CHAPTER XVI

TO NO AVAIL

The priest strode by his daughter's side, his hand still lying upon hers. As the cavalcade started he shuddered, and, looking at Panayota, sobbed:

"Oh, my daughter! Would to God you were in your grave beside your mother!"

She put out her white arm, and laid it around his neck.

"I am my mother's child," she replied, piously, "I shall find death somehow sooner than dishonor."

An occasional corpse lay in their path. Curtis observed with pleasure that red, woolen flower pots were beside two of the bodies, but a wave of indignation and pity passed over him as his horse shied from a corpulent body, bent horribly over a sharp backbone of rock. The head lolled downward, and the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward out of sight. There were two red pits beneath the eyes, that made the whites look doubly ghastly.

Curtis lifted his hat.

"Why do you do that?" asked the Captain.

"Because he died like a brave man," replied the American, shuddering as he thought of the jolly and hospitable demarch, who, like an heroic captain of a sinking ship, had remained at his post of duty until escape became impossible.

"I fear you like the Greeks better than you do the Turks," observed Kostakes. "You do not know us yet. You will like us better when you have been with us a few days."

Curtis was determined to be politic. Only thus, he foresaw, could he hope to be of any help to Panayota.

"He stayed behind to fight, when he might have escaped. Had he been a Turk, I should have taken off my hat just the same."

They were about to enter the ravine. From their elevated position the whole town was visible. The American turned in his saddle and cast a glance backward. The smoke from a score of fires tumbled heavenward until, commingling, it formed a somber roof above the town, supported by trembling and bending pillars. There was the distant sea--the very spot where the "Holy Mary" had been sunk. The little stream, whose course they had followed to the ill-fated town, looked no larger than a silver thread. There was the square, ending in the ledge upon which he had first seen Panayota with the water jug upon her shoulder. It had been but a short time ago, a few hours comparatively, and here she was now, a captive being led away in all probability to a shameful fate. Curtis seemed to have lived ages in the past few days, and yet their whole history flashed through his mind during the brief moment of this parting glance. There was the girl, beautiful, desolate, defiant, pure as snow; her hand rested on the shoulder of her father, in one of those pitiful, yet sublime feminine caresses that cry "courage" when, even God Himself seems to fail. She was a Christian, the father a Christian priest, and this was the nineteenth century of our blessed Lord, and there, but a few miles away, lay the great battleships of the Christian powers of Europe, defending the integrity of the Turkish empire!

Curtis gave such a violent start that he nearly fell out of his saddle. Great heavens, was not that the café on fire? The café, where he had left hidden his comrade and friend, Michali, the brave, the boyish, the noble-minded!

"Monsieur!" he cried, "the café! It is burning!"

"Oh, I think not," replied Kostakes.

"But it is. I can see it plainly; you must send people back to put it out."

Kostakes took a pair of field glasses from the hands of an orderly, and, calmly adjusting the focus, looked down the hill, while the little army, escorting Panayota and her father, marched rapidly past, and were swallowed up in the ravine.

"You are right," he said, "it is indeed the café."

"But you are not sending anybody back to put it out!"

"Monsieur could hardly ask me to do that much for sentiment. Some of my rascals must have eluded my vigilance. They shall be punished."

Curtis whirled his horse around, urging it with his fists and his sound foot, and started back toward the town. But the way was steep and rough, and the animal had not gone ten paces before two soldiers sprang to its head and seized the bridle on each side. Curtis kicked and struck at them, and, suddenly overcome with a paroxysm of rage, swore at them, but all to no avail. They turned the horse around and led it back to Kostakes.

"Monsieur's sentiment must be very strong," said the Captain, smiling sweetly.

"There's a wounded man in that building. A wounded man, I tell you, and he'll burn up alive!"

Kostakes shrugged his shoulders.

"It cannot be helped," he replied, "in war, what is a man more or less? But we must not delay. _Allons_, Monsieur."

And he spurred his horse to a brisk walk, while a stout Turk, throwing the bridle rein of Curtis' animal over his shoulder, trotted along after.

The American looked back.

"I'll slip off and run to the café," he thought, "foot or no foot--damn the foot, anyway!" But another soldier with a loaded musket was following close behind. In his despair, the thought of his passport occurred to him. He pulled it from his pocket with feverish haste. It was badly damaged by water, but it held together and the big seal was still there. Urging his horse forward, he flourished the document in Kostakes' face and shouted:

"I am an American citizen. Do you see that? Voilà! If you do not let me go you suffer for it."

But all to no avail. He was hustled along by order of the smiling and affable Kostakes, and the last thing his eyes rested upon as he plunged into the ravine was a cloud of smoke pouring from the front door of the demarch's café.