"I have some very fine pictures inside," said the mayor. "Come, Lieutenant, Mr. Stork, Michali."
"Where are the pictures?" asked Curtis, when they had entered, hoping that his host possessed a collection of Byzantine, or perhaps Venetian, works of art. Kyr' Nikolaki glanced about the room and waved his hand majestically.
"They are hanging on the walls," he replied.
Borrowing Lindbohm's cane, he made the circuit of the room, pointing to the wretched prints that were hung high up, close to the ceiling.
"This," he explained, "is Marko Botsares, a famous Greek patriot of the war of independence. Have you ever heard of him?"
"Heard of him!" cried Curtis.
"At midnight in his guarded tent
The Turk lay dreaming of the hour,
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent
Should tremble at his power!"
"And this is Ali Pasha, with his head in the lap of his favorite wife," continued the mayor. "He lived at Janina. He was finally killed, as he deserved to be. He terrified Albania, Epirus and a part of Macedonia, but the Suliotes he could not terrify. Their women preferred to die rather than submit to Turks." Kyr' Nikolaki was reciting, after the manner of a lecturer, one of those glorious incidents in modern Greek history which all Greeks know by heart.
"Why do you go to Suli for an example of heroism?" cried Michali, springing to his feet, his eyes blazing with excitement. "He will tell you of the deeds of the brave Suliote women, and how they blew themselves up with their own powder, or danced, singing, over the edge of one cliff, to save their honor. Why shall he not tell rather of the convent of Arkadia?"
"Ah, certainly, certainly, tell them of Arkadia," cried the demarch, catching the name.