‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘He would tell as few as possible. You see, we have always kept the secret from the islanders. I think that, if you had not killed Spiro, he would not have lived long after knowing it.’
‘The deuce!’ I exclaimed. ‘And Vlacho?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Constantine is very fond of Vlacho. Still, perhaps, some day—’ The unfinished sentence was expressive enough.
‘What use was the secret?’ I asked, as we groped our way slowly along and edged by the body of Spiro which lay, six feet of dead clay, in the path.
‘In the first place, we could escape by it,’ she answered, ‘if any tumult arose in the island. That was what Stefan tried to do, and would have done, had not his own kindred been against him and overtaken him here in the passage.’
‘And in the second place?’ I asked.
Phroso stopped, turned round, and faced me.
‘In the second place,’ she said, ‘if any one of the islanders became very powerful—too powerful, you know—then the ruling lord would show him great favour; and, as a crowning mark of his confidence, he would bid him come by night and learn the great secret; and they two would come together down this passage. But the lord would return alone.’
‘And the other?’
‘The body of the other would be found two, three, four days, or a week later, tossing on the shores of the island,’ answered Phroso. ‘For look!’ and she held the lantern high above her head so that its light was projected in front of us, and I could see fifteen or twenty yards ahead.