I cannot tell you the story just as Nikola told it to me, with all
that flow of language common in a Greek, my memory is not good enough
for that; but the facts, and some of his quaint expressions, I can
recount, for these I never shall forget. My travel took me to a distant
island of the Greek Archipelago, called Sikinos, last winter, an island
only to be reached by a sailing-boat, and here, in quarters of the
humblest nature, I was storm-stayed for five long days. Nikola had been
my muleteer on an expedition I made to a remote corner of the island
where still are to be traced the ruins of an ancient Hellenic town, and
about a mile from it a temple of Pythian Apollo. He was a fine stalwart
fellow of thirty or thereabouts; he had a bright intelligent face,
and he wore the usual island costume, namely, knickerbocker trousers
of blue homespun calico, with a fulness, which hangs down between the
legs, and when full of things, for it is the universal pocket, wabbles
about like the stomach of a goose; on his head he wore a faded old fez,
his feet were protected from the stones by sandals of untanned skin,
and he carried a long stick in his hand with which to drive his mule.
Sikinos is perhaps the most unattainable corner of Europe, being
nothing but a barren harborless rock in the middle of the Ægean
sea, possessing as a fleet one caique, which occasionally goes to a
neighboring island where the steamer stops, to see if there are any
communications from the outer world, and four rotten fishing boats,
which seldom venture more than a hundred yards from the shore. The
fifteen hundred inhabitants of this rock lead a monotonous life in
two villages, one of which is two hundred years old, fortified and
dirty, and called the “Kastro,” or the “camp”; the other is modern,
and about five minutes’ walk from the camp, and is called “the other
place”; so nomenclature in Sikinos is simple enough. The inhabitants
are descended from certain refugees who, two hundred years ago, fled
from Crete during a revolution, and built the fortified village up on
the hillside out of the reach of pirates, and remained isolated from
the world ever since. Before they came, Sikinos had been uninhabited
since the days of the ancient Greeks. The only two men in the place who
have travelled—that is to say, who have been as far as Athens—are the
Demarch, who is the chief legislator of the island, and looked up to as
quite a man of the world, and Nikola, the muleteer.
I must say, the last thing I expected to hear in Sikinos was a romance,
but on one of the stormy days of detention there, with the object of
whiling away an hour, I paid a visit to Nikola in his clean white house
in “the other place.” He met me on the threshold with a hearty “We have
well met,” bade me sit down on his divan, and sent his wife—a bright,
buxom young woman—for the customary coffee, sweets, and raki; he rolled
me a cigarette, which he carefully licked, to my horror, but which I
dared not refuse to smoke, cursed the weather, and stirred the embers
in the brazier preparatory to attacking me with a volley of questions.
I always disarm inquisitiveness on such occasions by being inquisitive
myself. “How long have you been married?” “How many children have you
got?” “How old is your wife?” and by the time I had asked half a dozen
such questions, Nikola, after the fashion of the Greeks, had forgotten
his own thirst for knowledge in his desire to satisfy mine.
In Nikola’s case unparalleled success attended this manœuvre, and from
the furtive smiles which passed between husband and wife I realised
that some mystery was attached to their unions which I forthwith made
it my business, to solve.
“I always call her ‘my statue,’” said the muleteer, laughing, “‘my
marble statue,’” and he slapped her on the back to show that, at any
rate, she was made of pretty hard material.
“Can Pygmalion have married Galatea after all?” I remarked for the
moment, forgetting the ignorance of my friends on such topics, but a
Greek never admits that he does not understand, and Nikola replied,
“No; her name is Kallirhoe, and she was the priest’s daughter.”
Having now broached the subject, Nikola was all anxiety to continue it;
he seated himself on one chair, his wife took another, ready to prompt
him if necessary, and remind him of forgotten facts. I sat on the
divan; between us was the brazier; the only cause for interruption came
from an exceedingly naughty child, which existed as a living testimony
that this modern Galatea had recovered from her transformation into
stone.
“I was a gay young fellow in those days,” began Nikola.
“Five years ago last carnival time,” put in the wife, but she subsided
on a frown from her better half; for Greek husbands never meekly
submit, like English ones, to the lesser portion of command, and the
Greek wife is the pattern of a weaker vessel, seldom sitting down to
meals, cooking, spinning, slaving,—a mere chattel, in fact.
“I was the youngest of six—two sisters and four brothers, and we four
worked day after day to keep our old father’s land in order, for we
were very poor, and had nothing to live upon except the produce of our
land.”
Land in Sikinos is divided into tiny holdings: one man may possess half
a dozen plots of land in different parts of the island, the produce
of which—the grain, the grapes, the olives, the honey, etc.—he brings
on mules to his store (ἀποθήκη) near the village. Each landowner has
a store and a little garden around it on the hillside, just outside
the village, of which the stores look like a mean extension, but on
visiting them we found their use.
“We worked every day in the year except feast-days, starting early with
our ploughs, our hoes, and our pruning hooks, according to the season,
and returning late, driving our bullocks and our mules before us.” An
islander’s tools are simple enough—his plough is so light that he can
carry it over his shoulders as he drives the bullocks to their work. It
merely scratches the back of the land, making no deep furrows; and when
the work is far from the village the husbandman starts from home very
early, and seldom returns till dusk.
“On feast-days we danced on the village square. I used to look forward
to those days, for then I met Kallirhoe, the priest’s daughter, who
danced the _syrtos_ best of all the girls, tripping as softly as a
Nereid,” said Nikola, looking approvingly at his wife. I had seen a
_syrtos_ at Sikinos, and I could testify to the fact that they dance
it well, revolving in light wavy lines backwards, forwards, now quick,
now slow, until you do not wonder that the natives imagine those
mystic beings they call Nereids to be for ever dancing thus in the
caves and grottoes. The _syrtos_ is a semicircular dance of alternate
young men and maidens, holding each other by handkerchiefs, not from
modesty, as one might at first suppose, but so as to give more liberty
of action to their limbs, and in dancing this dance it would appear
Nikola and Kallirhoe first felt the tender passion of love kindled
in their breasts. But between the two a great gulf was fixed, for
marriages amongst a peasantry so shrewd as the Greeks are not so easily
settled as they are with us. Parents have absolute authority over their
daughters, and never allow them to marry without a prospect, and before
providing for any son a father’s duty is to give his daughters a house
and a competency, and he expects any suitor for their hand to present
an equivalent in land and farm stock. The result of this is to create
an overpowering stock of maiden ladies, and to drive young men from
home in search of fortunes and wives elsewhere.
This was the breach which was fixed between Nikola and
Kallirhoe—apparently a hopeless case, for Nikola had sisters, and
brothers, and poverty-stricken parents; he never could so much as hope
to call a spade his own; during all his life he would have to drudge
and slave for others. They could not run away; that idea never occurred
to them, for the only escape from Sikinos was by the solitary caique.
“I had heard rumors,” continued Nikola, “of how men from other islands
had gone to far-off countries and returned rich, but how could I, who
had never been off this rock in all my life?
“I should have had to travel by one of those steamers which I had seen
with their tail of smoke on the horizon, and about which I had pondered
many a time, just like you, sir, may look and ponder at the stars; and
to travel I should require money, which I well knew my father would not
give me, for he wanted me for his slave. My only hope, and that was
a small one, was that the priest, Papa Manoulas, Kallirhoe’s father,
would not be too hard on us when he saw how we loved each other. He
had been the priest to dip me in the font at my baptism; he always
smoked a pipe with father once a week; he had known me all my life as
a steady lad, who only got drunk on feast-days. ‘Perhaps he will give
his consent,’ whispered my mother, putting foolish hopes into my brain.
Poor old woman! she was grieved to see her favorite looking worn and
ill, listless at his work, and for ever incurring the blame of father
and brothers; only when I talked to her about Kallirhoe did my face
brighten a little, so she said one day, ‘Papa Manoulas is kind; likely
enough he may wish to see Kallirhoe happy.’ So one evil day I consented
to my mother’s plan, that she should go and propose for me.”
Some explanation is here necessary. At Sikinos, as in other remote
corners of Greece, they still keep up a custom called προξενία. The
man does not propose in person, but sends an old female relative to
seek the girl’s hand from her parents; this old woman must have on
one stocking white and the other red or brown. “Your stockings of two
colors make me think that we shall have an offer,” sings an island
poem. Nikola’s mother went thus garbed, but returned with a sorrowful
face. “I was made to eat gruel,” said he, using the common expression
in these parts for a refusal, “and nobody ate more than I did. Next
day Papa Manoulas called at our house. My heart stood still as he came
in, and then bubbled over like a seething wine vat when he asked to
speak to me alone. ‘You are a good fellow, Kola,’ he began. ‘Kallirhoe
loves you, and I wish to see you happy;’ and I had fallen on his neck
and kissed him on both cheeks before he could say, ‘Wait a bit, young
man; before you marry her you must get together just a little money; I
will be content with 1,000 drachmas (£40). When you have that to offer
in return for Kallirhoe’s dower you shall be married,’ ‘A thousand
drachmas!’ muttered I. ‘May the God of the ravens help me!’” (an
expression denoting impossibility), “and I burst into tears.”
The men of modern Greece when violently agitated cry as readily as
cunning Ulysses, and are not ashamed of the fact.
“I remember well that evening,” continued Nikola. “I left the house
as it was getting dusk, and climbed down the steep path to the sea. I
wandered for hours amongst the wild mastic and the brushwood. My feet
refused to carry me home that night, so I lay down on the floor in the
little white church, dedicated to my patron saint, down by the harbor,
where we go for our annual festival when the priest blesses the waters
and our boats. Many’s the time, as a lad, I’ve jumped into the water to
fetch out the cross, which the priest throws into the sea with a stone
tied to it on this occasion, and many’s the time I’ve been the lucky
one to bring it up and get a few coppers for my wetting. That night I
thought of tying a stone round my own neck and jumping into the sea, so
that all traces of me might disappear.
“I could not make up my mind to face any one all next day, so I
wandered amongst the rocks, scarcely remembering to feed myself on the
few olives I had in my pocket. I could do nothing but sing ‘The Little
Caique,’ which made me sob and feel better.”
The song of “The Little Caique” is a great favorite amongst the
seafaring men of the Greek islands. It is a melancholy love ditty, of
which the following words are a fairly close translation:—
In a tiny little caique
Forth in my folly one night
To the sea of love I wandered,
Where the land was nowhere in sight.
O my star! O my brilliant star!
Have pity on my youth,
Desert me not, oh! leave me not
Alone in the sea of love!
O my star! O my brilliant star!
I have met you on my path.
Dost thou bid me not tarry near thee?
Are thy feelings not of love?
Lo! suddenly about me fell
The darkness of that night,
And the sea rolled in mountains around me,
And the land was nowhere in sight.
“Towards evening I returned home. My mother’s anxious face told me that
she, too, had suffered during my absence; and out of a pot of lentil
soup, which was simmering on the embers, she gave me a bowlful, and
it refreshed me. To my dying day I shall never forget my father’s and
brothers’ wrath. I had wilfully absented myself for a whole day from my
work. I was called ‘a peacock,’ ‘a burnt man’ (equivalent to a fool),
‘no man at all,’ ‘;horns,’ and any bad name that occurred to them. For
days and weeks after this I was the most miserable, down-trodden Greek
alive, and all on account of a woman.” And here Nikola came to a stop,
and ordered his wife to fetch him another glass of raki to moisten his
throat. No Greek can talk or sing long without a glass of raki.
“About two months after these events,” began Nikola with renewed vigor,
“my father ordered me to clear away a heap of stones which occupied
a corner of a little terrace-vineyard we owned on a slope near the
church of Episcopì.[23] We always thought the stones had been put
there to support the earth from falling from the terrace above, but
it lately had occurred to my father that it was only a heap of loose
stones which had been cleared off the field and thrown there when the
vineyard was made, and the removal of which would add several square
feet to the small holding. Next morning I started about an hour before
the Panagía (Madonna) had opened the gates of the East,[24] with a mule
and panniers to remove the stones. I worked hard enough when I got
there, for the morning was cold, and I was beginning to find that the
harder I worked the less time I had for thought. Stone after stone was
removed, pannier-load after pannier-load was emptied down the cliff,
and fell rattling amongst the brushwood and rousing the partridges and
crows as they fell. After a couple of hours’ work the mound was rapidly
disappearing, when I came across something white projecting upwards. I
looked at it closely; it was a marble foot. More stones were removed,
and disclosed a marble leg, two legs, a body, an arm; a head and
another arm, which had been broken off by the weight of the stones, lay
close by. Though I was somewhat astonished at this discovery, yet I did
not suppose it to be of any value. I had heard of things of this kind
being found before. My father had an ugly bit of marble which came out
of a neighboring tomb. However, I did not throw it over the cliff with
the other stones, but I put it on one side and went on again with my
work.
“All day long my thoughts kept reverting to this statue. It was so
very life-like—so different from the stiff, ugly marble figures I
had seen; and it was so much larger, too, standing nearly four feet
high. Perhaps, thought I, the Panagía has put it here—perhaps it is a
sacred miracle-working thing, such as the priests find in spots like
this. And then suddenly I remembered how, when I was a boy, a great
German _effendi_ had visited Sikinos, and was reported to have dug up
and carried away with him priceless treasures. Is this statue worth
anything? was the question which haunted me all day, and which I would
have given ten years of my young life to solve.
“When my day’s work was over, I put the statue on to my mule, and
carefully covered it over, so that no one might see what I had found;
for though I was hopelessly ignorant of what the value of my discovery
might be, yet instinct prompted me to keep it to myself. It was dark
when I reached the village, and I went straight to the store, sorely
perplexed as to what to do with my treasure. There was no time to bury
it, for I had met one of my brothers, who would tell them at home that
I had returned; so in all haste I hid the cold white thing under the
grain in the corner, trusting that no one would find it, and went home.
I passed a wretched night, dreaming and restless by turns. Once I woke
up in horror, and found it difficult to dispel the effects of a dream
in which I had sold Kallirhoe to a prince, and married the statue by
mistake. And next day my heart stood still when my father went down
to the store with me, shoved his hand into the grain, and muttered
that we must send it up to the mill to be ground. That very night I
went out with a spade and buried my treasure deep in the ground under
the straggling branches of our fig-tree, where I knew it would not be
likely to be disturbed.”
Nikola paused here for a while, stirred the embers with the little
brass tweezers, the only diminutive irons required for so lilliputian a
fire, sang snatches of nasal Greek music, so distasteful to a western
ear, and joined his wife in muttering “winter!” “snow!” “storm!”
and other less elegant invectives against the weather, which these
islanders use when winter comes upon them for two or three days, and
makes them shiver in their wretched unprotected houses; and they make
no effort to protect themselves from it, for they know that in a few
days the sun will shine again and dry them, their mud roofs will cease
to leak, and nature will smile once more.
If they do get mysterious illnesses they will attribute them to
supernatural causes, saying a Nereid or a sprite has struck them,
and never suspect the damp. Nature’s own pupils they are. Their only
medical suggestion is that all illnesses are worms in the body, which
have been distributed by God’s agents, the mysterious and invisible
inhabitants of the air, to those whose sin requires chastising, or
whose days are numbered. Such is the simple _bacillus_ theory prevalent
in the Greek islands. Who knows but what they are right?
“Never was a poor fellow in such perplexity as I was,” continued
Nikola, “the possessor of a marble woman whose value I could not learn,
and about whom I did not care one straw, whilst I yearned after a woman
whose value I knew to be a thousand drachmas, and whom I could not buy.
My hope, too, was rendered more acute by the vague idea that perhaps my
treasure might prove to be as valuable as Kallirhoe, and I smiled to
think of the folly of the man who would be likely to prefer the cold
marble statue to my plump, warm Kallirhoe. But they tell me that you
cold Northerners have hearts of marble, so I prayed to the Panagía and
all the saints to send some one who would take the statue away, and
give me enough money to buy Kallirhoe.
“I was much more lively now; my father and brothers had no cause to
scold me any longer, for I had hope; every evening now I went to the
_café_ to talk, and all the energy of my existence was devoted to
one object, namely, to get the Demarch to tell me all he knew about
the chances of selling treasures in that big world where the steamer
went, without letting him know that I had found anything. After many
fruitless efforts, one day the Demarch told me how, in the old Turkish
days, before he was born, a peasant of Melos had found a statue of
a woman called Aphrodite, just as I had found mine, in a heap of
stones; that the peasant had got next to nothing for it, but that Mr.
Brest, the French consul, had made a fortune out of it, and that now
the statue was the wonder of the Western world. By degrees I learnt
how relentless foreigners like you, Effendi, do swoop down from time
to time on these islands and carry home what is worth thousands of
drachmas, after giving next to nothing for them. A week or two later, I
learnt from the Demarch’s lips how strict the Greek Government is, that
no marble should leave the country, and that they never give anything
like the value for the things themselves, but that sometimes by dealing
with a foreign _effendi_ in Athens good prices have been got and the
Government eluded.
“Poor me! in those days my hopes grew very very small indeed. How
could I, an ignorant peasant, hope to get any money from anybody?
So I thought less and less about my statue, and more and more about
Kallirhoe, until my face looked haggard again, and my mother sighed.
“My statue had been in her grave nearly a year,” laughed Nikola,
“and after the way of the world she was nearly forgotten, when one
day a caique put in to Sikinos, and two foreign _effendi_—Franks, I
believe—came up to the town; they were the first that had visited our
rock since the German who had opened the graves on the hillside, and
had carried off a lot of gold and precious things. So we all stared at
them very hard, and gathered in crowds around the Demarch’s door to get
a glimpse at them as they sat at table. I was one of the crowd, and as
I looked at them I thought of my buried statue, and my hope flickered
again.
“Very soon the report went about amongst us that they were miners
from Laurion, come to inspect our island and see if we had anything
valuable in the way of minerals; and my father, whose vision it had
been for years to find a mine and make himself rich thereby, was
greatly excited, and offered to lend the strangers his mules. The
old man was too infirm to go himself, greatly to his regret, but he
sent me as muleteer, with directions to conduct the miners to certain
points of the island, and to watch narrowly everything they picked
up. Many times during the day I was tempted to tell them all about my
statue and my hopes, but I remembered what the Demarch had said about
greedy foreigners robbing poor islanders. So I contented myself with
asking all sorts of questions about Athens; who was the richest foreign
_effendi_ there, and did he buy statues? what sort of thing was the
custom, and should I, who came from another part of Greece, be subject
to it if I went? I sighed to go to Athens.
“All day I watched them closely, noted what sort of stones they picked
up, noted their satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and as I watched them
an idea struck me—an idea which made my heart leap and tremble with
excitement.
“That evening I told my father some of those lies which hurt nobody,
and are therefore harmless, as the priests say. I told him I had
acquired a great knowledge of stones that day, that I knew where
priceless minerals were to be found; I drew on my imagination about
possible hidden stores of gold and silver in our rocky Sikinos. I
saw that I had touched the right chord, for though he always told us
hard-working lads that an olive with a kernel gives a boot to a man,
yet I felt sure that his inmost ideas soared higher, and that he was,
like the rest of the Sikiniotes, deeply imbued with the idea that
mineral treasures, if only they could be found, would give a man more
than boots.
“From that day my mode of life was changed. Instead of digging in the
fields and tending the vines, I wandered aimlessly about the island
collecting specimens of stones. I chose them at random—those which
had some bright color in them were the best—and every evening I added
some fresh specimens to my collection, which were placed for safety
in barrels in the store. ‘Don’t say a word to the neighbors,’ was my
father’s injunction; and I really believe they all thought my reason
was leaving me, or how else could they account for my daily wanderings?
“In about a month’s time I had collected enough specimens for my
purpose, and then, with considerable trepidation, one evening I
disclosed my plan to my father. ‘Something must be done with those
specimens,’ I began; and as I said this I saw with pleasure his old
eyes sparkle as he tried to look unconcerned.
“‘Well, Kola, what is to be done with them?’
“‘Simply this, father. I must take them to Athens or Laurion, and get
money down for showing the _effendi_ where the mines are. We can’t work
them ourselves.’
“‘To Athens! to Laurion!’ exclaimed my father, breathless at the bare
notion of so stupendous a journey.
“‘Of course I must,’ I added, laughing, though secretly terrified lest
he should flatly refuse to let me go; and before I went to bed that
night my father promised to give me ten drachmas for my expenses. ‘Only
take a few of your specimens, Kola; keep the best back;’ for my father
is a shrewd man, though he has never left Sikinos. But on this point I
was determined, and would take all or none, so my father grumbled and
called me a ‘peacock,’ but for this I did not care.
“Next day I ordered a box for my specimens. ‘Why not take them in the
old barrels?’ growled my father. But I said they might get broken, and
the specimens inside be seen. So at last a wooden box, just four feet
long and two feet high, was got ready—not without difficulty either,
for wood in Sikinos is rarer than quails at Christmas, and my father
grumbled not a little at the sum he had to pay for it—more than half
the produce of his vintage, poor man! And when I thought how my mother
might not be able to make any cheesecakes at Easter—the pride of her
heart, poor thing!—I almost regretted the game I was playing.”
The Easter cheesecakes of the island (τυρόπηττα) are what they profess
to be; cheese, curd, saffron, and flour being the chief ingredients.
They are reckoned an essential luxury at that time of the year, and
some houses make as many as sixty. It is a sign of great poverty and
deprivation when none are made.
“The caique was to leave next morning if the wind was favorable for
Ios, where the steamer would touch on the following day, and take me on
my wild, uncertain journey. I don’t think I can be called a coward for
feeling nervous on this occasion. I admit that it was only by thinking
steadfastly about Kallirhoe that I could screw up my courage. When it
was quite dark I took the wooden key of the store, and, as carelessly
as I could, said I was going to pack my specimens. My brothers
volunteered to come and help me, for they were all mighty civil now it
became known that I was bound for Athens to make heaps of money, but
I refused their help with a surly ‘good night,’ and set off into the
darkness alone with my spade. I was horribly nervous as I went along;
I thought I saw a Nereid or a Lamia in every olive-tree. At the least
rustle I thought they were swooping down upon me, and would carry me
off into the air, and I should be made to marry one of those terrible
creatures and live in a mountain cavern, which would be worse than
losing Kallirhoe altogether; but St. Nikolas and the Panagía helped me,
and I dug my statue up without any molestation.
“She was a great weight to carry all by myself, but at last I got her
into the store, and deposited her in her new coffin, wedged her in, and
cast a last, almost affectionate look at this marble representation
of life, which had been so constantly in my thoughts for months and
months, and finally I proceeded to bury her with specimens, covering
her so well that not a vestige of marble could be seen for three
inches below the surface. What a weight the box was! I could not lift
it myself, but the deed was done, so I nailed the lid on tightly, and
deposited what was over of my specimens in the hole where the statue
had been reposing, and then I lay down on the floor to rest, not
daring to go out again or leave my treasure. I thought it never would
be morning; every hour of the night I looked out to see if there was
any fear of a change of wind, but it blew quietly and steadily from
the north; it was quite clear that we should be able to make Ios next
morning without any difficulty.
“As soon as it was light I went home. My mother was up, and packing my
wallet with bread and olives. She had put a new cover on my mattress,
which I was to take with me. The poor old dear could hardly speak, so
agitated was she at my departure; my brothers and father looked on
with solemn respect; and I—why, I sat staring out of the window to see
Kallirhoe returning from the well with her _amphora_ on her head. As
soon as I saw her coming, I rushed out to bid her good-bye. We shook
hands. I had not done this for twelve months now, and the effect was
to raise my courage to the highest pitch, and banish all my nocturnal
fears.
“Mother spilt a jug of water on the threshold, as an earnest of success
and a happy return. My father and my brothers came down to the store to
help me put the box on to the mule’s back, and greatly they murmured at
the weight thereof. ‘There’s gold there,’ muttered my father beneath
his breath. ‘Kola will be a prince some day,’ growled my eldest brother
jealously, and I promised to make him Eparch of Santorin, or Demarch of
Sikinos if he liked that better.
“The bustle of the journey hardly gave me a moment for thought. I was
very ill crossing over in the caique to Ios, during which time my
cowardice came over me again, and I wondered if Kallirhoe was worth
all the trouble I was taking; but I was lost in astonishment at the
steamer—so astonished that I had no time to be sick, so I was able
to eat some olives that evening, and as I lay on my mattress on the
steamer’s deck as we hurried on towards the Piræus, I pondered over
what I should do on reaching land.
“You know what the Piræus is like, Effendi?” continued Nikola, after a
final pause and a final glass of raki, “what a city it is, what bustle
and rushing to and fro!”
I had not the heart to tell him that in England many a fishing village
is larger, and the scene of greater excitement.
“They all laughed at me for my heavy box, my island accent, my island
dress, and if it had not been for a kind _pallikari_ I had met on the
steamer, I think I should have gone mad. The officers of the custom
house were walking about on the quay, peering suspiciously into the
luggage of the newly arrived, and naturally my heavy box excited their
suspicions. I was prepared for some difficulty of this kind, and the
agony of my interview quite dispelled my confusion.
“‘What have you there?’
“‘Δείγματα (specimens),’ I replied.
“‘Specimens of what?’
“‘Specimens of minerals for the _effendi_ at Laurium.’
“‘Open the box!’ And, in an agony of fright, I saw them tear off the
lid of my treasure and dive their hands into its contents.
“‘Stones!’ said one official.
“‘Worthless stones!’ sneered another, ‘let the fool go; and with scant
ceremony they threw the stones back into the box, and shoved me and my
box away with a curse.
“I was now free to go wheresoever I wished, and with the aid of my
friend I found a room into which I put my box, and as I turned the
key, and sallied forth on my uncertain errand, I prayed to the Panagía
Odegetria to guide my footsteps aright.
“The next few days were a period of intense anxiety for me. In subdued
whispers I communicated to the consuls of each nation the existence of
my treasure. One had the impudence to offer me only 200 drachmas for
it, another 300, another 400, and another 500; then each came again,
advancing 100 drachmas on their former bids, and so my spirits rose,
until at last a grand _effendi_ came down from Athens, and without
hesitation offered me 1,000 drachmas. ‘Give me fifty more for the
trouble of bringing it and you shall have it,’ said I, breathless with
excitement, and in five minutes the long-coveted money was in my hands.
“My old father was very wroth when I returned to Sikinos, and when he
learnt that I had done nothing with my specimens; the brightness had
gone out of his eyes, he was more opprobrious than ever, but I cared
nothing for what he said. My mother had her cheesecakes on Easter
Sunday, and on that very day Kallirhoe and I were crowned.”
Thus ended Nikola’s romance. If ever I go to St. Petersburg, I shall
look carefully for Nikola’s statue in the Hermitage collection, which,
I understand, was its destination.—_Gentleman’s Magazine._