Phroso: A Romance Read online

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  PHROSO

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  MR WITT'S WIDOW SPORT ROYAL A CHANGE OF AIR HALF A HERO THE PRISONER OF ZENDA FATHER STAFFORD THE GOD IN THE CAR COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP THE HEART OF THE PRINCESS OSRA

  A SHOT WHISTLED BY ME. Page 120.]

  PHROSO

  A ROMANCE

  BY

  ANTHONY HOPE

  Let the winged Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.

  WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR

  METHUEN & CO.

  36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

  LONDON

  1897

  CONTENTS

  CHAP. PAGE I. A LONG THING ENDING IN 'POULOS,' 1 II. A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY, 20 III. THE FEVER OF NEOPALIA, 41 IV. A RAID AND A RAIDER, 60 V. THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL, 79 VI. THE POEM OF ONE-EYED ALEXANDER, 98 VII. THE SECRET OF THE STEFANOPOULOI, 118 VIII. A KNIFE AT A ROPE, 137 IX. HATS OFF TO ST TRYPHON! 155 X. THE JUSTICE OF THE ISLAND, 177 XI. THE LAST CARD, 197 XII. LAW AND ORDER, 215 XIII. THE SMILES OF MOURAKI PASHA, 235 XIV. A STROKE IN THE GAME, 257 XV. A STRANGE ESCAPE, 277 XVI. AN UNFINISHED LETTER, 298 XVII. IN THE JAWS OF THE TRAP, 319 XVIII. THE UNKNOWN FRIEND, 340 XIX. THE ARMENIAN DOG! 357 XX. A PUBLIC PROMISE, 378 XXI. A WORD OF VARIOUS MEANINGS, 398 XXII. ONE MORE RUN, 419 XXIII. THE ISLAND IN A CALM, 440

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

  A SHOT WHISTLED BY ME, _Frontispiece_ PAGE 'WHO STABBED HIM?' 44 WE TOOK SPIRO'S BODY AND FLUNG IT DOWN, 135 'WHAT IS HIS LIFE TO YOU, LADY?' 196 'A THOUSAND PARDONS, MY LORD!' 270 'WE ARE READY FOR--ANYTHING--NOW,' 302 'AT LAST, MY GOD, AT LAST!' 356 BACK TO NEOPALIA, 450

  PHROSO

  CHAPTER I

  A LONG THING ENDING IN POULOS

  'Quot homines tot sententiae;' so many men, so many fancies. My fancywas for an island. Perhaps boyhood's glamour hung yet round sea-girtrocks, and 'faery lands forlorn,' still beckoned me; perhaps I feltthat London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swissmountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buycompany, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now ofthe moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom's death had endowedme. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom'sdeath, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoledeven by the prospect of the island. My friends understood this wishfor an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poorTom. Beatrice was most emphatic in declaring that 'a horrid littleisland' had no charms for her, and that she would never set foot init. This declaration was rather annoying, because I had imaginedmyself, spending my honeymoon with Beatrice on the island; but life isnot all honeymoon, and I decided to have the island none the less.Besides I was not to be married for a year. Mrs Kennett Hipgrave hadinsisted on this delay in order that we might be sure that we knew ourown hearts. And as I may say without unfairness that Mrs Hipgrave wasto a considerable degree responsible for the engagement--she assertedthe fact herself with much pride--I thought that she had a right tosome voice in the date of the marriage. Moreover the postponement justgave me the time to go over and settle affairs in the island.

  For I had bought it. It cost me seven thousand five hundred and fiftypounds, rather a fancy price but I could not haggle with the oldlord--half to be paid to the lord's bankers in London, and the secondhalf to him in Neopalia, when he delivered possession to me. TheTurkish Government had sanctioned the sale, and I had agreed to pay ahundred pounds yearly as tribute. This sum I was entitled, in my turn,to levy on the inhabitants.

  'In fact, my dear lord,' said old Mason to me when I called on him inLincoln's Inn Fields, 'the whole affair is settled. I congratulate youon having got just what was your whim. You are over a hundred milesfrom the nearest land--Rhodes, you see.' (He laid a map before me.)'You are off the steamship tracks; the Austrian Lloyds to Alexandrialeave you far to the northeast. You are equally remote from anysubmarine cable; here on the southwest, from Alexandria to Candia, isthe nearest. You will have to fetch your letters.'

  'I shouldn't think of doing such a thing,' said I indignantly.

  'Then you'll only get them once in three months. Neopalia is extremelyrugged and picturesque. It is nine miles long and five broad. It growscotton, wine, oil and a little corn. The people are quiteunsophisticated, but very good-hearted.'

  'And,' said I, 'there are only three hundred and seventy of them, alltold. I really think I shall do very well there.'

  'I've no doubt you will. By the way, treat the old gentleman kindly.He's terribly cut up at having to sell. "My dear island," he writes,"is second to my dead son's honour, and to nothing else." His son, youknow, Lord Wheatley, was a bad lot, a very bad lot indeed.'

  'He left a heap of unpaid debts, didn't he?'

  'Yes, gambling debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris andLondon with his cousin Constantine--by no means an improvingcompanion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to pay the debts,you know.'

  'Poor old chap,' said I. I sympathised with him in the loss of hisisland.

  'Here's the house, you see,' said Mason, turning to the map anddismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. 'About the middleof the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I'm afraid it's atumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without lookingmuch better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception ofthe future Lady Wheatley would cost--'

  'The future Lady Wheatley says she won't go there on any account,' Iinterrupted.

  'But, my very dear lord,' cried he, aghast, 'if she won't--'

  'She won't, and there's an end of it, Mr Mason. Well, good day. I'm tohave possession in a month?'

  'In a month to the very day--on the 7th of May.'

  'All right; I shall be there to take it.'

  Escaping from the legal quarter, I made my way to my sister's house inCavendish Square. She had a party, and I was bound to go by brotherlyduty. As luck would have it, however, I was rewarded for my virtue(and if that's not luck in this huddle-muddle world I don't know whatis); the Turkish Ambassador dropped in, and presently James came andtook me up to him. My brother-in-law, James Cardew, is always anxiousthat I should know the right people. The Pasha received me with greatkindness.

  'You are the purchaser of Neopalia, aren't you?' he asked, after alittle conversation. 'The matter came before me officially.'

  'I'm much obliged,' said I, 'for your ready consent to the transfer.'

  'Oh, it's nothing to us. In fact our tribute, such as it is, will besafer. Well, I'm sure I hope you'll settle in comfortably.'

  'Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you see--beenthere a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent twoyears 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 peoplekilled him, and turned
the purchaser--he was a Frenchman, a Barond'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, 'andthat 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 hisrights 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 hopenot, my dear lord.'

  'Surely your Government will see to that?' I suggested.

  His Excellency looked at me; then, although by nature a grave man, hegave a low humorous chuckle and regarded me with visible amusement.

  'Oh, of course, you can rely on that, Lord Wheatley,' said he.

  'That is a diplomatic assurance, your Excellency?' I ventured tosuggest, with a smile.

  'It is unofficial,' said he, 'but as binding as if it were official.Our Governor in that district of the empire is a very active man--yes,a decidedly active man.'

  The only result of this conversation was that when I was buying mysporting guns in St James's Street the next day I purchased a coupleof pairs of revolvers at the same time. It is well to be on the safeside, and, although I attached little importance to the by-goneoutrage of which the Ambassador spoke, I did not suppose that thepolice service would be very efficient. In fact I thought it prudentto be ready for any trouble that the old-world notions of theNeopalians might occasion. But in my heart I meant to be very popularwith them. For I cherished the generous design of paying the wholetribute out of my own pocket, and of disestablishing in Neopalia whatseems to be the only institution in no danger of such treatmenthere--the tax-gatherer. If they understood that intention of mine,they would hardly be so short short-sighted as to set me adrift in myshirt like a second Baron d'Ezonville, or so unjust as to kill poorold Stefanopoulos as they had killed his ancestor. Besides, as Icomforted myself by repeating, they were a good-hearted race;unsophisticated, of course, but thoroughly good-hearted.

  My cousin, young Denny Swinton, was to dine with me that evening atthe Optimum. Denny (a familiar form of Dennis) was the only member ofthe family who sympathised thoroughly with me about Neopalia. He waswild with interest in the island, and I looked forward to telling himall I had heard about it. I knew he would listen, for he was to gowith me and help me to take possession. The boy had almost wept on myneck when I asked him to come; he had just left Woolwich, and was notto join his battalion for six months; he was thus, as he put it, 'at aloose end,' and succeeded in persuading his parents that he ought tolearn modern Greek. General Swinton was rather cold about the project;he said that Denny had spent ten years on ancient Greek, and knewnothing about it, and probably would not learn much of the newer sortin three months; but his wife thought it would be a nice trip forDenny. Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but ifMrs Swinton had known--however, if it comes to that, I might just aswell exclaim, 'If I had known myself!'

  Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, andwas drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. Hewanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I satdown and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling withequal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first _entree_and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for somereason, declared was 'a lark'), when two people came in and sat downat the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs hadbeen tilted up in token of pre-engagement. The man--for the pair wereman and woman--was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark,and he had good regular features; he looked also as if he had a bit ofa temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen himbefore, and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run upagainst him twice in St James's Street that very day. The lady washandsome; she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace;her manner was rather elaborate, and, when she spoke to the waiter, Idetected a pronounced foreign accent. Taken together, they were aremarkable couple and presented a distinguished appearance. I believeI am not a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether theirthoughts paid me a similar compliment. For I certainly detected bothof them casting more than one curious glance towards our table; andwhen the man whispered once to a waiter, I was sure that I formed thesubject of his question; perhaps he also remembered our twoencounters.

  'I wonder if there's any chance of a row!' said Denny in a tone thatsounded wistful. 'Going to take anybody with you, Charley?'

  'Only Watkins; I must have him; he always knows where everything is;and I've told Hogvardt, my old dragoman, to meet us in Rhodes. He'lltalk their own language to the beggars, you know.'

  'But he's a German, isn't he?'

  'He thinks so,' I answered. 'He's not certain, you know. Anyhow, hechatters Greek like a parrot. He's a pretty good man in a row, too.But there won't be a row, you know.'

  'I suppose there won't,' admitted Denny ruefully.

  'For my own part,' said I meekly, 'as I'm going for the sake of quiet,I hope there won't.'

  In the interest of conversation I had forgotten our neighbours; butnow, a lull occurring in Denny's questions and surmises, I heard thelady's voice. She began a sentence--and began it in Greek! That was alittle unexpected; but it was more strange that her companion cut hershort, saying very peremptorily, 'Don't talk Greek: talk Italian.'This he said in Italian, and I, though no great hand at that language,understood so much. Now why shouldn't the lady talk Greek, if Greekwere the language that came naturally to her tongue? It would be asgood a shield against eavesdroppers as most languages; unless indeedI, who was known to be an amateur of Greece and Greek things, werelooked upon as a possible listener. Recollecting the glances which Ihad detected, recollecting again those chance meetings, I ventured ona covert gaze at the lady. Her handsome face expressed a mixture ofanger, alarm, and entreaty. The man was speaking to her now in lowurgent tones; he raised his hand once, and brought it down on thetable as though to emphasise some declaration--perhaps somepromise--which he was making. She regarded him with half-angrydistrustful eyes. He seemed to repeat his words and she flung at himin a tone that grew suddenly louder, and in words that I couldtranslate:

  'Enough! I'll see to that. I shall come too.'

  Her heat stirred no answering fire in him. He dropped his emphaticmanner, shrugged a tolerant 'As you will,' with eloquent shoulders,smiled at her, and, reaching across the table, patted her hand. Sheheld it up before his eyes, and with the other hand pointed at a ringon her finger.

  'Yes, yes, my dearest,' said he, and he was about to say more, when,glancing round, he caught my gaze retreating in hasty confusion to myplate. I dared not look up again, but I felt his scowl on me. Isuppose that I deserved punishment for my eavesdropping.

  'And when can we get off, Charley?' asked Denny in his clear youngvoice. My thoughts had wandered from him, and I paused for a moment asa man does when a question takes him unawares. There was silence atthe next table also. The fancy seemed absurd, but it occurred to methat there too my answer was being waited for. Well, they could knowif they liked; it was no secret.

  'In a fortnight,' said I. 'We'll travel easily, and get there on the7th of next month;--that's the day on which I'm entitled to take overmy kingdom. We shall go to Rhodes. Hogvardt will have got me a littleyacht, and then--good-bye to all this!' And a great longing forsolitude and a natural life came over me as I looked round on thegilded cornices, the gilded mirrors, the gilded flower-vases, and thehighly-gilded company of the Optimum.

  I was roused from my pleasant dreams by a high vivacious voice, whichI knew very well. Lo
oking up, I saw Miss Hipgrave, her mother, andyoung Bennett Hamlyn standing before me. I disliked young Hamlyn, buthe was always very civil to me.

  'Why, how early you two have dined!' cried Beatrice. 'You're at thesavoury, aren't you? We've only just come.'

  'Are you going to dine?' I asked, rising. 'Take this table, we're justoff.'

  'Well, we may as well, mayn't we?' said my _fiancee_. 'Sorry you'regoing, though. Oh, yes, we're going to dine with Mr Bennett Hamlyn.That's what you're for, isn't it, Mr Hamlyn? Why, he's not listening!'

  He was not, strange to say, listening, although as a rule he listenedto Beatrice with infinite attention and the most deferential ofsmiles. But just now he was engaged in returning a bow which ourneighbour at the next table had bestowed on him. The lady there hadrisen already and was making for the door. The man lingered and lookedat Hamlyn, seeming inclined to back up his bow with a few words ofgreeting. Hamlyn's air was not, however, encouraging, and the strangercontented himself with a nod and a careless 'How are you?' and, withthat, followed his companion. Hamlyn turned round, conscious that hehad neglected Beatrice's remark and full of penitence for hismomentary rudeness.

  'I beg your pardon?' said he, with an apologetic smile.

  'Oh,' answered she, 'I was only saying that men like you were inventedto give dinners; you're a sort of automatic feeding-machine. You oughtto stand open all day. Really I often miss you at lunch time.'

  'My dear Beatrice!' said Mrs Kennett Hipgrave, with that peculiar liftof her brows which meant, 'How naughty the dear child is--oh, but howclever!'

  'It's all right,' said Hamlyn meekly. 'I'm awfully happy to give you adinner anyhow, Miss Beatrice.'

  Now I had nothing to say on this subject, but I thought I would justmake this remark:

  'Miss Hipgrave,' said I, 'is very fond of a dinner.'

  Beatrice laughed. She understood my little correction.

  'He doesn't know any better, do you?' said she pleasantly to Hamlyn.'We shall civilise him in time, though; then I believe he'll be nicerthan you, Charley, I really do. You're--'

  'I shall be uncivilised by then,' said I.

  'Oh, that wretched island!' cried Beatrice. 'You're really going?'

  'Most undoubtedly. By the way, Hamlyn, who's your friend?'

  Surely this was an innocent enough question, but little Hamlyn wentred from the edge of his clipped whisker on the right to the edge ofhis mathematically equal whisker on the left.

  'Friend!' said he in an angry tone; 'he's not a friend of mine. I onlymet him on the Riviera.'

  'That,' I admitted, 'does not, happily, in itself constitute afriendship.'

  'And he won a hundred louis of me in the train between Cannes andMonte Carlo.'

  'Not bad going that,' observed Denny in an approving tone.

  'Is he then _un grec_?' asked Mrs Hipgrave, who loves a scrap ofFrench.

  'In both senses, I believe,' answered Hamlyn viciously.

  'And what's his name?' said I.

  'Really I don't recollect,' said Hamlyn rather petulantly.

  'It doesn't matter,' observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters whichhad now made their appearance.

  'My dear Beatrice,' I remonstrated, 'you're the most charming creaturein the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn't matter toyou.'

  'Oh, don't be tiresome. It doesn't matter to you either, you know. Dogo away and leave me to dine in peace.'

  'Half a minute!' said Hamlyn. 'I thought I'd got it just now, but it'sgone again. Look here, though, I believe it's one of those long thingsthat end in _poulos_.'

  'Oh, it ends in _poulos_, does it?' said I in a meditative tone.

  'My dear Charley,' said Beatrice, 'I shall end in Bedlam if you're sovery tedious. What in the world I shall do when I'm married, I don'tknow.'

  'My dearest!' said Mrs Hipgrave, and a stage direction might add,_Business with brows as before_.

  '_Poulos_,' I repeated thoughtfully.

  'Could it be Constantinopoulos?' asked Hamlyn, with a nervousdeference to my Hellenic learning.

  'It might conceivably,' I hazarded, 'be Constantine Stefanopoulos.'

  'Then,' said Hamlyn, 'I shouldn't wonder if it was. Anyhow, the lessyou see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that.'

  'But,' I objected--and I must admit that I have a habit of assumingthat everybody follows my train of thought--'it's such a small place,that, if he goes, I shall be almost bound to meet him.'

  'What's such a small place?' cried Beatrice with emphasised despair.

  'Why, Neopalia, of course,' said I.

  'Why should anybody, except you, be so insane as to go there?' sheasked.

  'If he's the man I think, he comes from there,' I explained, as I rosefor the last time; for I had been getting up to go and sitting downagain several times.

  'Then he'll think twice before he goes back,' pronounced Beatricedecisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island.

  Denny and I walked off together; as we went he observed:

  'I suppose that chap's got no end of money?'

  'Stefan----?' I began.

  'No, no. Hang it, you're as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean BennettHamlyn.'

  'Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe.'

  Denny looked sagacious.

  'He's very free with his dinners,' he observed.

  'Don't let's worry about it,' I suggested, taking his arm. I was notworried about it myself. Indeed for the moment my island monopolisedmy mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romanticcharacter as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. MrsHipgrave said the engagement was based on 'general suitability.' Nowit is difficult to be very passionate over that.

  'If you don't mind, I don't,' said Denny reasonably.

  'That's right. It's only a little way Beatrice--' I stopped abruptly.We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had justperceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stoopeddown and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the _menu_card. I turned it over.

  'Hullo, what's this?' said I, searching for my eye-glass, which was(as usual) somewhere in the small of my back.

  Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. Itwas in Greek, and it ran thus:

  'By way of Rhodes--small yacht there--arrive seventh.'

  I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion ortwo; one was that my tall neighbour was named Stefanopoulos; anotherthat he had made good use of his ears--better than I had made of mine;for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, Ifancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared shewould accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these thingsshould be so, why he wished to remember the route of my journey, thedate of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to hire a yacht.Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed amore interesting complexion.

  'When you've done with that bit of paper,' observed Denny, in a toneexpressive of exaggerated patience, 'we might as well go on, oldfellow.'

  'All right. I've done with it--for the present,' said I. But I tookthe liberty of slipping Mr Constantine Stefanopoulos's memorandum intomy pocket.

  The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly myinterest in Neopalia. I went to bed still thinking of my purchase, andI recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I wentto sleep was, 'What did she mean by pointing to the ring?'

  Well, I found an answer to that later on.