"Not to Athens," said Kanaris. "A caique put in this evening. There has been a massacre of Turks, but little fighting. The Peiraeus, they say, was full of women and others who escaped from the houses of the Turks. Some have sailed to their homes; others are sailing. She was taken, was she not, at Spetzas? If she is still alive she may be there, or she may have heard you have gone to Hydra. I will help you, for she is cousin to me, and I will sail to Spetzas to-night while you wait here."
Nikola took him by the shoulder, almost pushing him from the room.
"Go then," he said. "Oh, be quick, man! Stay, do you want money? Take what you will; it is all for her."
And he walked across the room to the hearth, and wrenched up two of the stones. Below opened a space some three feet square filled with little linen bags all tied up. He took out a handful of them.
"Each is a hundred piasters," he said. "Take what you will; take three, four, all. For the time has come for me to use them."
But Kanaris, with a strange feeling of tenderness and pity, kissed the old man's hand and refused.
"I, too, will do something for my kin," he said, "She belongs to me as well as you."
"No, no!" cried Father Nikola. "She belongs to no one but me—to me only, I tell you. I will pay you as I would have paid the Turk. Oh, take the money, but go."
Kanaris shook his head.
"Very well; she is yours only. I will go. Wish me good luck, father."