"Oh! by no means!"
"Eh! well! you cannot believe that we are foolish enough to make a crime of your birth? Eh! Monsieur, I know very well that it is not permitted to all the world to be English! The entire earth cannot be English--at least, not for many years. But one may be an honest man and a learned man without having really been born in England."
"As for integrity, Madame, it is a virtue which we transmit from father to son. As for intelligence, I have just enough to be a doctor. But, unfortunately, I have no illusions in regard to my physical defects, and----"
"You wish to say that you are ugly? No, Monsieur, you are not ugly. You have an intelligent face. Mary-Ann, is not Monsieur"s face intelligent?"
"Yes, mamma!" Mary-Ann replied. If she blushed as she answered her mother saw it better than I, for my eyes were fixed obstinately on the ground.
"Monsieur," added Mrs. Simons, "were you ten times uglier, you would not then be as ugly as my late husband. And, more than that, I beg you to believe that I was as pretty as my daughter the day I gave him my hand.
What have you to say to that?"
"Nothing, Madame, except that you confuse me, and that it will not be my fault if you are not on the road to Athens to-morrow."
"What do you count on doing? This time try to find a means less ridiculous than that the other day!"
"I hope to satisfy you if you will listen to me to the end."
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Without interrupting me?"
"I will not interrupt you. Have I ever interrupted you?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"When?"
"Always! Madame, Hadgi-Stavros has all his funds invested in the firm of Barley & Company."
"With our firm?"
"No. 31 Cavendish Square, London. Last Wednesday he dictated, in our presence, a business letter to Mr. Barley."
"And you never told me before?"
"You would never give me the opportunity."
"But this is monstrous! Your conduct is inexplicable! We could have been at liberty six days ago! I will go straight to him; I will tell him our relations----"
"And he will demand of you two or three hundred thousand francs! Believe me, Madame, the best way is to say nothing to him. Pay your ransom; make him give you a receipt, and in fifteen days send to him a statement, with the following note: "Item, 100,000 francs paid, personally, by Mrs.
Simons, our partner, as per receipt!" In this way you will get back your money, without the aid of the soldiers. Is it clear?"
I raised my eyes and saw the pretty smile which broke over Mary-Ann"s face as she saw through the plot. Mrs. Simons angrily shrugged her shoulders, and seemed moved only by ill-humor.
"Truly," she said to me, "you are a wonderful man! You proposed to us an acrobatic escape when we had such simple means at our command! And you have known it since Wednesday morning! I will never pardon you for not having told me the first day."
"But, Madame, will you not remember that I begged you to write to Monsieur, your brother, to send you a hundred and fifteen thousand francs?"
"Why a hundred and fifteen?"
"I mean to say a hundred thousand."
"No! a hundred and fifteen. That is right! Are you sure that this Stavros will not keep us here when he has received the money?"
"I will answer for it. The bandits are the only Greeks who never break their word. Do you not understand that if it happened once that they kept prisoners after having received the ransom, no one would ever pay one again?"
"That is true! But what a queer German you are, not to have spoken sooner."
"You always cut me short."
"You ought to have spoken even then!"
"But, Madame----"
"Silence! Lead me to this detestable Stavros."
The King was breakfasting on roast turtles, seated with his unwounded officers under his tree of justice. He had made his toilet; he had washed the blood from his hands and changed his clothes. He was discussing, with his men, the most expeditious means of filling the vacancies made by death in his ranks. Vasile, who was from Javina, offered to find thirty men in Epinus, where the watchfulness of the Turkish authorities had put more than a thousand bandits in retreat. A Laconian wished that they might get for ready money the little band belonging to Spartiate Pavlos, who had improved the province of Mague, in the neighborhood of Calamato. The King, always imbued with English ideas, thought of forced recruiting, and of pressing into service the Attic shepherds. This plan seemed to him to possess superior advantages, as it would require no outlay of funds and he would obtain the herds into the bargain.
Interrupted in the midst of his deliberations, Hadgi-Stavros gave his prisoners a cool reception. He did not offer even a gla.s.s of water to Mrs. Simons, and she had not yet breakfasted; she fully realized the omission of this courtesy. I took upon myself the part of speaker, and, in the Corfuan"s absence, the King was forced to accept my services as intermediary. I said to him that after the disaster of the evening before he would be glad to learn Mrs. Simons" decision; that she would pay, with the briefest delay possible, her ransom and mine; that the funds would be turned over the next day, either to a banker in Athens, or to some other place which he would designate, in exchange for his receipt.
"I am much pleased," he said, "that these ladies have renounced the idea of calling the Greek army to their aid. Tell them that, for the second time, anything necessary for writing will be furnished them; but that they must not abuse my confidence! That they must not draw the soldiers here! At the sight of the very first soldier who appears on the mountain, I will cut off their heads. I swear it by the Virgin of the Megaspilion, who was carved by Saint Luke"s own hand."
"Do not doubt! I give my word for these ladies and myself. Where do you wish to have the sum left?"
"At the National Bank of Greece. It is the only one which has not yet gone into bankruptcy."
"Have you a safe man to carry the letter?"
"I have the good old man! I will send to the convent for him. What time is it? Nine o"clock in the morning. The reverend gentleman has not yet drunk enough to become tipsy."
"The monk will do. When Mrs. Simons" brother has turned over the sum and taken your receipt, the monk will bring you the news."
"What receipt? Why a receipt? I have never given any. When you are at liberty you will readily see that you have paid me what you owe me."
"I think that a man like you ought to transact business according to European methods. In a good administration----"
"I transact business in my own way, and I am too old to change my methods!"
"As you please! I ask it in the interest of Mrs. Simons. She is guardian of her minor daughter, and she must render account of her whole fortune."
"But that will arrange itself! I care for my interests as she does for hers. When she pays for her daughter is it a great misfortune? I have never regretted what I have disbursed for Photini. Here is the paper, the ink and the reeds. Be good enough to watch the composition of the letter. It concerns your head, too!"
I rose, abashed, and followed the ladies, who saw my confusion without knowing the cause. But a sudden inspiration made me suddenly retrace my steps. I said to the King: "Decidedly, you were right to refuse the receipt, and I was wrong in asking for it. You are wiser than I; youth is imprudent."