"Then, come with me," cried Hassan gaily. "I will pass you through the lines, and I may be able in some way to prove my gratitude to this gentleman who has saved my life. Voilà, we are comrades!" and, stepping between Curtis and Lindbohm, he grasped each by the arm. Again the bugle sounded.
"They can fight," mused the Swede sadly, stooping and looking back over his shoulder, "but no discipline, no discipline! Allons, Monsieur!"
CHAPTER XXXII
A VIOLENT WOOER
Kostakes had something of importance to say to Panayota—something unpleasant, to judge from his perturbed appearance. The door to her room failed to open at the first turning of the key; the lock was old and worn and the bolt did not always respond. But Kostakes did not calmly try again. He threw his weight pettishly against the unyielding barrier and kicked noisily at the panels. Having thus given vent in a slight degree to his boiling passion, he again tried the key, swearing to himself meanwhile in Greek—that language being in every way more satisfactory than Turkish in a crisis demanding profanity. Almost falling into the room, he brought himself up with a jerk and stood glaring at the unhappy girl. To Panayota, who had always seen him hitherto in a gentle and persuasive mood, he was as a man who had put off a mask. Somehow he did not frighten her, for his looks now corresponded with her idea of his real character; that scowling brow, those glaring eyes, that protruding under jaw trembling with rage, well befitted the murderer of her father and the despoiler of her home. If Kostakes should come into her room some time when he was drunk! But now he was only angry, seemingly speechless with rage. She had been peering through the grating of her window watching a rat that was running to and fro in the sunless court below; he was so fat and his legs were so short that he seemed to be sliding over the pavement like a toy mouse. When she first heard Kostakes' key in the lock she grasped the iron bars to keep herself from falling and, leaning against the wall, stood looking at the door. And thus she stood now, a smile of scorn faintly curling her pale lip. Kostakes strode across the room and, seizing her wrist wrenched her hand loose from the iron bar.
"You won't marry me, eh?" he said. "I'm not good enough for you, eh? I suppose I'm old or ugly or you prefer somebody else? Is that it, eh? Well, now I'm going to tame you. You wouldn't have me as a Christian, you shall have me as a Turk. There aren't going to be any more Christians, do you hear? Eh? Do you hear? We're going to kill the whole cursed brood of them, English, French, Italians, Cretans! There won't be one left. Islam is aroused. We'll cut their throats—" he shouted, flinging her wrist from him, and making an imaginary slash at his own neck. "The streets will run blood. Every dog of an unbeliever in Crete must die, men, women and children—except you."
The blood of the Turkish father had prevailed, and Kostakes was overwhelmed with that form of religious mania which cries for blood. He had joined a band of young Turks, who had planned a grand coup, to save Crete, and his Christian love for Panayota was fast turning into Turkish love. It needed but a riot of blood and rapine to make the change complete.
"You would not have me as a Christian," he repeated, with his hand on the door knob; "then you shall take me as a Turk," and he went out.
Panayota, being left alone again, was frightened, and it is proof of the girl's nobility of soul that she thought not of herself, but of her fellow Christians, whom she believed to be in imminent danger. If she could only escape and give them warning! But she dismissed that thought, for she had tried every possible means again and again. She might stand at the window and scream, but she had already done that, with no effect. Kostakes' house was right in the center of the Turkish quarter, and the screams of an hysterical or angry woman attracted little attention. A girl shouting in Greek for help was a time-honored legend of Turkish rule; as old as Islam and as natural as murder. So, as a last resort, she fell upon her knees and besought the Virgin to help and save the people, to pity the mothers and the little children and to turn away from them this danger. Now, while she was praying, a conflict had been taking place within the breast of Kostakes, of which he felt the effects, but of which he was entirely unconscious. The blood of his Greek mother had been making a last stand against that of his Mohammedan father, and while he was even yet breathing out curses against the Christians and muttering, "She shall have me as a Turk," he turned about automatically, as it were, and retraced his steps to Panayota's room. The girl rose from her knees.
"I am praying the Holy Virgin to save my people," she said in a solemn tone. Her eyes were streaming with tears. Kostakes shuddered, and involuntarily raised his arm, restraining himself with difficulty from making the sign of the cross. This Virgin of his mother could be a very terrible being when angry.