A HOPELESS PRISONER
Panayota was walking to and fro in a room whose one window looked
straight against the blank wall of a house not ten feet distant. A
grating of iron bars prevented her escape in that direction and the
door was locked. She was very pale and there were deep circles under
her eyes. She was muttering as one distracted. Occasionally she
raised her eyes and hands to heaven.
"Dear little Virgin, all Holy One, save me from this infamy, from the
pollution of the Turk. Save me in any way, help me to escape or to
die!"
After each prayer she stood listening, as though waiting for an
immediate response--some miraculous intervention in her behalf. Often
seized by utter despair, she sank her fingers deep into her thick brown
locks, and cried:
"No help, no help, O God! O God!"
At every sound of a footstep without, or of any commotion in the court
below, her pale face grew paler, and she trembled with fear and
revulsion. She was expecting Kostakes. For a week now the girl had
been shut up in this manner. Kostakes had left her in the care of his
harem, with stern commands that she be kindly treated and all her wants
supplied. Ayesha and Souleima had derived much pleasure from attending
upon Panayota, as though she were indeed a member of the harem and
their lord's favorite; for thus they caused Ferende, whom they
cordially hated, much unhappiness. It seemed to Panayota that she had
been in captivity an age. For the first three or four days she had
hoped for a rescue by Lindbohm and Curtis and their band of insurgents.
Time and again the wild scenes which she had witnessed passed through
her mind as she stood with hands clasped and eyes half closed in the
middle of the floor. She saw again the impetuous Swede chasing Ampates
out of town because the scoundrel had wished to give her up; she saw
Curtis standing before her with his smoking rifle, while the fallen
Turk, his features still twitching in the death agony, lay at her feet.
But as the days passed and no help came, her keen hope faded into the
blackness of despair.
"They cannot find me," she moaned; "perhaps they're dead. Perhaps they
think I have yielded to the Turk, and they despise me. Do they not
know that I would die first?" Whenever she thought of death, her mind
involuntarily sought for some method by which she could accomplish it,
if worst came to worst. To hold her breath, to plunge her head against
the side of the wall, to strangle herself with a strip torn from her
bed clothing,--all these ideas suggested themselves. And as often as
she thought of self-destruction, there rose to memory a slender white
shaft that had frequently been pointed out to her in childhood. For
there had once been a suicide in her native village, and the body had
been buried in a lonely place on a hill, far away from the holy
comradeship, the blessed crosses and the benediction of God's acre.
This isolated tomb had made a great impression on her childish mind.
She and the other children had always crossed themselves when they saw
it, and they never mentioned the dead man's name. It seemed a terrible
thing not to be buried in consecrated ground.