"Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you know; been there a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent two years hunting antiquities in the Morea and some of the islands."
The pasha stroked his beard as he observed in a calm tone:
"The last time a Stefanopoulos tried to sell Neopalia the people killed him, and turned the purchaser—he was a Frenchman, a Baron d'Ezonville—adrift in an open boat, with nothing on but his shirt."
"Good heavens! Was that recently?"
"No; two hundred years ago. But it's a conservative part of the world, you know." And his excellency smiled.
"They were described to me as good-hearted folk," said I; "unsophisticated, of course, but good-hearted."
"They think that the island is theirs, you see," he explained, "and that the lord has no business to sell it. They may be good-hearted, Lord Wheatley, but they are tenacious of their rights."
"But they can't have any rights," I expostulated.
"None at all," he assented. "But a man is never so tenacious of his rights as when he hasn't any. However, autres temps, autres moeurs. I don't suppose you'll have any trouble of that kind. Certainly, I hope not, my dear lord."
"Surely your government will see to that?" I suggested.