THE BRAND OF CAIN.
Danaë woke from the sleep or stupor that had overcome her to find
Janni patting her face.
“Wake up, Nono, wake up!” he was saying, as he was wont to do in the
early morning. “Breakfast!”
With a horrible spasm of fear, she covered his mouth quickly with the
shawl, fearing his voice might have been heard, then listened
apprehensively. But no sound came from below, and Janni was struggling
to get rid of the shawl, and insisting, in his own language, which
only Danaë understood, that he was very hungry, and would shortly
roar if breakfast was not forthcoming. Judging by her own sensations
that some hours must have passed since she had climbed the tree, she
ventured to crawl back to her point of vantage and peer cautiously
forth. The dreadful red form still lay where it had fallen, marring
the peaceful beauty of the garden with its rigid lines and clenched
hands, but of the murderers there was no sign. Could they have guessed
that she and Janni were hidden in the grounds, and be lying in wait in
the house, ready to pounce upon them when hunger should drive them
forth? Danaë shook from head to foot as the thought occurred to her,
but a howl from Janni brought her back to him in a panic, and made
action inevitable. Quieting him with promises and entreaties, she let
herself down from the tree, and starting at every sound, crept through
the bushes and reconnoitred the kitchen door. There was no one to be
seen, and she ventured inside. Everything was thrown about and broken,
but no one was there. Kicking off her slippers, she crept through the
hall to the front of the house. Curtains had been roughly pulled down,
pieces of furniture dragged from their places, evidently to make sure
that no one was hiding behind them, and all receptacles ransacked. The
sight of the bureau standing open gave her a shock, but she saw at
once that the secret drawer had not been discovered. Approaching
noiselessly, she touched the spring, and the Girdle of Isidora, in all
its antique and sacred beauty, lay before her worshipping eyes. With a
sudden impulse she snatched it up, and fastened it with trembling
fingers round her waist, hidden by her long coat and apron, leaving
the drawer open.
A distant wail reminded her of her charge, and she returned hastily
into the kitchen to look for food. Some milk she was able to rescue
from a broken crock, but there was none of the white bread which was
always bought for Janni. Surely Despina ought to have returned with
her purchases by this time? Danaë ran out towards the gate, avoiding
with a shudder the tumbled heap which showed where Mariora had made
her gallant and ineffectual stand on behalf of her mistress, but
recoiled hastily. Almost at her very feet lay Despina, dead among her
baskets. She had been attacked from behind and cut down as soon as she
was inside the gate. With iron resolution the girl crushed down the
desire that seized her to run away screaming--anywhere, anywhere, away
from those three corpses. Janni remained alive and dependent on her,
and she must take care of him. Setting her teeth, she stepped forward
gingerly until she was able to seize one of the baskets. Happily, it
was the one containing the bread, and she hurried back to Janni, and
brought him down from the tree and fed him. She found a hiding-place
in the bushes, close to the spot where the Lady had sat writing that
morning, and tried to get the child to sleep again while she thought
things out. How she was to place him in safety she could not tell. She
did not even know the way to the Palace, and besides, her brother
might even now have started on his expedition. Moreover, there was the
disquieting fact that the murderers had all worn the uniform of the
guard, which seemed to ring her round with fresh perils. The guard
were then in the plot to destroy the Lady and her son, and to go to
the Palace would be to walk straight into their clutches. Worse still,
they were to provide a detachment to garrison the garden that night,
so the Prince had told Despina when he announced his approaching
journey before he rode out, and they would no doubt use the
opportunity to place the three dead bodies inside the house, and
remove all traces of the tragedy from the outside. They were not to
come near the house itself, nor to see anything of the inmates, so
their orders ran, and therefore the horrible business would in the
most natural way remain undiscovered until Prince Romanos returned to
Therma and came to see his wife.
And in the meantime? Danaë’s heart sank. Her brother would be away
three or four days, as he had told Despina, and it would fall to her
to keep Janni safely concealed and fed for that time. The slightest
sign of their presence, the faintest wail from the child, and the
murderous crew who had killed his mother would be upon them. There
would be no more milk, even if she could make the bread last which she
had found in the basket, and Janni was not accustomed to bear
privation silently. Nor was a tree an ideal sleeping-place for three
or four nights, especially when any movement in the branches might
betray your presence to bloodthirsty enemies below. Slowly a plan grew
up in Danaë’s mind. She and Janni would escape from the garden while
there was time, before the guard arrived that evening. The gate was
out of the question owing to the presence of the sentry, but the wall
was easy to climb, especially where trees grew close to it. Danaë had
no mind to trust herself in Therma, but she knew, by longing
observation from her treetops, which way lay the open country, and
there it must be possible to find villages where she and Janni might
be sheltered until she could manage to communicate with her brother.
Crawling out of her concealment, she picked up the letter which the
Lady had been writing, and which had fallen to the ground, folded it
and hid it in her dress. It would be a credential should she be forced
to approach Prince Romanos through a third person, less likely by far
to arouse suspicion or to provoke danger than the famous girdle. Then
she ventured back into the house to collect a few clothes for herself
and Janni, which she made into a bundle with the rest of the bread,
and hid among the trees at the point she thought best for crossing the
wall. Returning to fetch the child, she was horrified to hear violent
blows upon the gate. The guard had arrived early--the mob of the city
were attacking the house--the conjectures, both equally alarming,
chased one another through her brain as she caught up Janni, and
rushed with him once more to the tree of refuge. But before she could
mount it she heard her brother’s voice.
“Open the door, Despina! it is I. The lock will not work. Unfasten the
bolt. Are you all asleep?”
Saved as by a miracle! Danaë left Janni on the ground, and ran
joyfully to the gate, where she struggled vainly with the lock, while
the Prince demanded impatiently why the door was not opened.
“It is I, lord--Eurynomé; and the bolts are not fastened, but the key
will not turn.”
“The key? What are you doing with the key? Where is Despina? She knows
how to open it.”
“Alas, lord! I found it in the door. An evil fate has overtaken
Despina.”
“Holy Basil! what do you mean, girl? Call Mariora, then. What has
happened? Will you fumble to all eternity?”
“Lord, there is no one to call.” In spite of herself, tears were very
near Danaë’s voice. “There came men----”
“Men? what men? What did they do? Open the door, girl! What of my
wife--of the Lady?”
“The little lord is safe, lord.”
The words were spoken very low, and they were downed by the noise of a
vigorous assault on the door. Evidently Prince Romanos had called the
sentry to his help, for the stout planks gave way with a crash, and he
burst in. “Where is your mistress?” he cried fiercely, seizing Danaë
by the shoulder.
“She lies there, lord. She has not moved,” she faltered.
“A doctor! fetch a doctor!” cried Prince Romanos to the sentry, “and,
Christos,” to the guard who was holding his horse, “the police--no,
the chief of police. He is to come alone. Show me where your mistress
is, Eurynomé. You say she has fainted?”
He passed the bodies of the two old women without heeding them,
dragging Danaë with him at a pace which almost whirled her off her
feet, until he released her with a suddenness that sent her staggering
among the bushes. He had seen the rigid red figure on the grass. For
the moment Danaë thought he would have fled, unable to face it, but
he pulled himself together and went on, treading with fearful,
uncertain steps. He was kneeling beside his dead wife, laying a hand
on heart and brow, assuring himself of the awful truth, and then he
broke into a wild lamentation which thrilled Danaë to the core, for
its rough island Greek showed her the primitive Striote under the mask
of the denationalised European.
“Alas, Olimpia, my fairest! Dear love of my heart, whom I wooed under
the orange-trees in the twilight, who shouldst have sat beside me on
the throne! Beloved, thou hast left me too soon; thou, who didst lay
a healing hand upon my tortured brow, shouldst have worn with me the
diadem of New Rome. Like a shy proud fawn wast thou when I first
beheld thee, fearing to hear of the love to which thine own heart
leaped out in response; like the stricken deer wounded by the huntsman
do I see thee now. In thy glory did I behold thee last, beautiful
exceedingly, worthily apparelled--not Helen’s self could have excelled
thee. But now thou liest low; cruel Charon has snatched thee from me,
who wast my eyes, my soul, my life, my all----”
Danaë could bear no more. Her brother was unconscious of her
presence, and she burst through the bushes and ran across the lawn to
the spot where she had left Janni. Catching him up, she hastened back
and tried to put him into his father’s arms.
“See, lord, you are not left wholly desolate. There is yet one to love
and that loves you.”
“Take the child away!” said Prince Romanos angrily.
“But, lord, your little son!”
“Take him away. What do I care for him? It is his mother I want--not a
baby that cannot speak.” He turned again to the Lady’s body. “Sweet,
hast thou no word for thy lover? How has he sinned that those lips are
closed and silent which have so often overflowed with words of love?
But no, it is neither his sin nor thine, but the iniquity of those who
sought to strike him through thee----”
A howl from Janni, whom the indignant and perplexed Danaë had been
vainly endeavouring to console for his father’s repulse, broke into
the lament.
“Will you take that child away, girl? Is this a scene for his young
eyes? Take him to the nursery, and keep him there until I send for
you.”
“You bid me go, lord, and take with me the little lord?” demanded
Danaë, thrilling with outraged pride and affection on behalf of her
little charge.
“Yes, go, in the name of the All-Holy Mother of God, and leave me
alone with my dead!”
“I go, lord!” said Danaë impressively, but she doubted whether he
even heard her. He was bending over his wife again.
“Most beloved, open those lips but for an instant, and tell me to
whose cursed treachery I owe this blow. Let thy spirit visit me at
night, my beautiful one, and keep vengeance ever in my mind. If there
be one left alive of those who slew thee----”
The familiar voice, raised in a half chant, grew faint in Danaë’s
ears. She was stalking majestically across the grass, hushing the
protesting Janni in her arms, and listening greedily for some word of
recall. No one should say she had stolen away secretly, but if she was
driven out she would go. His son, his heir, was nothing to Prince
Romanos in comparison with the dead body of the schismatic woman! He
would leave him without protection in the house, till the conspirators
returned and finished their deadly work! Very well, then; he should
see no more of Janni until he had learnt to value him properly. Danaë
would at once save the child and punish the father. Mingled with her
lofty resolves was perhaps a vague idea of averting retribution. The
death of the Lady was without doubt in some measure due to her; she
would blot out her guilt by saving the Lady’s son.
Prince Romanos did not call her back, and when she looked round from
the edge of the wood he was still kneeling over his wife’s body. Her
heart hardened against him, and she picked up the bundle she had left
under the trees and went on as far as the wall. She climbed up easily
enough, and dropped the bundle over, then returned for Janni, and
wound him closely in her shawl. The ground outside was happily soft,
for on this side the garden adjoined a large piece of land belonging
to the Prince which he had planted with trees, with the intention of
making it into a park in future, and she was able to let herself down
safely by her hands. She had often longed to explore this piece of
woodland, and when it was once crossed she would be well away from the
city. She started very happily, beguiling the way by conversation with
Janni, though after a time it occurred to her that there was nothing
very interesting in the rows of young trees and the growing shrubs.
Janni was heavy to carry, too, when it was not a question of merely
rambling about the garden, but she held on stoutly, sustained by her
very mingled motives.
Sitting down at last to rest at the top of a hill up which she had
laboured with considerable difficulty, she looked back over the way
she had come. The sea in the distance gave her a moment’s wild longing
for Strio, but there would be no safety there for Janni, she saw that
now. Rather must she look nearer, to the new Therma, with its streets
of tall white houses crossing and recrossing with mathematical
regularity, and the Emathian flag flying over the Palace, the position
of which she could easily distinguish now, dominating the broad road
leading from the great square called the Place de l’Europe Unie. But
between the Palace and herself was the villa among its woods, with her
brother mourning over the tragedy she had helped to bring upon him,
and she wondered hopelessly how the tangle was ever to be unravelled,
how she could keep Janni in her own charge, and yet see him restored
to his proper position. But her desultory musings were suddenly
focussed into a keen and pressing anxiety. Among the young trees
between her and the wall of the garden something was moving. At first
it looked like a bright bird flying low, but as she watched it she
realised that it was the gay fez and golden tassel of a man of the
Prince’s guard. There was no need to ask herself who it could be.
Petros had guessed that she had fled with the child, had tracked her
path, and was following hard on her heels, that he might finish his
evil work, and make sure of the victim who had been snatched from him
in the morning.
Terror lent wings to Danaë’s tired feet, and catching up Janni, she
hurried on down the hill. There was no time to look for villages, and
what village would shelter her against the demand of a servant of the
Prince? She stumbled along wildly, looking hopelessly round for some
hiding-place that might enable her to evade the pursuer. But he had
reached the top of the hill while she was still full in view, and his
shouts of “Eurynomé! stop, girl!” his adjurations and threats of
vengeance, came to her faintly on the wind, though she strove to shut
her ears to them. Tired as she was, and burdened with the child, she
had no hope of outdistancing him, but she struggled on, though it
seemed to her that he was now so close that she could hear his heavy
footsteps. Then, as she reached the foot of the hill, and an artfully
contrived glade opened before her, she saw one single chance of
safety, for there were the figures of men and horses under the trees.
Two men wearing “European” clothes, and evidently not Emathians, were
walking up and down impatiently, as though waiting for somebody, and
behind them were four horses under the charge of two armed guards.
There was no doubt in Danaë’s mind as to the identity of the
strangers. They must be the Englishmen whom Prince Romanos had told
Despina he was to meet and accompany on their journey--and therefore
they were an additional danger. The single subject on which Danaë and
the two old women were in agreement was that of the preposterous
baselessness of the claims of the schismatic Englishman who dared to
put himself forward as heir of the Eastern Empire by right of direct
descent from the Emperor John Theophanis. When the Orthodox position
was triumphantly vindicated by the election of Prince Romanos, who
could trace his lineage only in the female line, to the throne of
Emathia, he had relegated the rival claimant, so Danaë firmly
believed, to a species of honourable imprisonment in a remote part of
the principality. Here he could amuse himself by playing the ruler
under strict supervision, and was even allowed to visit Therma on
asking permission. Judging him by herself, however, Danaë had no
faith in his gratitude for this considerate treatment, and saw in him
merely another menace to Janni’s safety if he discovered who he was.
But the danger of Petros hot on her heels was more pressing, since she
had always understood that Englishmen were easily to be deceived. Yet
how, in any case, was Petros to be kept from publishing the perilous
truth? Her quick scheming brain worked at tremendous pressure during
the last agitated minutes of her stumbling run.
“Come back, girl! Will you ruin everything?” she heard Petros cry, as
he made a final attempt to head her off, and only found himself at the
top of a slope too steep to descend. He was obliged to go round, and
she reached the two Englishmen, who had paused, astonished, in their
walk, and threw herself panting at the feet of one of them, a keen
hard-faced man with noticeably blue eyes.
“Mercy, lord! justice! protection!” she sobbed.
“This is Prince Theophanis, if you want to speak to him.” The
blue-eyed man indicated his companion, and Danaë transferred her plea
to him almost mechanically, her tired arms loosing their hold of
Janni, who slid to the ground and began to investigate the strangers’
boots with much interest.
“Save us, lord, this poor child and me, from the evildoer who pursues
us! He will tell you that he is my uncle, but it is not true. I have
nothing to do with him, nothing whatever.”
“Why, it is Petros!” said Prince Theophanis in surprise, as the
guardsman made his appearance, hot and angry. “Do you say that this
girl is your niece, friend Petros?”
“Why should I say it, lord, when it is not true? Thank the saints, she
is no kin of mine!”
He stopped abruptly, and Danaë could have cried aloud with joy. She
had Petros in her power; he was afraid of her, or he would have
contradicted her words. He was waiting for her to tell her story;
obviously, then, he did not wish these strangers to know of his
treachery to his master, and she might use her hold over him to save
Janni. With an admirable transport of gratitude, she flung herself
down and kissed the ground before the Prince’s feet.
“Ah, lord, what power is yours since even this wicked wretch must tell
the truth in your presence! You will permit your suppliant to lay her
woes before you?”
“Tell me your trouble, by all means, if I can help you, but don’t
kneel there. What is your name?”
“Lord, it is meet for me to kneel at your gracious feet, and this
child with me.” She captured Janni’s hands, and made him embrace the
Prince’s boots, then sat up and poured forth her tale. “Lord, my name
is Kalliopé Vlasso, and I dwell in Therma with my sister and her
husband, who is in the Prince’s guard--a comrade of that ruffian
there. He it was who led my brother-in-law into the love of strong
drink--not _mastika_, lord, but _raki_ and such horrible things--so
that he would come home and frighten and grievously abuse my sister
and me. But last night he was like one possessed of a demon, and after
beating us both, he dragged my unhappy sister out of the house by the
hair of her head, and beat and kicked her till she died--the
neighbours all looking on and fearing to interfere. Then, terrified
lest he should kill us also, I snatched up the child, my nephew, and
fled away, out of the street and the city, seeking only safety. But
why this evil wretch should have pursued us I know not, save that it
can be for no good reason.”
“You come from the islands, as he does, and he meant to take care of
you, perhaps?” suggested the blue-eyed man. Danaë repudiated the
suggestion with terrified vigour.
“Nay, lord, I have never been out of Therma in my life. I speak but as
the people in our street speak.”
“Well, friend Petros, what have you to say?” asked Prince Theophanis.
“Why were you chasing the girl?”
“For no pleasure of my own, I assure you, lord,” responded Petros,
with excellent indignation. “The ungrateful minx may say what she
likes, but I came merely because I was sworn by the holy cross to do
it, and I wish I had never promised. All the morning I was busy
helping--busy, I mean--” he paused, embarrassed.
“Helping the murderer to escape, I suppose?” said the blue-eyed man,
and he brightened up.
“There is no deceiving the Lord Glafko, I know that of old. Well,
lord, my unhappy comrade found means to entreat me to seek out this
girl and the child, his son, and see that they did not starve, so I
tracked them as far as this. Your excellencies can see that compassion
alone made me do it. The girl has the tongue of a demon, and the brat
is too young to work. I have nowhere to put them, but I came, and you
see my reward.”
“The girl will be wanted as a witness, surely?” said the Prince.
Petros shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, as to that, there will be
witnesses enough,” he said. “But it will relieve me of her. The police
will clap her into prison and keep her safe.”
“My Prince!” cried Danaë frantically, “you will not let them throw me
into prison, and rob me of the child entrusted to me with her last
breath by my dying sister?”
She stopped abruptly, for the dramatic instinct was leading her into
possible pitfalls, but the two Englishmen were consulting apart for a
moment, and had not noticed the slip. An Emathian prison, though
better than in Roumi days, was not an ideal training-school for a
respectable girl.
“The place is overrun with servants already,” said the blue-eyed man.
“One more would not make much difference. Zoe might find work for her
in the nursery, and the child is about your boy’s age. Make a good
playfellow for him.”
“H’m! we had better leave that to Zoe,” remarked the blue-eyed man,
with distinct hesitation. “A child from the slums of Therma----”
“Lord,” interposed Danaë tearfully, aware that her case was being
discussed, “you will not give me up to him?”
“See, lord,” said Petros, with the air of one conferring a vast
benefit, “why not take the girl to serve in your house? She has been
taught to work, and a good beating now and then will keep her up to
it. If her witness should be needed, I will get a letter written to
say so, but I should be glad to let my poor comrade know that she and
the child were safely away from the city, and not getting into
mischief.”
“We will see,” said Prince Theophanis. “Will you come to Klaustra,
Kalliopé, to serve my wife, or my sister, the Lord Glafko’s wife, as
they shall decide? You can bring the child with you, of course.”
Danaë bowed her head again at his feet. “Your handmaid could ask no
better, lord,” she said.