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"Hurrah!" cried Denny, throwing up his hat in sympathy. Demetri was standing near, and met this ebullition with a grim smile. "I hope my lord will find the house comfortable," said he. "We shall soon make it comfortable," said Hogvardt. "I dare say it's half a ruin now." "It is good enough now for a Stefanopoulos," said the fellow, with a surly frown.
And they came and said that a man had landed who claimed our island as his a man of your name, my lord. And when my dear lord said he had sold the island to save the honor of his house and race, they were furious, and Vlacho raised the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard wrote on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos long ago.
Bennett Hamlyn, a rich young man who gives promise of seeing that Miss Hipgrave does not wholly lack a man's attentions in the absence of her lover, sets put to enter possession of a remote Greek island, Neopalia, which he has purchased of the hereditary lord, Stefanopoulos. But on arriving he finds himself anything but welcome.
"You see," said I, "this lad is the Lady Euphrosyne." For who else could it be that would give orders to Constantine Stefanopoulos, and ask where "my people" were? Who else, I also asked myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? In all certainty it was Lady Euphrosyne. The effect of my remark was curious.
How came you to be in it?" My question brought a new look, as the boy's hands dropped from his face. "How came you," said I, "who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be working with them?"
"Bring a pickaxe," said I. Denny's face wandered toward Phroso. "Is she as annoying as that?" he seemed to ask. "A pickaxe?" he repeated in surprised tones. "Yes, two pickaxes! I'm going to have this floor up, and see if I can find out the great Stefanopoulos secret." I spoke with an accent of intense scorn. Again Phroso laughed; her hands beat very softly against one another.
The evening falls with the "death-chant" sounding in the air a chant made by Alexander the Bard when an earlier Lord Stefanopoulos was killed by the people for having tried to sell the island. Lord Wheatley himself tells the story. It was between eight and nine o'clock when the first of the enemy appeared on the road, in the persons of two smart fellows in gleaming kilts and braided jackets.
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.
I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my house, and added, significantly: "But has no message come to you from me?" He smiled with equal meaning as he answered: "No. An old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the village." "Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos," said I with a nod.
"It's about the death of old Stefanopoulos the man they sing that song about, you know." In fact, I had got hold of the poem which One-eyed Alexander composed. Its length was about three hundred lines, exclusive of the refrain which the islanders had chanted, and which was inserted six times, occurring at the end of each fifty lines.
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