"You were ever a man who could deal with men," he said to Nicholas, as the boy went out, "and you have trained the finest lad in Greece. But we have other things to talk of, and let us shake hands first, for I know not whether what I have to say will find favor with you. For we are friends, are we not?"
Nicholas smiled.
"Old friends, surely," he said. "May we long be so!"
"That is well," said Germanos, seating himself; "but first I have to tell you news which I hope may bind us even closer together, though with a tie of horror and amazement. Our patriarch, Gregorios, whom I think you knew, Nicholas, was executed at Constantinople on Easter Day, by order of the Sultan!"
Nicholas and Petrobey sprang from their seats.
"Gregorios!" they exclaimed in whispered horror.
"Executed, dying the most shameful death, hanged at the gate of the Patriarchate. Ah, but the vengeance of God is swift and sure, and the blood of another martyr cries from the ground. Oh, let this bind us together; hanged, the death of a dog; he, the holiest of men."
Germanos bowed his head and there was silence for a moment.
"That was not enough," he continued, his voice trembling with a passionate emotion. "For three days he hung there, and the street dogs leaped up to bite at the body. Then it was given to the Jews, and I would sooner have seen it devoured by the dogs than cast into the hands of those beasts; and they dragged it through the streets and threw it into the sea. But pious men watched it and took it to Odessa, where it was given burial such as befits the body of one of the saints of God. And though dead, he works, for on the ship that took it there was a woman stricken with paralysis, and they brought her to touch the body, and she went away whole."
Nicholas was sitting with his face in his hands, but at this he looked up.