'At your service, young man,' he said, displaying the full breadth of his palm to Julian, 'whenever you stand in need of it. The Stavridists will be returned to-day; lose no time; show them your intentions.'
He impelled Julian forward to the edge of the balcony and pointed across to the Davenant house.
'That flag, young man: see to it that it disappears within the hour after the results of the elections are announced.'
The army was forming itself into two phalanxes on either side of the cathedral steps. Panaïoannou caracoled up and down shouting his orders, which were taken up and repeated by the busy officers on foot. Meanwhile the notables in black coats were arriving in a constant stream that flowed into the cathedral; old Christopoulos had already left the house to attend the religious ceremony; the foreign Ministers and Consuls attended out of compliment to Herakleion; Madame Lafarge had rolled down the route in her barouche with her bearded husband; Malteios had crossed the platia from his own house, and Stavridis came, accompanied by his wife and daughters. Still the band played on, the crowd laughed, cheered, or murmured in derision, and the strident cries of the water-sellers rose from all parts of the platia.
Suddenly the band ceased to play, and in the hush only the hum of the crowd continued audible.
The religious procession came walking very slowly from the rue Royale, headed by a banner and by a file of young girls, walking two by two, in white dresses, with wreaths of roses on their heads. As they walked they scattered sham roses out of baskets, the gesture reminiscent of the big picture in the Senate-room. It was customary for the Premier of the Republic to walk alone, following these young girls, black and grave in his frock-coat after their virginal white, but on this occasion, as no one knew who the actual Premier was, a blank space was left to represent the problematical absentee. Following the space came the Premier's habitual escort, a posse of police; it should have been a platoon of soldiers, but Panaïoannou always refused to consent to such a diminution of his army.
'They say,' Grbits remarked to Julian in this connection, 'that the general withdraws even the sentries from the frontier to swell his ranks.'
'Herakleion is open to invasion,' said Julian, smiling.
Grbits replied sententiously, with the air of one creating a new proverb,—
'Herakleion is open to invasion, but who wants to invade Herakleion?'