“Or to the English. Kalon malubdi! Give me a chief like Ulysses! In six months he would have gained the whole Peloponnesus, but for the coming of this foreigner—may a good ball find him!”
To Trevanion the malediction was as grateful as a draft of cool beer to the scorched palate of a waking sot. He spoke in the vernacular: “There are English, too, who would drink that toast! Who is Ulysses?”
His faded sailor’s rig had been misleading. Both clapped hands to their belts as, “One who will sweep this puppet of Mavrocordato’s into the gulf!” the first replied fiercely.
“May I be there to help!” exclaimed Trevanion, savagely. “Take me to this leader of yours!”
The two Suliotes looked at him narrowly, then conferred. At length the chief came closer.
“If you would serve Ulysses,” he said, “meet me beyond the north fortifications at sunset.”
Trevanion nodded, and they turned away, as a shout went up from the assembled people. A boat had swung out from the brig’s davits. It carried a flag—a white cross on a blue ground—the standard of New Greece.
The man with the disabled arm flushed suddenly, for his dark, sullen gaze had fallen on the sea-wall, where stood His Highness, Prince Mavrocordato, with Pietro Gamba. The latter had followed Gordon to Cephalonia and from there had come on the Hercules’ consort. A slinking shame bit Trevanion as he recalled the day when his poisoned whisper would have fired that young heart to murder; he wheeled and plunged into the human surge.
The couple on the sea-wall watched eagerly. The lowered boat had been rapidly manned. A figure wearing a scarlet uniform took its place in the stern-sheets. The crowd buzzed and dilated.
The prince lowered his field-glass. “Thank God, he is safe!” he exclaimed in earnest Italian. “We have been in desperate straits, Pietro. With the General Assembly preparing to meet, when all the western country is in such disorder, with these untamed mountain chiefs flocking here with their clans, with Botzaris killed in battle, and only my paltry five thousand to keep dissensions in check, I have been prepared for the worst. Now there is hope. Look!”