To-morrow, Inarime, to-morrow! That was all I could think of as I sat and counted the hours, and my heart now sank within me in the complete prostration of yearning, and then rose to intoxicating heights upon the splendid wings of promise. I walked up and down the terrace all night, and watched the stars, as glorious and varied as the hopes that sprang and wavered and clamoured around me. Oh, the stillness, the soft yet sharp enchantment of a night-watch upon an Ægean island! The distant murmur of the restless sea breaks the silence of the land, and the shadowy hills fall into the dense veil of the valleys. The charm enters the soul like a pang, and it works upon the quickened senses with the subtle mingling of exasperation, of poignant and tranquil feelings. I felt chill as the twilight crept slowly over the night, and the stars began to pale and drop, one by one, out of the dim sky, like extinguished lamps, tracing a faint milky-way where their blue and golden illumination had been. Then quickly shot into the eastern horizon an arch of blood-red cloud, and showed the sea silver beneath it, and over this scarlet bridge appeared the sun, like a ball of living light ready to explode upon the pallid scene. And then the birds of the orchard began their piercing harmonies, and the wide spears of the grasses glistened with their crystal gathering of the night-dews. Day had come; my day, Inarime, and yours.
Contact with cold water did duty for sleep. I felt quite refreshed when I entered the little sitting-room where the coffee and Koulouria were served.
“You are early,” said Selaka, greeting me with an intangible smile, “and yet I am not wrong in believing you were walking on the terrace long after every one had gone to bed.”
I nodded, and drank my coffee as if it were nectar. I almost choked myself in my eagerness to dispatch my Koulouria, and hugely pleased Annunziata by begging another cup of her excellent coffee. One has not just recovered from a fever and held a tryst with the stars without serious result to one’s appetite.
After breakfast, under a delicately-clouded sky, we rode through the episcopal village of Xinara, this time, to my satisfaction, unaccompanied by Aristides. The narrowness of the passage compelled us to ride in single file until we had passed the bishop’s palace and all the gardens and pigeon-holed hamlets with their bright terraces and flowers. We turned up off the path round the great Castro, which, near, looks even more impressive than afar, burnt red and brown with the sun and rain, the wild thyme making a purple and scented haze upon its enormous flanks. Skirting the ruins of Borgo, all the valleys and vine plantations and orchards, girdled with hill beyond hill, burst upon our view in a magnificent panorama. Everywhere the sharp contrast of silver, olive and blue sea, and beneath us a vein of humid light flashed and twisted itself like quicksilver through the plain, until a bar of rocks broke it into an impetuous descent of foam. Silence lay upon the land, and alternately soft and glowing colours were swept across the empty hills by the wind-pursued clouds and the variations of sun-fire. Here and there little petulant torrents dashed noisily down the precipices, to twine themselves in the valleys and resume their wild course, wherever the rocks rose and shot them into frothy music. As we rode through each village, the curs came out, and stood near a group of pigs to examine us with a depressed and listless air, or bark at us from the ledge of a rock in a half-hearted way. Children with matted hair and glances of dull curiosity, surveyed us gravely, and whispered their opinions, and the villagers stared at us with inconvenient candour and solemnity. As we neared Mousoulou, a fine mist began to fall from the upper peaks, like a thin veil gradually thickening until it enveloped the landscape in a grey pall. I enjoyed the prospects of damp mountain scenery, but I could see that Selaka, like all Greeks, was made unhappy and nervous by it.
We reached Mousoulou drenched. A lover may be permitted to shrink from presenting the front of a water-dog to his mistress, and I was keenly relieved to learn that Inarime and her aunt were out when we arrived. An old woman welcomed us, and offered Selaka one sofa of honour and me another. We were administered a glass of cognac, then Selaka left me to listen to the wind howling furiously against the windows, bending the heads of the flowers on the terrace, and freezing my feet as it blew in under the chinks of the five doors that opened off the room. Undeterred by the rain, the villagers came in batches to inspect the stranger—men, women and children. It was a kind of theatrical entertainment for them, with the agreeable merit of being free of charge, and they availed themselves of the occasion with great good-will. The delighted old woman stayed and did the honours of the spectacle, explained me and appraised me with refreshing candour, and after a burst of exclamations, they all stood round perfectly calm, a row of offensive statues.
Can any reader, not experienced, possibly conjecture the nameless irritation of thus being silently, mercilessly stared at, and what black thoughts of murder may rush through the excited brain under it? I think not. When at last I had reached the white-heat of exasperation under this awful Greek gaze, I rose and turned my back on my tormentors.
The landscape was now folded in a grey mist, broken by the lines of the walls, the spires and perforated belfries. Out of this grey picture showed patches of brown earth and dark rock below the draped head of Mount Elias, and the trees looked like ghosts. The sky was a field of colourless cloud, and the flower-heads on the terrace pierced the opaline vapour with eyes of brilliant reproach. On a distant hill-curve a group of animals were shivering, and near by the raindrops made big pools upon the marble pavement. And soon the grey grew to opaque white, and rushed from the brow of Mount Elias like a swift cloud blotting out the meadows and valleys. Where was the glory of the morning? And where was the warmth of my heart?
“Do you know, sir, that I am inclined to think that I have been quite long enough on view?” I cried, when Selaka returned.
Selaka smiled, and I burst into an irritable laugh, which seemed to impress the audience in the light of a new act. They pressed nearer, and broke into inarticulate sounds of wonder and grave approval. I thought they meditated a general embrace, but they contented themselves with keeping the air from me, poisoning the atmosphere, and expectorating profusely.