She made no reply, but slid along the wall, with her eyes fixed on the open door. He turned with an exclamation of impatience, shut it with a slam, locked it and put the key in his pocket.
"Na!" he said, "don't think of escaping. Try to fix your mind on what I am going to say to you. In the first place, I swear to you by my hopes of salvation that I mean you no harm. Now listen to me!—I love you, Panayota."
"Is that why you murdered my father?"
"Why do you say that I murdered your father?"
"Bring him to me alive, and then I shall know that you did not."
"You ask an impossible thing, Panayota. He is probably among the Sphakiote mountains by this time, and you know there aren't troops enough in all Turkey to get him out."
"Then I'll tell you what you do," cried Panayota eagerly, advancing a step or two. "Let me go and find him. I'll return here to Canea with him. Honestly I will, honestly—and you shall come and talk to me all you like."
Kostakes gave his mustache an impatient twist.
"To let you go, after all the trouble I've had getting you? O, no, Panayota. You're mine, by Allah! and whoever takes you away from me must kill me first. You don't know how I love you, I could never tell you. Listen. There isn't a drop of Turkish blood in me. My grandfather became a Turk because—because of circumstances, to save his life. I am the son of a Greek mother and she used to sing Greek lullabies to me in my cradle." He was talking very fast now. "I have always said I would turn Christian some time, and when I saw you, I made up my mind to do it right away. I have heard great news. Everybody says that the powers have decided to give the island to the king of Greece. Then there will be no more Turks here. They will either go away or become Orthodox. Say you'll marry me, Panayota, and I'll get rid of my harem, and we'll go before the priest—"
"Will you murder your wives as you did my father?" asked the girl. Kostakes stared at her, deprived for the moment of the power of speech. In his enthusiasm, he had talked himself into the feeling that his dreams were already realized. Panayota's voice, hard, sneering, cold with hate, shocked him like a sudden blow in the face with a whip. Then rage surged up in his veins and knocked at his temples. His hands, that he had extended pleadingly, trembled, and he gnashed his teeth. Kostakes was not beautiful at that moment. Panayota laughed.