Mr. Spenlove relinquished his leisurely pacing to and fro under the awning and sat down sideways on his camp-stool to roll and light a cigarette. His reflections while this was accomplished remained undisturbed, and his attitude conveyed an impression that he was listening with considerable bitterness to some imaginary reproaches from which he suddenly attempted to defend himself.
"Not so easy," he muttered, flicking the match into the scupper. "Not so easy! Suppose I had suddenly broken out of that doorway and made off up the street? There is no reasonable grounds for doubt that the officer who was directing that little squad of disciplined men was the person who afterward gained the White Tower and held the city barrier and the sea-front until fresh troops arrived to overpower the apostles of liberty. Suppose, I say, I had suddenly scared him by bolting up that narrow street? No, not so easy. And yet it wasn't easy, either, to remain even as long as I did. For at a word from him the kneeling men raised their rifles and fired once, twice—a crescendo of crashes reverberating from the buildings opposite. And then they all ran diagonally across the street into the shadows, and for a space there was silence.
"And even then," went on Mr. Spenlove, "I did not run. Not from courage, you understand, but fear. I tip-toed out of my doorway and walked quickly up the street without making any noise. I was preoccupied with the question of getting back to the ship. We should have to walk. I tried to lay out the city in my mind. If we walked upward say, and struck a street going westward and parallel with the Via Egnatia, we might eventually strike another thoroughfare running down to the port. I was thinking this out as I hurried. I considered the wisdom of remaining indoors until the morning, and I believe now that is what I would have done eventually, anyhow. I looked back several times. The electric globe, hanging high, had gone out or been put out, and there were no lights in any of the houses. I imagined the inmates sitting silently behind their shutters, listening and waiting for a renewal of the uproar. You must understand that I was experiencing nothing more than a very natural exaltation of nerves, with an undertow of anxiety for the ship. I pictured Jack in a great state, wondering where I was, a state probably complicated by the scandalized Tonderbeg's abashed revelations. As Jack grew older, he grew fond of saying there was no fool like an old fool, forgetting that there is another kind, the middle-aged fool, who has the distinction of comprehending and enjoying his folly. Of course, Tonderbeg would get himself snubbed, and Jack would retire to his cabin to muse upon the serious news. So I reflected as I hurried up that dark street toward a faint ray of light which indicated the door of her house. I had no forebodings up to this moment; only speculations. And even when that light was darkened for an instant as someone stood in the doorway, and I heard Pollyni's voice calling hoarsely to know who I was, I had no premonition. The next moment her high-heeled shoes clicked on the sidewalk as she ran toward me, and when she came up to me she grasped me and stared at me in a profoundly mysterious fashion. I will not say to you what I now believe lay at the back of that girl's mind. You would say I had lost my faith in humanity, but you would be mistaken. You would be forgetting her descent from the Pandour hordes who came galloping up out of the Caucasus so many centuries ago. You would be forgetting that to those people neither 'life, liberty, nor the pursuit of happiness' are particularly sacred things, or things to be achieved in a spirit of altruistic piety. But I can tell you it was because of that enigmatic stare of hers that I have emphasized her part in this story of Captain Macedoine's daughter. You might say she had the temperament for the leading rôle in the play.... She said in her hoarse musical contralto, 'We were ready and we were coming down to meet you.'
"'Well?' I said. She stood in front of me, holding my arms and impeding my advance.
"'Well!' she repeated, slowly. 'You do not know what has happened,' and again she regarded me in the way I have described.
"'No,' I said, returning her scrutiny, 'I don't understand what you mean by what has happened. I have seen a shocking thing down there. They are fighting in the Via Egnatia. Some are dead. We can't go that way, I'm afraid.'
"Suddenly she dropped her hands from my arms and breathed deeply. 'Come!' she said, and hurried away from me. I had spoken the truth. I did not understand her, but her demeanour alarmed me. I followed, watching the silhouette of her body sway as she took her long strides. I had a fugitive notion that this performance was symbolical of our emotional existence—our souls pursue one another through a steep darkness, the victims of unpremeditated suspicions and fears. As she reached the lighted doorway she swung round and spread out her hands with a gesture of pity and grief. 'Look!' she said. 'As we came out someone fired. She was in front. It was not my fault.... You see.'
"While she spoke I endeavoured to collect my forces. I looked down. I had a vivid impression of emerging from a place of imprisonment, a place of great noise and activity and warm, pleasant excitement, and of seeing before me a cold gray plain extending into the distance. And over this plain, I reflected, I was to travel, alone. I looked down, I say. I heard the girl beside me murmur hoarsely into my ear, and stoop to lift the form that lay motionless at our feet.
"'No!' I said, drawing her back. 'This is for me to do. I will carry my own dead.'"