Phroso. Anthony HopeЧитать онлайн книгу.

      “WHO STABBED HIM?”

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

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

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

      She shrank from me as though I had struck her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘Still of the same,’ said I.

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

      ‘It is five o’clock.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘Well, we can’t go now,’