"Perhaps he will get rid of her without that." She paused; then came the anger I had looked for before. "Ah, but how dared he swear that he had thought of no one but me and loved me passionately? He shall pay for that." Again it was injured pride that rang in her voice, as in her first cry. It did not sound like love, and for that I was glad. The courtship had probably been an affair of state rather than affection. I did not ask how Constantine was to be made to pay, whether before or after marriage. I was struggling between horror and amusement at my guest's point of view. But I take leave to have a will of my own, even sometimes in matters that are not exactly my concern, and I said now, with a composure that rivalled Euphrosyne's: "It is out of the question that you should marry him. I'm going to get him hanged, and, anyhow, it would be atrocious."
She smiled at that, but then she leant forward and asked:
"How long have you provisions for?"
"That's a good retort," I admitted. "A few days; that's all. And we can't get out to procure any more; and we can't go shooting, because the wood's infested with these ruff—I beg pardon—with your countrymen."
"Then it seems to me," said Euphrosyne, "that you and your friends are more likely to be hanged."
Well, on a dispassionate consideration, it did seem more likely; but she need not have said so. And she went on with an equally discouraging good sense:
"There will be a boat from Rhodes in about a month or six weeks. The officer will come then to take the tribute; perhaps the governor will come. But till then nobody will visit the island, unless it be a few fishermen from Cyprus."
"Fishermen? Where do they land? At the harbor?"
"No. My people do not like them, though the governor threatens to send troops if we do not let them land. So they come to a little creek at the opposite end of the island, on the other side of the mountain. Ah, what are you thinking of?"
As Euphrosyne perceived, her words had put a new idea in my mind. If I could reach that creek and find the fishermen and persuade them to help me, or to carry me and my party off, that hanging might happen to the right man, after all.