A DEMAND, AND A COWARD
"Hello!" cried Lindbohm, "what's the hubbub?"
It was the morning of the second of May. Curtis and his two friends
were sitting in the mayor's café, drinking muddy black coffee, served
in tiny cups.
Noisy voices, as of an increasing and excited throng, were audible.
Michali, the mayor and the Swede rushed to the door, but were almost
immediately swept back on the crest of an angry human wave. Two or
three tall young shepherds, with long crooks in their left hands and
with hairy cloaks thrown over their shoulders, were flinging their
fists in the air and shouting hoarsely. Papa-Maleko, fully as tall as
they, and looming above them by the height of his priest's hat, was
flourishing angrily a bit of letter paper, and evidently attempting to
out-yell them. His head was thrown back and his great black beard,
jerked by his rapidly moving chin, twitched and danced upon his breast.
Every moment more men, women and children crowded into the café, until
it became thronged to suffocation. Curtis seized the little table that
stood before him firmly with both hands and pulled it over his lame
foot.
The demarch, clambering upon a bench, shouted and gesticulated,
evidently for order. His efforts, at first unavailing, at last
resulted in partial quiet, and he began to speak. He finished and
stepped down. Then one of the shepherds jumped upon the improvised
platform. He was no orator, but with few and hesitating words, told
his story. It was evidently a case where facts were eloquent, for his
voice was soon drowned in an inextinguishable roar, in the midst of
which Papa-Maleko sprang upon another bench and commenced to speak,
still shaking the bit of paper. Silence again fell. Curtis could
understand scarcely anything. Each of the speakers talked so rapidly
that the words seemed all joined together into one word of interminable
length. He only knew that he was listening to an outburst of wild,
crude eloquence--the eloquence of passion--the exultation of righteous
indignation. When the priest had finished he tore the paper into
little bits, and threw them into the air with thumbs and fingers
extended like the ribs of a fan, the Greek gesture of a curse.
"Na!" he cried.
In the moment of silence, of evident perplexity, which followed, Curtis
arose, and, seizing Michali firmly by the shoulder, pulled him nearer.
"What in heaven's name is all this?" he asked.
"Bad, very bad," replied the Cretan. "Kostakes Effendi, with two
hundred and fifty men, has two villages destroyed on other side of
mountain, and kill many people. He write letter and say we send him
Panayota, the priest's daughter, for his harem, he go 'way. If no, he
come through the pass, burn, kill."
Curtis sank upon the seat and stared dumbly at the broad back of the
villager just before him. It expanded into the front of a whitewashed
cottage, with a laughing Greek girl standing beneath a porch of vines.
She had soft brown hair, large chestnut eyes and a low, broad forehead.
As he looked, a frightened expression crept into the eyes, and she
turned them upon him appealingly.
"By God, they shan't have her!" he cried aloud, smiting the table with
his fist. Rising without thinking of his foot, he began to shout the
situation excitedly into Lindbohm's ear. The latter listened with
apparent stolidity, but, making a thrust with the imaginary sword,
punched the broad back viciously with his fist.
Another of the shepherds mounted the bench. Papa-Maleko surged through
the crowd and shook his fist at the speaker. This last orator was
about forty years of age, sturdy and florid. He had small, keen eyes
and a conciliatory manner.
"What does he say?" asked Lindbohm of Michali.
"He say, send the girl. We have but little ammunition, few guns.
Kostakes Effendi have plenty men, plenty guns. Better one suffer than
all. Kostakes, he say is no genuine Turk anyway. His mother was a
Greek--he probably marry the girl."
Then an unexpected thing happened. The orator was having a visible
effect on a portion of his audience. He was dispersing the patriotic
exaltation of the weaker minded, and was causing even the boldest to
feel the hopelessness of their condition. At this critical moment the
Swede, who had grown deathly pale, gave way to frenzy. He threw the
listening throng to right and left as easily as though he were walking
through a field of tall wheat. Reaching the bench of the astonished
orator, he kicked it from under him. The Cretan sprang to his feet and
drew his knife. Lindbohm seized the uplifted wrist and twisted it
until the weapon fell to the floor. Then he savagely hustled the
orator through the crowd, too astonished to interfere, to the door, the
entire throng surging into the open air after him. Curtis forgot his
foot, but was sharply reminded of it, by putting it on the floor in his
eagerness to follow. When he finally reached the door, Lindbohm was
bounding merrily after the escaping coward, beating him over the back
with his own staff. Some of the Cretans were laughing and others were
shouting "Bravo!"
"He will go to join the Turks," said Michali to Curtis.
"That's where he ought to be," replied the American.