THE PRIZE BY SYDNEY C. GRIER AUTHOR OF ‘THE HEIR,’ ‘THE PATH TO HONOUR,’ ‘THE HERITAGE,’ ETC. (_Third in the Balkan Series II._) _WITH FRONTISPIECE BY A. PEARSE_ William Blackwood and Sons Edinburgh and London 1910 [IMAGE: images/img_000.jpg CAPTION: DANAË.] CONTENTS. I. DANAË PLAYS THE EAVESDROPPER II. THE LADY III. THE LITTLE LORD IV. THE GIRDLE OF ISIDORA V. THE BRAND OF CAIN VI. THE SPY VII. THE EDUCATION OF KALLIOPÉ VIII. ROOTED IN DISHONOUR IX. ON THE TRACK X. THE PORTRAIT XI. THE RETURN OF PETROS XII. MISSING XIII. THE CULPRIT XIV. A RESCUE EXPEDITION XV. THE ACME XVI. _J’ACCUSE_ XVII. THE USE OF FRIENDS XVIII. EXPELLED FROM PARADISE XIX. _PATRIA POTESTAS_ XX. GREEK AND GREEK XXI. MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE XXII. _IN FORMÂ PAUPERIS_ XXIII. GUESTS OF HONOUR XXIV. THE TALLY XXV. THE MASTER OF THE SITUATION XXVI. THE FAIR PRIZE WON THE PRIZE. CHAPTER I. DANAË PLAYS THE EAVESDROPPER. The scene was a picture in itself. Sea and sky vied with one another in the depth of their unruffled blue, and in the glorious sunshine and clear air the cliffs were vividly, even startlingly, white. All round the island they presented an inhospitable front to the voyager save at one point, where advantage had been taken of a steep ravine running down to the sea to find room for a number of white-walled, red-roofed houses, which seemed to cling precariously to successive steps in the rock, from the primitive harbour at its foot to the rude fortress at the summit. On the land side, grey olive-trees came so close to the fortress walls that either of the girls lounging in a shady spot on the ramparts and lazily nibbling sunflower seeds could have touched the upper branches with her hand by leaning over the parapet. In the palmy days of Strio, when her pirates were the terror of the surrounding waters, the rulers of the isle would have seen in the olive-grove so near their walls merely a cover for probable enemies, and would have swept it ruthlessly away. But these were peaceful times, and the head of the Christodoridi was more concerned to wring the last drachma from his rocky acres than from the reluctant hands of seafarers. The Despot of Strio (both Prince Christodoridi and his subjects clung proudly to the ancient title) was a very great person--in Strio--and was wont to talk familiarly of his sovereign, the King of Morea, as of an equal whose state was bound to his by ancestral treaties. On the mainland, however, and still more in what both Striotes and Moreans called respectfully “Europe,” people were apt to laugh at the pretensions of the island potentate, when they were not irritated by them. Very wisely, therefore, Prince Christodoridi preferred to remain where his authority was undisputed, and bestrode his rock, glorying in the fact that not a woman within its confines could read or write. Five years ago, his elder daughter Danaë, visiting her mother’s relatives in a neighbouring island, had been swept with her cousins into the “vacation school,” established in her holidays by an energetic American lady teacher from the mainland, aghast at the ignorance which surrounded her. But before the school had been a week in session, Prince Christodoridi stalked grimly into the awed circle and carried off his daughter, favouring the foreigner with his opinion of her proceedings in language so exceedingly plain that it was well she did not understand it. In that week Danaë had earned the reputation of a terror with her schoolmistress, and a cause of awful joy to her schoolfellows, but she resented bitterly the dramatic close of her education. In a day or two more she would have possessed a Frank dress--she was learning to make it--which she could have flaunted proudly before the eyes of her mother and the other Striote ladies, who still wore the embroidered skirt and apron and voluminous girdle, the long coat and loose vest, of the days before Independence, the poorer women replacing the skirt by wide trousers. Prince Christodoridi was, supreme in sumptuary matters, as in all else, and “Frank clothes” were anathema in his eyes. Stretched upon the sun-warmed stones of the rampart, the parapet just shielding them from the rays of the declining sun, Danaë and her sister Angeliké squabbled noisily over the heap of sunflower seeds between them. Danaë ate fair, taking one seed at a time, but Angeliké had a greedy habit of selecting four or five of the plumpest at once, and keeping them in her hand till they were wanted. She always did it, and it always led to bickering, but this never occurred to her as a reason for leaving it off. The handsome childish faces of both girls were flushed with resentment, for as usual on these occasions, grudges in no way connected with the matter in hand had been brought up on either side. Their household tasks were finished, and what had they to do but quarrel, until the happy hour should come when Prince Christodoridi, having duly locked his family in, would swagger down to the coffee-house to ruffle it among his subjects, and his daughters would slip out, by ways best known to themselves, to join the other girls of the place, who, shrouded in their dark shawls, flitted ghostlike down back alleys and over roofs, to visit one another and exchange the gossip of the day? The heap of sunflower seeds was finished, though a remnant was still left within the shelter of Angeliké’s fingers, when footsteps below caused Danaë to look down into the courtyard. She withdrew her head hurriedly. “It is our father and Petros!” she whispered, with repressed excitement. “There is nothing interesting about Petros,” said Angeliké, yawning with disappointing indifference. “Owl! does he not come from Therma?” demanded Danaë. “If our brother has sent any message, he will give it now.” “Owl yourself! There will be no message. My lord Romanos cares nothing about us. When he was made Prince, you said he would send for us to his court and give us kings for husbands, but he has never taken the slightest notice. He cares no more about establishing us than he did about our fighting for him.” Angeliké sneered unpleasantly. Danaë flushed. “You never wanted to fight for him,” she said. “I should think not! What good is it to us that he was chosen Prince? And even if he had sent for us to Therma,” with a sudden change of ground, “would there have been any pleasure in it? We don’t know European ways, we can’t even speak French. People would have laughed at us. If I can once get a husband and escape from Strio, that is all I want, and you may be quite sure our father would never let us marry Europeans.” “I suppose a husband like Narkissos Smaragdopoulos would satisfy you?” sneered Danaë in her turn. “Of course he would. You can be nasty about him if you like. Everyone knows that he never speaks to you since you upset the coffee over his kilt in handing it to him.” “And do they know who told him that I did it on purpose?” “If they don’t, they probably think you told him yourself. It would be just like you. What are you going to do?” as Danaë began to crawl along the rampart in the direction taken by her father and the handsome ruffianly fellow, half guard, half servant, who swaggered after him. “Hush!” said Danaë angrily. “I am going to hear what they are saying, of course.” “Then I shall tell our father that you listened.” The offensive and defensive alliance against those in authority on the part of the two girls was always liable to an interruption of this sort, when one of the malcontents deserted temporarily to the side of power and brought punishment upon the other. “Then I shall tell our mother of the sweets that made you ill on the vigil of Hagios Jakōbos, when she thought the fasting had been too much for you,” Danaë flung back, and saw, as she expected, that Angeliké had no answer ready. Satisfied with having thus protected herself, she crawled on, until she found herself exactly above the two men as they sat on one of the rude flights of steps that ran up to the ramparts. Just here there was no parapet in whose shadow she might shelter herself, but they had their backs to her, and were far enough below not to see her, even if they turned round, when she was lying flat on the wall. Listening anxiously to discover whether any interesting topics had already been discussed, she was relieved to find that her father was apparently still leading up to some important point on which Petros seemed to be in no hurry to afford him information. “My son is too young to know his own best interests,” said Prince Christodoridi, with dignity. “His Highness is not exactly a boy,” growled Petros. “And therefore his elders must do their best to save him from the consequences of his youthful mistakes,” went on the Prince, as though his sentence had not been interrupted. “Then let his elders do their own work themselves, so that his Highness may know to whom his gratitude is due,” was the surly response. “Miserable dog!” cried Prince Christodoridi in a fury. “Is it for this I have maintained you close to my son’s person, charging you to keep me acquainted with all that touches one so dear to me, from whose side I am kept by my responsibilities here?” “Some folks say it is his Highness’s own wish that keeps you here, O my Prince--that since you refused to aid him with a single drachma in gaining his position, he does not see why you should expect to derive any benefit from it.” “Thickhead! why should I spend money in championing the cause of God and the saints? Is their power not sufficient? Has the cause not triumphed? Yet my son, who derives from me the rights which are now fully recognised, expresses no desire for my presence at his side.” “Perhaps his Highness thinks less of his rights than you do, my Prince.” Petros was keenly enjoying the inconsistency of his lord’s last two utterances. “I have heard him say that he owed his success to the intrigues of the Powers, and that right was altogether on the side of the Englishman, him of Klaustra.” “And after that you still think my son is able to take care of himself?” asked the Prince pathetically. “I tell you, Petraki, he will be his own ruin. Come, earn your wages, and let us save the misguided one from the destruction that threatens him.” “I take his Highness’s wages too, and I don’t know what he will think about my earning them,” grumbled Petros. “If the Lady had not distrusted me and tried to turn the Lord Romanos against me----” Danaë raised her head a little, and bent forward, so as to make sure of not missing a word. There was nothing revolting to her in the idea that her father should employ her brother’s confidential servant as a spy upon him, for it was of a piece with the methods which she saw in operation around her every day, and it was only natural that he should wish to participate in the good fortune of the son he had banished and wished to disinherit. Romanos Christodoridi, elected Prince of Emathia by the free vote of the inhabitants, under the auspices of the Powers of Europe, ought to have been a gold mine to his relatives, and Danaë felt no reluctance to subject the brother whose indifference had so deeply disappointed her to a little interference with his plans. Besides, “the Lady” sounded interesting. “I did not ask for your reasons, friend Petros,” said Prince Christodoridi, disposing, with a snap of his fingers, of the belated scruples of conscience which were troubling his instrument. “I ask for obedience and truth. What of this woman, then? Who is she?” “They call her ‘the Lady’ in Therma, O my Prince,” Petros spoke doggedly. “She lives in a retired house outside the city, and never goes out, and receives no one but his Highness.” “She is perhaps old enough to be his mother?” asked the Prince sarcastically. “Nay, my Prince, she is young and very beautiful. Also she is a Latin, and she calls his Highness her husband.” Prince Christodoridi laughed ferociously. “Husband, indeed! and she a Latin! How do you know these things, Petros?” “His Highness takes me to guard him when he visits the house, my Prince, and I alone have been permitted to pass within the gates.” “Then if you are able to enter, you must do what has to be done.” The words came with lightning swiftness. “Nay, my Prince, the gate can only be opened from within. His Highness says some word which I have not heard to the old woman who keeps the door.” “And you are too feeble to climb a wall, my poor Petraki?” “O my Prince, the wall is guarded on the outside. It is through the sentries that the common people have learnt to laugh and jest about the Lady.” “Then this disgrace is a matter of common talk--at a moment when the Emperor of Scythia is offering his daughter as a bride to my son?” “I think it is his cousin, my Prince. The Emperor’s daughters are all very young, they say.” “His daughter,” repeated Prince Christodoridi firmly. “Anything else would be an insult only to be washed out in blood. And is this fair prospect for Emathia and our ancient house to be destroyed for the sake of a Latin woman?” “That is for you to say, my Prince. I have no love for the Lady. Why should I, when the Lord Romanos desired to leave me to guard her, and she refused, saying that she disliked my looks and did not trust me? Had she accepted my services, I must have defended her to the death, but now I should not be sorry to see her dealt with as she deserves.” “Then who was left to guard her in your place?” “No one, my Prince. The Lady refused to have anyone with her but her women-servants, saying that the guards outside were sufficient.” “I think the Lady has consulted our convenience rather than her own,” smiled Prince Christodoridi. “Come, friend Petros, will you venture to tell me now that it is impossible to reach her?” “Impossible unless one had a confederate inside the gates, my Prince. The door must be opened, as you see.” “Then introduce a confederate, by all means. Holy Michael! does this fellow call himself a Striote?” “And who is the confederate to be, my Prince? For I have no wish to put my neck in jeopardy over this--removal, nor do I think that you have. _Kyrie Eleēson_! look at that, lord!” Crossing himself hastily, he clutched at the Prince’s wrist with a trembling hand, and pointed to the shadow of the rampart on the ground in front of them. Fully evident in the treacherous beams of the sinking sun was the outline of a human figure on the summit of the wall, with head raised to listen greedily to what was said. “Thickhead! why speak of it?” Prince Christodoridi was up the stairs in a moment, with an agility highly creditable to his sixty years, and had Danaë’s wrists in an iron grasp and a hand over her mouth, before she could even move. “Take her feet, fool! and bring her here.” They were inside one of the deserted towers in an instant, and before Danaë realised fully what had happened, she was bound hand and foot with the sash which Petros stripped off at his lord’s sharp command. Prince Christodoridi chose out deliberately a long thin dagger from the armoury in his belt, and dangled it before his daughter’s horrified eyes. “How much have you heard, wicked one?” he demanded. “Everything, lord.” The words would hardly make themselves audible. “What were we talking about?” “About my brother Romanos--how he has given himself over to an evil witch of a Latin woman, who has made him forget his own house and his duty to it.” “But what affair is it of yours?” Prince Christodoridi was puzzled by the warmth of personal feeling in the answer. “Is it not the affair of all when one of us disgraces himself, lord?” Danaë was regaining her courage now that discovery had not been followed by instant death. “No, insolent one! Has your mother not taught you yet that it is no affair of a woman what any of her men choose to do? Then you will have time to learn it in solitude here while Petros returns to his master.” Danaë grew pale, for there were dreadful tales of the dungeons under the tower, but she answered undauntedly, “So be it, lord. If the guilty one is punished, I shall but rejoice.” “And what would you do to the guilty one?” asked her father curiously. Her eyes flashed. “Lord, I would tear her from that fair house whither she draws my brother to his destruction, and she should never see it again.” “So the woman is the guilty one!” said Prince Christodoridi with grim amusement. “And what then, my lady?” “I would bring her here, lord, and cast her into a dungeon from which she should never escape. But when her beauty was gone, and her face as evil and ugly as herself, I would summon my brother and bid him behold her, that he might laugh at his own foolishness, and go his way.” “And that you would account sufficient punishment?” “Surely, lord, for her it would be worse than death, and she deserves it. But my brother has been led away.” “Worse than death?” said Prince Christodoridi meditatively. “But not so safe, daughter--not so safe. Still,” he stopped and cut the knots in the sash with his dagger, and allowed Danaë to rise from her cramped position on the floor, “you are a worthy child of the Christodoridi, I believe. Would you help in carrying out this vengeance, little one?” “Try me, lord! This fellow needs a confederate, does he? Let me go. I will enter the woman’s household as the meanest of her servants, and wait patiently until I can deliver her bound into his hands to be brought hither. Then I will dance for joy above her dungeon.” “But what has she done to you?” asked Prince Christodoridi, still moved entirely by curiosity, and not by any disapproval of his daughter’s sentiments. “She has bewitched my brother, lord. Is it not enough for you that she has bewitched your son?” “Lady Danaë knows nothing of the matter. She is too young to do what has to be done, and I will not risk discovery by taking her with me,” growled Petros. “Friend Petros, the women of the Christodoridi are never too young to do what the head of their house commands,” said the Prince. “And you know, lord, whether any weakness of mine would lead to discovery,” cried Danaë eagerly. “I have risked much for my brother already--even your displeasure.” This reminder was a bold stroke, for Danaë had suffered severely at her father’s hands when, warned secretly by Angeliké, he had instituted a search of the fishing-boat in which a band of volunteers from Strio were going to the help of Prince Romanos and his insurgent companions in Hagiamavra, and had discovered among them his elder daughter dressed in boy’s clothes. She had been brought back with ignominy, and cruelly beaten, but the incident had given Prince Christodoridi a certain reluctant respect for her. Moreover, she had promptly repaid the faithless Angeliké by revealing her gratified acceptance of the serenades addressed to her by a young Striote who had travelled as far as Alexandria, and in so doing had rubbed off some of the awe with which his lord and his lord’s family should properly be regarded. Prince Christodoridi was nothing if not impartial, and Angeliké’s shoulders vied with Danaë’s in the bruises they exhibited for many weeks, while she had the added sting of knowing that her father considered Danaë had far the best of the fray. “There is no question of displeasure here,” said Prince Christodoridi pointedly. “Successful, you may return. Unsuccessful, no one must know that you belonged to the Christodoridi.” “Be it so, lord. I go under a false name to deliver my brother from his enchantment. If I succeed, the girls will sing of me in the dance; if I fail, I disappear. What is a woman more or less when the hope of the house is concerned?” “All-Holy Mother of God! I could wish you had been my son, Danaë,” cried the Prince, with unwonted enthusiasm, “instead of that popinjay Romanos! But make no mistake,” he added repressively, “I send you merely because I would not reveal to any other the disgrace that threatens us. You will swear to obey the worthy Petros as if he were myself, since he will answer to me for your failure or success.” “I am putting my neck in a noose,” grumbled Petros. “Promise me first, lord, that you will wait to see if I succeed, and not suffer my sister to be married before me,” said Danaë, greatly daring. Her father frowned heavily. “Would you make conditions with me, insolent one? Is a younger sister ever married before her elder? You will obey Petros in everything, and he has my authority to take any steps that may be necessary with regard to you.” “The old woman at the Lady’s house said they wanted a girl to look after the child,” said Petros, with a slow grin. “I said I might be able to bring a niece of mine back from the islands. If Lady Danaë will be my niece, and obey me in all things, I will take her, but not otherwise. Holy Antony! if the Lord Romanos knew what was plotting against his love”--Prince Christodoridi glanced at him sharply--“perpetual imprisonment, no less--my life would not be worth a drachma, and I desire to continue in his service until he enters Czarigrad in triumph as Emperor.” “Peace! you talk too much. Lady Danaë will obey you, and you will be responsible for her,” said Prince Christodoridi sharply. “Come, girl!” and with a hand on Danaë’s shoulder he marched her down the steps, across the courtyard, and into the room where her mother, roused by his approach from an unlicensed nap, looked up with eyes not unlike those of a comfortable but apprehensive cow. “What has Danaë been doing now?” she asked feebly. “She is ill brought up. I have often asked you why you did not train her better,” replied Prince Christodoridi, mindful of discipline. “I am going to send her to be educated where she will learn obedience.” Princess Christodoridi had never defied her husband, nor even disappointed him, save in failing to provide the son who was to have supplanted Romanos, but at this extraordinary betrayal of past convictions she ventured a mild protest. “But, lord, you have always said----” “May I not do what I will with my own daughter?” cried the Prince furiously. “The girl goes to-morrow.” Princess Christodoridi collapsed, and Angeliké, from a sheltered corner, made signs of derision. But Danaë had provided beforehand against any undue elation on Angeliké’s part, and was content. CHAPTER II. THE LADY. It was a very woe-begone and dishevelled Danaë, not at all like an inspired deliverer, who stumbled ashore on the quay at Therma at the rough bidding of Petros. The passage had been a stormy one, and the island girl, who could have faced a gale without serious discomfort in a fishing-boat, had succumbed hopelessly to the vile odours and eccentric motion of the wretched little steamer that carried her from the neighbouring island of Tortolana, Strio’s nearest link with civilisation, to the capital of her brother’s principality. Either his qualms of conscience, or the possession of uncontrolled authority, had transformed the stolid Petros into a very truculent ruffian--or perhaps it was merely that he had determined to subject his “niece” to a severe test at the outset of their relationship. However this might be, he reviled her with much choice of language whenever he came across her prostrate and suffering form, threatening her with his stick when she roused herself to protest, and when they entered the harbour, locked her up for some hours in an empty cabin while he went on shore to arrange for getting her to “the Lady’s” house. Returning, he summoned her forth with curses--which she divined were drawn from him by some fresh proof of confidence from the master he was plotting to betray--and she followed him meekly through the streets, carrying her modest bundle, while he swaggered ahead, never deigning to cast a glance at her. The new Therma, rebuilt on European methods after its bombardment by the Powers, was a city of enchantment to the little barbarian from Strio, but she durst not let her eyes wander to the tall white houses or the astonishing shops. The swarming crowd of all nationalities that jostled her as she stumbled along, ill and miserable, in the wake of Petros, was simply a collection of moving obstacles, blocking the way to the attainment of her aim, the deliverance of the brother who represented all the romance that had ever touched her life from the spells of the witch-woman. Danaë knew very little about the Powers of Europe, but she was a great authority on witches, like all the women of her island. Her weary feet had carried her through many wide streets, past the ruined fortifications, now fast becoming overgrown with bushes, and out into a region of villas, set in lofty gardens, all enclosed with high walls, when the sudden apparition of a soldier on guard reminded her of what she had heard on the rampart. The sentry winked at Petros as he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at a gateway in the wall. “He’s there,” he said. “Told me you’d be coming.” Petros grunted, and went on to the door, which opened as if by magic. Danaë followed him in, and the door was closed instantly by an old woman behind it. Inside was one of Petros’s fellow-guardsmen, in full Greek costume, in charge of three horses, and Petros joined him immediately, after a perfunctory gesture, suggestive of washing his hands of Danaë, in the direction of the old woman, who sniffed significantly. “Well, I can’t say very much for your island girls,” she observed, eying the newcomer. “I expected a fine strapping lass who would be some good at work. But it’s not your fault, child,” she added more kindly, “and I daresay you won’t look so bad when you have some decent clothes on. Come and have something to eat before you go before the Lady.” “Couldn’t I see the Lady first?” asked Danaë meekly, anxious to get the first interview over. “Certainly not,” was the decisive reply. “Come this way, and do as you’re told.” Danaë was whirled along a path between the bushes, and into a large disorderly kitchen, where another old woman was arranging afternoon tea on a tray with the utmost nicety, in the midst of onions, wine-jars, oil-flasks, raw meat and other unusual accompaniments. “This young person thinks she can give orders here, Despina,” remarked the guide. Despina looked up from her tray. “Then the sooner she learns to the contrary the better,” she observed succinctly, carrying it off. “Yes, indeed,” said the other old woman, setting food before Danaë. “Everyone that comes inside these walls may as well know that whatever the Lady says, that has to be done, whether it’s having English tea in the middle of the afternoon, or dressing the blessed child like a grown-up person, without any swathings. They may call her Princess outside or not, as they like, but she is Princess here.” “But why should she be called Princess?” ventured Danaë, looking up from her bread and cheese. “What else should the Prince’s wife be called, girl?” “Petros--my uncle--always calls her the Lady.” “And so she is the Lady, but she’s the Princess too. Didn’t I myself see her married to him at Bashi Konak, with the Princesses of Dardania looking on?” “But I thought she was a Latin?” said Danaë, aghast. “So she is, I suppose, and that’s why the wedding was kept private. But Latin or not, a marriage is a marriage, and when it’s acknowledged, the Princess will remember those who have been faithful to her. Not that I would tell you all this if there was any chance of your going and talking about it outside, girl,” she added hastily, as Despina returned, “but there isn’t. Once you’re here, you stay here.” “But will the marriage always be kept private?” “Of course not,” said Despina, with considerable irritation. “How could it, with the young Prince growing up, and all? And the sooner his Highness acknowledges it the better, say I.” “And so anyone would say,” agreed the other old woman. “But how it’s to be done now, Despina, is more than you or I can tell, wise as you may think yourself. It seems to me that the Lady has missed her chance.” “Missed her chance?” cried Despina angrily. “She’s missed three chances, and you know it as well as I do, Mariora. She missed one when she let him marry her privately, instead of standing out for her rights, and she missed the second that night she came to me all trembling to say he swore he could not live without her, and would she not come to Therma secretly until he could safely acknowledge the marriage? That was her worst mistake, but she might have redeemed it when the child was born, and she refused, even when I begged of her to do it. ‘I will not stoop to extort recognition from my husband, if my entreaties cannot avail, my Despina,’ she said, and stuck to it. And entreaties! you can see she tries them every time he comes, and what’s the good? She’s tiring him out, she is.” Danaë’s eyes were aflame with indignation, not against her brother, but the Lady. The enchantress was not satisfied with ensnaring her victim, then; she wished to keep him for ever, to ruin his future without hope of remedy. It never occurred to Danaë for a moment to regard the marriage at Bashi Konak as binding--she was far too strongly Orthodox to admit that a Greek could marry a Latin by Latin rites--but she feared that Prince Romanos might be induced to go through a second ceremony, prior to which the bride would renounce her schismatic creed. Then woe to all hopes of an alliance with Scythian royalty, to the great aggrandisement of the Christodoridi. Danaë’s courage rose again, and she felt that the trials of her journey were well worth enduring if they enabled her to defeat the Lady’s plans. “If you have finished, my girl, you can go to the Lady now,” said Mariora. “The Prince will be with her, but you need not be afraid of him. He comes from the islands himself, though I’m glad to say he doesn’t talk the island talk.” This slur on the purity of her Greek sent Danaë haughtily out of the kitchen, and guided by the loud directions of the two old women, she passed through a stone-paved hall, and across a wide shady verandah. Under a tree on the sloping lawn in front a lady and gentleman were at tea. Danaë advanced boldly, with no fear of being recognised, since her half-brother and she had never met. The lady heard the sound of her slippers on the gravel and looked round, then turned back to the gentleman and spoke rapidly in French. “Such a tiresome thing!” she said. “It seems that foolish Despina asked Petros to find me a nurse-girl in the islands, and he has brought back some niece of his own. And I dislike Petros so much that I don’t want any of his family here.” “Put the blame on me,” said Prince Romanos softly. “I was glad to think that my son would know the lullabies his father used to hear as a child.” “Poet!” said the lady, half fondly, half in scorn. “But if the idea displeases you, by all means send the girl back at once, my beloved. What are my fancies compared with your wishes?” “We will see what she is like. Come here, child.” Danaë approached, continuing to scan the pair with sharp suspicious glances. Even her prejudiced mind could not deny that the Lady was very beautiful, and she fastened greedily on a slight droop at the corners of the finely formed mouth, a lift of the delicate eyebrows, as signs of ill-temper counterbalancing good looks. But the discontented expression was far more evident in her companion. He was a handsome man, a good deal older than his wife, and his sallow face bore abundant marks of anxiety and worry. These Danaë set down promptly to the Lady’s account. She was worse than a witch, she was a vampire, drawing forth the Prince’s vitality and feeding upon it for the enhancement of her own youth and beauty. “Such a terribly rough-looking girl! so uncouth!” said the Lady in dismay. The tone was intelligible, if not the words. “Not so bad for Strio, where we think more of strength than refinement. I suppose my sisters must be somewhere about her age now.” “I hope they are differently dressed, then. With those looped-up trousers and bare legs she might be a boy.” “This is a fisher-girl,” said Prince Romanos, with some coldness. “They always have their clothes short for scrambling over the rocks. My sisters wear the proper national dress, of course.” “Well, there is no fishing for her to do here,” said the Lady sharply. “Tell Despina to see that you are properly dressed before you come into my presence again, child,” she added in Greek, spoken with a foreign accent. “At your pleasure, my Lady,” muttered Danaë, with a wrathful glance which the Prince took for one of reproach. “Fear not, little one,” he said pleasantly. “The Lady is not angry with thee, but she does not know the island of the blue sea and the white rock and the grey olive as thou and I do. What do they call thee?” “Eurynomé of the Andropouloi, lord.” “The Andropouloi! Is the island as full of them as ever? Why, thou art surely the daughter of Petros’s sister Theano? I remember she was to marry an Andropoulos soon after I left Strio.” “Stephanos is her husband’s name, lord--sword-bearer to the Despot.” “Why doesn’t she call you _Despoti mou_, instead of _Kyrie_?” asked the Lady sharply. “Probably because to her there is only one Despot in the world. Tell the Lady whom you mean when you speak of the Despot, child.” “He of Strio, lord,” with evident surprise. “Just so. But here there are two other Despots, he of Therma, which is myself, and he of Klaustra, who is----” “My dear Romanos! She will think you are in earnest.” “And am I not, my most beautiful? But come, child, tell me whether the girls run about over the roofs in the spring evenings in Strio as they used to do?” Danaë was horrified. “But no one knows about it, lord--especially no man.” “Not even the lad who hides in a doorway to get speech with one particular girl? If not, how do I know?” The memory of certain experiences of Angeliké’s made Danaë hesitate to repeat her negative. She hung her head miserably, and the Prince laughed. “Aha, little one! There was a certain pretty Praxinoë twenty years ago----” The Lady withdrew herself slightly, with a little motion of disgust, and his laugh became embarrassed. “Well, she drove me from Strio and cost me my father’s favour, so perhaps the less said about her the better. Go back to the old women, little one, but grow not into a Fate or a Grey Sister like them, and take good care of the little lord. Sing him the island songs, that he may grow up with the sound of the sea in his ears.” “Your foot is on my head, lord,” responded Danaë, in a choking voice, as she turned away. Her whole heart went out to this handsome, tired-looking brother of hers, who had loved the stones of Strio throughout twenty years of exile. How gladly would she have fought and died to win him his principality, and how willingly now would she submit to contumely and harshness to save him from the clutches of the beautiful, cold-hearted, discontented woman at his side, who was living on his very life-blood! “That girl won’t be bad-looking, when you have brushed her up a little, Olimpia,” said the Prince, in French again, when she was gone. The same little shudder of repulsion as before answered him, and he turned round quickly. “Alas, my beautiful one! you should not have married Apolis the poet if you did not expect him to discern beauty wherever it was to be found.” “You are right. I should never have married Apolis the poet--nor Romanos the Prince either,” she answered, in a strangled voice. “Nor would I have done it if I had dreamt how it was to turn out.” “I thought, we had agreed it was useless to enter upon this subject again for the present,” said the Prince, with polite weariness. She fired up at once. “Agreed? I never agreed. You said it was useless, but how can it do any good to leave things as they are? The longer you delay to acknowledge me publicly as your wife, the more difficult it will be. Even now, how will you account for the two years that I have lived concealed here?” “It is more than difficult. It is impossible,” he said through his teeth. She glanced at him with mingled terror and indignation in her eyes, and he raised his hand soothingly. “Do not mistake me, my most beautiful. It is quite possible for you to leave this house, force your way into the Palace--the guards shall have orders not to stop you--and lay the proofs of our marriage before the Council, calling in those good, kind-hearted meddlers”--the sneer was terrific--“Princess Emilia and her mother-in-law, to vouch to your words. The result is simple. Exit Romanos, Prince of Emathia, and enter the Englishman, Prince Maurice Theophanis, with his wife and his sister and his sister’s husband, to succeed to all the honours your husband lays down.” “You know I don’t want you to lose your kingdom. For what other reason have I submitted to this two years’ concealment? But how can things ever be better? What hope is there that you will ever find it safe to acknowledge me as your wife?” “Ah, now my beloved is becoming more reasonable! Listen, then, my little dove. I have a hope--a great hope--that I may be able to accomplish your wish--and my own--very shortly. This railway imbroglio must be settled first. At present Scythia and Pannonia are bidding against one another for the privilege of traversing your husband’s state, while he merely intimates that the price offered is not high enough. They are raising their offers. I have already had a shadowy hint of the bare possibility that my position may be made permanent instead of merely renewable after five years--even that it may become hereditary.” “Who offers that?” she asked, with a gasp. “Ah, that I can hardly tell you at present. But you see, my Olimpia, the frightful delicacy of the situation. The merest breath of suspicion would blast irretrievably this charming prospect--and incidentally your husband’s whole career. Wait until the proposal is made definitely, until the bargain is completed, and instead of the mere temporary nominee of Europe, Romanos the First is acknowledged ruler of Emathia in his own right. Then is the moment for him proudly to present his Princess to an admiring world, and to announce that the succession is already secured in the person of a remarkably vigorous infant heir.” The Lady’s troubled features relaxed into an involuntary smile. “Ah, that would be magnificent!” she said. “You swear it, Romanos? that there shall be no more delay, no more of this vain entreaty on my part, but that the moment your position is assured you will justify me to the world?” “I swear it! by all the natural objects to which poets have ever appealed to ratify their vows.” His lightness jarred upon her. “Do you think it is any pleasure to me to lower myself by these continual appeals to you?” she demanded. “I hope so, my soul, for you can hardly imagine it is any pleasure to me. Ah, beautiful one, not more tragedy, I beseech you! Smile and look lovingly upon your poet. The Prince has enough of seriousness outside.” She repressed with an effort the words thronging to her lips. “Very well, I will say no more. But I must tell you this, that my father is more than ever dissatisfied with my position here. He writes that he proposes to visit Therma, and hopes to induce you to acknowledge me publicly. If you refuse, I know he will wish to take me away with him.” “He may wish, but you will not go. When you vowed yourself to me, Olimpia, you put it out of the power of your father or mine to part us.” “But, dearest, his patience is sorely tried. You know he only consented to keep the secret of our marriage on condition that it was announced as soon as you were established in power, and the announcement has been put off so long and so often. His honour is his dearest possession, and he fears a stain upon it.” “Then let him remain at home until he is summoned to his daughter’s entry into Therma as Princess. No, Olimpia, I am not joking. Make your father understand that if he even shows himself in Emathia while this negociation is proceeding, he will set tongues wagging, and the mischief will be done. He must not come.” “He hints that he has something to communicate which would make it easier for you to acknowledge the marriage,” she faltered, cowed by his tone. “He meant to tell us about it after the acknowledgment, but now----” “Holy Spiridion! let him write it, then. Anything to make the announcement easier will be welcome enough to me, the saints know. But no visit at present. I see what it is, Kyria Olimpia, you are dull! Shall I bring Theophanis and his brother-in-law here to tea when they come?” “And their wives?” she asked pointedly. He flushed with annoyance. “The ladies, with unusual discretion, have not proposed to accompany their husbands on this visit. It is purely on business--this railway business. Nothing less would drag our two virtuous Englishmen from their herculean labours at Klaustra to this frivolous place.” “You may bring them to call on me if they know the truth--not otherwise.” Prince Romanos swore under his breath. “Some demon of obstinacy seems to possess you to-day, Olimpia. I thought you were satisfied.” “Forgive me, my husband. Surely it seems a good thought, to bring the Englishmen here and tell them the truth under a promise of secrecy? They are honourable men, and would watch over Janni’s rights if anything happens to you and me.” “You are incorrigible, Olimpia. Don’t you see that those two men are the very last to whom the secret must be revealed? Theophanis is my rival, and bound for his own sake to take advantage of any slip on my part.” “But he is so honourable, Romanos--punctiliously, quixotically honourable, as you have often said yourself.” He moved restlessly. “That’s all very well, but he may be secretly plotting against me all the time. And to give him a hold upon me now--it would be sheer insanity. I told you it was the railway business they were coming to discuss. Doesn’t it occur to you that these good simple fools would never willingly consent to allow either Scythia or Pannonia to gain the power over us that the concession would give them?” “But what do they propose you should do?” “They have some idea of an international guarantee, which would merely mean that we should have ten nations claiming control over our affairs instead of one. No, if they like to construct the line entirely from their own resources, and so keep it all in the family, as one may say, I am quite willing. It will leave Emathia independent, and keep them from intriguing against me by using up their money. But they won’t. So they are coming to argue about it, and I shall have to ply them with fair words and try to hustle them back to Klaustra before the negociations come to a head.” “But do you think it safe to give Scythia or Pannonia the control of the line?” “I should not, if they had not something supremely desirable to offer in exchange. You know what that is, and you should be the last person to have scruples about it.” “Yes, let me see,” she said meditatively. “You are confirmed in the absolute possession of Emathia, and it is secured to your heirs. “And--” she paused--“you marry the third cousin twice removed of the Emperor of Scythia. You intend to murder me, I suppose? For I warn you, Prince Romanos Christodoridi, that I will not accept a divorce, nor will I go tamely away disgraced. I am your wife,” her voice broke, “and for my child’s sake, I mean to be acknowledged as your Princess.” She burst away from him in a passion of tears, and ran into the house. “Now how in the world did she manage to hear of that little point?” demanded Prince Romanos of himself, as he rose reluctantly to follow her. “The most delicate matter of all--to reap the benefit without paying the price. She will ruin everything in this mood. Olimpia! Olimpia!” he raised his voice, “you are cruelly unjust to me. I insist upon your hearing what I have to say.” CHAPTER III. THE LITTLE LORD. Even when the first strangeness had worn off, Danaë remained an incongruous element in the Lady’s secluded household. As a Striote, speaking the island _patois_, she was a predestined adherent of the Prince in the eyes of the two old women, and therefore an enemy of their mistress, and to make things worse, she was ignorant of the standard of “European” culture to which they had painfully attained. Life within the bounds of the garden, mitigated only by a saint’s-day visit to the nearest church, was miserably confined after the active existence to which Danaë had been accustomed, and she scandalised her custodians by her exploits in climbing trees and scrambling up walls. Old Despina went out every day to do the household shopping, in the course of which she managed to pick up and bring home to her mistress an extraordinary variety of gossip reflecting on the Prince, but she would never take the girl with her. Danaë’s longings to make closer acquaintance with the crowded streets and the enticing shops were in no way satisfied by the short walks to church in the company of Mariora, both of them so closely swathed in their shawls that nothing of their faces could be seen. But Despina assured her mistress that the girl was such a savage that if she was allowed into the town she was sure to make a scene of some kind, or at least to attract attention by her staring and her uncouth remarks, and as the Lady was above all things desirous to escape notice until the moment of her vindication arrived, Danaë was sentenced to remain within the grounds. Even the thought of the punishment in store for the Lady would not have enabled the girl to endure the confinement but for the society of the baby. He was a notably joyous child, the brooding sorrow of his unhappy mother leaving him untouched. Danaë and he took to one another at first sight, and she became his devoted slave. With sublime inconsistency, she saw in him the heir of the Christodoridi. He was named Joannes, after the patriot Emperor who had fallen on the walls of Czarigrad in the vain attempt to repel the final onslaught of the conquering Roumis, and from whom the Christodoridi were descended in the female line, and Danaë told herself proudly that he
{'title': 'The Prize by Sydney C. Grier', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}