"Surely they will go?"
"Ay, they'll go, or pay the penalty," said the other voice, and at the sound of it I started. For it was the voice of my neighbor in the restaurant, Constantine Stefanopoulos.
"I shall be near at hand, sleeping in the town," said the girl's voice, "and the people will listen to me."
"The people will kill them, if they do not go," we heard Constantine answer, in tones that witnessed no great horror at the idea. Then the couple disappeared in the darkness.
"On to the house!" I cried in sudden excitement. For I was angry now, angry at the utter, humbling scorn with which they treated me.
Another ten minutes' groping brought us in front of the old gray house which we had seen from the sea. We walked boldly up to it. The door stood open. We went in, and found ourselves in a large hall. The wooden floor was carpeted, here and there, with mats and skins. A long table ran down the middle. The walls were decorated with mediæval armor and weapons. The windows were but narrow slits, the walls massive and deep. The door was a ponderous, iron-bound affair, that shamed even the stout doors of our inn. I called loudly, "Is any one here?" Nobody answered. The servants must have been drawn off to the town by the excitement of the procession and the singing; or perhaps there were no servants. I could not tell. I sat down in a large armchair by the table. I enjoyed the sense of proprietorship. Denny sat on the table by me, dangling his legs. For a long while none of us spoke. Then I exclaimed, suddenly:
"By heaven! why shouldn't we see it through?" And I rose and put my hands against the massive door, and closed and bolted it, saying, "Let them open that at six o'clock in the morning."
"Hurrah!" cried Denny, leaping down from his table, on fire with excitement in a moment.
I faced Hogvardt. He shook his head, but he smiled. Watkins stood by, with his usual imperturbability. He wanted to know what his lordship decided, that was all; and when I said nothing more, he asked:
"Then your lordship will sleep here to-night?"