'That is for us to say. We cannot make any bargain with you,' was the answer given roughly and impatiently.
'Will you guarantee us good treatment? Remember, I have told you we are peaceable folk. Have you no fear that King Agrando will call you to account?'
At this there was a harsh laugh.
'We have no fear of Agrando or his ruffians,' the voice declared jeeringly. 'You will gain nothing by appealing to him here.'
'Then you ought to welcome us as friends instead of treating us as enemies, for we have no more bitter foe than that same Agrando.'
'Why,' cried another voice, 'the fellow is mocking us! Is he not himself one of Agrando's myrmidons? He is dressed in the tyrant's uniform—ay, and so is another I can see beside him!'
'A man may wear another's uniform and yet be no friend of'—— Malto began, when Malandris interrupted him. It struck him that the second speaker was not unknown to him.
'I ought to know that voice!' he exclaimed. 'I should recognise it among a thousand. Surely it is Landris, who was once a friend of mine!'
'It is Malandris,' they heard the second man then say; and there ensued a colloquy in a low tone between the unseen speakers. Presently the second man's voice was heard again.
'If you are Malandris, what are you doing here? If you have come out at the tyrant's bidding to join in hunting us down'——