THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL
The effect of my remark was curious. Denny flushed scarlet and flung
his whip down on the table; the others stood for a moment motionless,
then turned tail and slunk back to the kitchen. Euphrosyne’s face
remained invisible. On the other hand, I felt quite at my ease. I had
a triumphant conviction of the importance of my capture, and a
determination that no misplaced chivalry should rob me of it.
Politeness is, no doubt, a duty, but only a relative duty; and, in
plain English, men’s lives were at stake here. Therefore I did not
make my best bow, fling open the door, and tell the lady that she was
free to go whither she would, but I said to her in a dry severe voice:
‘You had better go, madam, to the room you usually occupy here, while
we consider what to do with you. You know where the room is; I
don’t.’
She raised her head, and said in tones that sounded almost eager:
‘My own room? May I go there?’
‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘I shall accompany you as far as the door; and
when you’ve gone in, I shall lock the door.’
This programme was duly carried out, Euphrosyne not favouring me with
a word during its progress. Then I returned to the hall, and said to
Denny:
‘Rather a trump card, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but they’ll be back pretty soon to look for her, I expect.’
Denny accompanied this remark with such a yawn that I suggested he
should go to bed.
‘Aren’t you going to bed?’ he asked.
‘I’ll take first watch,’ said I. ‘It’s nearly twelve now. I’ll wake
you at two, and you can wake Hogvardt at five; then Watkins will be
fit and fresh at breakfast-time, and can give us roast cow.’
Thus I was again left alone; and I sat reviewing the position. Would
the islanders fight for their lady? Or would they let us go? They
would let us go, I felt sure, only if Constantine were out-voted, for
he could not afford to see me leave Neopalia with a head on my
shoulders and a tongue in my mouth. Then probably they would fight.
Well, I calculated that so long as our provisions held out, we could
not be stormed; our stone fortress was too strong. But we could be
blockaded and starved out, and should be very soon unless the lady’s
influence could help us. I had just arrived at the conclusion that I
would talk to her very seriously in the morning when I heard a
remarkable sound.
‘There never was such a place for queer noises,’ said I, pricking up
my ears.
This noise seemed to come directly from above my head; it sounded as
though a light stealthy tread were passing over the roof of the hall
in which I sat. The only person in the house besides ourselves was the
prisoner: she had been securely locked in her room; how then could she
be on the top of the hall? For her room was in the turret above the
doorway. Yet the steps crept over my head, going towards the kitchen.
I snatched up my revolver and trod, with a stealth equal to the
stealth of the steps overhead, across the hall and into the kitchen
beyond. My three companions slept the sleep of tired men, but I roused
Denny ruthlessly.
‘Go on guard in the hall,’ said I. ‘I want to have a look round.’
Denny was sleepy but obedient. I saw him start for the hall, and went
on till I reached the compound behind the house.
Here I stood deep in the shadow of the wall; the steps were now over
my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof,
three yards to the left, I saw the flutter of a white kilt.
‘There are more ways out of this house than I know,’ I thought to
myself.
I heard next a noise as though of something being pushed cautiously
along the flat roof. Then there protruded from between two of the
battlements the end of a ladder. I crouched closer under the wall. The
light flight of steps was let down; it reached the ground, the kilted
figure stepped on it and began to descend. Here was the Lady
Euphrosyne again. Her eagerness to go to her own room was fully
explained: there was a way from it across the house and out on to the
roof of the kitchen; the ladder shewed that the way was kept in use. I
stood still. She reached the ground, and, as she touched it, she gave
the softest possible little laugh of gleeful triumph; a pretty little
laugh it was. Then she walked briskly across the compound, till she
reached the rocks on the other side. I crept forward after her, for I
was afraid of losing sight of her in the darkness, and yet did not
desire to arrest her progress till I saw where she was going. On she
went, skirting the perpendicular drop of rock. I was behind her now.
At last she came to the angle formed by the rock running north and
that which, turning to the east, enclosed the compound.
‘How’s she going to get up?’ I asked myself.
But up she began to go, her right foot on the north rock, her left on
the east. She ascended with such confidence that it was evident that
steps were ready for her feet. She gained the top; I began to mount in
the same fashion, finding the steps cut in the face of the cliff. I
reached the top and saw her standing still, ten yards ahead of me. She
went on; I followed; she stopped, looked, saw me, screamed. I rushed
on her. Her arm dealt a blow at me; I caught her hand, and in her hand
there was a little dagger. Seizing her other hand, I held her fast.
‘Where are you going to?’ I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no
notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was merely a
national trait.
Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle.
‘I was trying to escape,’ she said. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, I heard you. Where were you going to?’
‘Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?’
I loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed
to measure the distance.
‘Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?’ I asked. ‘Have you
friends there?’
She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.
‘No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you.’
‘Yet there’s some one in the cottage up there,’ I observed. ‘It
belongs to Constantine, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ she answered defiantly. ‘Dare you go and seek him
there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?’
‘As long as we are four against a hundred I dare only skulk,’ I
answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. ‘But do you think
he’s there?’
‘There! No; he’s in the town; and he’ll come from the town to kill you
to-morrow.’
‘Then is nobody there?’ I pursued.
‘Nobody,’ she answered.
‘You’re wrong,’ said I. ‘I saw somebody there to-day.’
‘Oh, a peasant perhaps.’
‘Well, the dress didn’t look like it. Do you really want to go there
now?’
‘Haven’t you mocked me enough?’ she burst out. ‘Take me back to my
prison.’
Her tragedy-air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up
to something which I thought she ought to know.
‘There’s a woman in that cottage,’ said I. ‘Not a peasant; a woman in
some dark-coloured dress, who uses opera-glasses.’
I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.
‘It’s false,’ she cried. ‘There’s no one there. Constantine told me no
one went there except Vlacho and sometimes Demetri.’
‘Do you believe all Constantine tells you?’ I asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s my cousin, and--’
‘And your suitor?’
She flung her head back proudly.
‘I have no shame in that,’ she answered.
‘You would accept his offer?’
‘Since you ask, I will answer. Yes. I had promised my uncle that I
would.’
‘Good God!’ said I, for I was very sorry for her.
The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt
her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.
‘Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?’ I
demanded.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘He told me what she said.’
‘That I told him he was his uncle’s murderer?’
‘Did you tell her to say that?’ she asked, with a sudden inclination
of her body towards me.
‘I did. Did he give you the message?’
She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.
‘On my honour, I saw what I have told you at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I
know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw
Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come
with him. Did any lady come with him?’
‘Are you mad?’ she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and
I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and
put my hands behind my back.
‘Go to the cottage if you like,’ said I. ‘But I won’t answer for what
you’ll find there.’
‘You set me free?’ she cried with eagerness.
‘Free to go to the cottage; you must promise to come back. Or I’ll go
to the cottage, if you’ll promise to go back to your room and wait
till I return.’
She hesitated, looking towards where the cottage was; but I had
stirred suspicion and disquietude in her. She dared not face what she
might find in the cottage.
‘I’ll go back and wait for you,’ she said. ‘If I went to the cottage
and--and all was well, I’m afraid I shouldn’t come back.’
The tone sounded softer. I would have sworn that a smile or a
half-smile accompanied the words, but it was too dark to be sure, and
when I leant forward to look, Euphrosyne drew back.
‘Then you mustn’t go,’ said I decisively; ‘I can’t afford to lose
you.’
‘But if you let me go I could let you go,’ she cried.
‘Could you? Without asking Constantine? Besides, it’s my island you
see.’
‘It’s not,’ she cried, with a stamp of her foot. And without more she
walked straight by me and disappeared over the ledge of rock. Two
minutes later I saw her figure defined against the sky, a black shadow
on a deep grey ground; then she disappeared. I set my face straight
for the cottage under the summit of the hill. I knew that I had only
to go straight and I must come to the little plateau scooped out of
the hillside, on which the cottage stood. I found, not a path, but a
sort of rough track that led in the desired direction, and along this
I made my way very cautiously. At one point it was joined at right
angles by another track, from the side of the hill where the main road
across the island lay. This, of course, afforded an approach to the
cottage without passing by my house. In twenty minutes the cottage
loomed, a blurred mass, before me. I fell on my knees and peered at
it.
There was a light in one of the windows. I crawled nearer. Now I was
on the plateau, a moment later I was under the wooden verandah and
beneath the window where the light glowed. My hand was on my revolver;
if Constantine or Vlacho caught me here, neither side would be able to
stand on trifles; even my desire for legality would fail under the
strain. But for the minute everything was quiet, and I began to fear
that I should have to return empty-handed; for it would be growing
light in another hour or so, and I must be gone before the day began
to appear. Ah, there was a sound, a sound that appealed to me after my
climb, the sound of wine poured into a glass; then came a voice I
knew.
‘Probably they have caught her,’ said Vlacho the innkeeper. ‘What of
that? They will not hurt her, and she’ll be kept safe.’
‘You mean she can’t come spying about here?’
‘Exactly. And that, my lord, is an advantage. If she came here--’
‘Oh, the deuce!’ laughed Constantine. ‘But won’t the men want me to
free her by letting that infernal crew go?’
‘Not if they think Wheatley will go to Rhodes and get soldiers and
return. They love the island more than her. It will all go well, my
lord. And this other here?’
I strained my ears to listen. No answer came, yet Vlacho went on as
though he had received an answer.
‘These cursed fellows make that difficult too,’ he said. ‘It would be
an epidemic.’ He laughed, seeming to see wit in his own remark.
‘Curse them, yes. We must move cautiously,’ said Constantine. ‘What a
nuisance women are, Vlacho.’
‘Ay, too many of them,’ laughed Vlacho.
‘I had to swear my life out that no one was here, and then, “If no
one’s there, why mayn’t I come?” You know the sort of thing.’
‘Indeed, no, my lord. You wrong me,’ protested Vlacho humorously, and
Constantine joined in his laugh.
‘You’ve made up your mind which, I gather?’ asked Vlacho.
‘Oh, this one, beyond doubt,’ answered his master.
Now I thought that I understood most of this conversation, and I was
very sorry that Euphrosyne was not by my side to listen to it. But I
had heard about enough for my purposes, and I had turned to crawl away
stealthily--it is not well to try fortune too far--when I heard the
sound of a door opening in the house. Constantine’s voice followed
directly on the sound.
‘Ah, my darling, my sweet wife,’ he cried, ‘not sleeping yet? Where
will your beauty be? Vlacho and I must work and plan for your sake,
but you need not spoil your eyes with sleeplessness.’
Constantine did it uncommonly well. His manner was a pattern for
husbands. I was guilty of a quiet laugh all to myself in the verandah.
‘For me? You’re sure it’s for me?’ came in that Greek with a strange
accent, which had first fallen on my ears in the Optimum Restaurant.
‘She’s jealous, she’s most charmingly jealous!’ cried Constantine in
playful rapture. ‘Does your wife pay you such compliments, Vlacho?’
‘She has no cause, my lord. But my lady Francesca thinks she has cause
to be jealous of the Lady Euphrosyne.’
Constantine laughed scornfully at the suggestion.
‘Where is she now?’ came swift and sharp from the woman. ‘Where is
Euphrosyne?’
‘Why, she’s a prisoner to that Englishman,’ answered Constantine.
I suppose explanations passed at this point, for the voices fell to a
lower level, as is apt to happen in the telling of a long story, and I
could not catch what was said till Constantine’s tones rose again as
he remarked:
‘Oh, yes; we must have a try at getting her out, just to satisfy the
people. For me, she might stay there as long as she likes, for I care
for her just as little as, between ourselves, I believe she cares for
me.’
Really this fellow was a very tidy villain; as a pair, Vlacho and he
would be hard to beat--in England, at all events. About Neopalia I had
learned to reserve my opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to
resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still
again--still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an
insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger.
For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and Vlacho
appeared on the threshold.
‘Ah,’ said Vlacho, ‘dawn is near. See, it grows lighter on the
horizon.’
A more serious matter was that, owing to the open door and the lamp
inside, it had grown lighter on the verandah, so light that I saw the
three figures--for the woman had come also--in the doorway, so light
that my huddled shape would be seen if any of the three turned an eye
towards it. I could have picked off both men before they could move;
but a civilised education has drawbacks; it makes a man scrupulous; I
did not fire. I lay still, hoping that I should not be noticed. And I
should not have been noticed but for one thing. Acting up to his part
in the ghastly farce which these two ruffians were playing with the
wife of one of them, Constantine turned to bestow kisses on the woman
before he parted from her. Vlacho, in a mockery that was horrible to
me who knew his heart, must needs be facetious. With a laugh he drew
back; he drew back farther still; he was but a couple of feet from the
wall of the house; and that couple of feet I filled. In a moment, with
one step backwards, he would be upon me. Perhaps he would not have
made that step; perhaps I should have gone, by grace of that narrow
interval, undetected. But the temptation was too strong for me. The
thought of the thing threatened to make me laugh. I had a pen-knife in
my pocket. I opened it, and dug it hard into that portion of Vlacho’s
frame which came most conveniently and prominently to my hand. Then,
leaving the pen-knife where it was, I leapt up, gave the howling
ruffian a mighty shove, and with a loud laugh of triumph bolted for my
life down the hill. But when I had gone twenty yards I dropped on my
knees, for bullet after bullet whistled over my head. Constantine, the
outraged Vlacho too, perhaps, carried a revolver! Their barrels were
being emptied after me. I rose and turned one hasty glance behind me.
Yes, I saw their dim shapes like moving trees. I fired once, twice,
thrice, in my turn, and then went crashing and rushing down the path
that I had ascended so cautiously. I cannoned against the tree trunks;
I tripped over trailing branches; I stumbled over stones. Once I
paused and fired the rest of my barrels. A yell told me I had hit--but
Vlacho, alas, not Constantine; I knew the voice. At the same instant
my fire was returned, and a bullet went through my hat. I was
defenceless now, save for my heels, and to them I took again with all
speed. But as I crashed along, one at least of them came crashing
after me. Yes, it was only one! I had checked Vlacho’s career. It was
Constantine alone. I suppose one of your heroes of romance would have
stopped and faced him, for with them it is not etiquette to run away
from one man. Ah, well, I ran away. For all I knew, Constantine might
still have a shot in the locker; I had none. And if Constantine killed
me, he would kill the only man who knew all his secrets. So I ran. And
just as I got within ten yards of the drop into my own territory, I
heard a wild cry, ‘Charley! Charley! Where the devil are you,
Charley?’
‘Why, here, of course,’ said I, coming to the top of the bank and
dropping over.
I have no doubt that it was the cry uttered by Denny which gave pause
to Constantine’s pursuit. He would not desire to face all four of us.
At any rate the sound of his pursuing feet died away and ceased. I
suppose he went back to look after Vlacho, and show himself safe and
sound to that most unhappy woman, his wife. As for me, when I found
myself safe and sound in the compound, I said, ‘Thank God!’ And I
meant it too. Then I looked round. Certainly the sight that met my
eyes had a touch of comedy in it.
Denny, Hogvardt and Watkins stood in the compound. Their backs were
towards me, and they were all staring up at the roof of the kitchen,
with expressions which the cold light of morning revealed in all their
puzzled foolishness. And on the top of the roof, unassailable and out
of reach--for no ladder ran from roof to ground now--stood Euphrosyne,
in her usual attitude of easy grace. Euphrosyne was not taking the
smallest notice of the helpless three below, but stood quite still
with unmoved face, gazing up towards the cottage. The whole thing
reminded me of nothing so much as of a pretty composed cat in a tree,
with three infuriated helpless terriers barking round the trunk. I
began to laugh.
‘What’s all the shindy?’ called out Denny. ‘Who’s doing
revolver-practice in the wood? And how the dickens did she get there,
Charley?’
But when the still figure on the roof saw me, the impassivity of it
vanished. Euphrosyne leant forward, clasping her hands, and said to
me:
‘Have you killed him?’
The question vexed me. It would have been civil to accompany it, at
all events, with an inquiry as to my own health.
‘Killed him?’ I answered gruffly. ‘No, he’s sound enough.’
‘And--’ she began; but now she glanced, seemingly for the first time,
at my friends below. ‘You must come and tell me,’ she said, and with
that she turned and disappeared from our gaze behind the battlements.
I listened intently. No sound came from the wood that rose grey in the
new light behind us.
‘What have you been doing?’ demanded Denny surlily; he had not enjoyed
Euphrosyne’s scornful attitude.
‘I have been running for my life,’ said I, ‘from the biggest
scoundrels unhanged. Denny, make a guess who lives in that cottage.’
‘Constantine?’
‘I don’t mean him.’
‘Not Vlacho--he’s at the inn.’
‘No, I don’t mean Vlacho.’
‘Who then, man?’
‘Someone you’ve seen.’
‘Oh, I give it up. It’s not the time of day for riddles.’
‘The lady who dined at the next table to ours at the Optimum,’ said I.
Denny jumped back in amazement, with a long low whistle.
‘What, the one who was with Constantine?’ he cried.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘the one who was with Constantine.’
They were all three round me now; and thinking that it would be better
that they should know what I knew, and four lives instead of one stand
between a ruffian and the impunity he hoped for, I raised my voice and
went on in an emphatic tone,
‘Yes. She’s there, and she’s his wife.’
A moment’s astonished silence greeted my announcement. It was broken
by none of our party. But there came from the battlemented roof above
us a low, long, mournful moan that made its way straight to the heart,
armed with its dart of outraged pride and trust betrayed. It was not
thus, boldly and abruptly, that I should have told my news. But I did
not know that Euphrosyne was still above us, hidden by the
battlements. We all looked up. The moan was not repeated. Presently we
heard slow steps retreating, with a faltering tread, across the roof;
and we also went into the house in silence and sorrow. For a thing
like that gets hold of a man; and when he has heard it, it is hard for
him to sit down and be merry, until the fellow that caused it has paid
his reckoning. I swore then and there that Constantine Stefanopoulos
should pay his.