“So you say now. Oh, I have been your tool and slave all along!”
“You have. I have met treachery with treachery, and baffled you.”
“I have obeyed your wishes,” hissed the Greek venomously; “I have kept your secrets, but I will do so no longer. Whom you are, and what you are, I will tell this man.”
“Be silent, wretch!”
“I will not be silent; I have been silent too long. You have betrayed me, so now I will betray you. Maurice Roylands, look at this so-called Justinian. Do you know whom he is? An outcast Englishman, a renegade adventurer—your uncle Rudolph!”
“My uncle Rudolph!” replied Maurice, aghast.
“Yes. It was he who sent me to England for you; it is he who is heir to your fine estate; and you—you are nothing but a pauper!”
“Crispin, turn that man out!” commanded the Demarch, rising. “Go to the western pass, Count Caliphronas, and there you will find a boat in charge of Alexandros. Leave this island before nightfall, or, by heaven, I will have you drowned like the rat you are!”
“I go,” retorted the Greek fiercely, retreating before Crispin, and clutching the curtains. “I go; but when I return, I swear by all the saints that you shall suffer agonies for every word you have uttered to-day. Scoundrel! wretch! renegade! outcast! Và và!”
And, uttering the bitterest malediction he could think of, the beaten schemer vanished from the Acropolis, and later on from the island itself; from whence he doubtless went to Kamila, in search of Alcibiades, to assist him in his plans of revenge.