These twelve soldiers and their commandant cost him two hundred pounds "English"; but that was nothing.
If his own words were ineffective, then the cord and wedge must do the rest. It had to be paid for.
The world was waiting.
On through the olive groves and the vines laden with purple. On, over the little stone-bridged cascades and streams—sweet gifts of lordly Ebal—round the eastern wall of the town, crumbling stone where the mailed lizards were sleeping in the sun; on to the low roofs and vivid trees where the Greek traitor had made his home!
At length the red road opened before them on to a burnt plain which was the edge and brim of the farm.
It lay direct and patent to the view, the place of the great secret.
Ionides was waiting for them, under a light verandah which ran round the house, before they reached the building.
He had seen them coming over the plain.
A little elderly olive-skinned man, with restless eyes the colour of sherry, bowed and bent before them with terrified inquiry in every gesture.
His gaze flickered over the arms and shabby uniforms of the soldiers with hate and fear in it mingled with a piteous cringing. It was the look which the sad Greek boatmen on the shores of the Bosphorus wear all their lives.