CHAPTER X. A RANDOM SHOT.
Dr. Selaka was a proud and hopeful man on the morning he saw Gustav Reineke depart for Syra, in charge of the amiable captain of the Sphacteria. On his return from the Piræus, where he had bidden him farewell, he bethought himself of the duty of inquiring into the identity of this mysterious personage. He consulted Dr. Galenides, who in turn consulted the German Consul and was referred then to the Baron von Hohenfels. Herr Gustav Reineke was vaguely known upon learned repute, but of his antecedents, parentage, means, and social and domestic condition, no information could be accurately obtained. Assertion was winged upon surmise, a very untenable resource with foreigners. There might be a Frau Reineke and a domestic circle in the background, and there might not. Of shadier relations no note was taken. In olden days, we know, science went hand in hand with sharp poverty—clearly an undesirable sequel to Inarime’s protected girlhood. With such a possibility ahead, Dr. Selaka recognised the rashness of arresting the eye of hope upon this particular marriage, despite the depressing reflection that his maniacal brother would infinitely prefer to support an archæological son-in-law, than see Inarime gracefully enthroned above Athenian matrons, a jewel in solid, unlearned gold.
“Stavros is right. Better have the girl up to Athens, and play her beauty upon the susceptibilities of our friend Mingros.” But it was a minor question. His attention was engrossed by parliamentary strife and the coming election. This was but the preliminary of ministerial glory. Place him upon the tribune, Hellas would shake with the thunder of his voice, and Europe hold down her abashed head in the face of a violated Treaty of Berlin, and an unenlarged Greek frontier. He mentally apostrophised Europe, and fell to speaking of himself, and gesticulating wildly, as he walked from the station in Hermes Street to inspect the new house he was building close to the Queen’s Hospital. The work was progressing fairly, and as he made a bid for luck by sacrificing a cock before the first stone was laid, he felt healthily free from apprehensions of any sort. Dr. Galenides was coming out of the Hospital as he turned to go, and the friends stopped to discuss the situation.
“Stavros grows more irrepressible,” said Dr. Galenides, with a curious smile. “He wields his pen not as a sword but as a whip to lash us all, friends and enemies.”
“All bluster. He likes to be thought volcanic,” laughed Selaka, easily.
“Perhaps he has no objection to a reputation a trifle more serious,” Galenides suggested, with a look ostensibly blank.
Dr. Selaka glanced sharply round at him.
“Do you distrust him?”
“It is a wise saying—trust nobody. We are all liable to change.”
“What change do you foresee in Stavros?”
“A change you will hardly appreciate,” Dr. Galenides replied, shutting up his lips with a secretive air.
“Turncoat?”
“Well, well, report speaks queerly at times. Had you been wise, you would have hesitated to compromise yourself upon pressure of his. But it is customary for monarchs to yield to the blandishments of their ministers. This understanding is the basis of the throne. Yours, my friend, is not stable.”
“You forget that I am a monarch of a realm that knows neither ministry nor change. By the way, I sent that young man off to Tenos to-day.”
“That’s another bold stroke. You are too fond of random shots. Beware of bringing down the wrong bird.”
Selaka flushed darkly, and frowned in a threatening manner.
“You have the merit of making yourself understood.”
“I always endeavour to do so, Constantine. Good-bye, before we quarrel. Come and dine with me this evening.”
The doctors shook hands perfunctorily. Selaka was profoundly troubled by these hints against the political constancy of his friend and adviser. He had sagacity enough to believe that Galenides would not speak without some justification for his doubts. It was widely known that Galenides was in the confidence of the Minister. Zeus! Could Oïdas have bought him over?
He kept a keen lookout for any casual evidence of disloyalty or coldness. For some days depression lay heavily on his spirits, and a telegram from Pericles announcing the safe arrival of the stranger, only temporarily lifted the gloom.
The week was spent in canvassing on his own account, and everywhere he met with proofs of his follower’s remissness on his behalf. He taxed Stavros with faithlessness, and his chequered feelings were promptly whipped back into confidence by the other’s cordiality and grave assurance.—He desert a friend! Might the soul of his father appear to him that night, and announce eternal perdition to him, if he could be guilty of such meanness! Might hell’s flames encompass him, and the remainder of his days be in shadow! He thumped his chest violently, showed by a crimson cheek the wound upon his honour, and the flame of resentment was in his tawny eyes.
Dr. Selaka was convinced, and apologised. Remorse held his glance averted from that of his wronged friend, so gave the other an opportunity for looking slyly sideways at him, and pursing his lips forward to strangle the perfidious smile about them.
In that evening’s edition of the “New Aristophanes,” there was a sensational announcement that the editor ardently desired to explain to the Athenians the motives of a change of policy, and he considerately gave them rendez-vous on the following Sunday afternoon at the Odeon in Minerva Street.
Selaka was alarmed to the verge of unreason, and found no comfort in an enthusiastic letter received that morning from Pericles, expressing complete satisfaction with Reineke, and his conviction that he was in every way worthy of Inarime. Is it human to be interested in the marriage of a niece when signs of storm are visible upon the political horizon? But it was still possible that a change of policy in Stavros meant no defection upon the question of the mayoralty. All he craved was the lawyer’s help to that post of civic honour, and in parliamentary matters he was free as a weathercock.
There was something so irresistibly comic and original in the audacious proposal of Stavros, that hardly a male in the town failed to put in an appearance at the Odeon. The siesta was cut short, and at half-past three numbers of black-coated civilians were crossing the Platea Omonia, where the afternoon band was playing in front of the Café Charamis. All the tables were speedily vacated, with empty coffee cups to speak of the unwonted evasion. The band went on playing to the nurses and babies, over whom a soldier or two mounted guard.
The Odeon was crowded, and many had to content themselves with being packed closely in the passage, whence a second-hand knowledge of the proceedings could be obtained.
Agiropoulos, always on the alert for surprise and excitement, was there, chatting audibly with the glorious Miltiades. The poet looked on with a casual, contemptuous glance, which clearly expressed his opinion that these Athenians were so very provincial and absurd.
“Absurd? Yes,” ejaculated Agiropoulos, aggressively scanning the assembly through his eyeglass. “That completes their interest.”
“By the soul of Hercules! that fellow they call the King of Tenos is monstrous,” muttered the poet.
“Because he presents the front of a credulous Greek?”
“Because he is a damned idiot.”
Here their flattering comments were interrupted by the appearance of Stavros upon the stage. There was lively promise of what the French would call “une séance à sensation,” and all eyes were fastened curiously upon the lawyer and recreant politician. As for his views, we will not indicate them, nor attempt to reproduce his words. The evolution he attempted to accomplish and gracefully explain might fitly be described less delicately upon non-political ground, but the atmosphere is everything.
Stavros was tightly buttoned in a frock coat, as became a legal deputy. A semi-humorous, wholly false smile ran along his lips, and his audacious eyes twinkled pleasantly with appreciation of his difficulties. He saw Selaka, and he nodded deprecatingly, his smile growing sweet and unsteady. And then, with a preparatory sentence or two, he launched out on the sea of empty eloquence. He glided fluently over trivialities, and lost his listeners in a fog of vague ideas, stringing grandiose expressions with an abominable readiness, until weariness sat upon the spirit of sense and begat regret for the wisdom of silence. Alas! this is a wisdom the modern races are unwilling to acquire. The wordy eloquence of the parliamentarian delights depraved taste here as elsewhere, and as long as Stavros talked grandly of Europe, the Treaty of Berlin, the enlargement of the Greek frontier, the future grasp of Constantinople, he was quite able to drown his own particular villainy with these sprays of aspiration. Some might think him untrue to his political principles, but, after all, what principles could any honest politician have but the good of his country? It had been clearly demonstrated to him that his dear particular friend, Dr. Selaka, the distinguished member for Tenos, was an unfit candidate for the Mayoralty, and that the election of Kyrios Oïdas would redound to the honour and glory of Athens.
“How much has he paid you?” Selaka roared, jumping to his feet, and glaring at the orator.
“Come, Stavros, name the sum,” was shouted from the body of the hall.
Stavros reddened faintly, but he faced the insult with an imperturbable air, dismissing it in disdainful silence. He maundered on, outrageously displaying his conviction that men will swallow any amount of nonsense from a public speaker. His speech was largely interspersed with such sounding and significant words as “patriotism,” and “liberty,” the glory of Greece, duty to his constituents, and the good of Athens, and wound up by protesting that the eye of Europe was anxiously fixed upon the coming election, and it behoved the Athenians to stand upon their honour.
This farrago was followed by loud applause, and Agiropoulos and the poet forced their way out of the hall to enjoy a hearty laugh. Agiropoulos was satirical, and drew a moving picture of Europe trembling upon the issue of the contest between Oïdas and Stavros. The poet turned it into rough verse, and both exploded again in roars of appreciative mirth.
“All the same, he is a villain, that Stavros.”
“A very clever fellow,” protested Agiropoulos, “and noticeably for sale. I don’t blame a man for making the best of his vices and gilding them for exposure.”
Selaka was coming out, in voluble altercation with the great Miltiades. The captain looked majestically indignant, and frowned with dreadful purpose. The Deputy shook his fist back towards the hall, thundered, vociferated, and clamored frantically for vengeance.
“There is nothing for it, my friend, but a duel,” the captain insisted. “You must fight him, positively.”
“I will fight him, yes. I, Constantine Selaka, will mangle, murder, shoot him.”
This wrench of wounded trust was more than the wretched man could bear. Agiropoulos took malicious interest in his raving and ranting. He drew near and, by a sympathetic remark, put a point upon his victim’s sufferings.
“By Zeus! I’ll shoot him, I will. I’ll riddle him with balls, and leave his carcase food for the ravens.”
“A very laudable intention on your part, Kyrie Selaka, and one that every reasonable man will appreciate,” said Agiropoulos, winking at the poet.
“I have urged him to it,” Miltiades explained, heroically. “I am proud to place myself in this delicate matter at the service of Dr. Selaka.”
“It is an honour to know a gallant man and a hero like you, Captain Karapolos,” Agiropoulos rejoined gravely.
Miltiades touched his hat and bowed. His expression eloquently said: “If it’s gallantry and heroism you’re in search of, you’ve come to the right person.”
The distraught doctor, walking between his friends, uttered many a rash word, and no suggestion less than murder could appease his wrath. That evening it was bruited round Athens that he had sent a challenge to Stavros, and the town impatiently awaited the exciting results.
Oïdas acted as second to Stavros. When the hour was fixed, he found his principal plunged in the depths of despair. The lawyer and editor had a very good notion of settling a quarrel with the pen and the tongue, but when it came to a question of loaded pistols, capacity oozed out through his finger-tips, and the sweat of mortal terror drenched his brow.
“If the thing should not go off properly?” he suggested.
“Just hold it straight, and sight your target—like this,” Oïdas explained, lifting the weapon.
“Oh, oh! take care, Oïdas. Mind it doesn’t go off,” Stavros supplicated, making a rush for the door.
“You fool! It is not even loaded.”
Stavros sat up all night to write miserable letters to his mother and sisters at Constantinople, and heaped curses on the head of his frantic enemy. The doctor fared hardly better. Deprived of the stimulating society of his military friend, his spirits sank, his mind became unhinged, and his aspect took a funereal hue. He sent an incoherent missive to Pericles, and lay on his bed weeping and moaning. When Miltiades and Agiropoulos aroused him next morning, his eyelids were appalling to behold, and his effort at cheerfulness most ghastly.
“A soldier never anticipates evil; is that not so, my brave Captain?” laughed Agiropoulos.
“Could not this matter be more pacifically arranged?” Selaka implored, vainly endeavoring to conceal his fear in the mask of humanity. “It is a sinful thing, my friends, to waste the blood of one’s fellow in a private quarrel.”
“If it comes to that,” said the ready Agiropoulos, “there is little to choose between public and private quarrels. Indeed, more often than not, wars have sprung from personal differences.”
“But the law of every civilised country forbids duelling. Stavros and I are both lawgivers—that is, we represent the Constitution, and are bound to uphold it. It would be monstrous for two members of Parliament to break the law,” pleaded Selaka, covering himself with a last poor remnant of virtue.
“We make the laws for others, never for ourselves. Hang it, man, what’s liberty if it can’t provide us with a backstairs to the Temple of Wrong, and can’t supply us with decent excuses for the evasion of principles?”
“There is an abominable looseness in yours,” remarked Selaka, in a doleful attempt at indignation.
“Come, Doctor,” Miltiades cried, clanking his spurs impatiently. “Whatever the laws of the State may be, the laws of honour demand that neither antagonist be a moment behind time. I have the pistols. Be so good as to hurry your movements.”
The doctor’s laggard air suggested the gathering of scattered limbs, and the necessity for adjusting them before a march could be effected. He looked ruefully at the impassible Agiropoulos, and resented his impertinent eyeglass and his irreproachable toilet. He looked at the stern and gallant captain, wavered, and fresh words of protest died in his throat.
“There is no fear of our being discovered and the affair stopped?” he asked, in the tone of one to whom such a contingency would appear the worst possible catastrophe.
“Oh, none whatever,” Miltiades replied, reassuringly.
“Oh!” ejaculated Selaka, with his heart in his boots.
Through a similar hour of agony Stavros had passed, and awaited them with a poor imitation of stoic bearing.
“If anything happens, don’t forget to send this letter to my brother,” Selaka entreated, as he tremblingly took the pistol from Miltiades.
“God have mercy on my soul,” he murmured, firing with closed eyes, and shot—not his enemy but himself.