Again and again they hurled forth the defiant words, until at last they stopped opposite the inn with one final long-drawn shout of savage triumph.
‘Well, this is a go,’ said Denny, drawing a long breath. ‘What are the beggars up to?’
‘What have they been up to?’ I asked; for I could not doubt that the song we had heard had been chanted over a dead Stefanopoulos two hundred years before. At this age of the world the idea seemed absurd, preposterous, horrible. But there was no law nearer than Rhodes, and there only Turk’s law. The sole law here was the law of the Stefanopouloi, and if that law lost its force by the crime of the hand which should wield it, why, strange things might happen even to-day in Neopalia. And we were caught in the inn like rats in a trap.
‘I don’t see,’ remarked old Hogvardt, laying a hand on my shoulder, ‘any harm in loading our revolvers, my lord.’
I did not see any harm in it either, and we all followed Hogvardt’s advice, and also filled our pockets with cartridges. I was determined—I think we were all determined—not to be bullied by these islanders and their skull-and-crossbones ditty.
A quarter of an hour passed; then there came a knock at the door, while the bolts shot back.
‘I shall go out,’ said I, springing to my feet.
The door opened, and the face of a lad appeared.
‘Vlacho the innkeeper bids you descend,’ said he; and then, catching sight perhaps of our revolvers, he turned and ran downstairs again at his best speed. Following him we came to the door of the inn. It was ringed round with men, and directly opposite to us stood Vlacho. When he saw me he commanded silence with a gesture of his hand, and addressed me in the following surprising style.