THE FEVER OF NEOPALIA
I looked for a moment on the old man’s pale, clean-cut, aristocratic
face; then I shook his attendant by the arm vigorously. She awoke with
a start.
‘What does this mean?’ I demanded. ‘Who is he?’
‘Heaven help us! Who are you?’ she cried, leaping up in alarm. Indeed
we four, with our eager fierce faces, must have looked disquieting
enough.
‘I am Lord Wheatley; these are my friends,’ I answered in brisk sharp
tones.
‘What, it is you, then--?’ A wondering gaze ended her question.
‘Yes, yes, it is I. I have bought the island. We came out for a walk
and--’
‘But he will kill you if he finds you here.’
‘He? Who?’
‘Ah, pardon, my lord! They will kill you, they--the people--the men of
the island.’
I gazed at her sternly. She shrank back in confusion. And I spoke at a
venture, yet in a well-grounded hazard:
‘You mean that Constantine Stefanopoulos will kill me?’
‘Ah, hush,’ she cried. ‘He may be here, he may be anywhere.’
‘He may thank his stars he’s not here,’ said I grimly, for my blood
was up. ‘Attend, woman. Who is this?’
‘It is the lord of the island, my lord,’ she answered. ‘Alas, he is
wounded, I fear, to death. And yet I fell asleep. But I was so weary.’
‘Wounded? By whom?’
Her face suddenly became vacant and expressionless.
‘I do not know, my lord. It happened in the crowd. It was a mistake.
My dear lord had yielded what they asked. Yet some one--no, by heaven,
my lord, I do not know who--stabbed him. And he cannot live.’
‘Tell me the whole thing,’ I commanded.
‘They came up here, my lord, all of them, Vlacho and all, and with
them my Lord Constantine. The Lady Euphrosyne was away; she is often
away, down on the rocks by the sea, watching the waves. They came and
said that a man had landed who claimed our island as his--a man of
your name, my lord. And when my dear lord said he had sold the island
to save the honour of his house and race, they were furious; and
Vlacho raised the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard wrote
on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos long ago. Then they came near
with knives, demanding that my dear lord should send away the
stranger; for the men of Neopalia were not to be bought and sold like
bullocks or like pigs. At first my lord would not yield, and they
swore they would kill the stranger and my lord also. Then they pressed
closer; Vlacho was hard on him with drawn knife, and the Lord
Constantine stood by him, praying him to yield; and Constantine drew
his own knife, saying to Vlacho that he must fight him also before he
killed the old lord. But at that Vlacho smiled. And then--and
then--ah, my dear lord!’
For a moment her voice broke, and sobs supplanted words. But she drew
herself up, and after a glance at the old man whom her vehement speech
had not availed to waken, she went on.
‘And then those behind cried out that there was enough talk. Would he
yield or would he die? And they rushed forward, pressing the nearest
against him. And he, an old man, frail and feeble (yet once he was as
brave a man as any), cried in his weak tones, “Enough, friends, I
yield, I--” and they fell back. But my lord stood for an instant, then
he set his hand to his side, and swayed and tottered and fell; the
blood was running from his side. The Lord Constantine fell on his
knees beside him, crying, “Who stabbed him?” Vlacho smiled grimly, and
the others looked at one another. But I, who had run out from the
doorway whence I had seen it all, knelt by my lord and staunched the
blood. Then Vlacho said, fixing his eyes straight and keen on the Lord
Constantine, “It was not I, my lord.” “Nor I by heaven,” cried the
Lord Constantine, and he rose to his feet, demanding, “Who struck the
blow?” But none answered; and he went on, “Nay, if it were in error,
if it were because he would not yield, speak. There shall be pardon.”
But Vlacho, hearing this, turned himself round and faced them all,
saying, “Did he not sell us like oxen and like pigs?” and he broke
into the death chant, and they all raised the chant, none caring any
more who had struck the blow. And the Lord Constantine--’ The
impetuous flow of the old woman’s story was frozen to sudden silence.
‘Well, and the Lord Constantine?’ said I, in low stern tones that
quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny’s hand, which was on my
arm, jump up and down. ‘And Constantine, woman?’
[Illustration: “WHO STABBED HIM?”]
‘Nay, he did nothing,’ said she. ‘He talked with Vlacho awhile, and
then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself to
seek the Lady Euphrosyne. Presently he came back with her; her eyes
were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord; for she loved
him. She sat by him till Constantine came and told her that you would
not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if you did not
go. Then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying heaven she might
find him alive when she returned. “I must go,” she said to me, “for
though it is a shameful thing that the island should have been sold,
yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not meet death. Kiss
him for me if he awakes.” Thus she went and left me with my lord, and
I fear he will die.’ She ended in a burst of sobbing.
For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:
‘Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?’
She shrank from me as though I had struck her.
‘I do not know; I do not know,’ she moaned.
But the question she dared not answer was to find an answer.
The stricken man opened his eyes, his lips moved, and he groaned,
‘Constantine! You, Constantine!’ The old woman’s eyes met mine for a
moment and fell to the ground again.
‘Why, why, Constantine?’ moaned the wounded man. ‘I had yielded, I had
yielded, Constantine. I would have sent them--’
His words ceased, his eyes closed, his lips met again, but met only to
part. A moment later his jaw dropped. The old lord of Neopalia was
dead.
Then I, carried away by anger and by hatred of the man who, for a
reason I did not yet understand, had struck so foul a blow against his
kinsman and an old man, did a thing so rash that it seems to me now,
when I consider it in the cold light of memory, a mad deed. Yet then I
could do nothing else; and Denny’s face, ay, and the eyes of the
others too told me that they were with me.
‘Compose this old man’s body,’ I said, ‘and we will watch it. But do
you go and tell this Constantine Stefanopoulos that I know his crime,
that I know who struck that blow, that what I know all men shall know,
and that I will not rest day or night until he has paid the penalty of
this murder. Tell him I swore this on the honour of an English
gentleman.’
‘And say I swore it too!’ cried Denny; and Hogvardt and Watkins, not
making bold to speak, ranged up close to me; I knew that they also
meant what I meant.
The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.
‘You are a bold man, my lord,’ said she.
‘I see nothing to be afraid of up to now,’ said I. ‘Such courage as is
needed to tell a scoundrel what I think of him I believe I can claim.’
‘But he will never let you go now. You would go to Rhodes, and tell
his--tell what you say of him.’
‘Yes, and further than Rhodes, if need be. He shall die for it as sure
as I live.’
A thousand men might have tried in vain to persuade me; the treachery
of Constantine had fired my heart and driven out all opposing motives.
‘Do as I bid you,’ said I sternly, ‘and waste no time on it. We will
watch here by the old man till you return.’
‘My lord,’ she replied, ‘you run on your own death. And you are
young; and the youth by you is yet younger.’
‘We are not dead yet,’ said Denny; I had never seen him look as he did
then; for the gaiety was out of his face, and his lips had grown set
and hard.
She raised her hands towards heaven, whether in prayer or in
lamentation I do not know. We turned away and left her to her sad
work; going back to our places, we waited there till dawn began to
break and from the narrow windows we saw the grey crests of the waves
dancing and frolicking in the early dawn. As I watched them, the old
woman was by my elbow.
‘It is done, my lord,’ said she. ‘Are you still of the same mind?’
‘Still of the same,’ said I.
‘It is death, death for you all,’ she said, and without more she went
to the great door. Hogvardt opened it for her, and she walked away
down the road, between the high rocks that bounded the path on either
side. Then we went and carried the old man to a room that opened off
the hall, and, returning, stood in the doorway, cooling our brows in
the fresh early air. While we stood there, Hogvardt said suddenly,
‘It is five o’clock.’
‘Then we have only an hour to live,’ said I, smiling, ‘if we don’t
make for the yacht.’
‘You’re not going back to the yacht, my lord?’
‘I’m puzzled,’ I admitted. ‘If we go this ruffian will escape. And if
we don’t go--’
‘Why, we,’ Hogvardt ended for me, ‘may not escape.’
I saw that Hogvardt’s sense of responsibility was heavy; he always
regarded himself as the shepherd, his employers as the sheep. I
believe this attitude of his confirmed my obstinacy, for I said,
without further hesitation:
‘Oh, we’ll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is,
they’ll turn against him. Besides, we said we’d wait here.’
Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined
to do a rash thing, there is a great comfort in feeling that you are
already committed to it by some previous act or promise.
‘So we did,’ he cried. ‘Then that settles it, Hogvardt’
‘His lordship certainly expressed that intention,’ observed Watkins,
appearing at this moment with a big loaf of bread and a great pitcher
of milk. I eyed these viands.
‘I bought the house and its contents,’ said I; ‘come along.’
Watkins’ further researches produced a large lump of native cheese;
when he had set this down he remarked:
‘In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are
two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front
door, two cows tethered.’
I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.
‘We can stand a siege, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Well, I hope it won’t come
to that.’
Hogvardt rose and began to move round the hall, examining the weapons
that decorated the walls. From time to time he grunted disapprovingly;
the guns were useless, rusted, out of date; and there was no
ammunition for them. But when he had almost completed his circuit, he
gave an exclamation of satisfaction and came to me holding an
excellent modern rifle and a large cartridge-case.
‘See!’ he grunted in huge delight. ‘“C. S.” on the stock. I expect you
can guess whose it is, my lord.’
‘This is very thoughtful of Constantine,’ observed Denny, who was
employing himself in cutting imaginary lemons in two with a fine
damascened scimitar that he had taken from the wall.
‘As for the cows,’ said I, ‘perhaps they will carry them off.’
‘I think not,’ said Hogvardt, taking an aim with the rifle through the
window.
I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.
‘Well, we can’t go now,’ said I. ‘It’s settled. What a comfort!’ I
wonder whether I had ever in my heart meant to go!
The next hour passed very quietly. We sat smoking pipes or cigars and
talking in subdued tones. The recollection of the dead man in the
adjoining room sobered the excitement to which our position might
otherwise have given occasion. Indeed I suppose that I at least, who
through my whim had led the rest into this quandary, should have been
utterly overwhelmed by the burden on me. But I was not. Perhaps
Hogvardt’s assumption of responsibility relieved me; perhaps I was too
full of anger against Constantine to think of the risks we ourselves
ran; and I was more than half-persuaded that the revelation of what he
had done would rob him of his power to hurt us. Moreover, if I might
judge from the words I heard on the road, we had on our side an ally
of uncertain, but probably considerable, power in the sweet-voiced
girl whom the old woman called the Lady Euphrosyne; she would not
support her uncle’s murderer, even though he were her cousin.
Presently Watkins carried me off to view his pen of goats, and having
passed through the lofty flagged kitchen, I found myself in a sort of
compound formed by the rocks. The ground had been levelled for a few
yards, and the rocks rose straight to the height of ten or twelve
feet; from the top of this artificial bank they ran again in wooded
slopes towards the peak of the mountain. I followed their course with
my eye, and three hundred or more feet above us, just beneath the
summit, I perceived a little wooden _châlet_ or bungalow. Blue smoke
issued from the chimneys; and, even while we looked, a figure came out
of the door and stood still in front of it, apparently gazing down
towards the house.
‘It’s a woman,’ I pronounced.
‘Yes, my lord. A peasant’s wife, I suppose.’
‘I daresay,’ said I. But I soon doubted Watkins’ opinion; in the first
place, because the woman’s dress did not look like that of a peasant
woman; and secondly, because she went into the house, appeared again,
and levelled at us what was, if I mistook not, a large pair of
binocular glasses. Now such things were not likely to be in the
possession of the peasants of Neopalia. Then she suddenly retreated,
and through the silence of those still slopes we heard the door of the
cottage closed with violence.
‘She doesn’t seem to like the looks of us,’ said I.
‘Possibly,’ suggested Watkins with deference, ‘she did not expect to
see your lordship here.’
‘I should think that’s very likely, Watkins,’ said I.
I was recalled from the survey of my new domains--my satisfaction in
the thought that they were mine survived all the disturbing features
of the situation--by a call from Denny. In response to it I hurried
back to the hall and found him at the window, with Constantine’s rifle
rested on the sill.
‘I could pick him off pat,’ said Denny laughingly, and he pointed to a
figure which was approaching the house. It was a man riding a stout
pony; when he came within about two hundred yards of the house, he
stopped, took a leisurely look, and then waved a white handkerchief.
‘The laws of war must be observed,’ said I, smiling. ‘This is a flag
of truce.’ I opened the door, stepped out, and waved my handkerchief
in return. The man, reassured, began to mop his brow with the flag of
truce, and put his pony to a trot. I now perceived him to be the
innkeeper Vlacho, and a moment later he reined up beside me, giving
an angry jerk at his pony’s bridle.
‘I have searched the island for you,’ he cried. ‘I am weary and hot!
How came you here?’
I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my
house, and added significantly:
‘But has no message come to you from me?’
He smiled with equal meaning, as he answered:
‘No; an old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the
village--’
‘Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos,’ said I with a nod.
‘Well then, if you will, to the Lord Constantine,’ he admitted with a
careless shrug, ‘but her message was for his ear only; he took her
aside and they talked alone.’
‘You know what she said, though?’
‘That is between my Lord Constantine and me.’
‘And the young lady knows it, I hope--the Lady Euphrosyne?’
Vlacho smiled broadly.
‘We could not distress her with such a silly tale,’ he answered; and
he leant down towards me. ‘Nobody has heard the message but the Lord
Constantine and one man he told it to. And nobody will. If that old
woman spoke, she--well, she knows and will not speak.’
‘And you back up this murderer?’ I cried.
‘Murderer?’ he repeated questioningly. ‘Indeed, sir, it was an
accident done in hot blood. It was the old man’s fault, because he
tried to sell the island.’
‘He did sell the island,’ I corrected; ‘and a good many other people
will hear of what happened to him.’
He looked at me again, smiling.
‘If you shouted it in the hearing of every man in Neopalia, what would
they do?’ he asked scornfully.
‘Well, I should hope,’ I returned, ‘that they’d hang Constantine to
the tallest tree you’ve got here.’
‘They would do this,’ he said with a nod; and he began to sing softly
the chant I had heard the night before.
I was disgusted at his savagery, but I said coolly:
‘And the Lady?’
‘The Lady believes what she is told, and will do as her cousin bids
her. Is she not his affianced wife?’
‘The deuce she is!’ I cried in amazement, fixing a keen scrutiny on
Vlacho’s face. The face told me nothing.
‘Certainly,’ he said gently. ‘And they will rule the island together.’
‘Will they, though?’ said I. I was becoming rather annoyed. ‘There are
one or two obstacles in the way of that. First, it’s my island.’
He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘That,’ he seemed to say, ‘is not
worth answering.’ But I had a second shot in the locker for him, and I
let him have it for what it was worth. I knew it might be worth
nothing, but I tried it.
‘And secondly,’ I went on, ‘how many wives does Constantine propose to
have?’
A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! I could have sung in glee. The fellow
was dumbfoundered. He turned red, bit his lip, scowled fiercely.
‘What do you mean?’ he blurted out, with an attempt at blustering
defiance.
‘Never mind what I mean. Something, perhaps, that the Lady Euphrosyne
might care to know. And now, my man, what do you want of me?’
He recovered his composure, and stated his errand with his old cool
assurance; but the cloud of vexation still hung heavy on his brow.
‘On behalf of the Lady of the island--’ he began.
‘Or shall we say her cousin?’ I interrupted.
‘Which you will,’ he answered, as though it were not worth while to
wear the mask any longer. ‘On behalf, then, of my Lord Constantine, I
am to offer you safe passage to your boat, and a return of the money
you have paid--’
‘How’s he going to pay that?’
‘He will pay it in a year, and give you security meanwhile.’
‘And the condition is that I give up the island?’ I asked; I began to
think that perhaps I owed it to my companions to acquiesce in this
proposal however distasteful it might be to me.
‘Yes,’ said Vlacho, ‘and there is one other small condition, which
will not trouble you.’
‘What’s that? You’re rich in conditions.’
‘You’re lucky to be offered any. It is that you mind your own
business.’
‘I came here for the purpose,’ I observed.
‘And that you undertake, for yourself and your companions, on your
word of honour, to speak to nobody of what has passed on the island or
of the affairs of the Lord Constantine.’
‘And if I won’t give this promise?’
‘The yacht is in our hands; Demetri and Spiro are our men; there will
be no ship here for two months.’ The fellow paused, smiling at me. I
took the liberty of ending his period for him.
‘And there is,’ I said, returning his smile, ‘as we know by now, a
particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island.’
‘Certainly you may chance to find that out,’ said he.
‘But is there no antidote?’ I asked, and I showed him the butt of my
revolver in the pocket of my coat.
‘It may keep it off for a day or two--not longer. You have the bottle
there, but most of the drug is with your luggage at the inn.’
His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges
apiece.
‘But there’s plenty of food for Constantine’s rifle,’ said I, pointing
to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.
He suddenly became impatient.
‘Your answer, sir?’ he demanded peremptorily.
‘Here it is,’ said I. ‘I’ll keep the island and I’ll see Constantine
hanged.’
‘So be it, so be it,’ he cried. ‘You are warned; so be it!’ Without
another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down the road.
And I went back to the house feeling, I must confess, not in the best
of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed, they
applauded me, and we made up our minds to ‘see it through,’ as Denny
said.
The day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his
house, having wrapped him in a sheet; we dug for him as good a grave
as we could in a little patch of ground that lay outside the windows
of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the house.
There he must lie for the present. This sad work done, we came back
and--so swift are life’s changes--killed a goat for dinner, and
watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when
evening came we ate our goat-flesh and Hogvardt milked our cows; then
we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.
But the evening was hot and we adjourned out of doors, grouping
ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door. Hogvardt
had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape,
depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side
of the island and finding there a boat which we had no reason to
suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying ‘Hark!’
From the direction of the village and the harbour came the sound of a
horn, blowing long and shrill and echoed back in strange protracted
shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us. And following on the
blast we heard, low in the distance and indistinct, yet rising and
falling and rising again in savage defiance and exultation, the
death-chant that One-Eyed Alexander the Bard had made on the death of
Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. For a few minutes we sat
listening; I do not think that any of us felt very comfortable. Then I
rose to my feet, saying:
‘Hogvardt, old fellow, I fancy that scheme of yours must wait a
little. Unless I’m very much mistaken, we’re going to have a lively
evening.’
Well, then we shook hands all round, and went in and bolted the door,
and sat down to wait. We heard the death-chant through the walls now;
it was coming nearer.