It is a great thing to be a Zamana, and of the right branch, too. At least that is what little Pavlo Zamana had always been told.

Was it not his own great-grandfather who had fought at the siege of Missolonghi?¹ Was it not he who had suggested the famous message to the Turks: “If you want our town, come and take it!” though it was the sender who got the credit for it? Was not he one of the leaders of the last heroic sortie, on the never-to-be-forgotten tenth of April? And did not Botzari say of him, “Without my right hand, I can do something, without Zamana, nothing”?

All this was most gratifying when Pavlo was at school; especially when new boys arrived, for the old ones had heard the story pretty often. And of course it was always a proud moment when the history master came to the siege of Missolonghi, and rolled out the names of Botzari,² Palama, Tricoupi, Pappalouka, Razikotsika, Kapsali, Zamana, to be able to whisper very audibly, “That was my great-grandfather!”

But it was less interesting at home, when he could never cry in peace over a barked knee, or howl if there were a splinter to be dug out which had gone in deeply, or feel very sad when a visit to the dentist was projected, without being always told:—

“Shame! Shame! And you a Zamana!”

And the fact remained, whether it was that the blood had weakened by the time it had come down to Pavlo, or whether some of his other grandfathers or grandmothers had been built in a less heroic mould, that when he had to go up into a dark attic to look for a book for his uncle, or to face an aggressive band of schoolboys waiting with stones in their hands round a street corner, he did not feel at all as a Zamana should; oh, but not at all!

There had been a great many Zamanas, but they had all died, some at home and some abroad, and only two were left now; a middle-aged doctor, and a little boy.

The doctor was Pavlo’s uncle, and he lived in a gloomy house in Solon Street, in Athens, and when he was at home he was always very busy writing, and had to be called again and again when dinner or supper was ready.

“I have come; I have come!” he would answer impatiently, but he never came till the pilaf³ was all sodden, or the “keftedes”⁴ had stuck to the dish in little rounds of cold fat.

The little boy was Pavlo, and he lived with his uncle.

The house in Solon Street was not an interesting house to live in one bit. It was tall and narrow, jammed in between another tall narrow house on one side, and a green grocer’s shop on the other, and one could only see the Acropolis,⁵ and Phalerum and the sea if one got up to the terrace on the roof, where they hung out the clothes to dry; and even from there it looked very far off. There was not a scrap of garden, only a small paved courtyard at the back, generally littered with empty cases which had come from abroad with new instruments and new books for the doctor. Pavlo sometimes attempted to play house or shop in the biggest of these, but Marina, the cook, used to get very cross if he brought in damp straw on his shoes over her freshly scrubbed kitchen, and the other maid, Aphrodite, would screw up her ugly brown face, and bring her thick black eyebrows together, and threaten that the next time he got another big tear in his clothes from those great long packing nails for her to mend, if she did not tell his uncle, they need never call her “Aphrodite” again! His uncle heard her once, and said laughingly that they need never have called her “Aphrodite” at all, but Pavlo got his scolding all the same, for causing unnecessary work, so that the packing cases had to be abandoned.

In winter it was better. After his preparation for next day’s school was over, and before the long delayed supper, he would stay in the little dining room, and lying flat on the floor in the warmth of the big white Viennese stove, he would colour the pictures in the odd numbers of an English illustrated medical journal, which his uncle had given to be thrown away. There were very rarely what Pavlo considered real pictures in them, and he got rather tired of colouring “thoracic aortas” in bright orange, and “abdominal aortas” in pale green, and “tracheÆ” in stripes of purple and yellow; but now and then he would come across some funny groups of little insects, and once there was a picture of an operation in a hospital, where there were any amount of doctors and nurses to be coloured, each one differently. That picture lasted him three whole evenings, and would have been even more successful than it was, if only the very best and softest of his chalks, the crimson one, had not somehow got broken inside the wood, so that it all came away in little pieces when he tried to sharpen it, till at last there was nothing left but a little stump of chalk without any wood, and anyone who has tried, knows how hard it is to colour a whole dress with a little bit of chalk that one cannot hold properly.

But when the days grew longer and warmer the dining room was too hot for comfort; the study, even when the doctor was out, was always kept locked, and Pavlo’s own bedroom on the third floor was even hotter than the dining room. So he would end by taking his books or his chalks into the hall, where at least there was a little coolness to be had from the chink under the front door. There he would sit on the stairs, or lie flat on the floor, kicking up his heels as he read or painted, till he knew every stringy part of the long strip of gray, red-edged carpet that crossed the middle of the passage, and every place where the paint, which had peeled off the once-painted floor, had left curiously shaped patches, which only needed the touch of a pencil here and there to turn into all sorts of faces. The yellow walls, imitating veined marble, offered terrible temptation of the same kind, but it was too dangerous; pencil marks on the walls would have been seen at once. There was one spot, indeed, where the criss-cross of veins made such an exact head of Hermes,⁶ winged cap and all, with only the back of the head and one ear missing, that Pavlo absolutely could not resist touching it up, one long hot afternoon. He rubbed all the pencil marks very carefully off afterwards, with his piece of india rubber, but this had got so mixed up in his pocket with odds and ends of chalk and with half a “loucoumi” that the rubbing-away marks were very red and sticky and showed worse than the pencil ones. So Pavlo had been rather frightened, till he discovered that by pushing the hat stand a little nearer the study door, the place was quite hidden. However, he dared not make any more attempts on the wall, and the afternoon dragged wearily.

Of course, no playing in the street was ever allowed, but sometimes when Marina the cook slipped out late to buy a bowl of “yaourti”⁷ for supper, or some chicory for salad, she would take him with her, and he would stand about while she bargained, envying the blue-pinafored boys of the neighborhood tearing and whooping down the street or gathered together over their marbles on the edge of the pavement. Pavlo played marbles at his school near the National Library, when he managed to get there ten minutes before lessons began; but the class-bell always rang in the middle of the most interesting game, and the ten minutes between each lesson were of no good because no play was allowed then, at that school. Only the bigger classes could do as they liked, the little boys were marshaled in order of size by one of the overlookers and marched round and round the big courtyard, so that, as Pavlo heard the director explaining to his uncle one day, “the little pupils should have all the benefit of fresh air and exercise during this short interval, without any danger of their minds being distracted from the lesson they had just been taught!” But the “little pupils’ ” minds were as a rule more occupied with the secret exchange of pen nibs, the recognized school currency, than in pondering over the last lesson.

And then, when June had passed into July, when summer in town was at its hottest and dustiest, when the examinations were just over, and there was not even school to break the monotony of the long empty days, a wonderful change came into Pavlo’s life.

It happened like this.

One afternoon he had just got up from the enforced lying down with a book, which he hated—especially as the book was not a new one, but only Louki Laras⁸ which he had read already four times, so that even if one skipped the descriptions, the exciting parts were too familiar—and was wandering about the house, a piece of bread in one hand and a piece of chocolate in the other, when he came across Aphrodite packing his uncle’s valise. He was going away, she told Pavlo, for some days. There was nothing extraordinary in that. People were always sending for the doctor from one part and another of the provinces, to come and cure them, and Pavlo was quite accustomed to being alone in the house with the two maids, and having his dinner and supper served on a tray at one end of the dining room table. The only advantage of this was that Marina let him choose his dinners, and that he could have pilaf or even “halva”⁹ two days running, and need never touch soup or boiled meat all the time his uncle was away.

But the extraordinary thing happened a few moments later, when his uncle let himself into the house, and walked right up into the room where the packing was going on.

“Is the valise full?” he inquired.

Aphrodite straightened herself up.

“It is full, Kyrie. I have put three soft shirts at the bottom and the little black box which you gave me last night; the rest of your things are in the middle, and there are two starched shirts under the covering, and your traveling cap at the very top.”

“Is it quite full?” he repeated.

“If there is any other small thing you have forgotten, I can slip it in between the clothes.”

“No, …” and his eyes wandered round the room and rested on Pavlo who was looking out of the window with great interest at two newspaper boys having a fight. “No, … I meant if you could perhaps get a few things of the child’s in with mine. I think that this time I shall take him with me.”

The street fight was forgotten, and a flushed, bewildered Pavlo with wide open eyes caught hold of his uncle’s hand.

“Me! Take me with you!”

“Yes. How does the idea seem to you? This time I am going to visit a sick man in Poros, the deputy of the island; and in that same island I have an old school friend who lives there all summer through with his family, and who has asked me again and again to go to see him; so, how would you like to come with me to Poros, and all day long, while I am busy, to play on the hill and in the woods behind the house with the children? There are three or four of them, I believe.”

“This evening shall we go?”

“No,” laughed his uncle, “early to-morrow morning.”

Even Aphrodite was quite nice about it, and turned all the doctor’s things into a larger valise where there would be room for Pavlo’s clothes also, without any grumbling or bringing together of her thick black eyebrows as she did when she was cross; and Marina sat up quite late mixing some “kourabiedes”—cookies—for him to eat on the way. She gave them to him herself wrapped up in two papers so that his clothes should not get “all over fine sugar” when he was starting for the station in the open carriage with his uncle, at six o’clock the next morning.

It was a wonderful day! The drive to the station through the great empty squares and the half-awakened streets; the wait in the railway station of the Monastiraki while his uncle bought the tickets and Pavlo gazed open eyed at the little railed-in bookstall, hung round with very brightly coloured pictures of various heroes of the Revolution; the railway journey down to PirÆus with all the people getting out at Phalerum, towels in hand, for sea baths; the landing stage at PirÆus with the multitude of little blue and red and green boats swaying on the sunny water; the climb up the side of the white steamer; the fat kind-faced captain who greeted his uncle as an old friend and himself as a new one and gave him the freedom of his bridge; the steaming out of the harbour past the King’s Summer House¹⁰ surrounded by its great aloes and its little baby pines, past the grave of Themistocles¹¹ gloriously placed in eternal view of Salamis,¹² past the long breakwater and the lighthouse, and so out into the open sea; the stop at Ægina with its big-sailed boats and shouting boatmen crowding all round the steamer; the sighting opposite Methana of the “stone ship” and the breathless listening to its legend, of its captain the nereid who was turned into stone with all her ship for presumptuously attempting to surpass the moon in swiftness; the thrill of seeing a real dolphin swimming alongside the steamer, … all these and more, made the journey a dream of delight to Pavlo, from which he was almost in fear of awaking to the ordinary every-day life of Solon Street. He forgot to be hungry. It was his uncle who after all reminded him of the packet of crushed and crumbly “kourabiedes” which he had quite forgotten on a bench beside him; and though he did eat them, they might as well have been dry bread for all the pleasure he got out of them.

In a little while after leaving Methana they passed a lighthouse on a rock, and the steamer turned round the corner of it.

“There is Poros!” said his uncle, suddenly laying his hand on Pavlo’s shoulder and twisting him round; and there it was.

A little white village with red roofs, and here and there a big round pine or a tall narrow cypress all climbing up a hill to an old ruined mill at the top.

There was a glorious open bay, and red and orange-sailed fishing boats were sailing about it, and there were tall hills covered with olive trees to the right, and tall hills covered with pine trees to the left. And in the pines nestled a red house, and Pavlo’s uncle pointed it out to him.

“See, there is my friend’s house! There is where you will play with the children; across there! Do you see?”

Pavlo saw, and his cup of happiness was full, for he saw no trimly set-out garden with elaborate flower-beds such as he had once seen at Kiphissia, with “Do not touch” plainly written all over it, but hollows and crags where lentisk and thyme bushes grew strong and thick, and open hillside, and trees and trees and trees around and behind the house, from the top of the hill right down to the seashore, promising endless possibilities for climbing and hiding.

The steamer stopped quite close up to the village, and Pavlo and his uncle shook hands with the fat kind-faced captain and thanked him and climbed down into a little swaying boat which in three or four oar-strokes brought them to the side of the sea-wall. Doctor Zamana got out.

“Stay there, Pavlo,” he said, “while I go up and keep a room at the hotel, and then we shall go on at once to the Red House; and after I leave you there, I can return and see my patient.”

So Pavlo stayed, dipping his hands over the side of the boat into the sea, and watching the boy not much bigger than himself, and the brown-faced, blind, old boatman, at their oars, but feeling too shy to speak to them.

In a few minutes his uncle came out of the hotel door, crossed the sea-road and stepped down into the boat. Then the oars were dipped into the water, the shining drops ran off the long blades, and they were off again.

Pavlo, who was more accustomed to carriages than to boats, pulled timidly at his uncle’s sleeve.

“Will you not tell them, my uncle, to go to the Red House?”

His uncle looked at him and laughed.

“Is not the helm in my own hand, little stupid one?”

And the old blind boatman and the boy rowed right across the shining bay, getting nearer and nearer to the Red House.

Pavlo’s eyes opened wider at each plash of the oars, and he quite forgot to be shy at the thought that he was going to meet new people.

He had never seen such a pretty house before in all his life!

The villagers called it “the Red House on the hill”; but in reality it was rather a soft old Venetian pink than red, and the blending of this old pink into the masses of golden green around it, was a joy to the eyes; even to the eyes of little boys, though they did not exactly know why. The shape of the house was delightful, it was low, wide, two-storied, with jutting stone balconies on the second floor. A monster bougainvillea spread its dark leaves and regally purple flowers round the southern windows, and the eastern ones looked out on the open sea through the pretty paler green leaves of a wistaria, whose mauve bunches of flowers reached up to the round balcony. The whole house was set on a very long and very wide terrace, and at equal distances along the balustrade of short columns, were placed big stone vases of geraniums of all colours. There was a ruby one with the sunshine on it which made Pavlo think with regret of his crimson chalk, the one that had broken all to bits. A long broad flight of stone steps flanked by more geraniums, by big flowering oleanders and great gray-green aloes led down from the side of the terrace to the little landing stage. It seemed to Pavlo that a whole multitude of people was coming down these steps to meet them, and he felt very shy again; but after he had stepped out of the boat helped by various outstretched hands, the multitude resolved itself into five people and three dogs.

There was the master of the Red House, tall and broad, who looked, Pavlo thought, like an officer without his uniform, and there were four children, two little girls and two smaller boys; there was a big black poodle, a fox-terrier, and a little white dog, of no particular breed, with pointed ears. He was the special property of the eldest girl, and when Pavlo first caught sight of him, he had got hold of her skirt between his teeth and was shaking it vigorously, which he always did whenever he felt excited.

When Pavlo’s uncle was also out of the boat, there was the usual exchange of useless and embarrassing remarks, which according to Pavlo’s experience grown-ups always make on first meetings. Later on, when he came to compare impressions, he found that it was also the painful experience of the Four!

“Oh, is this your little nephew?”

“Are all the four yours? Fine children truly! May they live to you, my friend! Quite a Zamana, did you say? Well, yes; but is there not something of his mother in the shape of the mouth? This boy now, is you all over again, I think I see you at his age!”

“Yes, they tell me he is like me.”

“The little one also, I think.”

“Oh, no! Nikias has the long face of his mother’s family.” And Nikias, the little boy, whose legs were too thin for his socks, wriggled uncomfortably.

“The second girl is the image of your mother. What a fine woman she was! And this one, what lovely fair hair, and how long!”

And Pavlo from the bottom of his heart pitied the poor eldest girl who with a crimsoning face had to submit to be turned round and round while the fair hair was duly admired and while she was told that she was worthy of her name, which was Chryseis.

“You had a good journey?”

“Excellent. The sea was oil, not water.”

“You will stay long I hope.”

“It depends on my patient; I heard in the village that he was better to-day.”

“This young man will stay with us, of course?”

“He will be delighted to come, as often as your children want him.”

“To come! Nonsense! He must stay here entirely. I only wish I had room to keep you also, but he can sleep with the boys. What would he do at the hotel or in the village while you are absent? Of course he must stay here. There can be no question about it. What do you say, little one? Will you not stay?”

The second girl, Andromache, whose hair had been cut short after a fever, and now waved all round her head, nudged his arm.

“Say yes! Say yes! It will be splendid!”

Pavlo, wishing nothing better, nodded shyly, and was at once taken possession of by the Four, the three dogs barking and yapping at their heels, to be shown all the delights of the Red House and of its hill.

First of all he was taken into the long cool dining room to be introduced to the mother of the Four, who had been arranging fruit in glass dishes, and who hurried forward to greet his uncle. Then, with a big bunch of grapes thrust into his bewildered hands by Andromache, who declared that “Mother has plenty more in the basket,” they started to see everything.

And what was Pavlo not shown on that first wonderful day?

Everyone knows how one’s nice things feel nicer when they are shown to a stranger for the first time, and how even old things of which one has tired regain something of their first charm. The Four were very proud and very fond, each in his or her different way, of their house, and their hill and their sea; so it seemed as though they would never tire of showing little things to Pavlo.

First of all he was taken up to the big pine, the oldest tree on the hill. Under this were benches and a round table where, as they told him, they had their lessons out of doors when the governess was in a particularly good mood. For there was a temporary summer governess somewhere in the house, but as it was holiday time, she was not allowed to make herself too much of a nuisance except for an hour or so every morning. From the big pine, one could see all the hills around, and the Monastery Road, and the open sea, and the Naval School, and the Narrow Beach, on which as Pavlo was told, one could see the sailors drilling.

Behind the big pine was the wood of small pines, all over anemones in the spring and cyclamen in the autumn. It was softly and greenly dark in this little wood; the ground was strewn with pine needles, so many of them that they made a thick carpet, and there were shady corners where, as Chryseis told Pavlo, you could lie on the pine needles and read, and read, and read, for ages before you were discovered. Higher still was an open clearing and, at the end of it, the little hill-gate through which one passed from the hill of the Red House on to the other hills, and if one turned to the left, one got down to the big Beach of the little Pines.

He was raced down to the bath cabin on the shore, and shown all the extraordinary drawings which decorated the inside of it, to which all the members of the family had contributed, but more especially Chryseis and Iason the eldest boy. Pavlo, in fact, admired the funny faces drawn by the latter so whole-heartedly as to make the artist flush with pride.

“To-morrow you will bathe with us,” announced Andromache. For that day the bath was already over; besides, the grown-ups had some sort of an idiotic notion that one must let a day pass after a journey, before beginning sea-baths.

Then up they raced again among the pines, scrambling through the lentisk and thyme bushes, to show Pavlo the little house which they had built themselves of stones and branches. One could really get into this if one took care to stoop properly; and it was a splendid place for the hoarding of biscuits and raisins, and for amateur cooking of all sorts. By this time, it was getting too hot even for the Four, so that they got under the wide-spreading shadow of the big pine and sat around on the benches and talked, while the warm pine smell filled their nostrils, and the tettix¹³ chirped loudly on all sides. Andromache, who was of an uncanny cleverness in catching them, swarmed up a pine tree and brought one down enclosed in her two hands turned into an impromptu cage, through the fingers of which, Pavlo peeped at the whirring prisoner. The black poodle, Kerberos, threw himself panting loudly on the ground; Deko, the little dog, sat on his haunches beside Chryseis, cocked his little pointed ears and looked about him; while Philos, the fox terrier, dug vigorously at the roots of the nearest lentisk bush. He scratched his face, he stopped repeatedly to shake his head violently and to sneeze, then he would begin again, snuffing and digging as if the work were very important indeed, and there were no time to lose.

“Where do you live in Athens?” asked Iason, nursing a much scratched knee.

Pavlo told them.

“Just alone with your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“And your father and mother? Do you not remember them?”

“My mother, … no, … I was very small. My father just a little. I remember playing with the tassel of his sword. You know that my great-grandfather ….”

“Oh, stop! Stop!” cried the two boys and Andromache in chorus; “we know all that!”

Chryseis told them that they were very rude, but they went on determinedly:—

“Four times yesterday, when they knew you were coming, did we hear the story. Once father told us, once mother, once Kyria Penelope, that is the governess, you know, and once we had it for a dictation lesson out of the History of the Revolution; so we know all about what your great-grandfather did, and all Botzari said about him, and how brave you must be and everything.”

Pavlo flushed a little, and felt quite grateful to Chryseis who changed the subject.

“What do you do all alone in the house?” she asked.

“Oh, just nothing; I paint sometimes, and once I went to Kiphissia, and once to a circus.”

“Can you ride?”

Pavlo shook his head.

“Ride? Oh, no!”

“I can,” said Iason, “and she can, too,” nodding his head towards Chryseis. “Father has another horse over on the mainland, besides his own, which can be ridden; and we go with him in turns.”

“Mother says,” put in Andromache, “that when her ship comes in, she will buy horses for all of us, and a real motor boat, too.”

“When I am big,” said Chryseis, whose stories “out of her head,” were generally in request, “I shall write a lot of stories in a book, and sell hundreds and thousands of it, and give all the money to mother, and then she can buy anything, and a new grand piano, too, for father!”

“You cannot write a real book, if you cannot spell properly,” retorted Andromache, whose spelling was her strong point.

“Yes, I can. The printers do all that part.”

“No, you cannot!”

“Yes, I can!”

“Well, try then! But when I am big I shall marry a very rich American and I shall go away with him to America, and I shall send a whole ship full of money back to mother, so that she will not need your stupid old books.”

“No one will ever marry you,” put in Iason, “you are too cross!”

“Yes, they will, I tell you!”

“I know!” cried the little boy, Nikias; “I know why she is so sure, because she has taught Katerina when she finishes washing her hair instead of wishing her as she always used to, ‘And a fine bridegroom some day,’ to say ‘And an American!’ I know because I heard her when I was waiting my turn for the bath in mother’s room!”

There was loud laughter and Andromache flew at Nikias with tooth and nail for telling overheard secrets, and the struggle which ensued, and at which Pavlo looked on in secret dismay, was Homeric. Traces of it were visible at lunch time but were attributed to “playing soldiers.” The Four of the Red House were not tell-tales; that is one good thing I can say of them.

After lunch they were condemned to afternoon rest. The reason given being that Pavlo had been up so early, and they trooped sadly upstairs; but Iason, who was nothing if not inventive, comforted them.

“When they are all asleep, you girls come into our room and we will take all the sheets off the beds and fix them up with broom handles and pretend we are deserters in a cave and soldiers coming after them.”

The sheets, with the aid of the broom handles and sundry wooden clothes pegs, which Andromache managed to secure by a barefooted expedition to the wash house, made a splendid cave, but the triumphant discovery of the deserters by the soldiers was a little noisy, and the mother of the Four coming unexpectedly on the scene, wisely chose the lesser of two evils, and turned them all out of doors quite early in the afternoon while the soft wind was still blowing,—the soft sweet sea “batti”¹⁴ that makes a swish, swish in the pine branches and shakes down the geranium petals from the stone vases on the terrace; that blows coolly in one’s face while all the grown-ups are stupidly lying down for afternoon sleeps.

The Four and Pavlo tore madly up the hill and, throwing themselves down on the pine needles under the trees, graciously signified to Chryseis that she “might tell stories.”

So the long fair hair was tossed back, the eyebrows were puckered for a moment, and then the quick little voice began:—

“There was once upon a time a dryad who lived in a great big tree ….”

Good old Kerberos had allowed Nikias to make a pillow of his soft black body, Philos lay curled up with his nose between his paws, and Deko stretched out his forelegs as far as they would stretch, making a prodigious curve in the middle of his back; then suddenly righting himself he sat back on his haunches, twitched his pointed ears backwards and forwards and prepared to listen with the rest.

Over their heads the “batti” made a soft roar as of the sea, in the pine branches the fir cones cracked in the heat, and far away over the Narrow Beach there were white-tipped waves on the open sea, that made Andromache whisper to Pavlo, “It will not be too hot later on; they will let us go to the Monastery.”

It was glorious! glorious! glorious! Certainly the Four had no words then to describe how they loved it all. Since then, Iason has turned some of the glory of those days into verse, and those who read it, feel the warm scent of the pine, the note of the tettix, and the blue of that sea, but he and the other three know that only when colour-words are invented can the real beauty of those sights and sounds be expressed!

In the days that followed, Athens and Solon Street and the thick dust of the streets and Aphrodite’s cross frown seemed very far away indeed to Pavlo; even of his uncle he saw very little; now and then the doctor came to luncheon or to dinner on the terrace, but already he seemed to belong to a past life. There was so much to see and to do! There were delightful torpedo boats to watch, steaming in and out of the bay and sometimes passing quite close under the terrace; there were the long narrow boats from the Naval School, full of new sailors learning how to row; there was fishing with home-made bamboo rods off the end of the landing stage, while the broad flapping straw hats which they were all obliged to wear because of the sun were weighted down on the ground with stones, so as to be better out of their way, as soon as the grown-ups were not looking; there was fire-fishing with spearing rods from the boat at nights when there was no moon; there were rambling afternoon walks to the Monastery or to the beach of the little pines; there were longer expeditions to the Devil’s Bridge, to the lemon wood, or up to the Seven Mills;¹⁵ there were visits to the funny little shops of the village in search of picture post cards, or even of what sweets Poros could supply, when the town stock ran out. For of course, visiting aunts and uncles and cousins generally brought proper boxes of chocolates and sweets from Athens; and though the grown-ups never failed to repeat the same stupid remarks such as, “How you are spoiling the children!” or, “Indeed that was quite unnecessary!” still visitors scarcely ever failed to fulfill this elementary duty. Once, a certain absent-minded uncle so far forgot his obligations, as to bring only some silly old caramels, and Pavlo heard all the abuse that was lavished on him.

There were the delicious long-stretched-out sea baths, notwithstanding the unfortunate governess’s cries of, “You are staying too long in the water! Come out this very minute!” There were swimming matches between Chryseis and Iason; and there was under water swimming by Andromache. As for poor Nikias, his sea-bathing usually took place on dry land, under the shelter of the pines, where he would flee wet and naked for refuge, till his elders were safely out of the water. It is true, the others were very merciless and he was only eight years old, and when they caught him and dipped him, they dipped him so far down, and kept him so long under!

There were endless games on the hill, of soldiers, of robbers, of outlaws, of Turks, in which Pavlo for the first two or three days was politely allowed to be Kanaris, Athanasios Diakos, Odysseus Androutsos, Marcos Botzaris, or his own great-grandfather, according to the moment, but afterwards was obliged to take his turn at being a Turk, or at commanding a big Turkish frigate represented by three long planks behind the servants’ quarters. Two of the Four were his crew, and the two others,—for of course they always had to be inferior in numbers or where would the bravery be?—were Miaoulis¹⁶ and his devoted followers, heroically bent on blowing up the frigate, or perishing in the attempt.

Then there were stories read or told on the terrace in the hour before dinner, by the mother of the Four, when Nikias would climb up on the arm of her chair, or even sometimes, if it were getting pretty dark, on her knees, and listen with both eyes and ears, and Iason would draw funny men or officers while he listened. All the old tales of Theseus and Heracles, and King Midas, and the winged Pegasus were retold, and the fairy tales of the King’s daughter with her three wonderful dresses, the Sea with its Fish, the Earth with its Flowers, and the Heavens with their Stars; and the tale of the Pacha with his three pairs of slippers. There were French tales too, of the heroes who rode through the valley of Roncesvalles, of Roland, and Ganelon; and even, for the mother of the Four had lived abroad in England in the remote past, English tales, of knights and ladies with curious names, of whom Pavlo had never heard; of Enid and Geraint, of Lancelot, of Pelleas, and Gareth and the Lady Lyonors.

And while the tales were told the sky turned into a lovely golden pink behind the pines, and the stars came out one by one. Iason knew many of their names and would show Pavlo the exact spot on the terrace from which one could see the whole of the Great Bear, and how the Scorpion dipped its tail behind the hill over Galata.¹⁷

Of course the shadow of lessons did occasionally fall across the sunshine. The village schoolmaster came over in a boat twice a week for the boys, and there was a family of friends living in the “Garden” on the mainland who had a French holiday governess, and every other day the Four went across in the small boat with Kyria Penelope, and Greek and French lessons were exchanged. But even so, there were ways and means. Pavlo overheard Chryseis early one morning reproaching her sister:—

“You have only written half your verb, and you do not know your poetry at all! Mademoiselle will be furious again. You will have pages and pages to write afterwards.”

“No!” declared Andromache stoutly, “I shall not!”

“But you will. There is no time to learn anything now. It is time to start.”

“I shall learn nothing, and I shall have nothing to write.”

“How will you manage?”

“Wait, and you will see,” answered Andromache darkly, shaking her short wavy hair.

They all ran down the long flight of steps to the sea, and Yanni the boatman was already settling the boat cushions. The big clock of the Naval School was just on the last stroke of eight and the boys had entreated Kyria Penelope to wait till the flag went up on the tower, as Iason wanted to run their boat flag up on its pole at the same moment.

His hand was holding the rope loosely, and all eyes were fixed on the square tower of the Naval School, waiting for the signal.

Bam! Boum! went the morning gun, and the lovely old blue and white flag rose majestically to the top of the flagstaff.

At the same moment, with naval precision, Iason pulled the rope, and the little boat flag was waving at the top of its pole; and almost at the same moment, Splash! went Andromache into the sea, books and all.

A shrill shriek followed, as Kyria Penelope went down on her knees on the landing stage, and flapped helpless arms over the water.

But the boatman was there and the boys too, and the next moment a drenched, dripping, sea-weedy Andromache was standing in the midst of them, little pools of water rapidly forming all round her. Yanni was reaching out for two floating books, and a soaked copy-book was slowly sinking beyond recovery.

“If I could possibly imagine,” said the poor innocent governess, who had no small brothers and sisters at home, “that you would jump into the sea on purpose, I would keep all the others waiting, till you changed your wet clothes; but as such a thing is quite impossible, you may stay at home to-day and not delay us.”

And such a thing being quite impossible, naughty Andromache stayed comfortably at home, finished all the chocolates out of her box; successfully fished out a big bunch of grapes through a hole in the wire netting of the store room window, carefully enlarged by the boys; visited the kitchen and learned all about the cook’s little nieces and nephews and what their names were and how old they were; stood outside the gate watching the “trata”¹⁸ and did a whole host of other equally pleasant and forbidden things.

That same afternoon they went to the Monastery with ten “lepta” each, with which to buy and light a taper in the Chapel.

“Look at Kyria Penelope!” cried Chryseis. “She has stopped to tie her shoe lace again; it is always coming untied. Let us run on to the cave; we shall have time to get in before she reaches us!”

The magic word “cave” sufficed, and they were all off racing down the hill and up again towards the second bridge.

It was not a real cave, Chryseis jerkily explained to Pavlo as they ran; only a dark hole in the earth under the bridge, and it was not mysterious at all and did not seem to lead anywhere, but the governess would never let them look properly into it. Over on the mainland there were some splendid real caves, that real robbers and deserters had hidden in; and in the old days people who were escaping from the Turks; but the Four had only been there once and then they were with grown-ups.

“Lambro the shepherd told me,” panted Iason, “that there is one here on the island over on the other side of the hills, near the beach of Vayonia. A great big dark cave with a small opening, and you go in and in and never find the end. He says there were old swords and guns hidden there and … all sorts of things. I mean to look for it some day.”

“Will they let us?” asked Nikias, stooping to pull up a sock which threatened to cover his shoe entirely.

“Let us!” said Iason contemptuously; “they never let us! But we will go!”

The cave under the bridge was nothing but a small hole full of cobwebs and dry leaves. However, they all managed to wriggle in and wriggle out again, dirty, but triumphant, before Kyria Penelope, hot and protesting, came up to them.

Of course Pavlo’s uncle had finished all he had to do in Poros long before this time, but it so happened that another summons had called him on to Nauplia, and it had been settled that while he was there, Pavlo should stay on at the Red House and that his uncle should spend one more day in Poros on his way back, and then that both should return together to Athens. There had been cries of delight over this arrangement, and Andromache had expressed a wish that the patient in Nauplia might have a nice proper illness. He need not die, of course, she added, but just be ill enough to want to keep the doctor from Athens near him for a long time.

So it was strange that the very day after this, Pavlo should have been lying on his face under the pines in the small wood, crying his heart out.

For alas and alack, it had daily been getting more and more difficult to live up to all that was expected of his name, and this particular morning it had been worse than impossible. He had been at the gate with the girls and the three dogs watching the “trata.” For him, it was a new sight, and the Four were never tired of looking at the fishermen and the fisher boys with their bare brown limbs, wet and glistening in the sun, pulling all together at the ropes, and emptying all the squirming little silver fishes out of the long net.

And while they were standing about and watching, a big yellow sheep dog had rushed down the hill, and though at first he had contented himself harmlessly enough with sniffing at ropes and the nets, Deko who, it is true, was always very impertinent to big dogs, had provoked him. Chryseis snatched Deko up in her arms, and Andromache seizing Philos screamed for help, for the sheep dog was ready to spring at them. Then the two boys rushing down to the rescue from the top of the hill, instead of finding Pavlo standing in front of the girls, found him behind the trunk of a mimosa tree, staring horror-struck at the big snarling yellow brute, whom they drove howling away with two well-directed stones.

Then Iason had turned fiercely on Pavlo:—

“You may be a Zamana as much as you like; you are a coward all the same!” and even Nikias had echoed jeeringly:—

“Coward! Coward!”

And then Pavlo had fled blindly to the shelter of the dark little wood.

He longed, as he lay there sobbing, that it might be possible never to see any of them again. For he had found out from the first that for the Four the great rule was, “Never be afraid, and if you are, mind you hide it!” Of course they knew that Nikias shirked being dipped far down, or being held long under water. That was a family misfortune, never mentioned before strangers, but on the other hand even Nikias had only two days ago boldly attacked a long snake when it glided out of a thick bush, round which Philos had been sniffing for so long. He had struck at it with all his might on its flat head, and while Anneza, the Andriote serving maid, had picked up her skirts knee-high and fled down the hillside shrieking loud enough to be heard over at Galata, he had followed, his little long face flushed with triumph, his socks hanging over his shoes, and the corpse of the victim dangling horribly at the end of a long stick.

“Were you not afraid, you little one?” his father had asked; and Nikias answered that he had been just a little afraid when it raised its head and hissed, but that Chryseis was so stupid that he knew she would never sit comfortably under the big pine again with her book, if she felt there were a snake, however harmless, wriggling about in the bushes beside her, so that he had to kill it all the same; did they not understand? And the mother of the Four had looked rather proud, and the father had said:—

“Of course I understand.”

And Nikias was not yet eight years old, and he, Pavlo, was over eleven!

So he lay there and sobbed, till Chryseis found him out and sat beside him, and expressed her energetic opinion that her brothers were “Pigs” because, of course, as she said, Pavlo had always lived in Athens, and how was he to know that those fierce-looking sheep dogs only require a stone thrown at them to run away; she even succeeded in making him laugh a little, by relating how Andromache had once, when she was quite little, called an officer who had offended her in some way “A green pig!” No one had understood why, but the insult had evidently been intended to be terrible. Then Chryseis had wiped his eyes with a handkerchief which happened to be not so much “a rag of all work” as the handkerchiefs of the Four generally were, and brought him down to the house, to show him the pictures in the DorÉ Dante which was usually reserved for rainy days or for convalescence. The mother of the Four had wondered a little at this very peaceful occupation in the middle of the morning, but was too wise to make awkward enquiries.

There was a prolonged visit that same afternoon from the children of the house in the “Garden,” which had made matters easier for all, and by the evening everyone was too busy making plans for the morrow, to think of past disagreeables.

It was to be the last day of Pavlo’s stay, and a picnic had been proposed, a real picnic, with no accompanying governess. There was some hesitation over this, but Andromache had urged that it was really only fair to the poor creature herself to give her a whole day’s freedom now and then. “I suppose,” she added thoughtfully, “we may be rather tiring sometimes.”

At last, consent was obtained on two conditions, the first being that they should be back early, the second, that they must promise to obey Chryseis. This, they did not mind much, knowing of old that her rule was mild. The picnic was to be somewhere on the hills behind the Red House, wherever a nice shady spot should be found. Eatables were to be packed in small hand baskets, so that each might carry his share; and everyone was to wear his very oldest clothes.

The master of the House wanted to know why the enjoyment would not be just the same if they simply carried their food to the big pine and ate it there? But this question was treated with the contempt it deserved.

Happily, the next morning was wonderfully cool, for July, for though they had all got up at impossible hours, by the time all the baskets were packed and all the last recommendations given to Kyria Penelope to look after poor Deko who had run a big thorn into his foot and had to be left behind, it was nearly nine o’clock. In fact the clock of the Naval School had just boomed out the three-quarters when Iason turned the big key in the lock of the hill gate.

They passed out in single file; all except Philos, who had found it simpler to climb up the wall and jump down on the other side.

Iason hid the padlock safely in a big lentisk bush just outside the gate, and then, standing up, faced the others, pointing up the thickly wooded hill.

“Listen you! We are going straight up there, and down on the other side towards Vayonia. I am going to find that cave of which Lambro the shepherd told me.”

Andromache and Nikias gave a united whoop of joy and were rushing forward in the direction of the pointing finger, when Chryseis cried:—

“Stop! Stop! It will be ever so much too far. We had better go to the little chapel of Saint Stathi.”

“We have been there hundreds of times; and I tell you we may never get such a splendid opportunity for the cave again.”

“But to Vayonia! So far …!” objected Chryseis.

“Now, listen!” persisted Iason. “What did father say last week, when I said we wanted to go to Vayonia?”

“He said, ‘We shall see.’ ”

“Well, that does not mean ‘no,’ does it? Only when the grown-ups say, ‘We shall see,’ sometimes it does not happen for a long time, and we want this to happen now, to-day, at once!” Then as Chryseis still hung back, he added, “Of course we will say where we have been, directly we get back. Come, then!”

And Chryseis came.

The first part of the climb was uneventful. Kerberos plodded on heavily and sedately, Philos of course stopped to dig round the roots of nearly all the thyme and lentisk bushes on their way. Andromache, who considered him her special dog, would catch him by the neck and pull him off by main force, but in an instant he was back again, digging frantically, shaking his head, sneezing and beginning all over again.

After some time there was a rest under a clump of pines, and Nikias suggested opening the baskets. But when the others all told him he was “A greedy little pig!” he explained that he had only wanted to see if Athanasia had not forgotten the peaches which he had seen on the pantry shelf.

“And of course you would run back for them if she had!” said Iason derisively.

“Wait till we get to the top,” said Chryseis.

So they started off again.

“Where shall you look for the big cave?” asked Andromache, who was beginning to find her basket heavy and the sun hot. “Did Lambro say if it were high on the hills above Vayonia, or to the right near the vineyards?”

“Did you ever hear of a cave near vineyards, stupid?” answered Iason, whose basket was heavier still as it had the bottles of water in it. “Lambro said near the sea; so of course it will be to the left in the big rocks.”

“You do not know really,” persisted Andromache, “you only say ‘it will be.’ ”

“I never said I knew; I said ‘let us go and find it!’ ” Suddenly he pointed some way above them, “There is a shepherd! No, not there; on that little footpath where the hill is bare. Let us ask if he knows!”

“Perhaps,” suggested Pavlo hopefully, “it may be Lambro himself.”

“No,” answered the Four in chorus, “Lambro is lame. See how this man jumps from one rock to another! Bah! Whatever is he doing?”

The distant shepherd who seemed taller than any man they knew, was waving his arms above his head, and the movements looked curious and almost startling against the sky. When he caught sight of the children, instead of continuing on his way quietly and heavily as most peasants do, he seemed to stop short, to hesitate, and then suddenly using his long shepherd’s crook as a vaulting pole he leapt over a piece of rock in his way, and came running towards them.

“Good-day to you!” cried all the children as soon as he was within hearing distance. He swung himself down to the little plateau on which they were standing.

“May your day be good!” he answered, but as he said it, he laughed a little.

The children looked at him curiously. At first sight he seemed one of the ordinary shepherds of the hills with his short “foustanella,”¹⁹ his coloured kerchief knotted over his head, and the long “glitsa”²⁰ in his hand; but certainly they had never seen such a strange-looking shepherd before. He was extraordinarily tall and broad, a matted unkempt reddish beard covered most of his face, and round the pale blue eyes nearly all the white seemed to show. The “foustanella” was incredibly dirty and ragged, the red kerchief greasy with age, half fallen off his head. A brightly striped “tagari”²¹ was slung over his shoulder.

“Perhaps you know,” asked Iason, “where there is a big cave over on the other side of the slope, near Vayonia?”

“A cave?” the man twisted his fingers in the tangled beard as he spoke, “Who told you of a cave?”

“Lambro, the shepherd, told me.”

“Many things does Lambro, the lame one know! Did he tell you perhaps how one enters into this cave?” and the pale blue eyes peered eagerly into the boy’s face.

“No; why? One enters by the entrance I suppose.”

The shepherd laughed.

“You say well! By the entrance of course, … by the entrance. Ask also of Lambro who is so wise, how you may find the road to the cave!”

Andromache pushed forward.

“And is Lambro here that we may ask him?” she said impatiently. “What foolish talk is this? If you know where the cave is, speak!”

The man turned his pale blue eyes on her.

“I must speak, must I? The little hens are crowing to-day, as well as the little cocks!”

Iason turned to the others.

“Come!” he said, speaking in French, “the man knows nothing, and he is trying to amuse himself with us.”

And they turned to continue their way up the hill. But the shepherd touched the last one, who happened to be Chryseis, on the shoulder, and unslinging his “tagari” offered it to her.

“Take one!” he said; “let me befriend you with one.”

He was still laughing, and he pushed his face close to hers as he spoke. Chryseis, who was rather dainty, shrank back a little, but the familiar words reassured her. The tagari evidently contained figs, or perhaps almonds; and she knew what an insult the peasants consider it, that one should refuse anything with which they offer to “befriend” you. So she stretched out her hand over the half-closed tagari, but drew back in alarm. It was full of earth and stones!

The man threw his head back and laughed loudly and discordantly.

Iason turned on him, like the little cock he had been called.

“Now then!” he cried, pushing the huge man violently, “now then! What foolishness is this? Leave us alone and go your way! Do you hear?” And when he raised his voice Pavlo thought it sounded just like the master of the Red House.

The shepherd’s laugh died off in a silly cackle, and he stood where Iason had pushed him, looking after the children as they climbed on rather hurriedly; but to Pavlo’s intense relief, he made no attempt to follow them.

“Who was it?” asked Andromache.

“I am not sure,” said Iason, “but I think it must be one of the Pelekas. His brother Yoryi had our pasture land for his sheep last year. I saw him when I went up to the ‘stania’²² with father. They are all red-haired, and there are many brothers; but I do not know this one.”

“He was horrid!” said Chryseis, shifting her basket to her other arm; “he must have been drinking too much ‘ouzo.’ ”²³

“Father says they never drink, these shepherds, except on big holidays when they come down to the villages,” said Iason, “but I suppose this one must have.”

It was worth the long hot climb, when they reached the top of the hill, to feel the cool air blowing in their faces. As they scrambled over the very last ridge, Nikias, who was first, pulled at a falling sock which threatened to cover his shoe, then stood up and pointing far below, shouted triumphantly:—

“There is the other sea!”

And there, if not the “other sea” as the children called it, was the other side of the island, where there were no houses, no gardens, no lemon orchards, no olive trees, no signs of familiar every-day life, nothing but pines, of all shapes and sizes, from the dark green rugged old pines, to the pale green baby ones; and lentisk, and arbutus, and thyme bushes on the slopes, and far below them the wide-sweeping beautiful beach of Vayonia with the open sea beyond. The soft plash of the little waves against the rocks came up to them where they stood.

Pavlo was told that on a bright clear winter day you could distinguish all Athens and the Acropolis perfectly well, “over there,” and four outstretched fingers pointed to the exact direction behind Ægina.

Just then a big white caique, all sails open to the wind, was gliding majestically across the opening of the bay, its little landing boat dancing and skipping on the waves behind it. And closer to the shore was a tiny puffing steam launch belonging to the Naval School. Andromache, whose eyes were the best, declared that she could recognize the officers on board.

“I am sure that one there is the Admiral,” she said, “I can see his hair white in the sun.”

“Now then!” jeered the others, “can you not count the stripes also on the sleeve of his uniform?”

But Chryseis had been unpacking the baskets.

“We will eat now,” she announced quietly, and there was not one to say “no” to her.

Before they had left the house even the children themselves had exclaimed at the quantity of cold “keftedes” which Athanasia had prepared for them, but there were very few left when they had eaten as much as they wanted. There were some “skaltsounia”²⁴ too, smothered in fine sugar; and of these there were none left at all; but there never are, of course. There were plenty of grapes, and the peaches about which Nikias had been anxious. Pavlo amused himself by digging holes in the hard sun-baked earth, and planting the kernels as far down as he could reach,—

“So that when you come up here another time, you will find peaches growing ready for you.”

The boys laughed at him.

“We had better not come here for two or three months, and by then your trees will of course be laden with fruit.”

Pavlo had lived much alone, and he was accustomed to people who meant exactly what they said.

“No,” he said slowly, “I did not mean in two or three months, but some time.”

“Even if they were ever to become trees, without watering or digging or anything,” said Andromache, struggling with Philos, who had left his dinner to attack the roots of a monster lentisk bush, “do you think the shepherds would leave any peaches on them?”

But the word “shepherd” reminded Iason of their object.

“I am going down there,” he said, pointing to the left, where the bushes were rarer and the gray crags began. “It looks cave-y. Leave the baskets there under that bush. No one will touch them.”

The children began to scramble down towards the rocks, and the scent of the thyme as they crushed it mingled little by little with the fresh smell of the sea, as they got nearer and nearer the shore.

The search for the cave was very thorough. Every big bush growing near a rock was pushed aside, every shadow was peered into.

“You never know,” as Iason said, “how small the entrance may be!”

But after all it was by pure accident that they found it.

They were pretty close to the shore, close enough for all to distinguish that the officers from the steam launch had got into a little boat and were being rowed to land. Chryseis was standing on the top of a big stone, when she slipped on the pine needles which covered it, and suddenly disappeared from view as entirely and completely as though a trap door had opened and swallowed her up.

“Chryseis!” screamed Andromache, “Chryseis, where are you?” And the boys and Pavlo rushed to the spot.

The stone had been on the edge of a sheep track, and as they looked fearfully over, they saw Chryseis lying on her elbow on a little ledge a few feet below.

“I am not hurt,” she called up at once, “not at all; but do not any of you climb down this way; there are a lot of prickly pears and I have got some of the thorns in my hand. Come round by those arbutus there!”

When they got round to her she was picking the tiny thorns out of her hand, and wetting it in a little stream which seemed to come out of the gray rock.

“Look!” she said, “there is water here!” She put her finger to her mouth, “and it is fresh water, too. How funny! It is coming round this side of the rock. See!”

“Why!” said Iason, leaning both hands on the top of the rock, and bending his whole body round the corner, “why it is ….”

And it was. When they all clambered on the big rock and slipped down to the other side, they found Iason lifting up with all his strength a tangled mass of wild ivy and other creepers which fell over it like a thick curtain. And there was a hole; big enough for anyone to pass through if he stooped a little.

It looked dark inside, and there was a step going down.

“No one need come,” said Iason, “if he feels afraid!”

And of course everyone said, “I am not afraid!” Pavlo first of all. And he really and truly was not. He was far too excited to think of being afraid.

The children went down two steps, bending their heads low, and then stood upright.

They were in a high narrow cave; so long that it was impossible to tell the depth. A cave like those of which they had often read, and often dreamt of discovering, but in which they had very certainly never before found themselves.

“It is quite a real cave!” said Nikias in an awestruck whisper. And the others looked round in silence. It seemed a moment too great for ordinary words. Their adventurous hearts were beating quickly.

Then Iason triumphantly produced a bit of candle and a box of matches from his pocket, and when he lighted it the tiny flame cast rounds of light and mysterious shadows over rough gray walls. This was for the first moment after coming in from the blinding sunlight, but as soon as their eyes got accustomed to the green darkness, Iason threw the candle away and the flame sputtered as it fell into the little stream of water which seemed to trickle down one end of the cave near the wall. The whole place smelt rather nasty and musty, but as Chryseis said,—

“What do smells matter when we have found a real cave?”

And a real cave it was! There were curious niches in the walls; the stone was fretted away into arches and hollows; in some parts natural columns had formed themselves, and in others dimly seen stalactites hung in the darkness above their heads.

Kerberos whined rather uncomfortably and kept very close to Chryseis, but Philos sniffed round excitedly, bent on investigating every nook and corner, till Andromache lifted him up struggling and barking and insisted on carrying him, for fear he might fall into some “unseen chasm.” Iason told her that Philos could take care of himself “a thousand times” better than she could; but Andromache was never easy to convince.

They went along very cautiously in Indian file. Iason came first, then the two girls, then Nikias, and Pavlo last of all.

After they had walked a little way in, they found a heap of charred sticks and a broken necked pitcher.

“Perhaps,” suggested Chryseis, “they may have remained here ever since the times when the women and children were hiding from the Turks. They may have had to cook and sleep in here, you know, while the men were outside fighting. And perhaps,” she added, stooping down to touch the broken pitcher, “we may be the very first people to touch them since then!”

“Well,” put in Andromache, the practical, “I should not care to have to eat or sleep in here. It smells just awful!”

“It is getting very dark too, and I cannot see where to step any more,” suggested little Nikias; then he added hurriedly, “Perhaps it will get lighter further in!”

“No, you little stupid, it will be darker further in,” said Iason, “because it winds away from the entrance!”

Chryseis stopped short.

“Let us turn back! perhaps it turns and turns like the Labyrinth and we may never be able to get out again.”

“And then,” added Nikias cheerfully, “people will come after many years and find only our bones!”

“Stop that kind of talk, you horrid little pig!” cried Andromache.

Iason hesitated.

“If only I had not thrown the candle away! Oh, well, never mind! I suppose we had better turn back.”

And they retraced their steps in the same order. Pavlo who came last lagged behind for a moment. About half way, on the left side, was something he had not noticed when they had been going in; a bright spot, a speck of light, something white and shining in the dim twilight. But as he wondered what it could be, he saw that he was alone and hurried on to join the others; and as soon as he had taken two steps forward, the speck of light disappeared suddenly, as though someone had blown it out.

He caught up with the others at the entrance.

“Listen!” he said, catching hold of Nikias, who was just stepping out into the daylight, “Down there I saw ….”

But they never heard what he saw, for at that moment he heard a series of loud thuds, a scream from Chryseis who had been the first to get out of the entrance, and a muttered exclamation from Iason as he sprang forward and pushed both his sisters so violently backward into the cave, that they fell over the two smaller boys, dragging them down.

At the same moment Pavlo, lifting himself up, saw two large stones fall from above, right in front of the opening of the cave.

“What is it?”

“What was that?”

“What fell?” He and Nikias and Andromache all cried together.

“Stones! A great many,” Chryseis answered, lifting a pale face to theirs as they pulled her up. “They nearly fell on our heads, but Iason pushed us back. Iason! What is it? Iason!”

For Iason, flattened against the opening, was cautiously trying to find out what had happened.

“I do not know,” he said, without turning round. “I cannot think. Something must have loosened the stones from the top of the rock above, and they fell. But what? The first rains have not begun yet. Well,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “let us get out! That was all.”

But that was not all! At the step forward which he took, a shower of earth and stones came rattling down on the ledge outside.

He sprang back only just in time.

“But what is it then? What can it be?”

They soon found out. No sooner had the last stone rebounded and rolled over the ledge to the rocks below them, than a loud discordant laugh sounded from above the opening of the cave.

“Come out of your hole, my little cockerels! Come out! You would not have my stones before. Get them on your heads now! Come out! Come out!”

The children looked at each other in horror.

“The shepherd! The red-bearded man!”

There was a fresh shower of stones and the laugh again, which sounded closer. Chryseis caught hold of her brother’s arm.

“Iason! He will get in! He will get in! Oh, what shall we do?”

“We will not let him!” cried little Nikias, running forward, “let us push this big stone right in front of the opening! Here! This one; if you push hard we can roll it down. Iason! Pavlo! Girls! Help me!”

“He is right, the little one,” said Iason, and they all pulled, and pushed and tugged as they could never have done if they had not been terribly frightened, and little by little the big rounded piece of rock was rolled in front of the entrance to the cave, and the green darkness grew darker and darker. The opening was not entirely blocked. Any of the children could have squeezed in or out, but they felt almost certain no grown man could.

“Besides, if he only puts his hand in, we will chop it off so! Like the Persians and the man with the ship,” declared Andromache, becoming vaguely historical.

“Where is your hatchet?” asked Iason. “No, I am sure he cannot get in. Now we must sit and think what to do. It does no good to cry like that!”

“I am not crying!” sobbed Nikias. “It comes by itself,” and he sniffed very hard for a few minutes.

“I expect this man is so drunk he does not know what he is doing,” continued Iason. “At the very worst we shall have to stay in here till he gets tired of waiting and goes away. We are safe in the cave.”

“I tell you what,” said Nikias rubbing his knuckles very hard into his eyes, “it must be ‘the mad shepherd.’ ”

All the others stared at him.

“The mad shepherd? What do you mean?”

“I heard Kyra Calliope the other day telling Yanni. She said there was a mad shepherd on the hills, and that he had killed a lot of sheep of the other shepherds, and she said the mayor and the doctor wanted to tie him up and send him to Athens in the steamer, but they could not catch him, because he was so cunning and hid in the hills for days.”

“You little fool!” cried his brother, seizing him by the shoulder. “You—You—Idiot—You—Why did you not tell us when we first met him down there, so that we might have turned back. Do you think it is a joke—a mad man?”

“Did I know?” whimpered Nikias. “Did I know when we met him? He looked like all shepherds then.”

“If you had only …” began Iason, but he was interrupted by a shriek of horror from Chryseis. She was pointed to the small opening left above the rock that blocked the entrance.

There, clearly outlined against the sky, was a grinning, red-bearded face. Part of a hairy hand could be seen pushing against the stone.

Iason lost no time. Stooping he seized hold of a big round pebble and sent it crashing right on the fingers that were working round the stone.

There was a howl of pain and the face disappeared, then after a moment came a sound of retreating footsteps and of broken bushes, and stones rolling down the rock overhead.

The children huddled together, listened, pale and terrified, till all was silence again. Then Iason pushed them aside and advanced to the opening.

“Listen!” he said, “I have just thought of it. Perhaps the officers we saw are still on the shore. Now that the man is not there I shall get outside and call to them.”

“No! No, Iason! Stop! Iason!…”

But before any of them could stop him, Iason was squeezing himself round the side of the rock. He was out all but one leg, when a stone bigger than any of those that had been thrown before, bounded against the rock, and struck him on the side of the head. He fell forward with a smothered “Ah!” and the others with a scream of fear rushed to the blocked entrance.

Iason was lying half in and half out, and the short fair hair was dabbled with blood.

Nikias and Pavlo were for trying to push out the rock, but Andromache stopped them.

“No! No!” she cried, “we can drag him in without that.” And by combined pulling and pushing they succeeded in getting Iason safely inside. He opened his eyes and said, “It is nothing,” but he closed them again.

Chryseis lifted his head to her knees and looked round desperately.

“We must wash the place in the water from the stream,” she said, “but I have no handkerchief.”

Andromache, the practical, lifted up her frock and tore a big strip from the white petticoat underneath.

“Here, this is better, and there is plenty more,” and she dipped the rag in the running water and washed off the blood that was trickling down over Iason’s ear and neck, while Chryseis raised his head higher.

Nikias was at the entrance trying to push his thin little body round the rock.

“I will get out now,” he said, “and shout for the officers.”

“Nikias!” cried Chryseis, her voice shrill with terror, “come back at once! You must not get out! I tell you, you must not! Pavlo! Pavlo! Stop him!”

But she looked around in vain; Pavlo was not there. He seemed to have completely disappeared.

“The coward!” exclaimed Andromache, in furious indignation. “The coward! He has managed to slip out somehow, and left us here all alone!”

But she was quite wrong.

The moment poor Iason had been pulled back into the cave, Pavlo suddenly remembered the speck of light in the wall that he had noticed as they were coming out, and without saying a word to anyone, he ran back into the depths of the cave to see if he could find the spot. Almost at once he came upon it, like a little white star in the dark wall of the cave.

Now Pavlo’s mind was of the kind that grown-up people call “logical,” which means that he knew that something could not exist without a reason for it; therefore he argued that if there was a light, there must be an opening; and even if the opening were only large enough for a head or even a hand to be passed through, it might be useful.

So he began feeling all over the rough damp wall with both hands.

He felt and he felt for some time in vain, then suddenly when he had nearly given up, he came upon a hole.

Kneeling, he felt that a little barrier of stone divided the hole from the floor of the cave, and that it was more than wide enough to admit him. He scarcely hesitated a second before he climbed over the barrier and found himself in a narrow tunnel at the end of which the speck of light was shining.

Pavlo advanced a few steps very slowly. It was a dark, damp, up-hill passage, and so narrow that he could feel the walls on either side without stretching his arms.

Suddenly he gave a violent shudder.

Something alive, something that felt heavy and cold, a rat perhaps, or a toad or a lizard, ran over his foot. Still he kept on. If the light, which was growing larger, should prove to be a side opening to the cave, he would run back for the others, and they would all get out that way, managing somehow to carry Iason between them if he could not walk, while the man went on throwing stones and waiting for them at the big entrance. The idea of the man waiting there perhaps all day, appealed to Pavlo, and he laughed a little to himself as he got nearer to the light.

He found, as he had expected, that it came from a small hole in the rock which led out to the hillside, and was almost quite hidden by hanging creepers.

The opening was not large, but they could easily crawl out. In fact it would have been safer had it been a smaller hole.

Pavlo could see the purple flowers of an osier bush waving in the open air before he quite reached the opening. He was just on the point of crawling out to make quite sure of his discovery before returning by the same way, when his eye caught sight of some sort of a white rag, fluttering above the osier bush. He drew back and, lying flat on the ground of the passage so as to see better, peered cautiously out.

What he saw made him nearly scream out aloud with terror, in fact it was really the horrible nightmare-ish sort of fear which came over him, that prevented a sound escaping from his lips.

The fluttering white rag was a fold of the red-bearded man’s foustanella!

His back was turned towards the narrow opening, and he looked gigantic as he stood there in the light, a big stone poised in his hands ready to fling over the rocks down on the ledge before the entrance of the cave.

Pavlo lay in the dark passage, shaking all over and not daring to move hand or foot lest he should be heard. What should he do? Oh, what should he do? Suppose he were simply to wriggle back the way he had come and tell the others what he had seen; what was the good? They could never crawl all five out of this side tunnel while the shepherd was standing so close to it. Poor Iason’s mishap had proved that it was not possible to get through the blocked entrance without being struck by the falling stones. What then? Must they stay in the cave till the man was wearied out? All night perhaps? But what more probable than that when the shepherd found that his stones were falling harmlessly, he should discover this opening so close to his feet, and creep slowly through it till he got to them? Pavlo shivered coldly all over.

Then a horrible thought came to him.

It might be possible for one alone to creep out very softly the first moment that the shepherd moved a little off. It would not be difficult to creep silently on all fours, till one was at a safe distance!

The next moment the thought turned him really sick. What! Leave them alone? Leave them with Iason wounded and useless? Leave them and let this horrible man creep on them unawares? On Chryseis who had been so good to him? On all the brave bright little comrades? Oh, no! No! No! No! The good old Zamana blood, weakened though it might be, turned in revolt at the cowardly thought.

Just then the man outside in the light stooped to pick up another stone, and as he did so, Pavlo saw the gleam of a long curved knife in his belt. The Turks, thought the poor boy, the terrible Turks of the times of the Revolution must have looked just like that. Oh, if it only were in those days! If the dreadful man were a real Turk and Pavlo’s great-grandfather or one of his brave companions were in hiding as he was now! How they would spring out on him and seize him. But no! If they were unarmed they would not “spring” out. They were wise as well as brave, those old Greeks.

What would they do?

Palvo’s mind worked quickly.

They would creep slowly, slowly on all fours out of the hole, and while the Turk’s back was turned they would seize hold of his ankles and pull back, … pull hard.

The attack would be unexpected, and the “Turk” would fall forward on his face. He would have to fall so; he could not fall in any other way. And once he was on his face, it would be easy, before he could see who had attacked him, to wrench back his arms and tie them. It would be the best way! The only way!

Suppose he tried it!

No! No! Oh, no! It was brave men who feared nothing who did such things, not little terrified boys.

Then a very curious thing happened.

Pavlo did not feel as though he were making up his mind to anything, but quite suddenly he unwound a thin knitted belt which he wore round his waist, and held it between his teeth, then he crawled noiselessly out of the hole and looked around him with a look in his eyes which no one had ever seen in them before.

Had he been in a street in Athens, the man who stood there would have been simply a villainous looking peasant, and he, Pavlo, a small boy half dead with fright. But now, on this calm Poros hillside, the man became a Turk, a Turk of 1821 armed to the teeth with yatagan²⁵ and scimitar, and he, the little terrified boy, was a brave patriot of the times of the Revolution, ready to do or die.

“Let us pretend,” had its uses; and Pavlo had not lived a week in vain with the Four of the Red House.

He crept closer, closer still. His body was not brave at all; in fact it was shaking and trembling in every limb, and the cold sweat trickled down his face; but at that moment his heart was very brave, and because the heart is greater than the body, there was a sudden lightning spring forward, and two desperate little hands clutched the shepherd’s bare ankles and pulled backwards, pulled strongly, and swiftly.

There was a helpless grasp at the empty air, a howl of dismay, and a loud thud as the tall man’s body fell flat, face down, on the ground.

Pavlo with an excited, triumphant little shout rushed forward, and caught hold of one outstretched arm which he pulled back with a jerk, but already the shepherd was groaning, swearing, and moving, and how could Pavlo hold the hand he had already seized, and manage to reach the other one also?

“Children!” he screamed aloud, not knowing whether they could hear him or not, below in the cave. “Children! Come quick! I have got him!”

And help came, though not from the children.

There were running footsteps behind him and many cries.

“Hold well! Hold fast! We are here!”

And in a moment Pavlo was surrounded by linen-clad, white-capped officers, and someone’s arms had lifted him off the prostrate shepherd, and stronger, though not braver hands than his had securely tied the arms of the struggling man behind his back.

In the meantime the hours had gone by, and the afternoon was drawing towards evening, and the grown people in the Red House, the father and the mother of the Four, and Pavlo’s uncle, who had arrived that morning and was to leave the next day, had been getting very anxious; for there was no sign of the children, though they had promised to be home early. And the Four got into plenty of mischief, but they kept their promises.

So the mother of the Four walked from one window to another and could not keep still, and Kyria Penelope wrung her hands and shook her head, and Deko rushed about after them; whining and yelping and limping on his bad foot, till they shut him up in a room upstairs, and he had to stay there; and Athanasia the cook stationed herself at the gate near the sea to watch for the children, and Anneza the serving maid tore up through the pines to the top gate to see if they were in sight on the hill.

The doctor and the master of the Red House were pacing nervously up and down the terrace.

Suddenly the latter sent up a big shout.

“There they are!”

Everyone, from the mother of the Four to Yanni the boatman, rushed down to the little landing stage.

“They are in that,” said the master of the house, pointing to a puffing little steam launch which was fast approaching. “I heard their voices shouting, and saw one of the girls’ frocks, but how the little rascals got there is beyond me. I only hope they have not been in any mischief.”

The steam launch had stopped alongside, and he caught sight of a bandaged head.

“… or in any danger!” he gasped.

When everyone had landed, Iason looking very pale under his white bandage but walking without help, there was at first such confusion, so many speaking all together and such a tangle of officers and children and dogs, that it was very difficult for the grown-ups to get any clear idea of what had occurred. But the mother of the Four gathered at last that something out of the common had certainly happened, that the children had certainly been in some peril, and that the officers had rescued them and brought them home. So she tried, though her voice shook a little, to thank the Chief.

“You must not thank us,” said the gray-haired admiral standing cap in hand, before her. “We did nothing but arrive at a lucky moment, and bring the children home. It is another you must thank, another who deserves your deepest gratitude; one who by his presence of mind and coolness saved them all in a moment of great danger, … of very real danger. This is the boy!” he said, putting his hand on Pavlo’s shoulder. “This is a real Zamana, who when he grows up will be an honor to his glorious name! And in the meantime I for one, am proud to know him!”

Oh, how they shouted for him when they heard it all! And while the mother of the Four was holding him very tight to her, and while the master of the house and Pavlo’s uncle were shaking each other’s hand as though they would never stop, Deko, who had been set free, limped nimbly down all the steps, and leaped upon Chryseis, and licked her hands, and whined for joy, and caught hold of her skirt and shook it so hard that he tore it.

But he was forgiven that time.

And joy followed for Pavlo as well as glory, for though his uncle was obliged to leave for Athens the next day, no one in the Red House felt as if Pavlo could be spared. So his uncle was persuaded to leave him behind; to leave him indefinitely, till it should be autumn, and school time, and everyone returned to town.

So it came to pass, that when the doctor was being rowed across the bay the next morning, in the boat that was taking him to the steamer, the Four and Pavlo stood all together on the little landing stage and waved good-by to him.

They waved and waved, till he was a speck in the blue distance, and then they turned and ran with cries and whoops of joy, back into the pine woods, back to the sea, back to the hillside, back for a whole long summer to all the manifold delights of the Red House on the Hill.