“It was in response to a repeated appeal that I would place myself at the head of the Emathian Christians.”
“And who is backing you, if I may be so indiscreet as to ask? Your men are armed with Mausers, and you have a Maxim or two in position, I hear.”
“Your officers must have made good use of their eyes while they were with us. Yes, we are fairly well supplied, but we have no outside backers. A member of my family left a substantial legacy to be applied to the restoration of the fortunes of the house, and we are using that.”
“You mean that you are playing ducks and drakes with it. Why not have bought up a South American republic, or negotiated with the Emperor of Scythia for a dukedom, if a sensational way of throwing away good money for the sake of a shadow was all you wanted?”
“But it was not. What we hope to do is to free Emathia now, and eventually to turn the Roumis out of Europe.”
“A nice modest programme! Couldn’t you have found some less utterly hopeless material to work upon than the Emathian Christians? I have no particular admiration for the Roumi in civil life, though he’s a first-class fighting man, but he is an intelligent gentleman beside these fellows, who torture and mutilate and burn each other’s women and children because one man calls himself a Patriarchist and the other an Exarchist. Have you ever considered seriously what hope there can be of ruling, except by martial law, a set of people who all profess to be Christians, and yet can’t keep their hands off each other’s throats?”
“We have been considering it for years, and now we are trying an experiment. The thing can scarcely be harder than to keep the peace between Mohammedans and Hindus in India. Two things are wanted,—money to keep us going until we can establish some sort of revenue system—which we have—and a body of impartial police to keep the balance between the creeds. There would probably be objections to our enlisting Englishmen, but Colonel Wylie could work as well with Sikhs, and he could get as many as he wanted, if permission was once given.”
“Your intentions are as excellent as your plans are ingenious,” said the Admiral sarcastically, “but you are altogether too idyllic, the whole lot of you. The coasts of the Egean are not No-man’s-land, waiting to be colonised. For a private individual to seize upon a desirable peninsula and settle down to govern it is simply stealing, though I allow that if it had been done by a sovereign state it would merely be called annexation.”
“It is an experiment,” repeated Maurice. “If we can show that it is possible to induce Emathian Christians of different sects to live peaceably together and to serve under the same flag, surely it is an object-lesson worth trying on a larger scale? We hear a great deal of the sympathy of Europe for Emathia, and the absolute impossibility of showing that sympathy except in words. But you can show it here by simply saying ‘Hands off!’ to Roum when she tries to turn us out of Hagiamavra. In return for not being molested we would pay to Czarigrad a tribute amounting to the present average revenue from the peninsula, and acknowledge the Roumi suzerainty. If, at the end of the year, the condition of Hagiamavra compared favourably with that of the rest of Emathia, a larger area might be entrusted to us—perhaps the vilayet of Therma.”
The Admiral stared at his guest in exasperated consternation. “If you were only starting with an entirely new world, your plan might work,” he said slowly, “but you seem to forget entirely the various interests involved. Europe is quite determined that there shall be no fighting over Emathia—whether rightly or wrongly it’s not for me to say. Of course a devastating warfare in the Balkans might wipe out a few inconvenient nationalities, and sweep the map clean for some such experiment as yours, but the Powers won’t have it. We shall maintain the status quo for a year or two, grumbling more and more every month, no doubt, until Scythia and Pannonia are ready. Then those two public-spirited Powers will unselfishly offer to divide Emathia between them and administer it as it should be administered. The Roumis daren’t protest, Thracia and Dacia and Mœsia daren’t fly at the throats of their betters, and order will reign in the Balkans. That’s the plan mapped out, signed and sealed, and when you set up your personal ambitions as a bar to its realisation, you are simply an impertinence to be brushed out of the way. The Powers will have none of you.”