I
In the large class-room of the school-house the dejected group of Greek officials sat among the hideous yellow desks and benches of the school-children of Aphros. Passion and indignation had spent themselves fruitlessly during the preceding evening and night. To do the islanders justice, the Greeks had not been treated with incivility. But all demands for an interview with the highest authority were met not only with a polite reply that the highest authority had not yet arrived upon the island, but also a refusal to disclose his name. The Greek officials, having been brought from their respective lodgings to the central meeting-point of the school, had been given the run of two class-rooms, one for the men, of whom there were, in all, twenty, and one for the women, of whom there were only six. They were told that they might communicate, but that armed guards would be placed in both rooms. They found most comfort in gathering, the six-and-twenty of them, in the larger class-room, while the guards, in their kilted dresses, sat on chairs, two at each entrance, with suspiciously modern and efficient-looking rifles laid across their knees.
A large proportion of the officials were, naturally, those connected with the school. They observed morosely that all notices in the pure Greek of Herakleion had already been removed, also the large lithographs of Malteios and other former Presidents, so that the walls of pitch pine—the school buildings were modern, and of wood—were now ornamented only with maps, anatomical diagrams, and some large coloured plates published by some English manufacturing firm for advertisement; there were three children riding a gray donkey, and another child trying on a sun-bonnet before a mirror; but any indication of the relationship of Aphros to Herakleion there was none.
'It is revolution,' the postmaster said gloomily.
The guards would not speak. Their natural loquacity was in abeyance before the first fire of their revolutionary ardour. From vine-cultivators they had become soldiers, and the unfamiliarity of the trade filled them with self-awe and importance. Outside, the village was surprisingly quiet; there was no shouting, no excitement; footsteps passed rapidly to and fro, but they seemed to be the footsteps of men bent on ordered business; the Greeks could not but be impressed and disquieted by the sense of organisation.
'Shall we be allowed to go free?' they asked the guards.
'You will know when he comes,' was all the guards would reply.
'Who is he?'
'You will know presently.'
'Has he still not arrived?'