“Hush!” cautioned Tyrus, in alarm. “Be careful what you say, if you value your life!”
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, the dark eyes of Donatus were lifted and fastened inquiringly upon them.
“Why speak in whispers, Tyrus, my friend?” he demanded, using the Romaic speech, with which he did not seem wholly familiar. “If you have anything to utter, you need not fear to speak out.”
Instantly Tyrus would have risen, but the chief made a gesture that bade him remain as he was.
“We did not wish to disturb you, chief,” asserted the elder Greek: “It was plain you were buried in thought.”
“I was. I was thinking of my youth and of my home far from this spot. For some time I have longed to return there, Tyrus; but I have not wished to go empty-handed.”
“By the stories they tell of you, you should have riches to-day.”
Donatus made a slight, careless gesture with his hand.
“Who gets money as I have and keeps it?” he said. “It is a desperate and precarious life, Tyrus, and the rewards do not compensate for the dangers. I came to Athens to seek certain men of influence to interpose in my behalf and seek for me a pardon, with the understanding that I should forever abandon the life I have led in recent years. Chance threw me in with you, a friend who once concealed me when armed enemies were close on my track. I promised you then that if the opportunity ever came Donatus would repay the debt. You appealed to me in your distress, saying the Englishmen had stolen your niece.
“I called some of my followers, who in disguise had entered the city with me. If you had advised it, we would have attacked the Englishmen then and taken the girl from them. But you were afraid, Tyrus, that it would create an uproar, and as a result that it must become generally known that you had consorted with Donatus, the outlaw. You said wait, and we waited. Fortune came our way, for the Englishmen fancied they saw their opportunity to escape with the girl, and they lost no time in trying it. We were watching every move, and they played the game to suit us when they hastened with the girl from the city. In the open country we could work, and we did work. One poor fool of an Englishman we left on the road, permitting him to think he had deceived us, while, at your suggestion, we took the other one. He is now a prisoner in the cave yonder, where also the girl is safely stored.