Phroso: A Romance

During this conversation Kortes had been standing on the lowest step of the staircase, and I facing him, on the floor of the hall, with one hand resting on the balustrade. We had talked in low tones, partly from a fear of eavesdroppers, even more, I think, from the influence which our position exerted over us. In peril men speak softly. Our voices sounded as no more than faint murmurs in the roomy hall; consequently they could not have been audible – where? In the passage!

But as I spoke to Kortes in a petulant reproachful whisper, a sound struck on my ear, a very little sound. I caught my companion’s arm, imposing silence on him by a look. The sound came again. I knew the sound; I had heard it before. I stepped back a pace and looked round the balustrade to the spot where the entrance to the passage lay.

I should have been past surprise now, after my sojourn in Neopalia; but I was not. I sprang back, with a cry of wonder, almost (must I admit it?) of alarm. Small and faint as the noise had been, it had sufficed for the opening of the door, and in the opening made by the receding of the planks were the head and shoulders of a man. His face was hardly a yard from my face; and the face was the face of Constantine Stefanopoulos.

In the instant of paralysed immobility that followed, the explanation flashed like lightning through my brain. Constantine, buying his liberty and pardon from Mouraki, had stolen along the passage. He had opened the door. He hoped to find me alone – if not alone, yet off my guard – in the hall. Then a single shot would be enough. His errand would be done, his pardon won. That my explanation was right the revolver in his hand witnessed. But he also was surprised. I was closer than he thought, so close that he started back for an instant. The interval was enough; before he could raise his weapon and take aim I put my head down between my shoulders and rushed at him. I think my head knocked his arm up, his revolver went off, the noise reverberating through the hall. I almost had hold of him when I was suddenly seized from behind and hurled backwards. Kortes had a mind to come first and stood on no ceremony. But in the instant that he was free, Constantine dived down, like a rabbit into a burrow. He disappeared; with a shouted oath Kortes sprang after him. I heard the feet of both of them clattering down the flight of steps.

For a single moment I paused. The report had echoed loud through the hall. The sentries must have heard it – the sentries before the house, the sentries in the compound behind the house. Yet none of them rushed in: not a movement, not a word, not a challenge came from them. Mouraki Pasha kept good discipline. His orders were law, his directions held good, though shots rang loud and startling through the house. Even at that moment I gave a short sharp laugh; for I remembered that on no account was Lord Wheatley to be interrupted; no, neither Lord Wheatley nor the man who came to kill Lord Wheatley was to be interrupted. Oh, Mouraki, Mouraki, your score was mounting up! Should you ever pay the reckoning?

Shorter far than it has taken to write my thoughts was the pause during which they galloped through my palpitating brain. In a second I also was down the flight of stairs beyond. I heard still the footsteps in front of me, but I could see nothing. It was very dark that night in the passage. I ran on, yet I seemed to come no nearer to the steps in front of me. But suddenly I paused, for now there were steps behind me also, light steps, but sounding distinct in my ear. Then a voice cried, in terror and distress, ‘My lord, don’t leave me, my lord!’

I turned. Even in the deep gloom I saw a gleam of white: a moment later I caught Phroso by both her hands.

‘The shot, the shot?’ she whispered.

‘Constantine. He shot at me – no, I’m not hurt. Kortes is after him.’

She swayed towards me. I caught her and passed my arm round her; without that she would have fallen on the rocky floor of the dim passage.

‘I heard it and rushed down,’ she panted. ‘I heard it from my room.’

‘Any sign of the sentries?’

‘No.’

‘I must go and help Kortes.’

‘Not without me?’

‘You must wait here.’

‘Not without you.’ Her arms held me now by the shoulders with a stronger grip than I had thought possible. She would not let me go. Well then, we must face it together.

‘Come along, then,’ said I. ‘I can see nothing in this rat hole.’

Suddenly, from in front of us, a cry rang out; it was some distance off. We started towards it, for it was Kortes’s voice that cried.

‘Be careful, be careful,’ urged Phroso. ‘We’re near the bridge now.’

It was true. As she spoke the walls of rock on either side receded. We had come to the opening. The dark water was below us, and before us the isolated bridge of rock that spanned the pool. We were where the Lord of the island had been wont to hurl his enemies headlong from his side to death.

What happened on the bridge, on the narrow bridge of rock which ran in front of us, we could not see; but from it came strange sounds, low oaths and mutterings, the scraping of men’s limbs and the rasping of cloth on the rock, the hard breathings of struggling combatants; now a fierce low cry of triumph, a disappointed curse, a desperate groan, the silence that marked a culminating effort. Now, straining my eyes to the uttermost, and having grown a little more accustomed to the darkness, I discerned, beyond the centre of the bridge, a coiling writhing mass that seemed some one many-limbed animal, but was, in truth, two men, twisted and turned round about one another in an embrace which could have no end save death. Which was Kortes, which Constantine, I could not tell. How they came there I could not tell. I dared not fire. Phroso hung about me in a paroxysm of fear, her hands holding me motionless; I myself was awed and fascinated by the dim spectacle and the confused sounds of that mortal strife.

Backward and forward, to and fro, up and down they writhed and rolled. Now they hung, a protrusion of deeper blackness, over the black gulf on this side, now on that. Now the mass separated a little as one pressed the other downward and seemed about to hurl his enemy over and himself remain triumphant; now that one, in his turn, tottered on the edge as if to fall and leave the other panting on the bridge; again they were mixed together, so that I could not tell which was which, and the strange appearance of a single, writhing, crawling shape returned. Then suddenly, from both at once, rang out cries: there was dread and surprise in one, fierce, uncalculating, self-forgetful triumph in the other. Not even for Phroso’s sake, or the band of her encircling arms, could I rest longer. Roughly I fear, at least with suddenness, I disengaged myself from her grasp. She cried out in protest and in fear, ‘Don’t go, don’t leave me!’ I could not rest. Recollecting the peril, I yet rushed quickly on to the bridge, and moved warily along its narrow perilous way. But even as I came near the two who fought in the middle, there was a deep groan, a second wild triumphant cry, a great lurch of the mass, a moment – a short short moment – when it hung poised over the yawning vault; and then an instant of utter stillness. I waited as a boy waits to hear the stone he has thrown strike the water at the bottom of the well. The stone struck the water: there was a great resounding splash, the water moved beneath the blow; I saw its dark gleam agitated. Then all was still again; and the passage of the bridge was clear.

I walked to the spot where the struggle had been, and whence the two had fallen together. I knelt down and gazed into the chasm. Three times I called Kortes’s name. No answer came up. I could discern no movement of the dark waters. They had sunk, the two together, and neither rose. Perhaps both were wounded to death, perhaps only their fatal embrace prevented all effort for life. I could see nothing and hear nothing. My heart was heavy for Kortes, a brave true man and our only friend. In the death of Constantine I saw less than his fitting punishment; yet I was glad that he was gone, and the long line of his villainies closed. This last attempt had been a bold one. Mouraki, no doubt, had forced him to it; even a craven will be bold where the penalty of cowardice is death. Yet he had not dared to stand when discovered. He had fled, and must have been flying when Kortes came up and grappled with him. For a snapshot at an unwary man he had found courage, but not for a fair fight. He was an utter coward after all. He was well dead, and his wife well avenged.

But it was fatal to linger here. Mouraki would be expecting the return of his emissary. I saw now clearly that the Pasha had prepared the way for Constantine’s attempt. If no news came, he would not wait long. I put my reflections behind me and walked briskly back to where I had left Phroso. I found her lying on the ground; she seemed to be in a faint. Setting my face close to hers, I saw that her eyes were shut and her lips parted. I sat down by her in the narrow passage and supported her head on my arm. Then I took out a flask, and pouring some of the brandy-and-water it contained into the cup forced a little between her lips. With a heavy sigh she opened her eyes and shuddered.

‘It is over,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to be afraid; all is over now.’

‘Constantine?’

‘He is dead.’

‘And Kortes?’

‘They are both gone. They fell together into the pool and must be dead; there’s no sound from it.’

A frightened sob was her answer; she put her hand up to her eyes.

‘Ah, dear Kortes!’ she whispered, and I heard her sob gently again.

‘He was a brave man,’ said I. ‘God rest his soul!’

‘He loved me,’ she said simply, between her sobs. ‘He – he and his sister were the only friends I had.’

‘You have other friends,’ said I, and my voice was well nigh as low as hers.

‘You are very good to me, my lord,’ she said, and she conquered her sobs and lay still, her head on my arm, her hair enveloping my hand in its silken masses.

‘We must go on,’ said I. ‘We mustn’t stay here. Our only chance is to go on.’

‘Chance? Chance of what?’ she echoed in a little despairing murmur, ‘Where am I to go? Why should I struggle any more?’

‘Would you fall into Mouraki’s power?’ I asked from between set lips.

‘No; but I need not. I have my dagger.’

‘God forbid!’ I cried in sudden horror; and in spite of myself I felt my hand tighten and press her head among the coils of her hair. She also felt it; she raised herself on her elbow, turned to me, and sent a straining look into my eyes. What answer could I make to it? I averted my face; she dropped her head between her hands on the rocky floor.

‘We must go,’ said I again. ‘Can you walk, Phroso?’

I hardly noticed the name I called her, nor did she appear to mark it.

‘I can’t go,’ she moaned. ‘Let me stay here. I can get back to the house, perhaps.’

‘I won’t leave you here. I won’t leave you to Mouraki.’

‘It will not be to Mouraki, it will be to – ’

I caught her hand, crying in a low whisper, ‘No, no.’

‘What else?’ she asked, again sitting up and looking at me.

‘We must make a push for safety, as we meant to before.’

‘Safety?’ Her lips bent in a sadly derisive little smile. ‘What is this safety you talk about?’ she seemed to say.