TO NO AVAIL
The priest strode by his daughter's side, his hand still lying upon
hers. As the cavalcade started he shuddered, and, looking at Panayota,
sobbed:
"Oh, my daughter! Would to God you were in your grave beside your
mother!"
She put out her white arm, and laid it around his neck.
"I am my mother's child," she replied, piously, "I shall find death
somehow sooner than dishonor."
An occasional corpse lay in their path. Curtis observed with pleasure
that red, woolen flower pots were beside two of the bodies, but a wave
of indignation and pity passed over him as his horse shied from a
corpulent body, bent horribly over a sharp backbone of rock. The head
lolled downward, and the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward out of
sight. There were two red pits beneath the eyes, that made the whites
look doubly ghastly.
Curtis lifted his hat.
"Why do you do that?" asked the Captain.
"Because he died like a brave man," replied the American, shuddering as
he thought of the jolly and hospitable demarch, who, like an heroic
captain of a sinking ship, had remained at his post of duty until
escape became impossible.
"I fear you like the Greeks better than you do the Turks," observed
Kostakes. "You do not know us yet. You will like us better when you
have been with us a few days."
Curtis was determined to be politic. Only thus, he foresaw, could he
hope to be of any help to Panayota.
"He stayed behind to fight, when he might have escaped. Had he been a
Turk, I should have taken off my hat just the same."
They were about to enter the ravine. From their elevated position the
whole town was visible. The American turned in his saddle and cast a
glance backward. The smoke from a score of fires tumbled heavenward
until, commingling, it formed a somber roof above the town, supported
by trembling and bending pillars. There was the distant sea--the very
spot where the "Holy Mary" had been sunk. The little stream, whose
course they had followed to the ill-fated town, looked no larger than a
silver thread. There was the square, ending in the ledge upon which he
had first seen Panayota with the water jug upon her shoulder. It had
been but a short time ago, a few hours comparatively, and here she was
now, a captive being led away in all probability to a shameful fate.
Curtis seemed to have lived ages in the past few days, and yet their
whole history flashed through his mind during the brief moment of this
parting glance. There was the girl, beautiful, desolate, defiant, pure
as snow; her hand rested on the shoulder of her father, in one of those
pitiful, yet sublime feminine caresses that cry "courage" when, even
God Himself seems to fail. She was a Christian, the father a Christian
priest, and this was the nineteenth century of our blessed Lord, and
there, but a few miles away, lay the great battleships of the Christian
powers of Europe, defending the integrity of the Turkish empire!
Curtis gave such a violent start that he nearly fell out of his saddle.
Great heavens, was not that the café on fire? The café, where he had
left hidden his comrade and friend, Michali, the brave, the boyish, the
noble-minded!
"Monsieur!" he cried, "the café! It is burning!"
"Oh, I think not," replied Kostakes.
"But it is. I can see it plainly; you must send people back to put it
out."
Kostakes took a pair of field glasses from the hands of an orderly,
and, calmly adjusting the focus, looked down the hill, while the little
army, escorting Panayota and her father, marched rapidly past, and were
swallowed up in the ravine.
"You are right," he said, "it is indeed the café."
"But you are not sending anybody back to put it out!"
"Monsieur could hardly ask me to do that much for sentiment. Some of
my rascals must have eluded my vigilance. They shall be punished."
Curtis whirled his horse around, urging it with his fists and his sound
foot, and started back toward the town. But the way was steep and
rough, and the animal had not gone ten paces before two soldiers sprang
to its head and seized the bridle on each side. Curtis kicked and
struck at them, and, suddenly overcome with a paroxysm of rage, swore
at them, but all to no avail. They turned the horse around and led it
back to Kostakes.
"Monsieur's sentiment must be very strong," said the Captain, smiling
sweetly.
"There's a wounded man in that building. A wounded man, I tell you,
and he'll burn up alive!"
Kostakes shrugged his shoulders.
"It cannot be helped," he replied, "in war, what is a man more or less?
But we must not delay. _Allons_, Monsieur."
And he spurred his horse to a brisk walk, while a stout Turk, throwing
the bridle rein of Curtis' animal over his shoulder, trotted along
after.
The American looked back.
"I'll slip off and run to the café," he thought, "foot or no foot--damn
the foot, anyway!" But another soldier with a loaded musket was
following close behind. In his despair, the thought of his passport
occurred to him. He pulled it from his pocket with feverish haste. It
was badly damaged by water, but it held together and the big seal was
still there. Urging his horse forward, he flourished the document in
Kostakes' face and shouted:
"I am an American citizen. Do you see that? Voilà! If you do not let
me go you suffer for it."
But all to no avail. He was hustled along by order of the smiling and
affable Kostakes, and the last thing his eyes rested upon as he plunged
into the ravine was a cloud of smoke pouring from the front door of the
demarch's café.