat of the patrols. I had no white about me, formy shirt and collar were drab, and I kept my face to the wall. Suddenlymy hands felt the ragged edge of the gap and I almost stumbled over afallen stone. Here it was very dark, and I had the shadow of the treesinside to help me. I held my breath and listened, but I could not hearany noise from within the breach. Had the sentry there deserted hispost?

I waited for a minute or so, trying to reckon up the chances. The treadof the man on my right was clear, and presently I could make out alsothe movement of the man on my left. Where was the third? Suddenly Iheard to the right the sound of human speech. The third must be there.There was a sparkle of fire, too. The third sentry had gone to get alight for his cigarette.

Now was my opportunity, and I darted into the darkness of the gap. I wasbrought up sharp and almost stunned by a blow on the forehead. There wasa gate in the gap, a stout thing of wattles with a pole across. Istrained at it with my hands, but it would not move.

There was nothing for it but to bolt. The sentries had beenalarmed—probably horribly alarmed—by the noise, and were drawingtogether. The only safety lay in violent action, for they had a means ofgetting light and would find me if I tried to lurk in the shadows. Iraised my arms in the orthodox ghostly fashion, howled like a banshee,and broke for the open.

I was past them before they could stop me and plunging down the slopetowards the Dancing Floor. I think that for the first moments they weretoo scared to shoot, for they must have believed that I had come out ofthe forbidden House, and when they recovered their nerve I was beyondtheir range. The upper slope was steep, and I went down it asPate-in-Peril in Redgauntlet went down Errickstane-brae. I rolled overand over, found my feet, lost them again, and did not come to rest tillI was in the flats of the meadow. I looked back and saw a lighttwinkling at the gap. The guards there must have been amazed to find thegate intact, and were now doubtless at their prayers.

I did not think that, even if they believed me flesh and blood, theywould dare to follow me to the Dancing Floor. So I made my way down itat a reasonable pace, feeling rather tired, rather empty, and verythirsty. On the road up I had decided that there was no stream in it,but almost at once I came to a spring. It was a yard across, bubbling upstrongly, and sending forth a tiny rill which presently disappeared insome fissure of the limestone. The water was deliciously cold, and Idrank pints of it. Then it occurred to me that I must put my best footforwards, for there was that trembling in the eastern sky which is thepresage of dawn. My intention was to join my fellows in the inncourtyard, and meet Maris there in the morning. After all, theinhabitants of Kynætho had nothing as yet against me. All they knew ofme was that I was a surveyor from the Government at Athens, whosepresence no doubt was unwelcome but who could hardly be treated as anenemy.

I reached the eastern bounds of the Dancing Floor, and scrambled up onthe ridge above the ilexes of the graveyard. The lamps were stilltwinkling like glow-worms among the graves. From there it was easy toget into the lane where stood the priest's house, and in a few minutes Iwas in the main village street. The chilly dawn was very near, and Ithought lovingly of the good food in our boxes. My first desire was ameal which should be both supper and breakfast.

The door of the courtyard stood open, and I pushed through it to thebarn beyond. The place was empty—not a sign of men or baggage. For amoment I thought they might have been given quarters in the inn, till Iremembered that the inn had no guest-room. I tried the otheroutbuildings—a stable, a very dirty byre, a place which looked like agranary. One and all were empty.

It was no use waking the landlord, for he probably would not answer, andin any case I did not understand his tongue. There was nothing for itbut to go back to the priest. My temper was thoroughly embittered, and Istrode out of the courtyard as if I were at home in my own village.

But my entrance had been observed, and the street was full of people. Idoubt if Kynætho slept much these days, and now it seemed that fromevery door men and women were emerging. There was something uncanny inthat violent vigilance in the cold grey light of dawn. And the crowdwas no longer inert. In a second I saw that it was actively hostile,that it wanted to do me a mischief, or at any rate to lay hands on me.It closed in on me from every side, and yet made no sound.

It was now that I had my first real taste of fear. Before I had beentroubled and mystified, but now I was downright afraid. Automatically Ibroke into a run, for I remembered the priest's advice about the church.

My action took them by surprise. Shouts arose, meaningless shouts to me,and I broke through the immediate circle with ease. Two fellows whomoved to intercept me I handed off in the best Rugby football style. Thestreet was empty before me and I sprinted up it at a pace which I doubtif I ever equalled in my old running days.

But I had one determined pursuer. I caught a glimpse of him out of acorner of my eye, one of the young men from the hills, a fellow with adark hawk-like face and a powerful raking stride. In my then form hewould have beaten me easily if the course had been longer, but it wastoo short to let him develop his speed. Yet he was not a yard behind mewhen I shot through the open door of the church.

I flung myself gasping on the floor behind one of the squat pillars. AsI recovered my breath I wondered why no shot had been fired. A man witha gun could have brought me down with the utmost ease, for I had beenrunning straight in the open. My second thought was that the priest hadbeen right. The peasant had stopped in his tracks at the church door. Ihad found safety for the moment—a sanctuary or, it might be, a prison.

CHAPTER X

The morning light was filtering through the windows, and since the glasswas a dirty yellow, the place seemed still to be full of moonshine. Asmy eyes grew accustomed to it, I made out the features of the interior.A heavy curtain separated the sanctuary from the chancel; the floor wasof rough stone, worn with the feet and knees of generations ofworshippers; there were none of the statues and images which one isaccustomed to in a Roman church, not even a crucifix, though there mayhave been one above the hidden altar. From a pillar hung an assortmentof votive offerings, crutches, oar-blades, rudders of ships,old-fashioned horn spectacles. The walls were studded with little ikonsof saints, each one with its guttering lamp before it. The place smeltdank and unused and mouldy, like a kirk in winter-time in some Highlandglen. Behind me the open door showed an oval of pure pale light.

I was in a mood of profound despondency which was very near despair. Themen had gone and with them our stores of food and ammunition. God knewwhere Maris was or how I should find him again. The village wasactively hostile, and I was shut up in the church as in a penitentiary.I was no nearer Koré than when we landed—farther away indeed, for I hadtaken the wrong turning, and she was shut off from me by mountainousbarriers. I could have laughed bitterly when I thought of the futilityof the help which I had been so confident of giving her. And her dangerwas far more deadly than I had dreamed. She was the mark of a wild hatewhich had borrowed some wilder madness out of the deeps of the past. Shehad spoken of a "sacrifice." That was the naked truth of it; any momenttragedy might be done, some hideous rite consummated, and youth andgallantry laid on a dark altar.

The thought drove me half crazy. I fancy the lack of food and sleep hadmade me rather light-headed, for I sat in a stupor which was as muchanger as pity—anger at those blinded islanders, at my own feebleness,at Koré's obstinacy. This was succeeded by an extreme restlessness. Icould not stay still, but roamed about examining the ill-favoured ikons.There was a little recess on the right of the chancel which wasevidently the treasury, for I found a big chest full of dusty vestmentsand church plate. Sacrilege must have been an unknown crime in Kynætho,for the thing was unlocked.

Then I noticed a strange object below the chancel step. It seemed to bea bier with a shrouded figure laid on it. The sight gave me a shock, forI thought it a dead body. Reluctantly I approached it and drew back theshroud, expecting to see the corpse of a peasant.

To my amazement it was a figure of Christ—a wooden image, rudely carvedbut with a strange similitude of life. It reminded me of a John theBaptist by Donatello which I once saw in Venice. The emaciated body wasnaked but for the loin cloth, the eyes were closed, the cheeks sunken.It was garishly painted, and the stigmata were done in a crude scarlet.But there was power in it, and dignity, and a terrible pitifulness. Iremembered Koré's story. This was the figure which on the night of GoodFriday, after the women had kissed and wailed over it, was borne inprocession among the village lanes and then restored to its sepulchre.This was the figure which at the Easter Resurrection stood in a blaze ofcandles before the altar, the Crucified and Risen Lord.

That sight worked a miracle with me. I suddenly felt that I was notalone, but had august allies. The Faith was behind me, that faith whichwas deep in the heart of Kynætho though for the moment it was overlaid.The shabby church, the mazed and ignorant priest took on suddenly atremendous significance.... They were the visible sign and warrant ofthat creed which we all hold dumbly, even those who call themselvesunbelievers—the belief in the ultimate omnipotence of purity andmeekness.

I reverently laid the shroud again over the figure, and must have stoodin a muse before it, till I found that the priest had joined me. Heknelt beside the bier, and said his prayers, and never have I heard suchan agony of supplication in a man's voice. I drew back a little, andwaited. When he had finished he came to me and his eyes asked aquestion.

I shook my head and got out my notebook.

He asked me if I had breakfasted, and when I wrote the most emphaticnegative which my Latin could compass, he hobbled off and returned withsome food under his cassock. It was only walnuts and black bread, but Iate it wolfishly and felt better for it. I looked on the old man nowwith a sincere liking, for he was my host and my ally, and I think hehad changed his attitude towards me. Those minutes beside the bier hadestablished a bond between us.

In the recess I have mentioned there was a door which I had not hithertonoticed. This opened into a kind of sacristy, where the priest kept hisodds and ends. There was a well in the floor of it, covered by animmense oaken lid, a well of cold water of which I had a long drink. Theold man drew several buckets, and set about cleaning the chancel, and Iwas glad to lend a hand. I spent the better part of the morning like ahousemaid on my knees scrubbing the floor and the chancel step, while hewas occupied inside the sanctuary. The physical exertion was an anodyneto my thoughts, which in any case were without purpose. I could donothing till the night came again.

On one of my journeys to the sacristy to fetch water I saw a face atthe little window, which opened on the yard of the priest's house. To myimmense relief it was Maris, very dirty and dishevelled, but grinningcheerfully. That window was a tight fit, but he managed to wriggle halfthrough, and a strong pull from me did the rest. He drank like a thirstydog out of my bucket, and then observed that a church had its drawbacksas a resort, since one couldn't smoke.

"I have much to tell you, my friend," he said, "but first I mustinterview his Holiness. By God, but he has the mischievous flock."

I do not know what he said to the priest, but he got answers whichseemed to give him a melancholy satisfaction. The old man spoke withoutever looking up, and his voice was flat with despair. Often he shook hishead, and sometimes he held up his hand as if to avert a blasphemy.Maris turned to me with a shrug of the shoulders. "This madness isbeyond him, as it is beyond me. It is a general breaking down of wits.What can you and I, soldiers though we be, do against insanity?Presently I must sleep, and you too, my friend, to judge by your heavyeyes. But first I make my report."

"I suppose we are safe here?" I said.

"Safe enough, but impotent. We can take our sleep confidently, but it ishard to see that we can do much else. We are in quarantine, if youunderstand. But to report——"

He had gone to the inn the night before, and found our five men suppingand playing cards like Christians. They seemed to understand what wasrequired of them—to wait for me and then join Janni and the others atthe rendezvous on the western cliffs. So far as he could judge they hadhad no communication of any kind with the people of the village. Then hehad set out with an easy mind on the road to Vano. No one had hinderedhim; the few villagers he met had stared but had not attempted even toaccost him. So over the moonlit downs he went, expecting to find Janniand the other five in bivouac in the open country towards the skirts ofthe hills.

He found Janni alone—on the roadside some miles east of Vano, squattedimperturbably by a fire, in possession of five revolvers and amplestores, but without a single follower. From the one-armed corporal heheard a strange tale. The party had made Vano before midday in theSanta Lucia, had landed, and marched inland from the little port,without apparently attracting much attention. He himself had explainedto the harbour-master that they had been sent to do survey work, and thewine shop, where they stopped for a drink, heard the same story. Theyhad then tramped up the road from Vano to the hills, stopping at thelittle farms to pass the time of day and pick up news. They heardnothing till nightfall, when they encamped beside a village among thefoothills. There Janni talked to sundry villagers and heard queerstories of Kynætho. There was a witch there who by her spells hadblighted the crops and sent strange diseases among the people, and thecup of her abominations was now full. So Dionysos had appeared to manyin a dream summoning them to Kynætho in the Great Week, and the best ofthe young men had already gone thither.

That was all that Janni heard, for being the man in authority he spokeonly with the elders, and they were wary in their talk. But the others,gossiping with the women, heard a fuller version which scared them tothe bone. Your Greek townsman is not a whit less superstitious than thepeasant, and he lacks the peasant's stolidity, and is prone to morespeedy excitement. Janni did not know exactly what the women had toldhis men, except that Kynætho was the abode of vampires and harpies forwhom a surprising judgment was preparing, and that no stranger couldenter the place without dire misfortune. There might be throat-cutting,it was hinted, on the part of the young men now engaged in a holy war,and there would for certain be disaster at the hand of the striglasand vrykolakes in the House, for to them a stranger would be easyprey.

Whatever it was, it brought the men back to Janni gibbering with terrorand determined to return forthwith to Vano. The island was accursed andthe abode of devils innumerable, and there was nothing for honest men todo but to flee. They would go back to Vano and wait on a boat, theSanta Lucia or some other. To do the rascals justice, Janni thoughtthat they might have faced the throat-cutting, but the horrors of theunseen and the occult were more than they could stomach. Janni, who wasa rigid disciplinarian, had fortunately possessed himself of theirpistols when they encamped for the night, and he was now in two mindswhether he should attempt to detain them by force. But the sight oftheir scared eyes and twitching lips decided him that he could donothing in their present mood, and he resolved to let them go back toVano till he had seen Maris and received instructions. They had alreadyhad wages in advance, and could fend for themselves till he made a plan.So he doled out to each man a share of the supplies and watched themscurry off in the direction of the coast, while he smoked his pipe andconsidered the situation. There, about two in the morning, Maris foundhim.

The defection of these five men suggested to Maris that the same kind oftrouble might be expected with the batch in Kynætho. So he and Jannihumped the stores and started off across the downs to the rendezvous onthe cliffs which he had settled with me. That occupied a couple ofhours, and there Janni was left with orders not to stir till he wassummoned. The place was a hollow on the very edge of the sea, farremoved from a road or a dwelling—a lucky choice, for it had been madeat haphazard from the map without any local knowledge. Then Maris setoff at his best pace for Kynætho, skirting the Dancing Floor on thesouth, and striking the road to Vano a mile or so from the village.

There he met the rest of our posse, and a more dilapidated set ofmountebanks he declared he had never seen. So far as he could gatherfrom their babble, they had been visited in the small hours by adeputation of villagers, who had peremptorily ordered them to depart.The deputation backed its plea not by threats but by a plain statementof facts. Kynætho was labouring under a curse which was about to beremoved. No doubt the villagers expounded the nature of the curse withdetails which started goose-flesh on their hearers. What was about to bedone was Kynætho's own affair, and no stranger could meddle with it andlive. They may have enforced their argument with a sight of theirrifles, but probably they did not need any mundane arguments to barb theterror which their tale inspired. For they succeeded in so putting afear of unknown horrors into these five Athens guttersnipes that theydecamped without a protest. They did not even stay to collect someprovender, but fled for their lives along the Vano road.

When Maris met them they were padding along in abject panic. One manstill carried unconsciously a tin from which he had been feeding,another clutched a crumpled pack of cards. They had their pistols, butthey had no thought of using them. Pantingly they told their story,irking to be gone, and when Maris seemed to be about to detain them theysplayed away from him like frightened sheep. Like Janni, he decided thatit was no good to try to stop them—indeed he was pretty clear by nowthat even if they stayed they would be useless for the job we had inhand. He cursed their female relatives for several generations andspeeded the hindmost on his way with a kick.

His next business was to find me, and he concluded that I would probablybe still in the neighbourhood of the House. So, as the moon was down, heretraced his steps by the south side of the Dancing Floor and reachedthe edge where the wall abutted on the cliffs probably an hour after Ihad been there. He shared my view about the impracticality of anentrance to the demesne at that point. As it was now almost daylight hedid not dare to follow the wall, but returned to Janni on the cliffs,who gave him breakfast. He was getting anxious about my doings, for heargued that if I returned to the inn to look for the men there wouldprobably be trouble. It seemed to him important that the village shouldstill believe him to have gone off, so he was determined not to showhimself. But he must get in touch with me, and for that purpose hedecided first to draw the priest's house. He had a difficult journey inthe broad daylight by way of the graveyard. It would have beenimpossible, he said, if the village had been living its normal life, forhe had to pass through a maze of little fields and barns. But all farmwork seemed to have been relinquished and not a soul was to be seen atthe lower end of the Dancing Floor. Everybody, except the guards roundthe House, seemed to be huddling in the village street. In the end hegot into the priest's house, found it empty and followed on to thechurch.

I told him briefly my doings of the night. I could see that he wascompletely in the dark as to what was happening, except that Kynætho,under the goad of some crazy superstition, intended very resolutemischief to the House and its chatelaine. You see he had not talked toKoré—had indeed never seen her, nor had he read the disquietingmanuscript which Vernon had translated for me. I did not see how I couldenlighten him, for on that side he was no scholar, and was too rooted inhis brand of minor rationalism to take my tale seriously. It wassufficient that we were both agreed that the House must be entered, andKoré willy-nilly removed.

"But we have no ship," he cried. "The lady would be no safer in the openthan in the House, for they mean most certainly that she shall die. Ithink it may come to putting our backs to the wall, and the odds areunpleasant. We cannot telegraph for help, for the office is in thevillage and it has been destroyed. I have ascertained that there is nowire at Vano, or elsewhere in the island."

Things looked pretty ugly, as I was bound to admit. But there was oneclear and urgent duty, to get into the House and find Koré. Before welay down to snatch a little sleep, we made a rough plan. Maris would trythe coast to the north and see if an entrance could be effected by apostern above the jetty where Vernon and I had first landed. He thoughtthat he had better undertake this job, for it meant skirting thevillage, and he believed he might pass in the darkness as one of the menfrom the hills. He could talk the language, you see, and, if accosted,could put up some kind of camouflage. I was to make for Janni, and thenthe two of us would try along the shore under the cliffs in the hopethat some gully might give us access to the demesne north of the pointwhere the wall ended. We were to rendezvous about breakfast time atJanni's camp, and from the results of the night frame a furtherprogramme.

I slept without a break till after eight o'clock in the evening, whenthe priest woke us and gave us another ration of the eternal bread andwalnuts. I felt frowsy and dingy, and would have given much for a bath.The priest reported that the day in the village had passed withoutincident, except that there had been a great gathering in the centralsquare and some kind of debate. He had not been present, but the thingseemed to have deepened his uneasiness. "There is no time to lose," hetold Maris, "for to-morrow is Good Friday, and to-morrow I fear thatunhallowed deeds may be done." Maris discussed his route with him verycarefully, and several more pages of my notebook were used up in plans.It was going to be a ticklish business to reach the jetty—principally,I gathered, because of the guards who watched all the sides of thedemesne which were not bounded by the cliffs or the great wall. But thepriest seemed to think it possible, and Maris's Gascon soul hadillimitable confidence.

My road was plain—up the ridge on the south side of the Dancing Floortill it ended at the sea, a matter of not more than four miles. Iskirted as before the little graveyard with its flickering lamps, andthen made a cautious traverse of a number of small fields each with itsstraw-covered barn. Presently I was out on the downs, with the yellowlevels of the Dancing Floor below me on the right. I was in a differentmood from the previous night, for I was now miserably conscious of theshortness of our time and the bigness of our task. Anxiety was puttingme into a fever of impatience and self-contempt. Here was I, a man whowas reckoned pretty competent by the world, who had had a creditablerecord in the war, who was considered an expert at getting other peopleout of difficulties—and yet I was so far utterly foiled by a batch ofbarbarian peasants. I simply dared not allow my mind to dwell on Koréand her perils, for that way lay madness. I had to try to think of thething objectively as a problem to be solved, but flashes of acute fearfor the girl kept breaking through to set my heart beating.

I found Janni cooking supper by his little fire in a nook of the downs,and the homely sight for the moment comforted me. The one-armed corporalwas, I daresay, by nature and upbringing as superstitious as any otherGreek peasant, but his military training had canalized his imagination,and he would take no notice of a legend till he was ordered to by hissuperior officer. It reminded me of the policeman Javert in LesMisérables: his whole soul was in the ritual of his profession, and itmust have been a black day for Janni when the war stopped. Maris, whomhe worshipped blindly, had bidden him take instructions from me, and hewas ready to follow me into the sea. Mercifully his service at Salonikahad taught him a few English words and a certain amount of bad French,so we could more or less communicate.

He had supplies with him, so I had a second supper—biscuits andsardines and coffee, which after two days of starvation tasted likenectar and ambrosia. Also he had a quantity of caporal cigarettes withwhich I filled my pockets. Our first business was to get down to thebeach, and fortunately he had already discovered a route a few hundredyards to the south, where a gully with a stone shoot led to the water'sedge. Presently we stood on the pebbly shore looking out to the luminouswest over a sea as calm as a mill-pond. I would have liked to bathe, butdecided that I must first get the immediate business over.

That shore was rough going, for it was a succession of limestone reefsencumbered with great boulders which had come down from the rocks duringpast winters. The strip of beach was very narrow and the overhang of thecliffs protected us from observation from above, even had any peasantbeen daring enough to patrol the Dancing Floor by night. We kept closeto the water, where the way was easiest, but even there our progress wasslow. It took us the better part of an hour to get abreast of the pointwhere the wall ended. There the cliffs were at least two hundred feethigh, and smooth as the side of a cut loaf. Crowning them we could seethe dark woodlands of the demesne.

My object was to find a route up them, and never in all mymountaineering experience had I seen a more hopeless proposition. Thelimestone seemed to have no fissures, and the faces had weatheredsmooth. In the Dolomites you can often climb a perpendicular cliff bythe countless little cracks in the hard stone, but here there were nocracks, only a surface glassy like marble. At one point I took off myboots and managed to ascend about twenty yards, when I was brought upsharp by an overhang, could find no way to traverse, and had my work cutout getting down again. Janni was no cragsman, and in any case his onearm made him useless.

Our outlook ahead was barred by a little cape, and I was in hopes thaton the other side of that the ground might become easier. We had a badtime turning it, for the beach stopped and the rock fell sheer to thewater. Happily the water at the point was shallow, and partly wading andpartly scrambling, we managed to make the passage. In the moonlighteverything was clear as day, and once round we had a prospect of anarrow bay, backed by the same high perpendicular cliffs and bounded tothe north by a still higher bluff, which ended to seaward in a sheerprecipice.

I sat down on a boulder with a sinking heart to consider the prospect.It was more hopeless than the part we had already prospected. There wasno gully or chimney in the whole glimmering semicircle, nothing but arim of unscalable stone crowned with a sharp-cut fringe of trees. Beyondthe bluff lay the olive-yards which I had seen six years before when Ilanded from the yacht, but I was pretty certain that we would never getround the bluff. For the margin of shore had now disappeared, and thecliffs dropped sheer into deep water.

Suddenly Janni by my side grunted and pointed to the middle of thelittle bay. There, riding at anchor, was a boat.

At first it was not easy to distinguish it from a rock, for there was noriding light shown. But, as I stared at it, I saw that it was indeed aboat—a yawl-rigged craft of, I judged, about twenty tons. It lay theremotionless in the moonlight, a beautiful thing which had no part in thatsetting of stone and sea—a foreign thing, an intruder. I watched it forfive minutes and nothing moved aboard.

The sight filled me with both hope and mystification. Here was the"ship" which Maris had postulated. But who owned it, and what was itdoing in this outlandish spot, where there was no landing? It could notbelong to Kynætho, or it would have been lying at the jetty below theHouse, or in the usual harbour. Indeed it could not belong to Plakos atall, for, though I knew little about boats, I could see that the cut ofthis one spoke of Western Europe. Was any one on board? It behoved meforthwith to find that out.

I spoke to Janni, and he whistled shrilly. But there was no answer fromthe sleeping bay. He tried again several times without result. If wewere to make inquiries, it could only be by swimming out. Janni, ofcourse, was no swimmer, and besides, the responsibility was on me. Ican't say I liked the prospect, but in three minutes I had stripped andwas striking out in the moon-silvered water.

The fresh, cold, aromatic sea gave me new vigour of body and mind. Irealized that I must proceed warily. Supposing there was some one onboard, some one hostile, I would be completely at his mercy. So I swamvery softly up to the stern and tried to read the name on it. There wasa name, but that side was in shadow and I could not make it out. I swamto the bows, and there again saw a name of which I could make nothing,except that the characters did not seem to me to be Greek.

I trod water and took stock of the situation. It was the kind of craftof which you will see hundreds at Harwich and Southampton andPlymouth—a pleasure boat, obviously meant for cruising, but withsomething of the delicate lines of a racer. I was beginning to feelchilly, and felt that I must do something more than prospect from thewater. I must get on board and chance the boat being empty or the ownerasleep.

There was a fender amidships hanging over the port side. I clutchedthis, got a grip of the gunwale, and was just about to pull myself up,when a face suddenly appeared above me, a scared, hairy face, surmountedby a sort of blue nightcap. Its owner objected to my appearance, for heswung a boathook and brought it down heavily on the knuckles of my lefthand. That is to say, such was his intention, but he missed his aim andonly grazed my little finger.

I dropped off and dived, for I was afraid that he might start shooting.When I came up a dozen yards off and shook the water out of my eyes, Isaw him staring at me as if I was a merman, with the boathook still inhis hand.

"What the devil do you mean by that?" I shouted, when I had ascertainedthat he had no pistol. "What boat is it? Who are you?"

My voice seemed to work some change in the situation, for he dropped theboathook, and replied in what sounded like Greek. I caught one word"Ingleez" several times repeated.

"I'm English," I cried, "English ... philos ... philhellene—damn it,what's the Greek for a friend?"

"Friend," he repeated, "Ingleez," and I swam nearer.

He was a tough-looking fellow, dressed in a blue jersey and whatappeared to be old flannel bags, and he looked honest, though puzzled. Iwas now just under him, and smiling for all I was worth. I put a hand onthe fender again, and repeated the word "English." I also said that myintentions were of the best, and I only wanted to come aboard and have achat. If he was well disposed towards England, I thought he mightrecognize the sound of the language.

Evidently he did, for he made no protest when I got both hands on thegunwale again. He allowed me to get my knee up on it, so I took mychance and swung myself over. He retreated a step and lifted theboathook, but he did not attempt to hit me as I arose, like Proteus, outof the sea and stood dripping on his deck.

I held out my hand, and with a moment's hesitation he took it."English ... friend," I said, grinning amicably at him, and to my reliefhe grinned back.

I was aboard a small yacht, which was occidental in every line of her,the clean decks, the general tidy, workmanlike air. A man is not at hismost confident standing stark naked at midnight in a strange boat,confronting somebody of whose speech he comprehends not one word. But Ifelt that I had stumbled upon a priceless asset if I could only use it,and I was determined not to let the chance slip. He poured out a flow ofGreek, at which I could only shake my head and murmur "English." Then Itried the language of signs, and went through a vigorous pantomime toexplain that, though I could not speak his tongue, I had a friend onshore who could. The yacht had a dinghy. Would he row me ashore and meetmy friend?

It took me the devil of a time to make this clear to him, and I had tolead him to where the dinghy lay astern, point to it, point to theshore, point to my dumb mouth, and generally behave like a maniac. Buthe got it at last. He seemed to consider, then he dived below andreturned with a thing like an iron mace which he brandished round hishead as if to give me to understand that if I misbehaved he could brainme. I smiled and nodded and put my hand on my heart, and he smiled back.

Then his whole manner changed. He brought me a coat and an ancient felthat, and made signs that I should put them on. He dived below again andbrought up a bowl of hot cocoa, which did me good, for my teeth werebeginning to chatter. Finally he motioned me to get into the dinghy andset his mace beside him, took the sculls and pulled me in the directionI indicated.

Janni was sitting smoking on a stone, the image of innocent peace. Icried out to him before we reached shore, and told him that this was theskipper and that he must talk to him. The two began their conversationbefore we landed, and presently it seemed that Janni had convinced myhost that we were respectable. As soon as we landed I started to put onmy clothes, but first I took the pistol from my coat pocket andpresented the butt-end to my new friend. He saw my intention, bowedceremoniously, and handed it back to me. He also pitched the mace backinto the dinghy, as if he regarded it as no longer necessary.

He and Janni talked volubly and with many gesticulations, and the latternow and then broke off to translate for my benefit. I noticed that astime went on the seaman's face, though it remained friendly, grew alsoobstinate.

"He says he awaits his master here," said Janni, "but who his master isand where he is gone he will not tell. He says also that this island isfull of devils and bad men, and that on no account will he stay on it."

I put suggestions to Janni, which he translated, but we could getnothing out of the fellow, except the repeated opinion—with which Iagreed—that the island was full of devils, and that the only place foran honest man was the water. About his master he remained stubbornlysilent. I wanted him to take me in his boat round the farther bluff, sothat we could land on the olive-yard slopes and possibly get in touchwith Maris, but he peremptorily refused. He would not leave the bay,which was the only safe place. Elsewhere were the men and women ofPlakos, who were devils.

After about an hour's fruitless talk I gave it up. But one thing Isettled. I told him through Janni that there were others besidesourselves and himself who were in danger from the devils of the island.There was a lady—an English lady—who was even now in dire peril. Ifwe could bring her to the spot would he be on the watch and take her onboard?

He considered this for a little, and then agreed. He would not leave theisland without his master, but he would receive the lady if necessary,and if the devils followed he would resist them. He was obviously afighting man, and I concluded he would be as good as his word. Asked ifin case of pursuit he would put to sea, he said, "No, not till hismaster returned." That was the best I could make of him, but of thatprecious master he refused to speak a syllable. His own name he said wasGeorge—known at home as Black George, to distinguish him from a cousin,George of the Hare-lip.

We parted in obscure friendliness. I presented him with my emptycigarette-case, and he kissed me on both cheeks. As I handed him backthe garments which he had lent me to cover my nakedness, I noticed acurious thing. The coat was an aquascutum so old that the maker's tabhad long since gone from it. But inside the disreputable felt hat I sawthe name of a well-known shop in Jermyn Street.

CHAPTER XI

Janni and I returned to the camp before dawn. For some unknown reason aheavy weariness overcame me on the way back, and I could scarcely dragmy limbs over the last half-mile of shore and up the stone shoot to theedge of the downs. I dropped on the ground beside the ashes of the fire,and slept like a drugged man.

When I awoke it was high forenoon. The sun was beating full on thelittle hollow, and Janni was cooking breakfast. My lethargy had gone,and I woke to a violent, anxious energy. Where was Maris? He ought tohave rejoined us, according to plan, before sunrise. But Janni had seenno sign of him. Had he got into the House? Well, in that case he wouldfind means to send us a message, and to send it soon, for this was GoodFriday, the day which the priest feared. I was in a fever of impatience,for I had found a boat, a means of escape of which Maris did not know.If he was in the House, I must get that knowledge to him, and he in turnmust get in touch as soon as possible with me. Our forces were dividedwith no link of communication.

I did my best to possess my soul in that hot scented forenoon, but itwas a hard job, for the sense of shortening time had got on my nerves.The place was cooled by light winds from the sea, and for Janni, who layon his back and consumed cigarettes, it was doubtless a pleasanthabitation. Rivers of narcissus and iris and anemone flooded over thecrest and spilled into the hollow. The ground was warm under the shortherbage, and from it came the rich clean savour of earth quickeningafter its winter sleep under the spell of the sun. The pigeons werecooing in the cliffs below me, and the air was full of the soft tidelessswaying of the sea. But for all the comfort it gave me I might have beenstretched on frozen bricks in a dungeon. I was constantly getting up andcrawling to a high point which gave me a view of the rim of the downs upto the wall, and eastwards towards the Vano road. But there was no signof Maris in the wide landscape.

About one o'clock the thing became unbearable. If Maris was in the HouseI must find touch with him; if he had failed, I must make the attemptmyself. It was a crazy thing to contemplate in broad daylight, but myanxiety would not let me stay still. I bade Janni wait for me, and setoff towards the Vano road, with the intention of trying Maris's route ofthe previous night and making a circuit by the east side of the villagetowards the jetty.

I had the sense to keep on the south side of the ridge out of sight ofthe Dancing Floor and the high ground beyond it. There was not a soulto be seen in all that grassy place; the winding highway showed nofigure as far as the eye could reach; even the closes and barnsclustered about the foot of the Dancing Floor seemed untenanted of manor beast. I gave the village a wide berth, and after crossing somepatches of cultivation and scrambling through several ragged thicketsfound myself due east of Kynætho and some three hundred feet above it.

There I had the prospect of the church rising above a line of hovels, abit of the main street, the rear of the inn, and the houses whichstraggled seaward toward the jetty. The place had undergone anothertransformation, for it seemed to be deserted. Not one solitary figureappeared in the blinding white street. Every one must be indoors engagedin some solemn preparation against the coming night. That gave me a hopethat the northern approaches to the House might be unguarded. So greatwas my anxiety that I set off at a run, and presently had reached thehigh ground which overlooked the road from the village to the harbour.Here I had to go circumspectly, for once I descended to the road I wouldbe in view of any one on the jetty, and probably, too, of thenorthernmost houses in the village.

I scanned the foreground long and carefully with my glass, and decidedthat no one was about, so I slipped down from the heights, crossed theroad a hundred yards above the harbour, and dived into the scrub whichbordered the beach on the farther side. Here I was completelysheltered, and made good going till I rounded a little point and cameinto a scene which was familiar. It was the place where, six yearsbefore, Vernon and I had landed from Lamancha's yacht. There were thecloses of fruit blossom, the thickets, the long scrubby ravine where wehad listened to the Spring Song. I had a sudden sense of things beingpredestined, of the ironical fore-ordination of life.

I knew what to expect. Round the horn of the little bay where I stoodlay the House with its jetty and the causeway and the steep stairs tothe postern gates. My success thus far had made me confident, and Icovered the next half-mile as if I were walking on my own estate. But Ihad the wit to move cautiously before I passed the containing ridge, andcrept up to the skyline.

It was well that I did so, for this was what I saw. On the jetty therewere guards, and there were posts along the causeway. More, some changehad been wrought in the seaward wall of the House. The huge place rose,blank and white, in its cincture of greenery, but at the points wherethe steps ended in postern doors there seemed to be a great accumulationof brushwood which was not the work of nature. My glass told me what itwas. The entrance was piled high with fagots. The place had beentransformed into a pyre.

But it was not that sight which sent my heart to my boots—I had beenprepared for that or any other devilry; it was the utter impossibilityof effecting an entrance. The fabric rose stark and silent like aprison, and round it stood the wardens.

I didn't wait long, for the spectacle made me mad. I turned and retracedmy steps, as fast as I could drag my legs, for every ounce of vigour hadgone out of me. It was a dull, listless automaton that recrossed theharbour road, made the long circuit east of the village, and regainedthe downs beyond the Dancing Floor. When I staggered into camp, wherethe placid Janni was playing dice, it was close on five o'clock.

I made myself a cup of tea and tried to piece the situation together.Maris could not have entered the House—the thing was flatly impossible,and what had happened to him I could only guess. Where he had failed Icertainly could not succeed, for the cliffs, the wall, and the guardsshut it off impenetrably from the world. Inside was Koré alone—Iwondered if the old servant whom she had called Mitri was with her, orthe French maid she had had in London—and that night would see thebeginning of the end. The remembrance of the fagots piled about the doorsent a horrid chill to my heart. The situation had marched clean outsidehuman power to control it. I thought with scorn of my self-confidence. Ihad grievously muddled every detail, and was of as little value as if Ihad remained in my Temple chambers. Pity and fear for the girl made meclench my hands and gnaw my lips. I could not stay still. I decided oncemore to prospect the line of the cliffs.

One-armed Janni was no use, so I left him behind. I slid down thestone-shoot and in the first cool of evening scrambled along thatarduous shore. When I had passed the abutment of the wall I scanned withmy glass every crack in the cliffs, but in daylight they looked evenmore hopeless than under the moon. At one place a shallow gullypermitted me to reach a shelf, but there I stuck fast, for the rockabove could only have been climbed by a hanging rope. The most desperateman—and by that time I was pretty desperate—could not find a way wherethe Almighty had decided that there should be none. I think that ifthere had been the faintest chance I would have taken it, in spite ofthe risks; I would have ventured on a course which at Chamonix orCortina would have been pronounced suicidal; but here there was not eventhe rudiments of a course—nothing but that maddening glassy wall.

By-and-by I reached the cape beyond which lay the hidden bay and BlackGeorge with his boat. It occurred to me that I had not prospected verycarefully the cliffs in this bay, and in any case I wanted to look againat the boat, that single frail link we had with the outer world. Butfirst I stripped and had a bathe, which did something to cool the fretof my nerves. Then I waded round the point to the place where Janni andI had talked with the seaman.

Black George had gone. There was not a trace of him or the boat in theshining inlet into which the westering sun was pouring its yellow light.What on earth had happened? Had his mysterious master returned? Or hadhe been driven off by the islanders? Or had he simply grown bored andsailed away? The last solution I dismissed: Black George, I wasconvinced, was no quitter.

The loss of him was the last straw to my hopelessness. I was faced witha situation with which no ingenuity or fortitude could grapple—onlysome inhuman skill in acrobatics or some Berserker physical powers whichI did not possess. I turned my glass listlessly on the cliffs whichlined the bay. There was nothing to be done there. They were as sheer asthose I had already prospected, and, although more rugged and broken, itwas by means of great noses of smooth rock on which only a fly couldmove.

I was sitting on the very boulder which Janni had occupied the nightbefore, and I saw on the shingle one or two of his cigarette stumps. Andthen I saw something else.

It was a cigarette end, but not one of Janni's caporals. Moreover it hadbeen dropped there during the past day. Janni's stumps, having beenexposed to the night dews, were crumpled and withered; this was intact,the butt end of an Egyptian cigarette of a good English brand. BlackGeorge must have been here in the course of the day. But I rememberedthat Black George had smoked a peculiarly evil type of Greek tobacco.Perhaps he had been pilfering his master's cigarettes? Or perhaps hismaster had come back?

I remembered that he had refused to utter one word about that master ofhis. Who could he be? was he an Englishman? He might well be, judgingfrom Black George's reverence for the word "English." If so, what was hedoing in Plakos, and how had he reached this spot, unless he had thewings of a bird? If he had come along the downs and the shore Janniwould have seen him.... Anyhow, he was gone now, and our one bridge witha sane world was broken.

I made my way back to Janni with a feeling that I had come to the edgeof things and would presently be required to go over the brink. I wasnow quite alone—as much alone as Koré—and fate might soon link theselonelinesses. I had had this feeling once or twice in the war—that Iwas faced with something so insane that insanity was the only course forme, but I had no notion what form the insanity would take, for I stillsaw nothing before me but helplessness. I was determined somehow tobreak the barrier, regardless of the issue. Every scrap of manhood in merevolted against my futility. In that moment I became primitive managain. Even if the woman were not my woman she was of my own totem, andwhatever her fate she should not meet it alone.

Janni had food ready for me, but I could not eat it. I took out mypistol, cleaned and reloaded it, and told Janni to look to his. I am notmuch of a pistol shot, but Janni, as I knew from Maris, was an expert.There would be something astir when the moon rose, and I had anintuition that the scene would be the Dancing Floor. The seaward end ofthe House might be the vital point in the last stage of the drama, but Iwas convinced that the Dancing Ground would see the first act. It wasthe holy ground, and I had gathered from the priest that some darkritual would take the place of the Good Friday solemnity.

There was only one spot where Janni and I might safely lie hidden, andat the same time look down on the Dancing Floor, and that was in theshadow of the wall between the guarded breach and the cliffs. There werelarge trees there, and the progress of the moon would not light it up,whereas everywhere else would be clear as noonday. Moreover it was thestrategic point, for whatever mischief was intended against the Housewould pass through the breach and therefore under our eyes. But it wasnecessary to get there before the moon was fully risen, for otherwise tomen coming from the village we should be silhouetted against the cliffedge. I cut Janni's supper short and we started out, using every crinkleof the ground as cover, much as stalkers do when they are fetching acircuit and know that the deer are alarmed and watchful.

We had not much more than a mile to go, and by the route we chose wemanaged, as it happened, to keep wholly out of sight of the DancingFloor. Janni—no mountaineer—grumbled at my pace, for I had acquired anextraordinary lightness of limb so that I felt as if I could have flown.I was puzzled to explain this, after my listlessness of the day, but Ithink it was due partly to tense nerves and partly to the magic of theevening. The air was cool and exhilarating, and when the moon rose witha sudden glory above the House it was as tonic as if one had plungedinto water.... Soon we were on the edge of the inky belt of shadow andmoving eastward to get nearer the breach. But now I noticed something Ihad forgotten. The wall curved outward, and beyond that bulge—a coupleof hundred yards from the breach—the light flooded to the very edge ofthe stone. We came to a halt at the apex of the curve, flat on ourfaces, and I turned to reconnoitre the Dancing Floor.

I wish to Heaven that I had the gift of words. It is too much to ask aman whose life has been spent in drawing pleadings and in writing dulllegal opinions to describe a scene which needs the tongue or pen of apoet. For the Dancing Floor was transfigured. Its lonely beauty had beendecked and adorned, as an altar is draped for high festival. On bothslopes people clustered, men, women, and children, all so silent that Ithought I could hear them breathe. I thought, too, that they mostly worewhite—at any rate the moonlight gave me the impression of an immensewhite multitude, all Kynætho, and doubtless half the hills. The valleywas marked out like a race-course. There seemed to be posts at regularintervals in a broad oval, and at each post was a red flicker whichmeant torches. The desert had become populous, and the solitary placesblossomed with roses of fire.

The people were clustered toward the upper end, making an amphitheatreof which the arena was the Dancing Floor, and the entrance to the stagethe breach in the wall of the House. I saw that this entrance wasguarded, not as before by three sentries, but by a double line of menwho kept an avenue open between them. Beyond the spectators and roundthe arena was the circle of posts, and between them lay the DancingFloor, golden in the moon, and flanked at its circumference by the angrycrimson of the torches. I noticed another thing. Not quite in the centrebut well within the arena was a solitary figure waiting. He was inwhite—gleaming white, and, so far as I could judge, he was standingbeside the spring from which I had drunk the night before.

I have set out the details of what I saw, but they are only the beggarlyelements, for I cannot hope to reproduce the strangeness which caught atthe heart and laid a spell on the mind. The place was no more the Valleyof the Shadow of Life, but Life itself—a surge of dæmonic energy out ofthe deeps of the past. It was wild and yet ordered, savage and yetsacramental, the home of an ancient knowledge which shattered for me themodern world and left me gasping like a cave-man before his mysteries.The magic smote on my brain, though I struggled against it. Thepassionless moonlight and the passionate torches—that, I think, was thefinal miracle—a marrying of the eternal cycle of nature with thefantasies of man.

The effect on Janni was overwhelming. He lay and gibbered prayers witheyes as terrified as a deer's, and I realized that I need not look forhelp in that quarter. But I scarcely thought of him, for my trouble waswith myself. Most people would call me a solid fellow, with a hard headand a close-texture mind, but if they had seen me then they would havechanged their view. I was struggling with something which I had neverknown before, a mixture of fear, abasement, and a crazy desire toworship. Yes—to worship. There was that in the scene which wakened someancient instinct, so that I felt it in me to join the votaries.

It took me a little time to pull myself together. I looked up at thedome of the sky, where on the horizon pale stars were showing. The wholeworld seemed hard and gem-like and unrelenting. There was no help there.Nature approved this ritual. And then a picture flashed into my mindwhich enabled me to recover my wits. It was the carven Christ lying inits shroud in the bier in the deserted church. I am not a religious manin the ordinary sense—only a half-believer in the creed in which I wasborn. But in that moment I realized that there was that in me which wasstronger than the pagan, an instinct which had come down to me frombelieving generations. I understood then what were my gods. I think Iprayed. I know that I clung to the memory of that rude image as aChristian martyr may have clung to his crucifix. It stood for all thebroken lights which were in me as against this ancient charmeddarkness.

I was steadier now, and with returning sanity came the power ofpractical thought. Something, some one, was to be brought from theHouse. Was there to be a trial in that arena? Or a sacrifice? No—I wasclear that to-night was only the preparation, and that the great day wasthe morrow. There was no sound from the gathering. I could not see thefaces, but I knew that every one, down to the smallest child, was awedand rapt and expectant. No crowd, hushing its breath in the decisivemoments of a great match, was ever more rigidly on the stretch. The veryair quivered with expectation.

Then a movement began. Figures entered the arena at the end farthestfrom me—men, young men, naked I thought at first, till my glass showedme that each wore a sort of loin-cloth or it may have been shortdrawers.... They aligned themselves, like runners at the start of arace, and still there was no sound. The figure who had been standing bythe well was now beside them and seemed to be speaking softly. Each heldhimself tense, with clenched hands, and his eyes on the ground. Thencame some kind of signal, and they sprang forward.

It was a race—such a race as few men can have witnessed. The slimyouths kept outside the torches, and circled the arena of the DancingFloor. Over the moonlit sward they flew, glimmering like ghosts—onceround, a second time round. And all the while the crowd kept uttersilence.

I ran the mile myself at school and college, and know something aboutpace. I could see that it was going to be a close finish. One man Inoted, I think the very fellow who had hunted me into the church—he ransuperbly, and won a lead at the start. But the second time round Ifancied another, a taller and leaner man, who had kept well back in thefirst round, and was slowly creeping ahead. I liked his style, which wasoddly like the kind of thing we cultivate at home, and he ran withjudgment too. Soon he was abreast of the first man, and then he sprintedand took the lead. I was wondering where the finish would be, when hesnatched a torch from one of the posts, ran strongly up the centre ofthe Dancing Floor, and plunged the flame in the spring.

Still there was no sound from the crowd. The winner stood with his headbent, a noble figure of youth who might have stepped from a Parthenonfrieze. The others had gone; he stood close beside the well with thewhite-clad figure who had acted as master of ceremonies—only now thevictor in the race seemed to be the true master, on whom all eyeswaited.

The sight was so strange and beautiful that I watched it half in atrance. I seemed to have seen it all before, and to know the stages thatwould follow.... Yes, I was right. There was a movement from the crowdand a man was brought forward. I knew the man, though he wore nothingbut pants and a torn shirt. One could not mistake the trim figure ofMaris, or his alert, bird-like head.

He stood confronting the beautiful young barbarian beside the spring,looking very much as if he would like to make a fight of it. And thenthe latter seemed to speak to him, and to lay a hand on his head. Marissubmitted, and the next I saw was that the runner had drawn a jar ofwater from the well and was pouring it over him. He held it high in hisarms and the water wavered and glittered in the moonshine; I could seeMaris spluttering and wringing out his wet shirt-sleeves.

With that recollection flooded in on me. This was the ceremonial ofwhich Vernon had read to me from Koré's manuscript. A virgin and a youthwere chosen and set apart in a hallowed place, and the chooser was hewho was victor in a race and was called the King. The victims werehallowed with water from the well by the white cypress. I was looking atthe well, though the cypress had long since disappeared. I was lookingat the King, and at one of those dedicated to the sacrifice. The otherwas the girl in the House.... Vernon had said that if we knew what theword hosiotheis meant we should know a good deal about Greek religion.That awful knowledge was now mine.

It was as I expected. The consecrator and the consecrated were moving,still in the same hushed silence, towards the horkos—the sanctuary.The torches had been extinguished as soon as the victor plunged his inthe spring, and the pure light of the moon seemed to have waxed to anunearthly brightness. The two men walked up the slope of the DancingFloor to the line of guards which led to the breach in the wall. I couldnot hold my glass because of the trembling of my hands, but I could seethe figures plainly—the tall runner, his figure poised like some youngApollo of the great age of art, his face dark with the sun but the skinof his body curiously white. Some youth of the hills, doubtless—hiscrisp hair seemed in the moonlight to be flaxen. Beside him went theshorter Maris, flushed and truculent. He must have been captured by theguards in his attempt on the House, and as a stranger and also a Greekhad been put forward as the male victim.

I was roused by the behaviour of Janni. He had realized that his belovedcapitaine was a prisoner, towards whom some evil was doubtlessintended, and this understanding had driven out his fear and revived hismilitary instincts. He was cursing fiercely, and had got out his pistol.

"Sir," he whispered to me, "I can crawl within shot, for the shadow islengthening, and put a bullet into yon bandit. Then in the confusion mycapitaine will escape and join us and break for the cliffs. Thesepeople are sheep and may not follow."

For a second it appeared to me the only thing to do. This evil Adoniswas about to enter the House, and on the morrow Koré and Maris wouldfind death at his hands, for he was the sacrificer. I seemed to see inhis arrogant beauty the cruelty of an elder world. His death would atany rate shatter the ritual.

And then I hesitated and gripped Janni firmly by his one arm. For, asthe two men passed out of my sight towards the breach in the wall, I hadcaught a glimpse of Maris's face. He was speaking to his companion, andhis expression was not of despair and terror, but confident, almostcheerful. For an instant the life of the young runner hung on a thread,for I do not think that Janni would have missed. Then I decided againstthe shot, for I felt that it was a counsel of despair. There wassomething which I did not comprehend, for Maris's face had given me aglimmer of hope.

I signed to Janni, and we started crawling back towards the cliffs. Inthat hour the one thing that kept me sane was the image of the deadChrist below the chancel step. It was my only link with the reasonableand kindly world I had lost.

CHAPTER XII

I had only one impulse at that moment—an overwhelming desire to getback to the church and look again at the figure on the bier. It seemedto me the sole anchor in the confusion of uncharted tides, the solitaryhope in a desert of perplexities. I had seen ancient magic revive andcarry captive the hearts of a people. I had myself felt its compellingpower. A girl whom I loved and a man who was my companion wereimprisoned and at the mercy of a maddened populace. Maris was, likeUlysses, an old campaigner and a fellow of many wiles, but what couldMaris do in the face of multitudes? An unhallowed epiphany was lookedfor, but first must come the sacrifice. There was no help in the arm offlesh, and the shallow sophistication of the modern world fell from melike a useless cloak. I was back in my childhood's faith, and wanted tobe at my childhood's prayers.

As for Janni, he had a single idea in his head, to follow his captaininto the House and strike a blow for him, and as he padded along theseaward cliffs he doubtless thought we were bent on attacking the placefrom another side. We took pretty much the road I had taken in themorning, skirting the Dancing Floor on its southern edge. One strangething I saw. The Dancing Floor was still thronged, though a space waskept clear in the centre round the well. Clearly it was no longertabu, but a place of holiday. Moreover the people seemed to intend toremain there, for they had lit fires and were squatting round them,while some had already stretched themselves to sleep. Kynætho had movedin a body to the scene of the sacrament.

When we reached the fringe of the village I saw that I had guessedcorrectly. There was not a sign of life in the streets. We walked boldlyinto the central square, and it might have been a graveyard. Moreover,in the graveyard itself the lamps by the graves had not been lit.Vampires were apparently no longer to be feared, and that struck me asan ill omen. Keats's lines came into my head about the "little town byriver or sea shore" which is "emptied of its folk this pious morn."Pious morn!

And then above us, from the squat campanile, a bell began totoll—raggedly, feebly, like the plaint of a child. Yet to me it wasalso a challenge.

The church was bright with moonshine. The curtains still shrouded thesanctuary, and there were no candles lit, nothing but the flickeringlamps before the ikons. Below the chancel step lay the dark mass whichcontained the shrouded Christ. Janni, like myself, seemed to findcomfort in being here. He knelt at a respectful distance from the bier,and began to mutter prayers. I went forward and lifted the shroud. Themoon coming through one of the windows gave the carved wood a ghastlysemblance of real flesh, and I could not bear to look on it. I followedJanni's example and breathed incoherent prayers. I was bred a Calvinist,but in that moment I was not worshipping any graven image. My prayer wasto be delivered from the idolatry of the heathen.

Suddenly the priest was beside me. In one hand he held a lighted candle,and the other carried a censer. He seemed in no way surprised to see us,but there was that about him which made me catch my breath. The man hadsuddenly become enlarged and ennobled. All the weakness had gone out ofthe old face, all the languor and bewilderment out of the eyes, theshoulders had straightened, his beard was no longer like a goat's, butlike a prophet's. He was as one possessed, a fanatic, a martyr.

He had forgotten that I knew no Greek, for he spoke rapidly words whichsounded like a command. But Janni understood, and went forwardobediently to the bier. Then I saw what he meant us to do. We were totake the place of the absent hierophants and carry the image of the deadChrist through the bounds of the village. The bier was light enough evenfor one-armed Janni to manage his share. The shroud was removed, he tookthe fore-end, and I the back, and behind the priest we marched out intothe night.

The streets were deathly still, the cool night air was unruffled bywind, so that the candle burned steadily; the golden dome of the sky wasalmost as bright as day. Along the white beaten road we went, and theninto the rough cobbles of the main street. I noticed that though thehouses were empty every house door was wide open. We passed the inn andcame into the road to the harbour and to the cottage among fruit treeswhere I had first made inquiries. Then we turned up the hill where laythe main entrance to the House, past little silent untenanted crofts andolive-yards, which were all gleaming grey and silver. The old man movedslowly, swinging his censer, and intoning what I took to be a dirge in avoice no longer tremulous, but masterful and strong, and behind himJanni and I stumbled along bearing the symbol of man's salvation.

I had never been present at a Greek Good Friday celebration, but Koréhad described it to me—the following crowds tortured with suspense, theawed, kneeling women, the torches, the tears, the universal lamentation.Then the people sorrowed, not without hope, for their dead Saviour. Butthe ordinary ceremonial can never have been so marvellous as was ourbroken ritual that night. We were celebrating, but there were novotaries. The torches had gone to redden the Dancing Floor, sorrow hadbeen exchanged for a guilty ecstasy, the worshippers were seekinganother Saviour. Our rite was more than a commemoration, it was adefiance, and I felt like a man who carries a challenge to the enemy.

The moon had set and darkness had begun before we returned to thechurch. Both Janni and I were very weary before we laid down our burdenin the vault below the nave, a place hewn out of the dry limestone rock.By the last flickering light of the candle I saw the priest standing atthe head of the bier, his hands raised in supplication, his eyes brightand rapt and unseeing. He was repeating a litany in which a phraseconstantly recurred. I could guess its meaning. It must have been "Hewill yet arise."

I slept till broad daylight in the priest's house, on the priest's bed,while Janni snored on a pile of sheepskins. Since Kynætho was deserted,there was no reason now for secrecy, for the whole place, and not thechurch only, had become a sanctuary. The aged woman who kept house forthe priest gave us a breakfast of milk and bread, but we saw no sign ofhim, and I did not wish to return to the church and disturb hisdevotions. I wondered if I should ever see him again; it was a toss-upif I should ever see anybody again after this day of destiny. We hadbeen partners in strange events, and I could not leave him without somefarewell, so I took the book of his which seemed to be most in use, puttwo English five-pound notes inside, and did my best in laboriouslyprinted Latin to explain that this was a gift for the Church and tothank him and wish him well. I did another thing, for I wrote out ashort account of the position, saying that further information might beobtained from Ertzberger and Vernon Milburne. Anything might happento-day, and I wanted to leave some record for my friends. I addressedthe document under cover to the priest, and—again in Latin—begged him,should anything happen to me, to see that it reached the BritishMinister in Athens. That was about all I could do in the way ofpreparation, and I had a moment of grim amusement in thinking howstrangely I, who since the war had seemed to be so secure and cosseted,had moved back to the razor-edge of life.

I have said that there was no need for secrecy, so we walked straightthrough the village towards the harbour. Janni had made a preliminarysurvey beyond the graveyard in the early morning, and had reported thatthe people of Kynætho were still encamped around the Dancing Floor. Thetrouble would not begin till we approached the House, for it was certainthat on that day of all days the guards would be vigilant. We were bothof us wholly desperate. We simply had to get in, and to get in beforethe evening; for that purpose anything, even wholesale homicide, waslegitimate. But at the same time it would do no good to get caught, evenif we succeeded in killing several of our captors.

I think I had a faint, unreasonable hope that we should find thesituation at the causeway more promising than it had appeared on the daybefore. But when—after a walk where we had seen no trace of man orbeast—we came to the crest of the little cape beyond which lay thejetty and the House, I had a sad disillusionment. The place was thickwith sentries. I saw the line of them along the causeway and at the headof the jetty; moreover there seemed to be men working to the left of theHouse where there was a cluster of outbuildings descending to theshallow vale up which ran the road from the sea. My glass showed me whatthey were doing. They were piling more straw and brushwood, so that fromthe outbuildings, which were probably of wood and would burn liketinder, the flames might have easy access to the windows of the House.The altar was being duly prepared for the victim.

Long and carefully I prospected the ground. There was cover enough totake us down to within a few yards of the jetty. If I tried to cross itI should be within view of the people on the causeway, and even if I gotacross unobserved there was the more or less open beach between thecauseway and the sea. It was true that directly under the wall I shouldbe out of sight of the causeway guards, but then again, though I couldget shelter behind some of the boulders, I could not move far withoutbeing noticed by whoever chose to patrol the jetty. Nevertheless thatwas the only road for me, for my object was to get to the far end of thecauseway, where before the cliffs began there were olive-yards andorchards, through which some route must be possible to the House.

I considered the left side of the picture, where the valley led upwardspast the outbuildings. That way I could see no hope, for if I succeededin passing the fagot-stackers I would only reach the confines of themain entrance to the demesne from Kynætho, which was certain to be thebest warded of all.

I had also to consider what to do with Janni. He would be a useful allyif it came to a scrap, but a scrap would be futile against such numbers,and in stalking or climbing his lack of an arm would be a serioushandicap. Besides, if our business was to escape observation, one manwould be better than two.... But it was possible that he might create adiversion. Supposing he tried the road on the left up the valley andmade himself conspicuous, he might draw off attention while I crossedthe jetty and got under the lee of the causeway wall. That meant, ofcourse, that one of us would be put out of action, but unless we triedsomething of the kind we should both fail.

I put the thing to him, as we lay among the scrubby arbutus, and thoughhe clearly did not like the proposal, since his notion was to man-handlesomebody on Maris's behalf, he was too good a soldier not to see thesense of it. He pointed out various difficulties, and then shook hishead like a dog and said that he agreed. For his own sake I forbade anyshooting. If he were merely hunted and captured, it was unlikely thatany harm would befall him. He could explain that he was one of thesurvey party who had lost the others, and at the worst he would be shutup temporarily in some barn. He might even find the means to makehimself useful later in the day.

So it was settled that I should try to worm my way as near to the jettyas the cover would allow. He was to watch my movements, and when he sawmy hand raised three times he was to march boldly towards the jetty. Iwould not be able to see what was happening, so when he was pursued andstarted up the little valley he was to shout as if in alarm. That wouldbe the signal to me that the sentry had left the jetty and that I mighttry to cross it.

I started out at once on my first stage. As I have said, the cover wasgood—boulders overgrown with heath and vines, and patches of arbutusand a very prickly thorn. I tried to behave as if I were on a Scotchhill stalking alone, with deer where the sentries stood. It was not avery difficult passage, for my enemies had no eyes for the ground on myside, their business being to prevent egress from the House. After abouthalf an hour's careful crawling, I found myself within six yards of thejetty looking through the tangle to the rough masonry of it, with asideway view of the point where it joined the causeway. I could see noneof the guards, but I heard distinctly the sound of their speech. I hadmarked the spot where I now lay before I started, and knew that it waswithin sight of Janni. So I straightened myself and thrice raised myarms above the scrub.

For a minute or two nothing happened. Janni must have started but hadnot yet attracted attention. I raised my body as far as I dared, but Icould only see the shoreward end of the jetty—neither the jetty itselfnor any part of the causeway. I waited for a cry, but there was nosound. Was Janni being suffered to make his way up the little valleyunopposed?

Then suddenly a moving object flashed into my narrow orbit of vision. Itmust be one of the watchers from the causeway, and he was in a furioushurry—I could hear the scruff of his heel-less boots on the dry stonesas he turned a corner.... He must be in pursuit of Janni.... There wouldno doubt be others too at the job. Their silence might be a ritualbusiness. Favete linguis, perhaps? If Janni shouted I never heard him.

I resolved to take the chance, and bolted out of cover to the jetty. Intwo bounds I was beyond it and among the gravel and weed of the fartherbeach. But in that short progress I saw enough of the landscape to knowthat I was undiscovered, that there was nobody on the causeway withinsight, or at the mouth of the little glen. Janni had certainly beenfollowed, and by this time was no doubt in the hands of the Philistinesout of my ken.

I ran close under the lee of the sea-wall, and at first I had a wildhope of getting beyond the causeway into the region of the olive grovesbefore the sentries returned. But some remnant of prudence made me haltand consider before I attempted the last open strip of beach. There Ihad a view of the bit of the causeway towards the jetty, and suddenlyfigures appeared on it, running figures, like men returning to dutyafter a hasty interlude. If I had moved another foot I should have beenwithin view.

There was nothing for it but to wait where I was. I crouched in a littlenook between a fallen boulder and the wall, with the weedy rim of thecauseway six feet above me. Unless a man stood on the very edge andpeered down I was safe from observation. But that was the sum of myblessings. I heard soft feet above me as the men returned to theirposts, and I dared not move a yard. It was now about two in theafternoon; I had brought no food with me, though I found a couple ofdusty figs in my pocket; the sun blazed on the white wall and the gravelof the shore till the place was like a bakehouse; I was hot and thirsty,and I might have been in the middle of the Sahara for all the chance ofa drink. But the discomfort of my body was trivial compared with thedisquiet of my mind.

For I found myself in a perfect fever of vexation and fear. The time wasslipping past and the crisis was nigh, and yet, though this was now myfourth day on the island, I was not an inch farther forward than thehour I landed. My worst fears—nay, what had seemed to me mere crazyimaginings—had been realized. I was tortured by the thought ofKoré—her innocent audacities, her great-hearted courage, herloneliness, her wild graces. "Beauteous vain endeavour"—that was thephrase of some poet that haunted me and made me want to howl like awolf. I realized now the meaning of a sacrifice and the horror of it.The remembrance of the slim victor in the race, beautiful and pitiless,made me half-crazy. Movement in that place was nearly impossible, but itwas utterly impossible that I should stay still. I began in short stagesto worm my way along the foot of the wall.

I do not suppose that the heat of that April afternoon was anything muchto complain of, but my fever of mind must have affected my body, for Ifelt that I had never been so scorched and baked in my life. There wasnot a scrap of shade, the rocks almost blistered the hand, the dust gotinto my throat and nose and made me furiously thirsty, and my head achedas if I had a sun-stroke.... The trouble was with the jetty and thewatchers on it, for I was always in view of them. Had they detected amovement below the wall, a single glance would have revealed me. So Ihad to make my stages very short, and keep a wary outlook behind....There seemed to be much astir on the jetty. Not only the guards, butother figures appeared on it, and I saw that they were carrying upsomething from a boat at anchor. That, I think, was what saved me. Hadthe sentries had nothing to do but to stare about them I must have beendiscovered, but the portage business kept them distracted.

The minutes seemed hours to my distraught mind, but I did indeed take aninconceivable time crawling along that grilling beach, with the coolsea water lapping not a dozen yards off to give point to my discomfort.When I reached the place where the causeway ceased, and long ribs ofrock took the place of the boulders of the shore, I found by my watchthat it was nearly six o'clock. The discovery put quicksilver into myweary limbs. Looking back I saw that I was out of sight of the jetty,and that a few yards would put me out of sight of the causeway. Iwriggled into the cover of a bush of broom, lay on my back for a minuteor two to rest, and then made for the shade of the olive-yards.

The place was weedy and neglected—I don't know anything about oliveculture, but I could see that much. There was a wilderness of a whiteumbelliferous plant and masses of a thing like a spineless thistle. Ipushed uphill among the trees, keeping well in the shade, with the westfront of the House glimmering through the upper leaves at a much higherelevation. Above me I saw a deeper shadow which I took to be cypresses,and beyond them I guessed must lie the demesne. I hoped for a gate, andin any case expected no more than a hedge and a palisade.

Instead I found a wall. There was a door to be sure, but it was no usefor me, for it was massive and locked. I might have known that ShelleyArabin would leave no part of his cursed refuge unbarricaded. I sat andblinked up at this new obstacle, and could have cried with exasperation.It seemed to run direct from the House to the edge of the cliffs whichbegan about a quarter of a mile to my right, and was an exact replica ofthe wall above the Dancing Floor.

I decided that it was no good trying it at the House end, for there Ishould certainly be in view of some of the guards. The masonry wascomparatively new and very solid, and since none of the olive trees grewwithin four yards of it, it was impossible to use them as a ladder.Already I felt the approach of night, for the sun was well down in thewest, and a great tide of sunset was flooding the sky. I do not think Ihave ever before felt so hopeless or so obstinate. I was determined topass that wall by its abutment on the cliffs or break my neck in theeffort.

My memory of the next hour is not very clear. All I know is that in thefailing daylight I came to the cliffs' edge and found an abutmentsimilar to the one at the Dancing Floor. Similar, but not the same. Forhere some storm had torn the masonry, and it seemed to me that it mightbe passed. The rock fell steep and smooth to the sea, but that partwhich was the handiwork of man was ragged. I took off my boots and flungthem over the wall, by way of a gage of battle, and then I started tomake the traverse.

It was a slow and abominable business, but I do not think it would havebeen very difficult had the light been good, for the stone was hardenough and the cracks were many. But in that dim gloaming with a purplevoid beneath me, with a heart which would not beat steadily and a headwhich throbbed with pain, I found it very near the limit of my powers. Ihad to descend before I could traverse, and the worst part was theascent on the far side. I knew that, when I at last got a grip of awind-twisted shrub and tried to draw myself over the brink, it neededevery ounce of strength left in me. I managed it, and lay gasping besidethe roots of a great pine—inside the demesne at last.

When I got my breath I found that I had a view into the narrow covewhere Janni and I had seen the boat. Black George had returned, andreturned brazenly, for he was showing a riding light. A lantern swungfrom the mast, and, more, there was a glow from the cabin skylight. Iwondered what was going on in the little craft, and I think the sightgave me a grain of comfort, till I realized that I was hopelessly cutoff from Black George. What was the good of a link with the outer worldwhen unscalable walls and cliffs intervened—when at any moment murdermight be the end of everything?

Murder—that was the word which filled my head as I pushed inland. I hadnever thought of it in that way, but of course I was out to preventmurder. To prevent it? More likely to share in it.... I had no plan ofany kind, only a desire to be with Koré, so that she should not bealone. It was her loneliness that I could not bear.... And anyhow I hada pistol, and I would not miss the runner. "The priest who slew theslayer and shall himself be slain"—the tag came unbidden to my lips. Ithink I must have been rather light-headed.

The last fires of the sunset did not penetrate far into the pine wood,the moon had not yet risen, and as I ran I took many tosses, for theplace was very dark. There were paths, but I neglected them, makingstraight for where I believed the House to lie. I was not exact in mycourse, for I bore too much to the right in the direction of the breachin the wall at the Dancing Floor. Soon I was among shrubberies in whichrides had been cut, but there were still many tall trees to makedarkness. I thought I saw to the right, beyond where the wall lay, areddish glow. That would be the torches on the Dancing Floor, where thepeople waited for the epiphany.

Suddenly on my left front a great blaze shot up to heaven. I knew it wasthe signal that the hour had come. The outbuildings had been fired, andthe House would soon be in flames. The blaze wavered and waned, and thenwaxed to a mighty conflagration as the fire reached something speciallyinflammable. In a minute that wood was bright as with an obscenedaylight. The tree trunks stood out black against a molten gold, whichat times crimsoned and purpled in a devilish ecstasy of destruction.

I knew now where the House lay. I clutched my pistol, and ran down abroad path, with a horrid fear that I was too late after all. I ranblindly, and had just time to step aside to let two figures pass.

They were two of the guards—hillmen by their dress—and even in myabsorption I wondered what had happened to them. For they were like mendemented, with white faces and open mouths. One of them stumbled andfell, and seemed to stay on his knees for a second, praying, till hiscompanion lugged him forward. I might have faced them with impunity, fortheir eyes were sightless. Never have I seen men suffering from anextremer terror.

The road twisted too much for my haste, so I cut across country. Thesurge and crackle of the flames filled the air, but it seemed as if Iheard another sound, the sound of running feet, of bodies, many bodies,brushing through the thicket. I was close on the House now, and close onthe road which led to it from the broken wall and the Dancing Floor. AsI jumped a patch of scrub and the gloom lightened in the more openavenue, I bumped into another man and saw that it was Maris.

He was waiting, pistol in hand, beside the road, and in a trice had hisgun at my head. Then he recognized me and lowered it. His face was ascrazy as the hillmen's who had passed me, and he still wore nothing butbreeches and a ragged shirt, but his wild eyes seemed to hold also adancing humour.

"Blessed Jesu!" he whispered, "you have come in time. The fools areabout to receive their Gods. You have your pistol? But I do not thinkthere will be shooting."

He choked suddenly as if he had been struck dumb, and I too choked. ForI looked with him up the avenue towards the burning House.

PART III

CHAPTER XIII

This part of the story (said Leithen) I can only give at second-hand. Ihave pieced it together as well as I could from what Vernon told me, buton many matters he was naturally not communicative, and at these I havehad to guess for myself....

Vernon left England the day after the talk with me which I have alreadyrecorded, sending his boat as deck cargo to Patras, while he followed byway of Venice. He had a notion that the great hour which was coming hadbest be met at sea, where he would be far from the distractions andlittlenesses of life. He took one man with him from Wyvenhoe, a leangipsy lad called Martell, but the boy fell sick at Corfu and he wasobliged to send him home. In his stead he found a Epirote with a stringof names, who was strongly recommended to him by one of his colleaguesin the old Ægean Secret Service. From Patras they made good sailing upthe Gulf of Corinth, and, passing through the Canal, came in the lastdays of March to the Piræus. In that place of polyglot speech,whistling engines, and the odour of gas-works, they delayed only forwater and supplies, and presently had rounded Sunium, and were beatingup the Euripus with the Attic hills rising sharp and clear in the springsunlight.

He had no plans. It was a joy to him to be alone with the racing seasand the dancing winds, to scud past the little headlands, pink and whitewith blossom, or to lie of a night in some hidden bay beneath the thymycrags. He had discarded the clothes of civilization. In a blue jerseyand old corduroy trousers, bareheaded and barefooted, he steered hiscraft and waited on the passing of the hours. His mood, he has told me,was one of complete happiness, unshadowed by nervousness or doubt. Thelong preparation was almost at an end. Like an acolyte before a templegate, he believed himself to be on the threshold of a new life. He hadthat sense of unseen hands which comes to all men once or twice in theirlives, and both hope and fear were swallowed up in a calm expectancy.

Trouble began under the snows of Pelion as they turned the north end ofEubœa. On the morning of the first Monday in April the light winds diedaway, and foul weather came out of the north-west. By midday it was halfa gale, and in those yeasty shallow seas, with an iron coast to port andstarboard, their position was dangerous. The nearest harbour was twentymiles distant, and neither of the crew had ever been there before. Withthe evening the gale increased, and it was decided to get out of thatmaze of rocky islands to the safer deeps of the Ægean.

It was a hard night for the two of them, and there was no chance ofsleep. More by luck than skill they escaped the butt of Skiathos, andthe first light found them far to the south-east among the long tides ofthe North Ægean. They ran close-reefed before the gale, and all morningwith decks awash nosed and plunged in seas which might have been thewintry Atlantic. It was not till the afternoon that the gale seemed toblow itself out and two soaked and chilly mortals could relax theirvigil. Soon bacon was frizzling on the cuddy-stove, and hot coffee anddry clothes restored them to moderate comfort.

The sky cleared, and in bright sunlight, with the dregs of the galebehind him, Vernon steered for the nearest land, an island of which hedid not trouble to read the name, but which the chart showed to possessgood anchorage. Late in the evening, when the light was growing dim,they came into a little bay carved from the side of a hill. They alsocame into fog. The wind had dropped utterly, and the land which they sawwas only an outline in the haze. When they cast anchor the fog wasrolling like a tide over the sea, and muffling their yards. They spent abusy hour or two, repairing the damage of the storm, and then the two ofthem made such a meal as befits those who have faced danger together.Afterwards Vernon, as his custom was, sat alone in the stern, smokingand thinking his thoughts. He wrote up his diary with a ship's lanternbeside him, while the mist hung about him low and soft as an awning.

He had leisure now for the thought which had all day been at the back ofhis mind. The night—the great night—had passed and there had been nodream. The adventure for which all his life he had been preparinghimself had vanished into the Ægean tides. The hour when the revelationshould have come had been spent in battling with the storm, when a manlives in the minute at grips with too urgent realities.

His first mood was one of dismal relaxedness. He felt as useless as anunstrung bow. I, the only man to whom he had ever confided his secret,had been right, and the long vigil had ended in fiasco. He tried to tellhimself that it was a relief, that an old folly was over, but he knewthat deep down in his heart there was bitter disappointment. The fateshad prepared the stage, and rung up the curtain, and lo! there was noplay. He had been fooled, and somehow the zest and savour of life hadgone from him. After all, no man can be strung high and then find hispreparations idle without suffering a cruel recoil.

And then anger came to stiffen him—anger at himself. What aGod-forsaken ass he had been, frittering away his best years infollowing a phantom...! In his revulsion he loathed the dream which hehad cherished so long. He began to explain it away with the common sensewhich on my lips he had accounted blasphemy.... The regular seasonaloccurrence was his own doing—he had expected it and it had come—a merecase of subjective compulsion.... The fact that each year the revelationhad moved one room nearer was also the result of his willing it to beso, for subconsciously he must have desired to hasten theconsummation.... He went through every detail, obstinately providingsome rationalistic explanation for each. I do not think he can havesatisfied himself, but he was in the mood to deface his idols, and onefeeling surged above all others—that he was done with fancies now andfor ever. He has told me that the thing he longed for chiefly at thatmoment was to have me beside him that he might make formal recantation.

By-and-by he argued himself into some philosophy. He had dallied certainyears, but he was still young, and the world was before him. He had kepthis body and mind in hard training, and that at any rate was not wasted,though the primal purpose had gone. He was a normal man now among normalmen, and it was his business to prove himself. He thought in hisCalvinistic way that the bogus vision might have been sent to him for apurpose—the thing might be hallucination, but the askesis which ithad entailed was solid gain.... He fetched from his locker the littlebook in which he had chronicled his inner life, and wrote in it "Finis."Then he locked it and flung the key overboard. The volume would be keptat Severns to remind him of his folly, but it would never be opened byhim.

By this time he was his own master again. He would sail for England nextmorning and get hold of me and make a plan for his life.

He was now conscious for the first time of his strange environment. Theboat was in a half-moon of bay in an island of which he had omitted tonotice the name but whose latitude and longitude he roughly knew. Thenight was close around him like a shell, for the fog had grown thicker,though the moon behind it gave it an opaque sheen. It was an odd placein which to be facing a crisis....

His thoughts ran fast ahead to the career which he must shape from theruins of his dream. He was too late for the Bar. Business might be thebest course—he had big interests in the north of England which wouldsecure him a footing, and he believed that he had the kind of mind foradministration.... Or politics? There were many chances for a young manin the confused post-bellum world....

He was absorbed in his meditations and did not hear the sound of oars orthe grating of a boat alongside. Suddenly he found a face looking at himin the ring of lamplight—an old bearded face curiously wrinkled. Theeyes, which were shrewd and troubled, scanned him for a second or two,and then a voice spoke:

"Will the Signor come with me?" it said in French.

Vernon, amazed at this apparition, which had come out of the mist, couldonly stare.

"Will the Signor come with me?" the voice spoke again. "We havegrievous need of a man."

Vernon unconsciously spoke not in French but in Greek.

"Who the devil are you, and where do you come from?"

"I come from the House. I saw you enter the bay before the fog fell. Hadthere been no fog, they would not have let me come to you."

"Who are 'they'?" Vernon asked.

But the old man shook his head. "Come with me and I will tell you. It isa long story."

"But what do you want me to do? Confound it, I'm not going off with aman I never saw before who can't tell me what he wants."

The old man shrugged his shoulders despairingly. "I have no words," hesaid. "But Mademoiselle Élise is waiting at the jetty. Come to her atany rate and she will reason with you."

Vernon—as you will admit, if I have made his character at all clear toyou—had no instinct for melodrama. He had nothing in him of theknight-errant looking for adventure, and this interruption out of thefog and the sea rather bored him than otherwise. But he was too young tobe able to refuse such an appeal. He went below and fetched his revolverand an electric torch which he stuffed into a trouser pocket. He criedto the Epirote to expect him when he saw him, for he was going ashore.

"All right," he said. "I'll come and see what the trouble is."

He dropped over the yacht's side into the cockle-shell of a boat, andthe old man took up the sculls. The yacht must have anchored nearer landthan he had thought, for in five minutes they had touched a shelvingrock. Somebody stood there with a lantern which made a dull glow in thefog.

Vernon made out a middle-aged woman with the air and dress of a lady'smaid. She held the lantern close to him for a moment, and then turnedwearily to the other. "Fool, Mitri!" she cried. "You have brought apeasant."

"Nay," said the old man, "he is no peasant. He is a Signor, I tell you."

The woman again passed the light of her lantern over Vernon's face andfigure. "His dress is a peasant's, but such clothes may be a nobleman'swhim. I have heard it of the English."

"I am English," said Vernon in French.

She turned on him with a quick movement of relief.

"You are English ... and a gentleman? But I know nothing of you ... onlythat you have come out of the sea. Up in the House we women are alone,and my mistress has death to face, or worse than death. We have no claimon you, and if you give us your service it means danger—oh, whatdanger! See, the boat is there. You can return in it and go away, andforget that you have been near this accursed place. But oh, Monsieur, ifyou hope for Heaven and have pity on a defenceless angel, you will notleave us."

Vernon's blood was slow to stir, and as I have said, he had no instinctfor melodrama. This gesticulating French maid was like something out ofan indifferent play.

"Who is your mistress?" he asked. "Did she send you for me?"

The woman flung up her hands.

"I will speak the truth. My mistress does not know you are here. OnlyMitri and I saw you. She will not ask help, for she is foolishlyconfident. She is proud and fearless, and will not believe the evidenceof her eyes. She must be saved in spite of herself. I fear for her andalso for myself, for the whole House is doomed."

"But, Mademoiselle, you cannot expect me to intrude uninvited on yourmistress. What is her name? What do you want me to do?"

She clutched his arm and spoke low and rapidly in his ear.

"She is the last of her line, you must know—a girl with a wild estateand a father dead these many months. She is good and gracious, as I canbear witness, but she is young and cannot govern the wolves who are themen of these parts. They have a long hatred of her house, and now theyhave it rumoured that she is a witch who blights the crops and slays thechildren.... Once, twice, they have cursed our threshold and made theblood mark on the door. We are prisoners now, you figure. They name herBasilissa, meaning the Queen of Hell, and there is no babe but willfaint with fright if it casts eyes on her, and she as mild and innocentas Mother Mary.... The word has gone round to burn the witch out, forthe winter has been cruel and they blame their sorrows on her. The houris near, and unless salvation comes she will go to God in the fire."

There was something in the hoarse, excited voice which forbade Vernon todismiss lightly this extraordinary tale. The woman was patentlyterrified and sincere. It might be a trap, but he had his pistol, andfrom an old man and a woman he had nothing to fear. On the other hand,there might be some desperate need which he could not disregard. Itseemed to him that he was bound to inquire further.

"I am willing to go to your mistress," he said, and the woman, murmuring"God's mercy," led the way up a steep causeway to some rocky steps cutin a tamarisk thicket.

She stopped half-way to whisper an injunction to go quietly. "Theycannot see us in this blessed fog," she whispered, "but they may hearus." Then to Vernon: "They watch us like wild beasts, Monsieur; theirsentries do not permit us to leave the House, but this night the kindGod has fooled them. But they cannot be far off, and they have quickears."

The three crept up the rock staircase made slippery by the heavy mist.Presently a great wall of masonry rose above them, and what seemed theaperture of a door. "Once," the woman whispered, "there were three suchposterns, but two were walled up by my lady's father—walled up within,with the doors left standing. This our enemies do not know, and theywatch all three, but this the least, for it looks unused. Behold theirwork!"

Vernon saw that tall bundles of brushwood had been laid around the door,and that these had with difficulty been pushed back when it was opened.

"But what...?" he began.

"It means that they would burn us," she hissed. "Now, Monsieur, do youbelieve my tale, and, believing, does your courage fail you?"

To Vernon, shy, placid, a devotee of all the conventions, it wasbeginning to seem a monstrous thing to enter this strange house at thebidding of two servants, primed with a crazy tale, to meet an owner whohad given no sign of desiring his presence. A woman, too—apparently ayoung woman. The thing was hideously embarrassing, the more so as hesuddenly realized that he was barefooted, and clad in his old jersey andcorduroys. I think he would have drawn back except for the sight of thefagots—that and the woman's challenge to his courage. He had been"dared" like a schoolboy, and after twenty-four hours fighting withstorms and the shattering of the purpose of a lifetime he was in thathalf-truculent, half-reckless mood which is prone to accept a challenge.There was business afoot, it appeared, ugly business.

"Go on. I will see your mistress," he said.

With a key the old man unlocked the door. The lock must have beenrecently oiled, for it moved easily. The three now climbed a staircasewhich seemed to follow the wall of a round tower. Presently they cameinto a stone hall with ancient hangings like the banners in a church.From the open frame of the lantern a second was kindled, and the twolights showed a huge desolate place with crumbling mosaics on the floorand plaster dropping from the walls and cornices. There was no furnitureof any kind, and the place smelt damp and chilly like a vault.

"These are unused chambers," the woman said, and her voice was no longerhushed but high-pitched with excitement. "We live only on the landwardside."

Another heavy door was unlocked, and they entered a corridor where theair blew warmer, and there was a hint of that indescribable scent whichcomes from human habitation. The woman stopped and consulted in whisperswith the old man. Now that she had got Vernon inside, her nervousnessseemed to have increased. She turned to him at last:

"I must prepare my mistress. If Monsieur will be so good he will waithere till I fetch him."

She opened a door and almost pushed Vernon within. He found himself inblack darkness, while the flicker of the lantern vanished round a bendin the corridor.

CHAPTER XIV

From his pocket Vernon drew his electric torch and flashed it round theroom in which he found himself. It was the extreme opposite of the emptystone hall, for it was heavily decorated and crowded with furniture.Clearly no one had used it lately, for dust lay on everything, and theshutters of the windows had not been unbarred for months. It had theair, indeed, of a lumber-room, into which furniture had been casuallyshot. The pieces were, for the most part, fine and costly. There wereseveral Spanish cabinets, a wonderful red-lacquer couch, quantities ofOriental rugs which looked good, and a litter of Chinese vases andantique silver lamps.

But it was not the junk which filled it that caught Vernon's eye. It wasthe walls, which had been painted and frescoed in one continuouspicture. At first he thought it was a Procession of the Hours or theSeasons, but when he brought his torch to bear on it he saw that it wassomething very different. The background was a mountain glade, and onthe lawns and beside the pools of a stream figures were engaged in wilddances. Pan and his satyrs were there, and a bevy of nymphs, andstrange figures half animal, half human. The thing was done with immenseskill—the slanted eyes of the fauns, the leer in a contorted satyrface, the mingled lust and terror of the nymphs, the horrid obscenity ofthe movements. It was a carnival of bestiality that stared from the fourwalls. The man who conceived it had worshipped darker gods even thanPriapus.

There were other things which Vernon noted in the jumble of the room. Ahead of Aphrodite, for instance—Pandemos, not Urania. A brokenstatuette of a boy which made him sick. A group of little figures whichwere a miracle in the imaginative degradation of the human form. Not theworst relics from the lupanars of Pompeii compared with these in sheersubtlety of filth. And all this in a shuttered room stifling with mouldand disuse.

There was a door at the farther end which he found unlocked. The roombeyond was like a mortuary—the walls painted black and undecorated savefor one small picture. There was a crack in the shutters here, andperhaps a broken window, for a breath of the clean sea air met him.There was no furniture except an oblong piece of yellow marble whichseemed from the rams' heads and cornucopias to be an old altar. Heturned his torch on the solitary picture. It represented the stock sceneof Salome with the head of John the Baptist, a subject which bad artistshave made play with for the last five hundred years. But this was noneof the customary daubs, but the work of a master—a perverted, perhapsa crazy, genius. The woman's gloating face, the passion of the handscaressing the pale flesh, the stare of the dead eyes, were wonderful andawful. If the first room had been the shrine of inhuman lust, this hadbeen the chapel of inhuman cruelty.

He opened another door and found himself in a little closet, lined tothe ceiling with books. He knew what he would find on the shelves. Thevolumes were finely bound, chiefly in vellum, and among them were acertain number of reputable classics. But most belonged to thebackstairs of literature—the obscenities of Greek and of silver Latin,the diseased sidewalks of the Middle Ages, the aberrations of themoderns. It was not common pornography; the collection had been made bysome one who was a scholar in vice.

Vernon went back to the first room, nauseated and angry. He must get outof this damned place, which was, or had been, the habitation of devils.What kind of owner could such a house possess? The woman had said thatit was a young girl, as virtuous as the Virgin. But, great God! howcould virtue dwell in such an environment?

He had opened the door to begin his retreat when a lantern appeared inthe corridor. It was the woman, and with a finger on her lips shemotioned him back into the room.

"My mistress is asleep," she said, "and it would not be well to wakeher. Monsieur will stay here to-night and speak with her in themorning?"

"I will do nothing of the kind," said Vernon. "I am going back to myboat."

The woman caught his involuntary glance at the wall paintings, andclutched his arm. "But that is not her doing," she cried. "That was thework of her father, who was beyond belief wicked. It is his sins thatthe child is about to expiate. The people have condemned her, but yousurely would not join in their unjust judgment."

"I tell you I will have nothing to do with the place. Will you kindlyshow me the way back?"

Her face hardened. "I cannot. Mitri has the key."

"Well, where the devil is Mitri?"

"I will not tell.... Oh, Monsieur, I beseech you, do not forsake us.There has been evil in this House enough to sink it to hell, but mymistress is innocent. I ask only that you speak with her. After that, ifyou so decide, you can go away."

The woman was plainly honest and in earnest, and Vernon was a just man.He suddenly felt that he was behaving badly. There could be no harm insleeping a night in the house, and in the morning interviewing itsowner. If it was a case of real necessity he could take her and her maidoff in his boat.... After all, there might be serious trouble afoot. Thesight of those hideous rooms had given him a sharp realization of theugly things in life.

He was taken to a clean, bare little attic at the top of the house whichhad once no doubt been a servant's quarters. Having been up all theprevious night, his head had scarcely touched the rough pillow before hewas asleep. He slept for ten hours, till he was awakened by Mitri, whobrought him hot water and soap and a venerable razor with which he madesome attempt at a toilet. He noticed that the fog was still thick, andfrom the garret window he looked into an opaque blanket.

He had wakened with a different attitude towards the adventure in whichhe found himself. The sense of a wasted youth and defrauded hopes hadleft him; he felt more tightly strung, more vigorous, younger; he alsofelt a certain curiosity about this Greek girl who in an abominablehouse was defying the lightnings.

Mitri conducted him to the first floor, where he was taken charge of bythe Frenchwoman.

"Do not be afraid of her," she whispered. "Deal with her as a man with awoman, and make her do your bidding. She is stiff-necked towards me, butshe may listen to a young man, especially if he be English."

She ushered Vernon into a room which was very different from the hideouschambers he had explored the night before. It was poorly and sparselyfurnished, the chairs were chiefly wicker, the walls had recently beendistempered by an amateur hand, the floor was of bare scrubbed boards.But a bright fire burned on the hearth, there was a big bunch ofnarcissus on a table set for breakfast, and flowering branches had beenstuck in the tall vases beside the chimney. Through the open window camea drift of fog which intensified the comfort of the fire.

It was a woman's room, for on a table lay some knitting and a piece ofembroidery, and a small ivory housewife's case bearing the initials "K.A." There were one or two books also, and Vernon looked at themcuriously. One was a book of poems which had been published in London amonth before. This Greek girl must know English; perhaps she hadrecently been in England.... He took up another volume, and to hisamazement it was a reprint of Peter Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting. Hecould not have been more surprised if he had found a copy of the EtonChronicle. What on earth was the mistress of a lonely Ægean islanddoing with Peter Beckford?

The fire crackled cheerfully, the raw morning air flowed through thewindow, and Vernon cast longing eyes on the simple preparations forbreakfast. He was ferociously hungry, and he wished he were now in theboat, where the Epirote would be frying bacon....

There was another door besides that by which he had entered, andcuriously enough it was in the same position as the door in the room ofhis dream. He angrily dismissed the memory of that preposteroushallucination, but he kept his eye on the door. By it no doubt themistress of the house would enter, and he wished she would make haste.He was beginning to be very curious about this girl.... Probably shewould be indignant and send him about his business, but she couldscarcely refuse to give him breakfast first. In any case there was theyacht.... There was a mirror above the mantelpiece in which he caught aglimpse of himself. The glimpse was not reassuring. His face was as darkas an Indian's, his hair wanted cutting, and his blue jersey wasbleached and discoloured with salt water. He looked like a deck-hand ona cargo boat. But perhaps a girl who read Beckford would not be pedanticabout appearances. He put his trust in Peter——

The door had opened. A voice, sharp-pitched and startled, was speaking,and to his surprise it spoke in English.

"Who the devil are you?" it said.

He saw a slim girl, who stood in the entrance poised like a runner,every line of her figure an expression of amazement. He had seen herbefore, but his memory was wretched for women's faces. But the odd thingwas that, after the first second, there was recognition in her face.

"Colonel Milburne!" said the voice. "What in the name of goodness areyou doing here?"

She knew him, and he knew her, but where—when—had they met? He musthave stared blankly, for the girl laughed.

"You have forgotten," she said. "But I have seen you out with theMivern, and we met at luncheon at Wirlesdon in the winter."

He remembered now, and what he remembered chiefly were the last words hehad spoken to me on the subject of this girl. The adventure wasbecoming farcical.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You are Miss Arabin. I didn'tknow——"

"I am Miss Arabin. But why the honour of an early morning call fromColonel Milburne?"

"I came here last night in a yacht." Vernon was making a lame businessof his explanation, for the startled angry eyes of his hostess scatteredhis wits. "I anchored below in the fog, and an old man came out in aboat and asked me to come ashore. There was a woman on the beach—yourmaid—and she implored my help—told a story I didn't quite follow——"

"The fog!" the girl repeated. "That of course explains why you wereallowed to anchor. In clear weather you would have been driven away."

She spoke in so assured a tone that Vernon was piqued.

"The seas are free," he said. "Who would have interfered with me? Yourservants?"

She laughed again, mirthlessly. "My people. Not my servants. Continue.You came ashore and listened to Élise's chatter. After that?"

"She said you were asleep and must not be wakened, but that I shouldspeak to you in the morning. She put me up for the night."

"Where?" she asked sharply.

"In a little room on the top floor."

"I see. 'Where you sleeps you breakfasts.' Well, we'd better have somefood."

She rang a little silver hand-bell, and the maid, who must have beenwaiting close at hand, appeared with coffee and boiled eggs. She cast ananxious glance at Vernon as if to inquire how he had fared at hermistress's hands.

"Sit down," said the girl when Élise had gone. "I can't give you much toeat, for these days we are on short rations. I'm sorry, but there's nosugar. I can recommend the honey. It's the only good thing in Plakos."

"Is this Plakos? I came here once before—in 1914—in a steam yacht. Isuppose I am in the big white house which looks down upon the jetty. Icould see nothing last night in the fog. I remember a long causeway andsteps cut in the rock. That must have been the road I came."

She nodded. "What kind of sailor are you to be so ignorant of yourwhereabouts? Oh, I see, the storm! What's the size of your boat?"

When he told her, she exclaimed. "You must have had the devil of a time,for it was a first-class gale. And now on your arrival in port you areplunged into melodrama. You don't look as if you had much taste formelodrama, Colonel Milburne."

"I haven't. But is it really melodrama? Your maid told me a ratheralarming tale."

Her eyes had the hard agate gleam which he remembered from Wirlesdon.Then he had detested her, but now, as he looked at her, he saw thatwhich made him alter his judgment. The small face was very pale, andthere were dark lines under the eyes. This girl was undergoing someheavy strain, and her casual manner was in the nature of a shield.

"Is it true?" he asked.

"So-so. In parts, no doubt. I am having trouble with my tenants, which Iam told is a thing that happens even in England. But that is my ownconcern, and I don't ask for help. After breakfast I would suggest thatyou go back to your yacht."

"I think you had better come with me. You and your maid. I take it thatthe old man Mitri can fend for himself."

"How kind of you!" she cried in a falsetto, mimicking voice. "Howextraordinarily kind! But you see I haven't asked your help, and I don'tpropose to accept it.... You're sure you won't have any more coffee? Iwonder if you could give me a cigarette? I've been out of them for threedays."

She lay back in a wicker chair, rocking herself and lazily blowing smokeclouds. Vernon stood with his back to the fire and filled a pipe.

"I don't see how I can go away," he said, "unless I can convince myselfthat you're in no danger. You're English, and a woman, and I'm bound tohelp you whether you want it or not." He spoke with assurance now,perhaps with a certain priggishness. The tone may have offended thegirl, for when she spoke it was with a touch of the insolence which heremembered at Wirlesdon.

"I'm curious to know what Élise told you last night."

"Simply that you were imprisoned here by the people of Plakos—that theythought you a witch, and might very likely treat you in the savage waythat people used to treat witches."

She nodded. "That's about the size of it. But what if I refuse to letany one interfere in a fight between me and my own people? Supposingthis is something which I must stick out for the sake of my own credit?What then, Colonel Milburne? You have been a soldier. You wouldn'tadvise me to run away?"

"That depends," said Vernon. "There are fights where there can be novictory—where the right course is to run away. Your maid told mesomething else. She said that the evil reputation you had among thepeasants was not your own doing—that, of course, I guessed—but alegacy from your family, who for very good reasons were unpopular. Doesthat make no difference?"

"How?"

"Why, there's surely no obligation in honour to make yourself avicarious sacrifice for other people's misdeeds!"

"I—don't—think I agree. One must pay for one's race as well as foroneself."

"Oh, nonsense! Not the kind of thing your family seem to have amusedthemselves with."

"What do you mean?"

"I was put into a room last night"—Vernon spoke hesitatingly—"and Isaw some books and paintings. They were horrible. I understood—well,that the peasants might have a good deal of reason—something to sayfor themselves, you know. Why should you suffer for that swinishness?"

The morning sun had broken through the fog and was shining full on thegirl's face. She sprang to her feet, and Vernon saw that she had blusheddeeply.

"You entered those rooms!" she cried. "That fool Élise! I will have herbeaten. Oh, I am shamed.... Get off with you! You are only making mewretched. Get off while there's time."

The sight of her crimson face and neck moved Vernon to a deepcompassion.

"I refuse to leave without you, Miss Arabin," he said. "I do not knowmuch, but I know enough to see that you are in deadly danger. I can nomore leave you here than I could leave a drowning child in the sea.Quick! Get your maid and pack some things and we'll be gone."

She stood before him, an abashed, obstinate child.

"I won't go.... I hate you.... You have seen—oh, leave me, if you haveany pity."

"You come with me."

"I won't!" Her lips were a thin line, and the shut jaws made a square ofthe resolute little face.

"Then I shall carry you off. I'm very sorry, Miss Arabin, but I'm goingto save you in spite of yourself."

Vernon had his hand stretched out to the silver hand-bell to summonÉlise, when he found himself looking at a small pistol. He caught herwrist, expecting it to go off, but nothing happened. It dropped into hishand, and he saw that it was unloaded.

He rang the bell.

"All the more reason why you should come with me if you are so badlyarmed."

The girl stood stiff and silent, her eyes and cheeks burning, as Éliseentered.

"Pack for your mistress," he told the maid. "Bring as little baggage aspossible, for there isn't much room." The woman hurried off gladly to dohis bidding.

"Please don't make a scene," he said. "You will have to come in the end,and some day you will forgive me."

"I will not come," she said, "but I will show you something."

Life seemed to have been restored to her tense body, as she hurried himout of the room, along a corridor, and up a flight of stairs to a windowwhich looked seaward.

The last wreath of fog had disappeared, and the half-moon of bay layblue and sparkling. Down at the jetty were men and boats, but out on thewater there was no sign of the anchored yacht.

"What does that mean?" Vernon cried.

"It means that your boat has gone. When the air cleared the people sawit, and have driven your man away.... It means that you, like me, are aprisoner!"

CHAPTER XV

As Vernon looked at the flushed girl, whose voice as she spoke had atleast as much consternation in it as triumph, he experienced a suddendislocation of mind. Something fell from him—the elderliness, thepreoccupation, the stiff dogma of his recent years. He recaptured thespirit which had open arms for novelty. He felt an eagerness to be upand doing—what, he was not clear—but something difficult andhigh-handed. The vanishing of his dream had left the chambers of hismind swept and garnished, and youth does not tolerate empty rooms.

Also, though I do not think that he had yet begun to fall in love withKoré, he understood the quality of one whom aforetimes he had dislikedboth as individual and type. This pale girl, dressed like a young womanin a Scotch shooting lodge, was facing terror with a stiff lip. Therewas nothing raffish or second-rate about her now. She might make lightof her danger in her words, but her eyes betrayed her.

It was about this danger that he was still undecided. You see, he hadnot, like me, seen the people of the island, felt the strain of theirexpectancy, or looked on the secret spaces of the Dancing Floor. He hadcome out of the storm to hear a tale told in the fog and darkness by anexcited woman. That was all—that and the hideous rooms at which he hadhad a passing glance. The atmosphere of the place, which I had found sounnerving, had not yet begun to affect him.

"My fellow will come back," he said, after scanning the empty seas. "Hehas his faults, but he is plucky and faithful."

"You do not understand," the girl said. "He would be one against athousand. He may be as brave as a lion, but they won't let him anchor,and if they did they would never let you and me join him. I have toldyou we are prisoners—close prisoners."

"You must tell me a great deal more. You see, you can't refuse my helpnow, for we are in the same boat. Do you mind if we go back to where webreakfasted, for I left my pipe there."

She turned without a word and led him back to her sitting-room, passinga woe-begone Élise who, with her arms full of clothes, was told that herservices were now needless. The windows of the room looked on a gardenwhich had been suffered to run wild but which still showed a wealth ofspring blossom. Beyond was a shallow terrace and then the darkness oftrees. A man's head seemed to move behind a cypress hedge. The girlnodded towards it. "One of my gaolers," she said.

She stood looking out of the window with her eyes averted from Vernon,and seemed to be forcing herself to speak.

"You have guessed right about my family," she said. "And about thishouse. I am cleaning it slowly—I must do it myself, Élise and I, for Ido not want strangers to know.... This room was as bad as the other twotill I whitewashed the walls. The old furniture I am storing till I havetime to destroy it. I think I will burn it, for it has hideousassociations for me. I would have had the whole house in order thisspring if my foolish people had not lost their heads."

A "tawdry girl," that was how Vernon had spoken of her to me. Hewithdrew the word now. "Tawdry" was the last adjective he would useabout this strange child, fighting alone to get rid of a burden ofancient evil. He had thought her a modish, artificial being, a mothhatched out of the latest freak of fashion. Now she seemed to him athousand years removed from the feverish world which he had thought hernatural setting. Her appeal was her extreme candour and simplicity, herutter, savage, unconsidering courage.

"Let us take the family for granted," Vernon said gently. "I can'texpect you to talk about that. I assume that there was that in yourpredecessor's doings which gave these islanders a legitimate grievance.What I want to know is what they are up to now. Tell me very carefullyeverything that has happened since you came here a week ago."

She had little to tell him. She had been allowed to enter the House bythe ordinary road from the village, and after that the gates had beenbarred. When she had attempted to go for a walk she had been turned backby men with rifles—she did not tell Vernon how the rifles had beenprocured. The hillmen had joined with the people of the coast—you couldalways tell a hillman by his dress—though the two used to be hereditaryenemies. That made her angry and also uneasy; so did the curiousmethodical ways of the siege. They were not attempting to enter theHouse—she doubted if any one of them would dare to cross thethreshold—they were only there to prevent her leaving it. She herself,not the looting of the House, must be their object. Mitri was permittedto go to the village, but he did not go often, for he came backterrified and could not or would not explain his terrors. Nocommunication had been held with the watchers, and no message had comefrom them. She had tried repeatedly to find out their intentions, butthe sentinels would not speak, and she could make nothing of Mitri. No,she was not allowed into the demesne. There were sentries there right upto the house wall—sentries night and day.

Vernon asked her about supplies. She had brought a store with her whichwas not yet exhausted, but the people sent up food every morning. Mitrifound it laid on the threshold of the main door. Curious food—barleycakes, and honey, and cheese, and eggs, and dried figs. She couldn'timagine where they got it from, for the people had been starving in thewinter. Milk, too—plenty of milk, which was another unexpected thing.

Water—that was the oddest business of all. The House had a fine well inthe stableyard on the east side. This had been sealed up and its useforbidden to Mitri. But morning and night buckets of fresh water werebrought to the door—whence, she did not know. "It rather restricts ourbathing arrangements," she said.

She told the story lightly, with a ready laugh, as if she were once moremistress of herself. Mistress of her voice she certainly was, but shecould not command her eyes. It was these that counter-acted the debonairtones and kept tragedy in the atmosphere.

Vernon, as I have said, had not the reason which I had for feeling thegravity of the business. But he was a scholar, and there were details inKoré's account which startled him.

"Tell me about the food again. Cheese and honey and barley cakes, driedfigs and eggs—nothing more?"

"Nothing more. And not a great deal of that. Not more than enough tofeed one person for twenty-four hours. We have to supplement it from thestores we brought."

"I see.... It is meant for you personally—not for your household. Andthe water? You don't know what spring it comes from?"

She shook her head. "There are many springs in Plakos. But why does ourcommissariat interest you?"

"Because it reminds me of something I have read somewhere. Cheese andhoney and barley cakes—that is ritual food. Sacramental, if you like.And the water. Probably brought from some sacred well. I don't much likeit. Tell me about the people here, Miss Arabin. Are they very backwardand superstitious?"

"I suppose you might call them that. They are a fine race to look at,and claim to be pure Greek—at least the coast folk. The hillmen aresaid to be mongrels, but they are handsome mongrels and fought bravelyin the war. But I don't know them well, for I left when I was a child,and since my father died I have only seen the people of Kynætho."

"Kynætho?" Vernon cried out sharply, for the word was like a bell toring up the curtain of memory.

"Yes, Kynætho. That is the village at the gate."

Now he had the clue. Kynætho was the place mentioned in the manuscriptfragment which he had translated for me. It was at Kynætho that thestrange rite was performed of the Koré and the Kouros. The details wereengraven on his memory, for they had profoundly impressed him, and hehad turned them over repeatedly in his mind. He had thought he haddiscovered the record of a new ritual form; rather it appeared that hehad stumbled upon the living rite itself.

"I begin—to understand," he said slowly. "I want you to let me speak toMitri. Alone, if you please. I have done this work before in the war,and I can get more out of that kind of fellow if I am alone with him.Then I shall prospect the land."

He found Mitri in his lair in the ancient kitchen. With the old manthere was no trouble, for when he found that his interlocutor spokeGreek fluently he overflowed in confidences.

"They will burn this House," he said finally. "They have piled fagots onthe north and east sides where the wind blows. And the time will beEaster eve."

"And your mistress?"

Mitri shrugged his shoulders. "There is no hope for her, I tell you. Shehad a chance of flight and missed it, though I pled with her. She willburn with the House unless——"

He looked at Vernon timidly, as if he feared to reveal something.

"Unless——?" said Vernon.

"There is a rumour in Kynætho of something else. In that accursedvillage they have preserved tales of the old days, and they say that onthe night of Good Friday there will be panegyria on the Dancing Floor.There will be a race with torches, and he who wins will be called King.To him it will fall to slay my mistress in order that the Ancient Onesmay appear and bless the people."

"I see," said Vernon. "Do you believe in that rubbish?"

Mitri crossed himself, and called the Panagia to witness that he was aChristian and, after God and the Saints, loved his mistress.

"That is well. I trust you, Mitri; and I will show you how you can saveher. You are allowed to leave the House?"

"Every second day only. I went yesterday, and cannot go again tillto-morrow. I have a daughter married in the village, whom I am permittedto visit."

"Very well. We are still two days from Good Friday. Go down to thevillage to-morrow and find out all about the plans for Good Fridayevening. Lie as much as you like. Say you hate your mistress and willdesert her whenever you are bidden. Pretend you're on the other side.Get their confidence.... A madness has afflicted this island, and youare the only sane Christian left in it. If these ruffians hurt yourmistress, the Government—both in Athens and in London—will sendsoldiers and hang many. After that there will be no more Kynætho. Wehave got to prevent the people making fools of themselves. Your mistressis English and I am English, and that is why I stay here. You do exactlyas I tell you and we'll win through."

It was essential to encourage Mitri, for the old man was patently tornbetween superstitious fear and fidelity to Koré, and only a robustscepticism and a lively hope would enable him to keep his tail up and dohis part. Vernon accordingly protested a confidence which he was veryfar from feeling. It was arranged that Mitri should go to Kynætho nextmorning after breakfast and spend the day there.

After that, guided by the old man, Vernon made a circuit of the House.From the top windows he was able to follow the lie of the land—thepostern gates to the shore, the nest of stables and outbuildings on theeast, with access to the shallow glen running up from the jetty, themain entrance and the drive from Kynætho, the wooded demesne ending atthe cliffs, and the orchards and olive-yards between the cliffs and thecauseway. The patrols came right up to the House wall, and on varioussides Vernon had a glimpse of them. But he failed to get what hespecially sought, a prospect of any part of the adjoining coast-linebeyond the little bay. He believed that his yacht was somewhere hiddenthere, out of sight of the peasants. He was convinced that the Epirotewould obey orders and wait for him, and would not go one yard fartheraway than was strictly necessary. But he was at a loss to know how tofind him, if he were penned up in this shuttered mausoleum.

He returned to find Koré sewing by the window of the breakfast room. Heentered quietly and had a momentary glimpse of her before she wasconscious of his presence. She was looking straight before her withvacant eyes, her face in profile against the window, a figure ofinfinite appeal. Vernon had a moment of acute compunction. What he hadonce thought and spoken of this poor child seemed to him now to havebeen senseless brutality. He had called her tawdry and vulgar andshrill, he had thought her the ugly product of the ugly after-the-warworld. But there she sat like a muse of meditation, as fine and delicateas a sword-blade. And she had a sword's steel, too, for had she notfaced unknown peril for a scruple?

"What does Mitri say?" she asked in a voice which had a forced brisknessin it.

"I shall know more to-morrow night, but I have learned something. Youare safe for the better part of three days—till some time on GoodFriday evening. That is one thing. The other is that your scheme ofwearing down the hostility of your people has failed. Your islandershave gone stark mad. The business is far too solemn for me to speaksmooth things. They have resurrected an old pagan rite of sacrifice.Sacrifice, do you understand? This House will be burned, and if theyhave their will you will die."

"I was beginning to guess as much. I don't want to die, for it meansdefeat. But I don't think I am afraid to die. You see—life is ratherdifficult—and not very satisfactory. But tell me more."

Vernon gave her a sketch of the ritual of Kynætho. "It was yourmentioning the name that brought it back to me. I have always beeninterested in Greek religion, and by an amazing chance I came on thisonly a month or so ago. Leithen—the lawyer—you know him, Ithink—gave me a bit of mediæval Greek manuscript to translate, andpart of it had this rite."

"Leithen!" she cried. "Sir Edward? Then he found it among the papers Ilent him. Why didn't he tell me about it?"

"I can't imagine."

"Perhaps he thought I wouldn't have believed it. I wouldn't a month ago.Perhaps he thought he could prevent me coming here. I think he did hisbest. I had to go off without saying good-bye to him, and he was mygreatest friend."

"He happens to be also my closest friend. If you had known aboutthis—this crazy ritual, would you have come?"

She smiled. "I don't know. I'm very obstinate, and I can't bear to bebullied. These people are trying to bully me.... But of course I didn'tknow how bad it was.... And I didn't know that I was going to land youin this mess. That is what weighs on my mind."

"But you didn't invite me here. You told me to clear out."

"My servants invited you, and therefore I am responsible.... Oh, ColonelMilburne, you must understand what I feel. I haven't had an easy life,for I seem to have been always fighting, but I didn't mind it as long asit was my own fight. I felt I had to stick it out, for it was thepenalty I paid for being an Arabin. But whatever paying was to be done Iwanted to do it myself.... Otherwise, don't you see, it makes the guiltof my family so much heavier.... And now I have let you in for it, andthat is hell—simply hell!"

Vernon had suddenly an emotion which he had never known before—theexhilaration with which he had for years anticipated the culmination ofhis dream, but different in kind, nobler, less self-regarding. He feltkeyed up to any enterprise, and singularly confident. There wastenderness in his mood, too, which was a thing he had rarelyfelt—tenderness towards this gallant child.

"Listen to me, Miss Arabin. I have two things to say to you. One is thatI glory in being here. I wouldn't be elsewhere for the world. It is adelight and a privilege. The other is that we are going to win out."

"But how?"

"I don't know yet. We will find a way. I am as certain of it as that Iam standing here. God doesn't mean a thing like this to be a blindcul-de-sac."

"You believe in God? I wish I did. I think I only believe in the Devil."

"Then you believe in God. If evil is a living thing, good must be livingas well—more indeed, or the world would smash.... Look here, we've twodays to put in together. There is nothing we can do for the present, sowe must find some way to keep our nerves quiet. Let's pretend we're inan ordinary English country house and kept indoors by rain."

So the two of them made plans to pass the time, while the clear springsunlight outside turned Vernon's pretence into foolishness. They playedpiquet, and sometimes he read to her—chiefly Peter Beckford. The florideighteenth-century prose, the tags of Augustan poetry, the high stilts,the gusto, carried their thoughts to the orderly world of home. I haveno wish to speculate about the secrets of a friend, but I fancy that theslow hours spent together brought understanding. Koré must have told himthings which she had kept back from me, for the near prospect of deathbreaks down many barriers. I think, too, that he may have told her thestory of his boyish dream—he must have, for it bore directly on thecase. With his sense of predestination he would draw from it a specialconfidence, and she would be made to share it. He had undergone a longpreparation for something which had ended in mist, but the preparationmight point to success in a great reality....

Late the following afternoon old Mitri returned. Vernon saw him firstalone, and got from him the details of the next evening's ceremonial.There was to be a race among the young men on the Dancing Floor as soonas the moon rose, and the victor would be called the King. Some of thenews which Mitri had gathered was unexpected, some incomprehensible, butin the main it agreed with his own version. The victor would choose avictim—a male victim, clearly, for the female victim was alreadychosen. The two would enter the House, and on the next night—the eve ofthis grim Easter—the sacrifice would be accomplished. Beyond thatMitri could say nothing except that the people looked for a mightymiracle; but the manuscript had told what the miracle would be.

"Who will be the runners?" Vernon asked.

"The fleetest among the young men, both of the village and the hills."

It was characteristic of Vernon's fatalism that he had not troubled tomake even the rudiments of a plan till he had heard Mitri's tidings. Nowthe thing began to unfold itself. The next step at any rate was clearlyordained.

"Will everybody be known to each other?" he said.

"Faith, no. Kynætho till now has had few dealings with the hill folk,and the villages in the hills are generally at strife with each other.To-morrow night there will be many strangers, and no questions will beasked, for all will be allies in this devilry."

"Do I speak like a Greek?"

"You speak like a Greek, but like one from another island."

"And I look like an islander?"

Mitri grinned. "There are few as well-looking. But if your face weredarkened, you would pass. There is a place, a little remote place in thehills, Akte by name, where the folk are said to have white skins likeyou, Signor."

"Well, attend, Mitri. I am a man from Akte who has been at the wars, andhas just returned. That will account for my foreign speech."

"The Signor jests. He has a stout heart that can jest——"

"I'm not jesting. I'm going to compete in the race to-morrow night. Whatis more, I'm going to win. I've been a bit of a runner in my time, andI'm in hard training."

A faint spark appeared in the old man's eye.

"The Signor will no doubt win if he runs. And if he ever reaches theDancing Floor he will not be troubled with questions. But how will hereach the Dancing Floor?"

"I intend to get out of the House early to-morrow morning. There areseveral things I want to do before the race. Have you any rags withwhich I can imitate the dress of a hillman?"

Mitri considered. Shirt and breeches he had, but no boots. A cap mightbe improvised, but boots?

"Remember I have only just returned to Akte, and have brought thefashion of the war with me. So I can make shift with home-made puttees.Anything else?"

"The men around the House will not let you pass."

"They'll have to. I'm one of themselves, and you've got to coach me inlocal customs. You have twelve hours before you in which to turn me intoa respectable citizen of Akte. If any awkward questions are asked Ipropose to be truculent. A soldier is going to stand no nonsense fromcivilians, you know."

Mitri considered again. "It will be best to go by the main road toKynætho."

"No, I'm going by the causeway. I want to see what lies beyond it to thewest."

"The cliffs are there, and there is no road."

"I will find one."

Mitri shook his head. He had apparently little belief in the scheme, butan hour later, after Vernon had given Koré a sketch of his intentions,he arrived with an armful of strange garments. Élise, at her mistress'srequest, had collected oddments of fabrics, and brought part of thecontents of the linen-cupboard.

"We are about," Vernon told a mystified Koré, "to prepare for privatetheatricals. Puttees are my most urgent need, and that thin skirt ofyours will be the very thing."

Since Koré still looked puzzled, he added: "We're cast for parts in arather sensational drama. I'm beginning to think that the only way toprevent it being a tragedy is to turn it into a costume-play."

CHAPTER XVI

Very early next morning, before the blue darkness had paled into dawn,Vernon swung his legs out of an upper window of the House, crawled alongthe broad parapet, and began to descend by a water-pipe in an anglebetween the main building and the eastern wing. This brought him to theroof of one of the outbuildings, from which it was possible for anactive man to reach the road which ran upward from the jetty. He hadbeen carefully prepared by Mitri for his part. The loose white shirt andthe short mountain tunic were in order. Mitri's breeches had proved tooscanty, but Élise had widened them, and the vacant space about hismiddle was filled with a dirty red cummerbund, made of one of Mitri'ssashes, in which were stuck a long knife and his pistol. A pair ofMitri's home-made shoes of soft untanned hide were supplemented byhome-made puttees. He had no hat; he had stained his face, hands andarms beyond their natural brown with juice from Mitri's store of pickledwalnuts, and—under the critical eye of Koré—had rubbed dirt under hiseyes and into his finger-nails till he looked the image of a handsome,swaggering, half-washed soldier. More important, he had been coached byMitri in the speech of the hills, the gossip which might have penetratedto the remote Akte, and the mannerisms of the hillmen, which wereunpleasingly familiar to the dwellers by the sea.

All this care would have been useless had Vernon not been in the mood tocarry off any enterprise. He felt the reckless audacity of a boy, anexhilaration which was almost intoxication, and the source of which hedid not pause to consider. Above all he felt complete confidence.Somehow, somewhere, he would break the malign spell and set Koré beyondthe reach of her enemies.

He reached ground fifty yards south of the jetty, and turned at once inthe direction of the sea. At the beginning of the causeway he met a man.

"Whither away, brother?" came the question, accompanied by the lift of arifle.

Vernon gave the hillman's greeting. He loomed up tall and formidable inthe half-darkness.

"I go beyond the causeway to the olive-yards," he said carelessly, as ifhe condescended in answering.

"By whose orders?"

"We of Akte do not take orders. I go at the request of the Elders."

"You are of Akte?" said the man curiously. He was very willing to talk,being bored with his long night-watch. "There are none of Akte among us,so far as I have seen. The men of Akte live in the moon, says theproverb. But ..." this after peering at Vernon's garb—"these clotheswere never made in the hills."

"I am new back from the war, and have not seen Akte these three years.But I cannot linger, friend."

"Nay, bide a little. It is not yet day. Let us talk of Akte. My fatheronce went there for cattle.... Or let us speak of the war. My uncle wasin the old war, and my young nephew was ... If you will not bide, giveme tobacco."

Vernon gave him a cigarette. "These are what we smoked in Smyrna," hesaid. "They are noble stuff."

Half-way along the causeway a second guard proved more truculent. Hequestioned the orders of the Elders, till Vernon played the man fromAkte and the old soldier, and threatened to fling him into the sea. Thelast sentry was fortunately asleep. Vernon scrambled over the fence ofthe olive-yards, and as the sun rose above the horizon was striding withlong steps through the weedy undergrowth.

His object was not like mine when I travelled that road—to get insidethe demesne; he wanted to keep out of it, and to explore the bit ofcoast under it, since it seemed from the map to be the likeliest placeto find his boat. The Epirote, he was convinced, would obey hisinstructions faithfully, and when driven away from his old anchoragewould not go a yard more than was necessary. So, after being stopped asI had been by the wall which ran to the cliffs, he stuck to the shore.He picked his way under the skirts of the great headland till the rocksank sheer into deep water. There was nothing for it now but to swim,so he made a bundle of his shirt and jacket and bound them with thecummerbund on his shoulders, took his pistol in his teeth and slippedinto the cold green sea. Mitri's breeches were a nuisance, but he was astrong swimmer, and in five minutes was at the point of the headland.

He found a ledge of rock which enabled him to pull up his shoulders andreconnoitre the hidden bay. There, to his joy, was the yacht, snuglyanchored half-way across. There was no sign of life on board, fordoubtless the Epirote was below cooking his breakfast. Vernon had nodesire to make himself conspicuous by shouting, for the demesne and thewatchers were too near, so he dropped back into the water and struck outfor the boat. Ten minutes later he was standing dripping on the deck,and the Epirote was welcoming him with maledictions on Plakos.

He stripped off his wet clothes, and put on his old aquascutum till theyshould be dried. Then he breakfasted heartily, while Black George gavean account of his stewardship. When Vernon did not return he had notconcerned himself greatly, for the affairs of his master were nobusiness of his. But in the morning, when the fog began to lift, men hadput off from shore in a boat and had demanded the reason of hispresence. The interview had been stormy, for he had declined to explain,holding that if his master chose to land secretly by night, and rudefellows appeared with the daylight, it would be wise to tell the latternothing. His interviewers had been more communicative. They had beenvery excited and had tried to alarm him with foolish tales of witches.But it was clear that they had meant mischief, for all were armed, andwhen at the point of several rifle barrels they had ordered him todepart, it seemed to him the part of a wise man to obey. He had feignedfear and deep stupidity, and had upped sail and done their bidding.Then, looking for a refuge, he had seen the great curtain of cliff andhad found this little bay. Here he hoped he was secure, for there was nopassage along the shore, and the people of Plakos did not seem duringthese days to be sailing the seas. He could be observed, of course, fromthe cliff tops, but these were shrouded in wood and looked unfrequented.

"Did I not well, Signor?" he asked anxiously.

"You did well. Have you seen no one?"

"No islander. Last night two men came about midnight. One was a crippledGreek and the other man, I judge, English."

Vernon woke to the liveliest interest, but Black George told a haltingtale. "He swam out and wakened me, and at first, fearing trouble, Iwould have brained him. Since he could not speak my tongue, I rowedashore with him and saw the Greek.... He was an Englishman, beyonddoubt, and a Signor, so I gave him food."

"What did he want with you?"

"Simply that I should stay here. He had a story of some lady to whom thedevils of this island meant mischief, and he begged me to wait in casethe lady should seek to escape."

No cross-examination of Vernon's could make Black George amplify thetale. He had not understood clearly, he said, for the English Signorcould not speak his tongue, and the Greek who interpreted was obviouslya fool. But he had promised to remain, which was indeed his duty to hismaster. No. He had spoken no single word of his master. He had not saidhe was an Englishman. He had said nothing.

Vernon puzzled over the matter but could make nothing of it. He did notcredit the story of an Englishman in Plakos who knew of Koré's plight,and came to the conclusion that Black George had misunderstood hisvisitor's talk. He had the day before him, and his first act was to rowashore to the other point of the bay—the place from which Janni and Ihad first espied the yacht. There he sat for a little and smoked, and itwas one of his cigarette ends that I found the same afternoon. Ascramble round the headland showed him the strip of beach below theDancing Floor, but it occurred to him that there was no need to gopioneering along the coast—that he had a yacht and could be landedwherever he pleased. So he returned to Black George, and the two hoistedsail and made for open sea.

The day was spent running with the light north-west wind behind themwell to the south of Plakos, and then tacking back till about sunsetthey stood off the north-east shore. It was a day of brilliant sun,tempered by cool airs, with the hills of the island rising sharp andblue into the pale spring sky. Vernon found to his delight that he hadno trepidation about the work of the coming night. He had brought withhim the copy he had made of his translation of Koré's manuscript, andstudied it as a man studies a map, without any sense of its strangeness.The madmen of Plakos were about to revive an ancient ritual, where thevictor in a race would be entrusted with certain barbarous duties. Heproposed to be the victor, and so to defeat the folly. The House wouldbe burnt, and in the confusion he would escape with Koré to the yacht,and leave the unhallowed isle for ever. The girl's honour would besatisfied, for she would have stuck it out to the last. Once he hadconvinced himself that she would be safe, he let his mind lie fallow. Hedreamed and smoked on the hot deck in the bright weather, as much at hisease as if the evening were to bring no more than supper and sleep.

In the early twilight the yacht's dinghy put him ashore on a lonely bitof coast east of the village. Black George was ordered to return to hisformer anchorage and wait there; if on the following night he saw alantern raised three times on the cliff above, he was to come round tothe olive-yards at the far end of the causeway. At this stage Vernon'splan was for a simple escape in the confusion of the fire. He hoped thatthe postern gate at the jetty would be practicable; if not he would findsome way of reaching the olive-yards from the demesne. The whole affairwas viewed by him as a straightforward enterprise—provided he could winthe confounded race.

But with his landing on Plakos in the spring gloaming his mood began tochange. I have failed in my portrayal of Vernon if I have made you thinkof him as unimaginative and insensitive. He had unexpected blind patchesin his vision and odd callosities in his skin, but for all that he washighly strung and had an immense capacity for emotion, though he chosemostly to sit on the safety valve. Above all he was a scholar. All hislife he had been creating imaginative pictures of things, or livingamong the creations of other men. He had not walked a mile in thattwilight till he felt the solemnity of it oppressing his mind.

I think it was chiefly the sight of the multitude moving towards theDancing Floor, all silent, so that the only sound was the tread of feet.He had been in doubt before as to where exactly the place was, but theroad was blazed for him like the roads to Epsom on Derby Day. Men,women, children, babes-in-arms, they were streaming past the closes atthe foot of the glade, past the graveyard, up the aisle of the DancingFloor. It was his first sight of it—not as I had seen it solitary underthe moon, but surging with a stream of hushed humanity. It had anotherkind of magic, but one as potent as that which had laid its spell on me.I had seen the temple in its loneliness; he saw it thronged withworshippers.

No one greeted him or even noticed him; he would probably have passedunregarded if he had been wearing his ordinary clothes. The heavypreoccupation of the people made them utterly incurious. He saw mendressed as he was, and he noted that the multitude moved to left andright as if by instinct, leaving the central arena vacant. Dusk hadfallen, and on the crown of the ridge on his right he saw dimly what heknew to be the trees of the demesne. He saw, too, that a cluster seemedto be forming at the lower end of the arena, apart from the others, andhe guessed that these were the competitors in the race. He made his waytowards them, and found that he had guessed rightly. It was a knot ofyoung men, who were now stripping their clothes, till they stood nakedexcept for the sashes twisted around their middle. Most were barefoot,but one or two had raw-hide brogues. Vernon followed their example, tillhe stood up in his short linen drawers. He retained Mitri's shoes, forhe feared the flints of the hillside. There were others in the group,older men whom he took to be the Elders of whom Mitri had spoken, andthere was one man who seemed to be in special authority and who wore aloose white cassock.

It was now nearly dark, and suddenly, like the marks delimiting acourse, torches broke into flame. These points of angry light in thecrowded silence seemed to complete the spell. Vernon's assurance hadfled and left behind it an unwilling awe and an acute nervousness. Allhis learning, all his laborious scholarship quickened from mere mentalfurniture into heat and light. His imagination as well as his nerveswere on fire. I can only guess at the thoughts which must have crowdedhis mind. He saw the ritual, which so far had been for him anantiquarian remnant, leap into a living passion. He saw what he hadregarded coolly as a barbaric survival, a matter for brutish peasants,become suddenly a vital concern of his own. Above all, he felt theformidableness of the peril to Koré. She had dared far more than sheknew, far more than he had guessed; she was facing the heavy menace of athousand ages, the devils not of a few thousand peasants, but of a wholeforgotten world.... And in that moment he has told me that another thingbecame clear to him—she had become for him something altogether rareand precious.

The old man in the white ephod was speaking. It was a tale which hadobviously been told before to the same audience, for he reminded them offormer instructions. Vernon forced himself to concentrate on it anattention which was half paralysed by that mood of novel emotion whichhad come upon him. Some of it he failed to grasp, but the main pointswere clear—the race twice round the arena outside the ring of torches,the duty of the victor to take the last torch and plunge it in thesacred spring. The man spoke as if reciting a lesson, and Vernon heardit like a lesson once known and forgotten. Reminiscences of what he hadfound in classical byways hammered on his mind, and with recollectioncame a greater awe. It was only the thought of Koré that enabled him tokeep his wits. Without that, he told me, he would have sunk into thelethargy of the worshippers, obedient, absorbed in expectancy.

Then came the start, and the race which Janni and I watched from ourhiding-place in the shadows under the wall. He got off the markclumsily, and at first his limbs seemed heavy as lead. But the movementrevived him and woke his old racing instinct. Though he had not run foryears, he was in hard training, and towards the close of the first roundhis skill had come back to him and he was in the third place, going wellwithin his powers. In the second round he felt that the thing was in hishands. He lay close to the first man, passed him before the finalstraight, and then forged ahead so that in the last hundred yards he wasgaining ground with every stride. He seized the torch at thewinning-post and raced to where in the centre of the upper glade a whitefigure stood alone. With the tossing of the flame into the well hestraightened his body and looked round, a man restored to his old vigourand ready for swift action.

His account of the next stage was confused, for his mind was on Koré,and he was going through a violent transformation of outlook. The oldman was no longer repeating a rehearsed lesson, but speaking violentlylike one in a moment of crisis. He addressed Vernon as "You of thehills," and told him that God had placed the fate of Kynætho in hishands—which God he did not particularize. But from his excitedstammering something emerged that chilled Vernon's blood.... He was towait in the House till moonrise of the next night. The signal was to bethe firing of the place. With the first flames he was to perform thedeed to which he had been called. "Choose which way you please," saidthe old man, "provided that they die." Then he would leave the House bythe main door and join the young men without. "They will be gatheredthere till they come who will come." The door would be closed behind himtill it was opened by the fire.... "They who will come are Immortals."

The man's voice was high-pitched with passion, and his figure, solitaryin the bright moonshine in that ring of silent folk, had something in itof the awful and the sacramental. But Vernon's thoughts were not on it,but on the news which meant the downfall of his plans. His mind workednow normally and sanely; he was again a man of the modern world. Theyoung men—of course they would be there—the Kouretes to greet theKouros. He might have known it, if he had only thought. But how was Koréto escape from those frenzied guardians? He had imagined that with thefire the vigilance of the watch would be relaxed and that it would beeasy to join Black George and the boat. But with the fire there was tobe a thronging of the hierophants towards the House, and what was insidewould be kept inside till the place was a heap of ashes.

The man was speaking again. He had made some signal, for three figureshad approached the well. "The woman is within," he said, "and it is foryou to choose the man. Your choice is free among the people of Plakos,but we have one here, a young man, a Greek, but a stranger. He woulddoubtless be acceptable."

The half-clad Maris cut an odd figure as, in the grip of two stalwartpeasants, he was led forward for inspection. His face was white and set,and his eyes were furious. "No willing victim this," thought Vernon,"but so much the better, for he and I are in the same boat, and I mustmake him an ally." From the way he carried himself he saw that Maris hadbeen drilled, and he considered that a soldier might be useful. "Ichoose this man," he said.

A jar was given him, and he filled it from the spring and emptied it onMaris's head and shoulders. His own clothes were also brought, but hecontented himself with Mitri's sash, of which he made a girdle and intowhich he stuck his own pistol and Mitri's knife. "I have no need of therest," he said, for he was beginning to enter into the spirit of thepart. Then he knelt while the old man laid a hand on his head andpronounced some consecration. "Come," he said to Maris, and the twomoved up the slope of the Dancing Floor towards the breach in the wall.

He had almost forgotten his anxiety in the wonder of the scene. Heseemed to be set on a stage in a great golden amphitheatre, and Marisand the guards who accompanied him were no more than stage properties.All human life had for the moment gone, and he was faced withprimordial elements—the scented shell of earth, the immense arch of thesky and the riding moon, and, as he climbed the slope, an infinity ofshining waters. The magic weighed on him, a new magic, for theruthlessness of man was submerged in the deeper ruthlessness ofnature.... And then, as he passed the fringe of the spectators andcaught a glimpse of pallid strained faces, he got his bearings again. Itwas man he had to cope with, crazy, fallible, tormented man. He felt thepity and innocence of it behind the guilt, and in an instant he regainedconfidence.... Maris was stumbling along, walking painfully like oneunaccustomed to going on bare feet, casting fierce, startled glancesabout him. As they approached the breach in the wall Vernon managed towhisper to him to cheer up, for no ill would befall him. "I am yourfriend," he said; "together we will make an end of this folly," and theman's face lightened.

It was this look on Maris's face which I saw from my hiding-place andwhich made me forbid Janni's pistol shot.

CHAPTER XVII

The great doors clanged behind them, and Vernon, who had been given thekey by the guards, turned it in the lock. In spite of the reassuringword he had spoken to Maris he thought that his companion might attackhim, so he steered wide of him and in the inky darkness fell over abasket of logs. The mishap wrung from him a very English expletive. Thenhe shouted on Mitri to bring a light.

He heard Maris's excited voice. "Who are you? Who in God's name are you?Are you English?"

"Of course I am English. Confound it, I believe I have cracked my shin.Mitri, you idiot, where are you?"

The old man appeared from a corridor with a lantern shaking in his hand.He had no words, but stared at the two as if he were looking on menrisen from the dead.

"Where's your mistress? In her sitting-room? For God's sake, get me someclothes—my old ones, and bring something for this gentleman to put on.Any old thing will do. Get us some food, too, for we're starving.Quick, man. Leave the lantern here."

By the slender light, set on a table in the great stone hall, the twomen regarded each other.

"You want to know who I am," said Vernon. "I'm an Englishman who camehere three nights ago in a yacht. I happened to have met Miss Arabinbefore. I found out what the people of Plakos were up to, and it seemedto me that the best thing I could do was to win the race to-night. Ineedn't tell you about that, for you saw it.... Now for yourself. Igather that you also are unpopular in this island?"

Maris gave a short sketch of his career, and Vernon convinced himself bya few questions that he spoke the truth, for the Greek had servedalongside the British at Salonika.

"I came here to protect the lady," Maris concluded.

"Who sent you?"

"Mr. Ertzberger. I had a companion, an English colonel, who is also inyour Parliament, and a great milord. Leithen is his name."

"God bless my soul! Leithen! Oh, impossible! Quick! Tell me more. Whereis he now?"

"That I do not know. Yesterday evening we separated, each seeking tofind some way of entering this House. I blundered badly, and was takenby the guards on the seaward front. My friend must also have failed, orhe would be here, but I do not think he has been taken."

The knowledge that I was somewhere in the island gave Vernon, as he toldme, a sudden acute sense of comfort. I must have been the visitor to theyacht. He cross-examined Maris, who knew nothing of the boat'sexistence, and Maris agreed that the stranger who had gone aboard musthave been myself. "The Greek who was with him," he said, "was doubtlessmy corporal, Janni, the one man in my batch of fools who kept his head."

Mitri returned with Vernon's clothes, and an ancient dressing-gown forMaris. He also brought a bowl of milk and some cakes and cheese.Questions trembled on his lips, but Vernon waved him off. "Go and tellyour mistress that we will come to her in a quarter of an hour. And havea bed made ready for this gentleman."

As Vernon dressed he had a look at his companion, now grotesquely robedin a gown too large for him, and dirty and scratched from hisadventures. It was the mercy of Providence that had given him such acolleague, for he liked the man's bold, hard-bitten face and honesteyes. Here was a practical fellow, and he wanted something exceedinglyprosaic and practical to counteract the awe which still hovered abouthis mind. He fought to keep at a distance the memory of the silence andthe torches and the shining spaces of the Dancing Floor. This man didnot look susceptible.

"I need not tell you that we are in the devil of a tight place, CaptainMaris. Do you realize precisely the meaning of the performance we havejust witnessed?"

Maris nodded. "Since yesterday. It has been most pointedly explained tome. I am one victim for the sacrifice, and the lady of this house is theother, and you are the priest."

"We have the better part of twenty-four hours' grace. After that?"

"After that this House will be burned. You may go forth, if you have thenerve to play the part. The lady and I—no. We are supposed to die whenthe fire begins, but if we do not die by your hand we will die in theflames."

"There is no way of escape?"

"None," said Maris cheerfully. "But with your help I think we will dosome mischief first. God's curse on the swine!"

"And the lady?"

Maris shrugged his shoulders.

"Till this evening," said Vernon, "I thought I had a plan. I was prettycertain I could win the race, and I proposed to reason with the malevictim who came back with me, or club him on the head. I thought thatwhen the fire began there would be confusion and that the people wouldkeep outside the wall. My boat is lying below the cliffs, and I hoped tocarry the lady there. But now I know that that is impossible. There willbe a concourse of the young men outside the door at the moment of theburning, and the House will be watched more closely than ever. Do youknow what the people expect?"

Maris spat contemptuously. "I heard some talk of the coming of Gods. Thedevil take all priests and their lying tales."

"They await the coming of Gods. You are not a classical scholar, CaptainMaris, so you cannot realize, perhaps, just what that means. We aredealing with stark madness. These peasants are keyed up to a tremendousexpectation. A belief has come to life, a belief far older thanChristianity. They expect salvation from the coming of two Gods, a youthand a maiden. If their hope is disappointed, they will be worse madmenthan before. To-morrow night nothing will go out from this place, unlessit be Gods."

"That is true. The lady and I will without doubt die at the threshold,and you also, my friend. What arms have we?"

"I have this revolver with six cartridges. The lady has a toy pistol,but, I think, no ammunition. The men without are armed with rifles."

"Ugly odds. It is infamous that honest folk and soldiers should perishat the hands of the half-witted."

"What about Leithen? He is outside and has come here expressly to savethe lady."

Maris shook his head. "He can do nothing. They have set up a cordon, abarrage, which he cannot penetrate. There is no hope in the island, forevery man and woman is under the Devil's spell. Also the telegraph hasbeen cut these three days."

"Do you see any chance?"

Maris cogitated. "We have twenty-four hours. Some way of escape may befound by an active man at the risk of a bullet or two. We might reachyour boat."

"But the lady?"

"Why, no. Things look dark for the poor lady. We came here to protecther, and it seems as if we can do no more than die with her.... I wouldlike to speak with that old man about clothes. A soldier does not feelat his bravest when he is barefoot and unclad save for pants and aragged shirt. I refuse to go to Paradise in this dressing-gown."

Maris's cheerful fortitude was balm to Vernon's mind, for it seemed tostrip the aura of mystery from the situation, and leave it a straightgamble of life and death. If Koré was to be saved it must be throughMaris, for he himself was cast for another part.

"Come and let me present you to the lady," he said. "We must have someplan to sleep on."

Koré was in her sitting-room, and as she rose to meet them he saw thather face was very white.

"I heard nothing," she said hoarsely, "though Mitri says that there arethousands in the glade beyond the wall. But I saw a red glow from theupper windows."

"That was the torches which lined the stadium. I have been running arace, Miss Arabin, and have been lucky enough to win. Therefore we havestill twenty-four hours of peace. May I present Captain Maris of theGreek Army? He asks me to apologize for his clothes."

The Greek bowed gallantly and kissed her hand.

"Captain Maris came here to protect you. He came with a friend of ours,Sir Edward Leithen."

"Sir Edward Leithen?" the girl cried. "He is here?"

"He is in the island, but he is unable to join us in the House. CaptainMaris tried, and was unfortunately captured. He was handed over to me asthe victor of the race, and that is why he is here. But Sir Edward mustbe still scouting around the outposts, and it is pretty certain that hewon't find a way in. I'm afraid we must leave him out of account.... NowI want you to listen to me very carefully, for I've a good deal to sayto you. I'm going to be perfectly candid, for you're brave enough tohear the worst."

Vernon constructed three cigarettes out of his pipe tobacco and tissuepaper from the illustrations in Peter Beckford. Koré did not light hers,but sat waiting with her hands on her knees.

"They think you a witch, because of the habits of your family. That youhave long known. In the past they have burned witches in these islands,and Plakos remembers it. But it remembers another thing—the ancientritual I told you of, and that memory which has been sleeping forcenturies has come to violent life. Perhaps it would not have masteredthem if the mind of the people had not been full of witch-burning. That,you see, gave them one victim already chosen, and in Captain Maris, whois of their own race and also a stranger, they have found the other."

"I see all that," the girl said slowly. "Of course I did not know when Ileft London—I couldn't have guessed—I thought it was a simple businesswhich only needed a bold front, and I was too vain to take advice....Oh, forgive me. My vanity has brought two innocent people into mymiserable troubles...."

"I told you yesterday that we were going to win. You must trust me, MissArabin. And for Heaven's sake, don't imagine that I blame you. I thinkyou are the bravest thing God ever made. I wouldn't be elsewhere forworlds."

Her eyes searched his face closely, and then turned to Maris, whoinstantly adopted an air of bold insouciance.

"You are good men.... But what can you do? They will watch us like ratstill the fire begins, and then—if we are not dead—they will killus.... They will let no one go from this House—except their Gods."

These were the very words Vernon had used to Maris, and since they sowholly expressed his own belief, he had to repudiate them with avehement confidence.

"No," he said, "you forget that there are two things on our side. One isthat, as the winner of the race, I am one of the people of Plakos. I cansafely go out at the last moment and join their young men. I speak theirtongue, and I understand this ritual better than they do themselves.Surely I can find some way of driving them farther from the House sothat in the confusion Maris can get you and your maid off unobserved.Mitri too—"

"Mitri," she broke in, "has permission from our enemies to go when hepleases. But he refuses to leave us."

"Well, Mitri also. The second thing is that I have found my boat and gotin touch with my man. He is lying in the bay below the cliffs, and Ihave arranged that on a certain signal he will meet you under theolive-yards. There is a gate in the wall there of which Mitri no doubthas the key. Once aboard, you are as safe as in London."

"And you?"

"Oh, I will take my chance. I am a hillman from Akte and can keep up thepart till I find some way of getting off."

"Impossible!" she cried. "When they find that their Gods have failedthem they will certainly kill you. Perhaps it is because I was bornhere, but though I have only heard of this ritual from you, I feelsomehow as if I had always known it. And I know that if the onesacrifice fails, there will be another."

She rang the little silver bell for Mitri. "Show this gentleman hisroom," she looked towards Maris. "You have already had food? Good-night,Captain Maris. You must have had a wearing day, and I order you to bed."

When they were alone she turned to Vernon. "Your plan will not work. Ican make a picture of what will happen to-morrow night—I seem to seeevery detail clear, as if I had been through it all before—and yourplan is hopeless. You cannot draw them away from the House. They will bewatching like demented wolves.... And if you did and we escaped, what onearth would become of you?"

"I should be one of them—a sharer in their disappointment—probablyforgotten."

"Not you. You are their high-priest, and an angry people always turns ontheir priest."

"There might be a bit of a row, but I daresay I could hold my own."

"Against thousands—mad thousands? You would be torn in pieces eventhough they still believed you were a hillman from Akte."

"I'll take the risk. It is no good making difficulties, Miss Arabin. Iadmit that the case is pretty desperate, but my plan has at any rate achance."

"The case is utterly desperate, and that is why your plan is no good.Desperate cases need more desperate remedies."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

She smiled. "You are very tired, and so am I. We have a day and a nightleft us, and we can talk in the morning.... I told you when you firstcame here that I refused to run away. Well, I—don't—think—I havechanged my mind...."

The difficulty of telling this part of the story (said Leithen) is thatit must be largely guess-work. The main facts I know, but the affairhad become so strange and intimate that neither Koré nor Vernon wouldspeak of it, while Maris was only vaguely aware of what was happening.It must have been some time on the Friday morning that the two metagain. I can picture Vernon racking his brains to supplement his fragileplan, turning sleeplessly in his bed, hunting out Maris in the earlymorn to go wearily over the slender chances. Koré, I imagine, sleptdreamlessly. She had reached her decision, and to her strong and simplesoul to be resolved was to be at peace. Vernon was a fine fellow—I haveknown few finer—but there were lumpish elements in him, while the girlwas all pure spirit.

But I can reconstruct the meeting of the two in the bare littlesitting-room—without Maris—for that much Vernon has told me. I can seeVernon's anxious face, and the girl's eyes bright with that innocentarrogance which once in my haste I had thought ill-breeding.

"I am not going to run away from my people," she said. "I am going tomeet them."

Vernon asked her meaning, and she replied:

"I said yesterday that no one would be permitted to leave the House,unless in the eyes of the watchers they were Gods. Well, the Gods willnot fail them.... Listen to me. I have tried to purify this place, butthere can be only one purification, and that is by fire. It had to come,and it seems to me right that it should come from the hands of those whohave suffered. After that I go out as a free woman—and to a free womannothing is impossible."

I think that for a little he may not have understood her. His mind, yousee, had been busy among small particulars, and the simplicity of herplan would not at once be comprehended. Then there came for him thatmoment of liberation, when the world clarifies and what have beenbarrier mountains become only details in a wide prospect. The extreme ofboldness is seen to be the true discretion, and with that mood comes asharp uplift of spirit.

"You are right," he cried. "We will give them their Gods."

"Gods?" She stopped him. "But I must go alone. You have no part in thistrial. But if I win all this household will be safe. Most of thesepeople have never seen me, and Kynætho knows me only as a girl in oldcountry clothes from whom they kept their eyes averted. I can dress fora different part, and they will see some one who will be as new to themas if the Panagia had come down from Heaven. But you——"

"They will not be content with one divinity," he broke in. "They await adouble epiphany, remember—the Koré and the Kouros. That is the point ofthe occasion. We must be faithful to the letter of the rite. After all,they know less of me than of you. They saw me win a race, a figure verymuch like the others in the moonlight.... To those who may recognize meI am an unknown hillman of Akte. Why should not the Kouros haverevealed himself the day before, and be also the Basileus?"

She looked at him curiously as if seeing him for the first time as abodily presence. I can fancy that for the first time she may haverecognized his beauty and strength.

"But you are not like me," she urged. "You have not an old burden to getrid of. I am shaking off the incubus of my youth, and going free, likethe Gods. What you call the epiphany is not only for Plakos but formyself, and nothing matters, not even death. I can play the part, butcan you? To me it is going to be the beginning of life, but to you itcan only be an adventure. Chivalry is not enough."

"To me also it is the beginning of life," he answered. Then he returnedto the tale of his boyhood's dream. "When it vanished in the storm a fewnights ago I hated it, for I felt that it had stolen years from my life.But now I know that nothing is wasted. The door of the last of thedream-rooms has opened, and you have come in. And we are going to beginlife—together."

A strange pair of lovers, between whom no word of love had yet beenspoken! By very different roads both had reached a complete assurance,and with it came exhilaration and ease of mind. Maris during the longspring day might roam about restlessly, and Mitri and Élise fall totheir several prayers, but Vernon and Koré had no doubts. While I,outside the wall, was at the mercy of old magics, a mere piece ofdriftwood tossed upon undreamed-of tides, the two in the House hadalmost forgotten Plakos. It had become to them no more than a backgroundfor their own overmastering private concerns. The only problem was fortheir own hearts; for Koré to shake off for good the burden of her pastand vindicate her fiery purity, that virginity of the spirit which couldnot be smirched by man or matter; for Vernon to open the door at whichhe had waited all his life and redeem the long preparation of his youth.They had followed each their own paths of destiny, and now these pathshad met and must run together. That was the kind of thing that could notbe questioned, could not even be thought about; it had to be accepted,like the rising sun. I do not think that they appreciated their danger,as I did, for they had not been, like me, down in the shadows. They werehappy in their half-knowledge, and in that blessed preoccupation whichcasts out fear.

But some time in the afternoon he drew for the girl a picture of theancient rite, and he must have been inspired, for, as she once recountedit to me, he seems to have made his book learning like the tale of aneye-witness.

"Why do you tell me this?" she asked.

"Because if we are to play our part we must understand that there isbeauty as well as terror in this worship."

"You speak as if you were a believer."

He laughed. "There is truth in every religion that the heart of man everconceived. It is because of that that we shall win."

But I think his confidence was less complete than hers. I judge fromwhat Maris told me that, though Vernon was what the Scotch call "fey"during those last hours, he retained something of his old carefulprevision. As the twilight fell he took Maris aside and gave him hispistol. "Mitri has orders as soon as he gets out of the House to take alantern to the cliffs and make the signal for my boat. He has a key, andwill open the door in the olive-yard wall. Miss Arabin and I are stakingeverything on a mighty gamble. If it succeeds, I think that the peoplewill be in a stupor and we shall have an opportunity to join you. But ifit fails—well, they will tear us to pieces. You must be close to us andawait events. If the worst happens, one of these bullets is for thelady. Swear to me on your honour as a soldier."

CHAPTER XVIII

I take up the tale now (said Leithen) at the point where I fell in withMaris in the avenue which led to the gap in the wall. As I have toldyou, I had stumbled through the undergrowth with the blazing Housemaking the place an inferno of blood-red aisles and purple thickets.Above the roar of the flames I heard the noise of panic-driven feet, ofmen plunging in haste—two indeed I had met, who seemed to be in theextremity of fear. For myself I was pretty nearly at the end of mytether. I was doddering with fatigue, and desperate with anxiety, andthe only notion in my head was to use the dregs of my strength to dosomething violent. I was utterly in the dark, too. I did not know butthat Koré might be already beyond my help, for that crimson grove seemedto reek of death.

And then I blundered into Maris, saw something in his face which gave mea surge of hope, and with his hand on my arm turned my eyes up theavenue.

The back part of the House and the outbuildings were by this time oneroaring gust of flame, but the front was still untouched, and the fanof fire behind it gave it the concave darkness of a shell—a purple darkwhich might at any moment burst into light. The glow beyond the facadewas reflected farther down the avenue, which was as bright as day, butthe House end was shadowed, and the two figures which I saw seemed to beemerging from a belt of blackness between two zones of raw gold. Itherefore saw them first as two dim white forms, which, as they moved,caught tints of flame....

Put it down to fatigue, if you like, or to natural stupidity, but I didnot recognize them. Besides, you see, I knew nothing of Vernon'spresence there. My breath stopped, and I felt my heart leap to mythroat. What I saw seemed not of the earth—immortals, whether fromHeaven or Hell, coming out of the shadows and the fire in whitegarments, beings that no elements could destroy. In that moment the mostpanicky of the guards now fleeing from the demesne was no more abjectbeliever than I.

And then another fugitive barged into me, and Maris caught him by thearm and cuffed his ears. I saw that it was Janni, but the sight meantnothing to me. The corporal seemed to be whimpering with terror, andMaris talked fiercely to him, but I did not listen. He quieted him, andthen he took us both by an arm and hurried us with him towards the gap.It was what I wanted to do. I dared not look again on that burningpageant.

The next I knew I was beyond the wall on the edge of the Dancing Floor.I do not know how I got there, for my legs seemed to have no power inthem, and I fancy that Maris dragged us both. The scared guards musthave preceded us, for behind was emptiness, save for the presences inthe avenue. The thick trees partly blanketed the fire, but the lightfrom the burning roof fell beyond them and lit up redly the scarp onwhich we stood. A rival light, too, was coming into being. The risingmoon had already flooded the far hills, and its calm radiance wassweeping over the hollow packed with the waiting multitude.

At first I saw only the near fringes of the people—upturned faces inthe uncanny light of the fire. But as I looked, the unfeatured darknessbeyond changed also into faces—faces spectral in the soft moonshine. Iseemed to be standing between two worlds, one crimson with terror andthe other golden with a stranger spell, but both far removed from thekindly works of men.

Maris had pulled us aside out of the line of the breach in the wall,where the avenue made a path for the glow of the fire. We were in fullview of the people, but they had no eyes for us, for their gaze wasconcentrated on the breach. The fugitive guards had by this time beenabsorbed, and their panic had not communicated itself to the greatmultitude. For a second I forgot my own fears in the amazing sightbefore me.... The crowded Dancing Floor was silent; in face of that deepstillness the crackle and roar of the fire seemed no more than thebeating of waves on a far-away coast. Though the moon made the hillsyellow as corn, it left the upturned faces pale. I was looking down on asea of white faces—featureless to me, masks of strained expectation. Ifelt the influence from them beat upon me like a wind. The fierceconcentration of mingled hope and fear—wild hope, wilder fear—surgedup to me, and clutched at my nerves and fired my brain. For a second Iwas as exalted as the craziest of them. Fragments of the dithyramb whichVernon had translated came unbidden to my lips—"Io, Kouros mostgreat.... Come, O come, and bring with thee—holy hours of thy most holySpring."

The spell of the waiting people made me turn, as they had turned, to thegap in the wall. Through it, to the point where the glow of theconflagration mingled with the yellow moonlight, came the two figures.

I think I would have dropped on my knees, but that Maris fetched me aclout on the back, and his exultant voice cried in my ear. "Bravo," hecried. "By the Mother of God, they win! That is a great little lady!"

There was something in the familiarity, the friendly roughness of thevoice which broke the spell. I suddenly looked with seeing eyes, and Isaw Koré.

She was dressed in white, the very gown which had roused Vernon's ire atmy cousin's dance the summer before. A preposterous garment I hadthought it, the vagary of an indecent fashion. But now—ah now! Itseemed the fitting robe for youth and innocence—divine youth, heavenlyinnocence—clothing but scarcely veiling the young Grace who walked likePersephone among the spring meadows. Vera incessu patuit Dea. It wasnot Koré I was looking at, but the Koré, the immortal maiden, whobrings to the earth its annual redemption.

I was a sane man once more, and filled with another kind of exaltation.I have never felt so sharp a sense of joy. God had not failed us. I knewthat Koré was now not only safe but triumphant.

And then I recognized Vernon.

I did not trouble to think by what mad chance he had come there. Itseemed wholly right that he should be there. He was dressed like therunner of the day before, but at the moment I did not connect the two.What I was looking at was an incarnation of something that mankind hasalways worshipped—youth rejoicing to run its race, that youth which isthe security of this world's continuance and the earnest of Paradise.

I recognized my friends, and yet I did not recognize them, for they weretransfigured. In a flash of insight I understood that it was not theKoré and the Vernon that I had known, but new creations. They were notacting a part, but living it. They, too, were believers; they had foundtheir own epiphany, for they had found themselves and each other. Eachother! How I knew it I do not know, but I realized that it was twolovers that stood on the brink of the Dancing Floor. And I felt a greatglow of peace and happiness.

With that I could face the multitude once more. And then I saw thesupreme miracle.

People talk about the psychology of a crowd, how it is different in kindfrom the moods of the men who compose it. I daresay that is true, but ifyou have each individual strained to the extreme of tension with asingle hope, the mood of the whole is the same as that of the parts,only multiplied a thousandfold. And if the nerve of a crowd goes thereis a vast cracking, just as the rending of a tree-trunk is greater thanthe breaking of a twig.

For a second—not more—the two figures stood on the edge of the DancingFloor in the sight of the upturned eyes. I do not think that Koré andVernon saw anything—they had their own inward vision. I do not knowwhat the people saw in the presences that moved out of the darknessabove them.

But this I saw. Over the multitude passed a tremor like a wind in afield of wheat. Instead of a shout of triumph there was a low murmur asof a thousand sighs. And then there came a surge, men and womenstumbling in terror. First the fringes opened and thinned, and inanother second, as it seemed to me, the whole mass was in precipitatemovement. And then it became panic—naked, veritable panic. The silencewas broken by hoarse cries of fear. I saw men running like hares on theslopes of the Dancing Floor. I saw women dragging their children as iffleeing from a pestilence.... In a twinkling I was looking down on anempty glade with the Spring of the White Cypress black and solitary inthe moonlight.

I did not doubt what had happened. The people of Plakos had gone afterstrange gods, but it was only for a short season that they could shakethemselves free from the bonds of a creed which they had held for athousand years. The resurgence of ancient faiths had obscured but hadnot destroyed the religion into which they had been born. Their spellshad been too successful. They had raised the Devil and now fled from himin the blindest terror. They had sought the outlands, had felt theirbiting winds, and had a glimpse of their awful denizens, and they longedwith the passion of children for their old homely shelters. The priestof Kynætho would presently have his fill of stricken penitents.

Maris was laughing. I daresay it was only a relief from nervous strain,but it seemed to me an impiety. I turned on him angrily. "There's a boatsomewhere. See that everybody is aboard—the whole household. And bringit round to the harbour where we first landed."

"Not to the olive-yards?" he asked.

"No, you fool. To the harbour. Plakos is now as safe for us as thestreets of Athens."

Koré and Vernon stood hand in hand like people in a dream. I think theywere already dimly aware of what had happened, and were slowly comingback to the ordinary world. The virtue was going out of them, and withthe ebbing of their exaltation came an immense fatigue. I never sawhuman faces so pale.

Vernon was the first to recover. He put his arm round Koré's waist, forwithout it she would have fallen, but he himself was none too steady onhis feet. He recognized me.

"Ned," he said, in a stammering voice, like a sleep-walker's. "I heardyou were here. It was good of you, old man.... What do you think ...now ... the boat ..."

"Come along," I cried, and I took an arm of each. "The sooner you are onboard the better. You want to sleep for a week." I started them offalong the edge of the Dancing Floor.

"Not that way," he gasped. "Too risky ..."

"There is no danger anywhere in this blessed island. Come along. Youwant food and clothes. It's getting on for midnight, and you're bothonly half-dressed."

They were like two children pulled out of bed and too drowsy to walk,and I had my work cut out getting them along the ridge. The DancingFloor was empty, and when we entered the road which led from Kynætho tothe main gate of the House there was also solitude. Indeed, we had topass through a segment of the village itself, and the place was silentas the grave. I knew where the people were—in and around the church,grovelling in the dust for their sins.

Our going was so slow that by the time we looked down on the harbour theboat was already there. I stopped for a moment and glanced back, forfar behind me I heard voices. There was a glow as from torches to thesouth where the church stood, and a murmur which presently swelled intoan excited clamour. Suddenly a bell began to ring, and it seemed as ifthe noise became antiphonal, voices speaking and others replying. Atthat distance I could make out nothing, but I knew what the voices said.It was "Christ is risen—He is risen indeed."

The moon had set before we put to sea. My last recollection of Plakos islooking back and seeing the House flaming like a pharos on its headland.Then, as we beat outward with the wind, the fire became a mere point ofbrightness seen at a great distance in the vault of night.

I had no wish or power to sleep. Koré and Vernon, wrapped each in a heapof cloaks, lay in the bows. It was the quietest place, but there was noneed of precautions, for they slept like the drugged. Élise, whosenerves had broken down, was in Vernon's berth, Black George had thehelm, and old Mitri and Janni snored beside him.

I sat amidships and smoked. When the moon went down a host of stars cameout, pale and very remote as they always seem in a spring sky. The windwas light and the water slid smoothly past; I knew roughly our bearings,but I had a sense of being in another world, and on seas never beforesailed by man. The last week had been for me a time of acute anxietyand violent bodily exertion, but a sponge seemed to have passed over thememory of it. Something altogether different filled my mind. I had withmy own eyes seen Fate take a hand in the game and move the pieces on theboard. The two sleepers in the bows had trusted their destiny and hadnot been betrayed.

I thought with contrition of my cynicism about Vernon's dream. No doubtit had been a will-o'-the-wisp, but it had been true in purpose, for ithad made him wait, alert and aware, on something which had been preparedfor him, and if that something was far different from his forecast thelong expectation had made him ready to seize it. How otherwise could he,with his decorous ancestry and his prudent soul, have become anadventurer...? And Koré? She had stood grimly to the duty which sheconceived Fate to have laid upon her, and Fate, after piling the oddsagainst her, had relented. Perhaps that is the meaning of courage. Itwrestles with circumstance, like Jacob with the angel, till it compelsits antagonist to bless it.

I remembered a phrase which Vernon had once used about "the mailedvirgin." It fitted this girl, and I began to realize the meaning ofvirginity. True purity, I thought, whether in woman or man, wassomething far more than the narrow sex thing which was the common notionof it. It meant keeping oneself, as the Bible says, altogether unspottedfrom the world, free from all tyranny and stain, whether of flesh orspirit, defying the universe to touch even the outworks of the sanctuarywhich is one's soul. It must be defiant, not the inert fragile crystal,but the supple shining sword. Virginity meant nothing unless it wasmailed, and I wondered whether we were not coming to a betterunderstanding of it. The modern girl, with all her harshness, had thegallantry of a free woman. She was a crude Artemis, but her feet were onthe hills. Was the blushing, sheltered maid of our grandmother's day nomore than an untempted Aphrodite?

These were queer reflections, I know, for a man like me, but they gaveme contentment, as if I had somehow made my peace with life. For a longtime I listened to the ripple of the water and watched the sky lightento dim grey, and the east flush with sunrise. It had become very coldand I was getting sleepy, so I hunted about for a mattress to makemyself a bed. But a thought made me pause. How would these two, who hadcome together out of the night, shake down on the conventional roads ofmarriage? To the end of time the desire of a woman should be to herhusband. Would Koré's eyes, accustomed to look so masterfully at life,ever turn to Vernon in the surrender of wifely affection? As I looked atthe two in the bows I wondered.

Then something happened which reassured me. The girl stirred uneasily asif in a bad dream, turned to where Vernon lay, and flung out her hand.Both were sound asleep, but in some secret way the impulse must havebeen communicated to Vernon, for he moved on his side, and brought anarm, which had been lying loosely on the rug which covered him, athwartKoré's in a gesture of protection.

After that both seemed to be at peace, while the yawl ran towards themainland hills, now green as a fern in the spring dawn.

THE END.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT
THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS

[End of The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan]

The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan (2024)

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