Part 16

I passed a night much worse than those of my captivity. Harris slept with me, or rather, he did not sleep. We heard the carriages coming from the ball, descend Rue d'Hèrmes with their freight of uniforms and toilets. About five o'clock, weariness closed my eyes. Three hours afterwards, Dimitri entered my room and said:

"Great news! Your Englishwomen have gone!"

"Where?"

"To Trieste."

"Wretch! art thou sure of it?"

"It was I who accompanied them to the ship."

"My poor friend," Harris exclaimed, seizing my hands. "Gratitude may be assumed, but love does not come at will."

"Alas!" sighed Dimitri. This sentiment had an echo in his heart.

Since that day, Monsieur, I have lived like the beasts; drank, ate, breathed. I sent my collection to Hamburg without one specimen of the Boryana variabilis. My friends accompanied me to the French steamer the day after the ball. They thought it wise to make the journey during the night, for fear of encountering M. Pericles' soldiers. We arrived without accident at Piraeus; but when a short distance from the shore, a half-dozen invisible muskets sent their bullets singing about our ears. It was the pretty Captain sending his adieux.

I scoured the mountains of Malta, of Sicily, and of Italy, and my herbarium was much richer than I. My father, who had had the good sense to keep his inn, wrote to me, at Messina, that my efforts were appreciated. Perhaps I might find a place on arriving; but I determined to count on nothing.

Harris was en route for Japan. In one or two years I hoped to have news of him. The little Lobster had written me from Rome that he was still exercising with the pistol. Giacomo continued to seal letters all day and crack nuts at night. M. Mérinay found a new interpretation from the inscription on the monument, one more clever than mine. His great work upon Demosthenes ought to be printed some day or other. The King of the Mountains made peace with the authorities. He built a fine mansion on the road to Pentelicus, with a guard-house for lodging twenty-five devoted Palikars. In the meantime, he has rented a small hotel in the modern city, at the edge of the open sewer. He receives many people, and actively engages in public affairs, in order to be elected to the Ministry. Dimitri goes there occasionally, to supper, but sighs in the kitchen.

I have never heard of Mrs. Simons, of Mr. Sharper, nor of Mary-Ann. If this silence continues, I shall soon think of them no more. Sometimes, even in the middle of the night, I dream that I am before her and that my tall, thin figure is reflected in her eyes. Then I awake, I weep hot tears and I furiously bite my pillow. What I regret, believe me, is not the woman, it is the fortune and the position which escaped me. It is a good thing for me that I have not yielded up my heart, and each day I give thanks for my natural coldness. What I might complain of, my dear Monsieur, is, if unfortunately, I had fallen in love!

IX.

LETTER FROM ATHENS.

The day that I was about to send M. Hermann Schultz's story to the publishers, I received from the correspondent to whom I had sent the MS., the following letter:

Sir: The history of the King of the Mountains is the invention of an enemy of truth and the gendarmerie. No persons mentioned have set foot in Greece. The police have never vised any passports bearing the name of Mrs. Simons. The Commandant at Piraeus has never heard of The Fancy nor of Mr. John Harris. The Phillips Brothers do not remember of ever having employed Mr. William Lobster. No diplomatic agent has known any Maltese of the name of Giacomo Fondi. The National Bank of Greece has nothing with which to reproach itself, and it has never had on deposit, any funds made by brigandage. If it had received them, it would have considered it a duty to have confiscated them for its profit. I hold, for your inspection, the list of our officers of the gendarmerie. You will find no trace of M. Pericles. I know only two men of that name; one is a tavern-keeper in Athens; the other sells spices in Tripolitza. As for the famous Hadgi-Stavros, whose name I have heard to-day, for the first time, he is a fabulous being whom one must relegate to Mythology. I confess, in all sincerity, that there have been sometimes brigands in the country. The principal ones were destroyed by Hercules or Theseus, who may be considered as the real founders of Greek gendarmerie. Those who escaped the hands of these two heroes, have fallen under the blows of our invincible army. The author of the romance has displayed as much ignorance as dishonesty, in attempting to prove that brigandage exists to-day. I would give a great deal to have this romance published, may be in France, or in England, with the name and portrait of M. Schultz. The world would know by what gross artifices he has attempted to make every civilized nation suspicious of us.

As for you, Monsieur, who have always given us justice, accept the assurance of the kindest sentiments, with which I have the honor of being,

Your very grateful servant, Patriotis Pseftis.

"Author of a volume of Dithyrambics upon the regeneration of Greece; editor of the Journal l'Esperance; member of the Archaeological Society of Athens; corresponding member of the Academy of the Ionian Isles; stockholder in the National Company of the Spartan Pavlos."

THE AUTHOR HAS THE LAST WORD.

Athenian, my fine friend, the truest histories are not those which have happened!