Arethusa

by F. Marion Crawford

'Send for the money!' cried the voice of the Greek again.

'I have told you that I have not got it,' Zeno answered. 'If you have nothing more sensible to say, go to your quarters and let me sleep.'

'Pleasant dreams!' jeered the Greek; and several men laughed.

'I hope my dreams will be pleasant, for I am extremely sleepy,' Zeno answered carelessly. 'If you cut my throat before I wake you will get nothing at all, not even my funeral expenses! Now good-night, and be off!'

'We had better leave him,' Tocktamish said, pushing the nearest men away. 'You will get nothing at present, and it is impossible to frighten him. But he cannot get out, as you know. It is for our own safety, sir,' he added, changing his tone as he addressed Zeno. 'We cannot let you out till the city is quiet again, but you shall lack nothing. There are two cloaks for you to sleep on and for covering yourself, and I will bring you food and drink, and anything you want, in the morning.'

Zeno had found time to look about him during the conversation, as far as the light of the lanterns and the men who crowded upon him allowed him to see. He had understood very soon that he was not in the cellar of a ruined house, as he had at first supposed, but in one of those great disused cisterns, of which there are several in Constantinople, and of which two may still be seen. Centuries had passed since there had been water in this one, and the dust lay thick on the paved floor. Two or three score columns of grey marble supported the high vaulted roof, in which Zeno guessed that there was no longer any visible opening to the outer air. Yet air there was, in abundance, for it entered by the narrow entrance through which Zeno had been carried in, and probably found its way out through the disused aqueduct which had once supplied the water, and which still communicated with some distant exit. Zeno could only guess at this from his experience of fortresses, which always contained some similar cistern; every one he had seen was provided with openings, almost always both at the top; a few had staircases in order that men might more conveniently go down to clean them when they were empty.

His captors left him reluctantly at the bidding of their chief. They set one lantern against a pillar and filed out, carrying away the other. Zeno listened to their departing footsteps for a moment, when the last man had gone out, and then he went quickly to the entrance and listened again. In two or three minutes he heard what he expected; a heavy door creaked and was shut with a loud noise that boomed down the inclined passage. Then came another sound, which was not that of bolt or bar, and was worse to hear. The men were rolling big loose stones against the door to keep it shut—two, three, more, a dozen at least, a weight no one man could push outward. Then there was no more noise, and Zeno was alone.

His situation was serious, and his face was very thoughtful as he went back to the lantern and picked up one of the two cloaks Tocktamish had left him. He put it on and drew it closely round him, for he was beginning to feel cold in spite of the heavy guardsman's tunic he wore over his own clothes.

He thought of Arethusa, as he called Zoë; she had been in his mind constantly, and most of all in each of the moments of danger through which he had passed since he had left her. He thought of her lying awake on her divan in the soft light of the small lamps, waiting to hear his footsteps on the landing below her window, then falling gently asleep out of sheer weariness, to dream of him; starting in her rest, perhaps, as she dreamt that he was in peril, but smiling again, without opening her eyes, when the vision changed, and he held her in his arms once more. He little guessed what that yielding something beneath the canvas had been, on which he had pressed his foot so heavily when he had stepped ashore. She was happily ignorant, he fancied, of the succession of hairbreadth escapes through which he had passed unhurt so far. What weighed most on his mind, after all, was the thought that when he met her he should have to tell her that he had failed.

But he was not thinking of her only as he sat there, for his own situation stared him in the face, and he could not think of Arethusa without wondering whether he was ever to see her again. He had heard those big stones rolled to the door, and something told him that neither Tocktamish nor his men would bring the promised bread and water in the morning. They did not believe that he was unable to pay the ransom they demanded, and they meant to starve him into yielding. But he had spoken the truth; he had not such a sum of money at his command. The question was, what the end would be. For the present they had not left him so much as a jug of water, and he suddenly realised that he was thirsty after his many exertions. He could not help laughing to himself at the idea that he might die of thirst in a cistern.