"Tell them," said Lindbohm to Michali, "that I cannot sing in Greek, but that I desire to do my share and, with their permission, I will sing a little song in my own language, appropriate, I assure you, to the occasion." Michali translated and there was no doubt as to the reception of the proposition. Lindbohm had not gone farther than the first line before smothered "Ahs!" of admiration were heard. He was a singer. His voice was mellow, pleading, tender, rich. The song was evidently something pathetic, for it brought tears to the eyes of the impressionable Greeks. The last, deep, vibrating note died upon a couch of silence. A long interval ensued, for to the Cretans it seemed profane to reward such beautiful sound with a rude clatter of hands. At length Panayota rose from her place, and walking straight up to Lindbohm, laid a wreath of red roses and myrtle upon his brow.
They packed the mules and started home long before daylight. The procession wound down a rocky path and into the gray town in the silver dawn, with a chill breeze blowing from the sea, and one great, white star glowing in the heavens like a drop of dew. The wreaths had been threaded upon the roasting-spits, and the girls, two and two, carried them. Before sunrise a fresh wreath was hanging over the door of every house in Ambellaki.
CHAPTER VII
A DEMAND, AND A COWARD
"Hello!" cried Lindbohm, "what's the hubbub?"
It was the morning of the second of May. Curtis and his two friends were sitting in the mayor's café, drinking muddy black coffee, served in tiny cups.
Noisy voices, as of an increasing and excited throng, were audible. Michali, the mayor and the Swede rushed to the door, but were almost immediately swept back on the crest of an angry human wave. Two or three tall young shepherds, with long crooks in their left hands and with hairy cloaks thrown over their shoulders, were flinging their fists in the air and shouting hoarsely. Papa-Maleko, fully as tall as they, and looming above them by the height of his priest's hat, was flourishing angrily a bit of letter paper, and evidently attempting to out-yell them. His head was thrown back and his great black beard, jerked by his rapidly moving chin, twitched and danced upon his breast. Every moment more men, women and children crowded into the café, until it became thronged to suffocation. Curtis seized the little table that stood before him firmly with both hands and pulled it over his lame foot.
The demarch, clambering upon a bench, shouted and gesticulated, evidently for order. His efforts, at first unavailing, at last resulted in partial quiet, and he began to speak. He finished and stepped down. Then one of the shepherds jumped upon the improvised platform. He was no orator, but with few and hesitating words, told his story. It was evidently a case where facts were eloquent, for his voice was soon drowned in an inextinguishable roar, in the midst of which Papa-Maleko sprang upon another bench and commenced to speak, still shaking the bit of paper. Silence again fell. Curtis could understand scarcely anything. Each of the speakers talked so rapidly that the words seemed all joined together into one word of interminable length. He only knew that he was listening to an outburst of wild, crude eloquence—the eloquence of passion—the exultation of righteous indignation. When the priest had finished he tore the paper into little bits, and threw them into the air with thumbs and fingers extended like the ribs of a fan, the Greek gesture of a curse.
"Na!" he cried.
In the moment of silence, of evident perplexity, which followed, Curtis arose, and, seizing Michali firmly by the shoulder, pulled him nearer.