"Well, this is a go!" said Denny, drawing a long breath. "What are the
beggars up to?"
"What have they been up to?" I asked; for I doubted not that the song
we had heard had been chanted over a dead Stefanopoulos two hundred
years before.
At this age of the world the idea seemed absurd, preposterous,
horrible. But there was no law nearer than Rhodes, and there only
Turk's law. The only law here was the law of the Stefanopouloi, and if
that law lost its force by the crime of the hand that should wield it,
why, strange things might happen even to-day in Neopalia. And we were
caught like rats in a trap in the inn!
"I do not see," remarked old Hogvardt, laying a hand on my shoulders,
"any harm in loading our revolvers, my lord."
I did not see any harm in it either, and we all followed Hogvardt's
advice, and also filled our pockets with cartridges. I was
determined--I think we were all determined--not to be bullied by these
islanders and their skull-and-crossbones ditty.
A quarter of an hour passed, and there came a knock at the door, while
the bolts were shot back.
"I shall go out," said I, springing to my feet.
The door opened, and the face of a lad appeared.
"Vlacho, the innkeeper, bids you descend," said he; and then, catching
sight, perhaps, of our revolvers, he turned and ran down-stairs again
at his best speed.
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