‘Oh, does it? And did you tell them they might go?’
‘Was there any objection? Certainly. Certainly I told them they might go, and I added that I heard with great gratification that a marriage so—’
What the captain had said to the deputation I did not wait to hear. No doubt it was something highly dignified and appropriate, for he was evidently much pleased with himself. But before he could possibly have finished so ornate a sentence, I was on the deck of the yacht. I heard Denny push back his chair, whether merely in wonder or in order to follow me I did not know. I leapt from the yacht on to the jetty and started to run up the street nearly as quickly as I had run down it on the day when Mouraki was kind enough to send my friends a-fishing. At all costs I must stop the demonstration of delight which the inconvenient innocence of these islanders was preparing.
Alas, the street was a desert! The movements of the captain were always leisurely. The impetuous Neopalians had wasted no time: they had got a start of me, and running up the hill after them was no joke. Against my will I was at last obliged to drop into a walk, and thus pursued my way doggedly, thinking in gloomy despair how everything conspired to push me along the road which my honour and my pledged word closed to me. Was ever man so tempted? Did ever circumstances so conspire with his own wishes, or fate make duty seem more hard?
I turned the corner of the road which lead to the old house. It was here I had first heard Phroso’s voice in the darkness, here where, from the window of the hall, I had seen her lithe graceful figure when she came in her boy’s dress to raid my cows; a little further on was where I had said farewell to her when she went back, the grant of Neopalia in her hand, to soften the hearts of her turbulent countrymen; here where Mouraki had tried her with his guile and intimidated her with his harshness; and there was the house where I had declared to the Pasha that she should be my wife. How sweet that saying sounded in my remembering ears! Yet I swear I did not waver. Many have called me a fool for it since. I know nothing about that. Times change, and people are very wise nowadays. My father was a fool, I daresay, to give thousands to his spendthrift school-fellow, just because he happened to have said he would.
I saw them now, the bright picturesque crowd, thronging round the door of the house; and on the step of the threshold I saw her, standing there, tall and slim, with one hand resting on the arm of Kortes’s sister. A loud cry rose from the people. She did not seem to speak. With set teeth I walked on. Now someone in the circle caught sight of me. There was another eager cry, a stir, shouts, gestures; then they turned and ran to me. Before I could move or speak a dozen strong hands were about me. They swung me up on their shoulders and carried me along; the rest waved their hands and cheered: they blessed me and called me their lord. The women laughed and the girls shot merry shy glances at me. Thus they bore me in triumph to Phroso’s feet. Surely I was indeed a hero in Neopalia to-day, for they believed that through me their Lady would be left to them, and their island escape the punishment they feared. So they sang One-eyed Alexander’s chant no more, but burst into a glad hymn—an epithalamium—as I knelt at Phroso’s feet, and did not dare to lift my eyes to her fair face.
‘Here’s a mess!’ I groaned, wondering what they had said to my poor Phroso.
Then a sudden silence fell on them. Looking up in wonder, I saw that Phroso had raised her hand and was about to speak. She did not look at me—nay, she did not look at them; her eyes were fixed on the sea that she loved. Then her voice came, low but clear: