"I ought to know how to roast a lamb," he said. "I have done it this thirty years."
A girl brought the head of Barba Spiro's lamb and laid it before the demarch, who plucked out one of the eyes with a fork and passed the morsel to Curtis, who took it and looked inquiringly at Michali.
"What am I to do with it?" he asked.
"Eat it. It is the most delicate tid-bit of the whole lamb—sweet, juicy, delicious."
"I've no doubt it's juicy," replied Curtis, "but I couldn't eat it to save my life. It looks as though it could see. Excuse me, Kyr' Demarche," he continued in Greek, "I do not care for the eye. If you will give me a little more of the meat, please—" and he passed his plate.
"Not like the eye!" shouted everybody in astonishment. Lindbohm took the succulent morsel from Curtis' hand, and swallowed it with a loud sipping sound, as though it were an oyster.
"Kalo! kalo!" he exclaimed, smacking his lips.
And so the feast wore on. When it was not possible for anybody to eat another mouthful, Turkish coffee was prepared over the miller's foufous, two or three little portable stoves, circular and made of sheet iron; and cigarettes were lighted. Under the soothing influence of the mild Cretan tobacco silence fell again, disturbed only by the soft splashing of waters. Through a rift in the branches of the giant oak Curtis could see the bright, silver bow of the new moon, and, far below, a glittering star, like the tip of an arrow shot athwart the night. The girls were tumbling the flowers into a pile beneath the lamp: bright red geraniums, clusters of the fragrant heliotrope, April roses, small, red and very sweet; aromatic basil, myrtle with its bridal green. Then they sat down about the heap and began to weave garlands, using the myrtle as a background for the pied coloring of the blossoms. A nightingale sang somewhere among the trees behind the old mill, the waters never ceased to murmur and gurgle in the moonlight, and a faint breeze from the far sea brought a message of cherry trees in bloom. A young man sitting on the ground with his back against the tree played a few chords upon a guitar, and sang, with much feeling, one line of a couplet:
"My little angel, sugar sweet, angelic honey maiden"—
That he was not improvising was evident from the fact that all the Greeks present joined him in the second line: