Phroso Part 48

Many have called me a fool for it since. I know nothing about that.

Times change, and people are very wise nowadays. My father was a fool, I daresay, to give thousands to his spendthrift school-fellow, just because he happened to have said he would.

I saw them now, the bright picturesque crowd, thronging round the door of the house; and on the step of the threshold I saw her, standing there, tall and slim, with one hand resting on the arm of Kortes's sister. A loud cry rose from the people. She did not seem to speak.

With set teeth I walked on. Now someone in the circle caught sight of me. There was another eager cry, a stir, shouts, gestures; then they turned and ran to me. Before I could move or speak a dozen strong hands were about me. They swung me up on their shoulders and carried me along; the rest waved their hands and cheered: they blessed me and called me their lord. The women laughed and the girls shot merry shy glances at me. Thus they bore me in triumph to Phroso's feet. Surely I was indeed a hero in Neopalia to-day, for they believed that through me their Lady would be left to them, and their island escape the punishment they feared. So they sang One-eyed Alexander's chant no more, but burst into a glad hymn--an epithalamium--as I knelt at Phroso's feet, and did not dare to lift my eyes to her fair face.

'Here's a mess!' I groaned, wondering what they had said to my poor Phroso.

Then a sudden silence fell on them. Looking up in wonder, I saw that Phroso had raised her hand and was about to speak. She did not look at me--nay, she did not look at them; her eyes were fixed on the sea that she loved. Then her voice came, low but clear:

'Friends--for all are friends here, and there are no strangers--once before, in the face of all of you I have told my love for my lord. My lord did not know that what I said was true, and I have not told him that it was true till I tell him here to-day. But you talk foolishly when you greet me as my lord's bride; for in his country he is a great man and owns great wealth, and Neopalia is very small and poor, and I seem but a poor girl to him, though you call me your Lady.'

Here she paused an instant; then she went on, her voice sinking a little lower and growing almost dreamy, as if she let herself drift idly on the waves of fancy.

'Is it strange to speak to you--to you, my brothers and sisters of our island? I do not know; I love to speak to you all; for, poor as I am and as our island is, I think sometimes that had my lord come here a free man he would have loved me. But his heart was not his own, and the lady he loves waits for him at home, and he will go to her. So wish me joy no more on what cannot be.' And then, very suddenly, before I or any of them could move or speak, she withdrew inside the threshold, and Kortes's sister swiftly closed the door. I was on my feet as it shut, and I stood facing it, my back to the islanders.

Among them at first there was an amazed silence, but soon voices began to be heard. I turned round and met their gaze. The strong yoke of Mouraki was off them; their fear had gone, and with it their meekness. They were again in the fierce impetuous mood of St Tryphon's day: they were exasperated at their disappointment, enraged to find the plan which left Phroso to them and relieved them of the threatened advent of a Government nominee brought to nothing.

'They'll take her away,' said one.

'They'll send us a rascally Turk,' cried another.

'He shall hear the death-chant then,' menaced a third.

Then their anger, seeking an outlet, turned on me. I do not know that I had the right to consider myself an entirely innocent victim.

'He has won her love by fraud,' muttered one to another, with evil-disposed glances and ominous frowns.

I thought they were going to handle me roughly, and I felt for the revolver which the captain had been kind enough to restore to me. But a new turn was given to their thoughts by a tall fellow, with long hair and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, who leapt out from the middle of the throng, crying loudly:

'Is not Mouraki dead? Why need we fear? Shall we wait idle while our Lady is taken from us? To the sh.o.r.e, islanders! Where is fear since Mouraki is dead?'

His words lit a torch that blazed up furiously. In an instant they were aflame with the mad notion of attacking the soldiers and the gunboat. No voice was raised to point out the hopelessness of such an attempt, the certain death and the heavy penalties which must wait on it. The death-chant broke out again, mingled with exhortations to turn and march against the soldiers, and with encouragements to the tall fellow--Orestes they called him--to put himself at their head. He was not loth.

'Let us go and get our guns and our knives,' he cried, 'and then to the sh.o.r.e!'

'And this man?' called half-a-dozen, pointing at me.

'When we have driven out the soldiers we will deal with him,' said Master Orestes. 'If our Lady desires him for her husband, he shall wed her.'

A shout of approval greeted this arrangement, and they drew together into a sort of rude column, the women making a fringe to it. But I could not let them march on their own destruction without a word of warning. I sprang on to the raised step where Phroso had stood, just outside the door, and cried:

'You fools! The guns of the s.h.i.+p will mow you down before you can touch a hair of the head of a single soldier.'

A deep derisive groan met my attempt at dissuasion.

'On, on!' they cried.

'It's certain death,' I shouted, and now I saw one or two of the women hesitate, and look first at me and then at each other with doubt and fear. But Orestes would not listen, and called again to them to take the road. Thus we were when the door behind me opened, and Phroso was again by my side. She knew how matters went. Her eyes were wild with terror and distress.

'Stop them, my lord, stop them,' she implored.

For answer, I took my revolver from my pocket, saying, 'I'll do what I can.'

'No, no, not like that! That would be your death as well as theirs.'

'Come,' cried Orestes, in the pride of his sudden elevation to leaders.h.i.+p. 'Come, follow me, I'll lead you to victory.'

'You fools, you fools!' I groaned. 'In an hour half of you will be dead.'

No, they would not listen. Only the women now laid imploring hands on the arms of husbands and brothers, useless loving restraints, angrily flung off.

'Stop them, stop them!' prayed Phroso. 'By any means, my lord, by any means!'

'There's only one way,' said I.

'Whatever the way may be,' she urged; for now the column was facing round towards the harbour. Orestes had taken his place, swelling with importance and eager to display his prowess. In a word, Neopalia was in revolt again, and the death-chant threatened to swell out in all its barbaric simple savagery at any moment.

There was nothing else for it; I must temporise; and that word is generally, and was in this case, the equivalent of a much shorter one.

I could not leave these mad fools to rush on ruin. A plan was in my head and I gave it play. I took a pace forward, raised my hand, and cried:

'Hear me before you march, Neopalians, for I am your friend.'

My voice gained me a minute's silence; the column stood still, though Orestes chafed impatiently at the delay.

'You're in haste, men of Neopalia,' said I. 'Indeed you're always in haste. You were in haste to kill me who had done you no harm. You are in haste to kill yourselves by marching into the mouth of the great gun of the s.h.i.+p. In truth I wonder that any of you are still alive.

But here, in this matter, you are most of all in haste, for having heard what the Lady Phroso said, you have not asked nor waited to hear what I say, but have at once gone mad, all of you, and chosen the maddest among you and made him your leader.'

I do not think that they had expected quite this style of speech. They had looked for pa.s.sionate reproaches or prayerful entreaties; cool scorn and chaff put them rather at a loss, and my reference to Orestes, who looked sour enough, won me a hesitating laugh.

'And then, all of you mad together, off you go, leaving me here, the only sane man in the place! For am not I sane? Aye, not mad enough to leave the fairest lady in the world when she says she loves me!' I took Phroso's hand and kissed it. It lay limp and cold in mine. 'For my home,' I went on, 'is a long way off, and it is long since I have seen the lady of whom you have heard; and a man's heart will not be denied.' Again I kissed Phroso's hand, but I dared not look her in the face.

My meaning had dawned on them now. There was an instant's silence, the last relic of doubt and puzzle; then a sudden loud shout went up from them. Orestes alone was sullen and mute, for my surrender deposed him from his brief eminence. Again and again they shouted in joy. I knew that their shouts must reach nearly to the harbour. Men and women crowded round me and seized my hand; n.o.body seemed to make any bones about the 'lady who waited' for me. They were single-hearted patriots, these Neopalians. I had observed that virtue in them several times before, and their behaviour now confirmed my opinion. But there was, of course, a remarkable difference in the manifestation. Before I had been the object, now I was the subject; for by announcing my intention of marrying Phroso I took rank as a Neopalian. Indeed for a minute or two I was afraid that the post of generalissimo, vacant by Orestes's deposition, would be forcibly thrust upon me.

Happily their enthusiasm took a course which was more harmless, although it was hardly less embarra.s.sing. They made a ring round Phroso and me, and insisted on our embracing one another in the glare of publicity. Yet somehow I forgot them all for a moment--them all, and more than them all--while I held her in my arms.

Now it chanced that the captain, Denny and Hogvardt chose this moment for appearing on the road, in the course of a leisurely approach to the house; and they beheld Phroso and myself in a very sentimental att.i.tude on the doorstep, with the islanders standing round in high delight. Denny's amazed 'Hallo!' warned me of what had happened. The islanders--their enmity towards the suzerain power allayed as quickly as it had been roused--ran to the captain to impart the joyful news.

He came up to me, and bestowed his sanction by a shake of the hand.

'But why did you behave so strangely, my lord, when I wished you joy an hour ago on the boat?' he asked; and it was a very natural question.

'Oh, the truth is,' said I, 'that there was a little difficulty in the way then.'

'Oh, a lover's quarrel?' he smiled.

'Well, something like it,' I admitted.

'Everything is quite right now, I hope?' he said politely.

'Well, very nearly,' said I. Then I met Denny's eye.