‘What did you do to them?’ I made bold to ask.
‘What was necessary,’ he said; and—‘They are not Armenians,’ added the Armenian Governor with a smile which meant much; among other things, as I took it, that no tiresome English demanded fair trial for riotous Neopalians.
‘And Constantine?’ said I. I hope that I was not too vindictive.
‘It is the feast of St Tryphon,’ said his Excellency, with another smile.
We were passing the guardhouse now. An officer and five men fell out from the ranks of our escort and took their stand by its doors. We passed on, leaving Constantine in this safe keeping; and Mouraki, turning to me, said, ‘I must ask you for hospitality. As Lord of the island, you enjoy the right of entertaining me.’
I bowed. We turned into the road that led to the old grey house; when we were a couple of hundred yards from it, I saw Phroso coming out of the door. She walked rapidly towards us, and paused a few paces from the Governor, making a deep obeisance to him and bidding him welcome to her poor house in stately phrases of deference and loyalty. Mouraki was silent, surveying her with a slight smile. She grew confused under his wordless smiling; her greetings died away. At last he spoke, in slow deliberate tones:
‘Is this the lady,’ said he, ‘who raises a tumult and resists my master’s will, and seeks to kill a lord who comes peaceably and by lawful right to take what is his?’
I believe I made a motion as though to spring forward. Mouraki’s expressive face displayed a marvelling question; did I mean such insolence as lay in interrupting him? I fell back; a public remonstrance could earn only a public rebuff.
‘Strange are the ways of Neopalia,’ said he, his gaze again on Phroso.