When Maurice came to himself, he was lying on the grass inside the palisade, and Crispin was bending over him with the greatest solicitude. His head ached dully with the effects of the blow, and the blood was clotted in a nasty scalp-wound on the right side of his skull, where the butt of the musket had struck him. Dizzy as he was, yet by a violent effort he managed to sit up and inquire in a feeble voice what had become of the companions of his flight.

“Oh, they are all right, Maurice!” said Crispin, holding out his brandy-flask. “Take a drink of this, and lie down again for a time.”

Maurice did as he was told, and resumed his recumbent attitude on the grass; but, anxious to know everything, looked inquiringly at Crispin, who at once replied to his mute questioning.

“I have been here ever since you left for the tunnel this morning,” explained the poet quickly, “as Justinian sent word by Temistocles that I was on no account to forsake my post. We heard your pistol-shots and cries for help, but thought it was some stratagem on the part of the enemy. Then Theodore, whom you sent on for aid, made his appearance at the barricade, and gasped out some incoherent story. As soon as I ascertained it was you, I sallied out with some men, and saw Gurt being helped up the hill, and yourself, with Basil, protecting the rear. Alcibiades and some others were scrambling up after you; and then we saw you engage with that foremost blackguard. He knocked you over, and would have finished you, but for Dick, who took a pot shot, and bowled him over like a ninepin. Then we rushed up, and brought you here, with Alcibiades and his friends yelling like fiends at the escape of their prey.”

“And Alcibiades?”

“Oh, he and the other fellows have gone back in the boats to the eastern harbor, I suppose. Jove! I was never so surprised in my life as when I saw you scudding up that hill, for both Justinian and myself thought you were dead!”

“Does Justinian know I am alive?”

“Yes. I sent Temistocles off to tell him as soon as you were in safety; I expect he’ll be here every minute.”

“What about the earthquake?”

“Oh, we felt it, I can tell you. It was a tremendous shock, and has filled up the tunnel completely.”

“At which, I suppose, my uncle is heart-broken?”

“No fear. He never thought about the tunnel while you were in danger. But how did you manage to escape?”

“That is a long story,” said Maurice faintly, for he felt sick with fatigue. “Give me some more brandy.”

“Here you are. Don’t talk any more till Justinian comes.”

“But tell me, where is Gurt?”

“Oh, he and the rest have gone off to the Acropolis to be looked after. Now, do be quiet, Maurice, or you’ll be fainting again.”

Roylands closed his eyes, and obeyed; while Crispin, with a sponge and water, brought by the swift-footed Temistocles, carefully bathed the wound, and dexterously bound it up with lint and linen, so that Maurice felt more comfortable.

“It’s only a flesh wound,” he said in a satisfied tone; “but it is a mercy you did not get your head smashed.”

“What is the time?”

“Nearly ten o’clock in the morning. You’ve been fighting all night, so I don’t wonder you are dead beat. The sun will be up over the eastern peaks soon.”

It was indeed long after dawn, for in the darkness of the tunnel no one had taken any count of the hours; and when the earthquake had occurred it was just that time between the fading night and the coming day. So upset and excited had Maurice been with the fight, the earthquake, and the escape, that neither he nor any one else remembered that the fighting had begun at midnight, and lasted till sunrise. And now he remembered that the sun had risen while they were rounding the angle of the island; but, having forgotten the flight of time, he had not thought this strange. It was a great blessing that they had escaped in the boat at daylight; else even in the luminous night it would have been difficult, with the sea in such a perturbed condition, to have made the voyage safely.

Very shortly Justinian arrived, full of thankfulness for Maurice’s escape, and fear concerning his wound; but by this time the young man, though much shaken, was quite himself again; and, leaning on the Demarch’s arm, with occasional assistance from Crispin, managed to crawl along as far as the Acropolis, where they were joyously received by Helena.

As the tunnel was now completely closed up, there was no chance of the pirates getting in that way; so Justinian sent all his men over to the western pass, where, under the command of Dick, they remained on guard. The women from the village came up the first thing in the morning with provisions and wine to minister to their wants; so, thus, everything being in order for the present, the Demarch was anxious to hear all the details of his nephew’s miraculous escape.

He told them the whole story over the breakfast table, with occasional help from Gurt, who was admitted to the symposium on account of his bravery during the battle. The old Demarch, self-contained both by nature and training, did not say much during the recital, beyond expressing his heartfelt joy at the escape of his nephew, but it could easily be seen that he was inordinately proud of Maurice’s prowess and promptitude of action; for, though the hero himself modestly suppressed such details as tended to self-glorification, Gurt, in his blunt sailor way, came out with the true unvarnished facts of the case, which caused Maurice to blush, and his audience to exclaim admiringly.

“By Jove, Maurice, you ought to be a V.C.!” cried Crispin, when the story came to an end. “If you hadn’t had your wits about you, and seized that boat, you would have been a dead man to a certainty!”

“It is the Roylands’ blood!” said Justinian proudly. “I knew I was not mistaken in my estimate of your character, Maurice. You will make an admirable ruler of Melnos!”

“That is, if there is any Melnos to rule over,” replied Maurice, with an uneasy laugh; “for, by Jove, uncle, when that earthquake came, I thought everything had gone to kingdom come.”

“Ah, you see, father, I was right about the earthquake last night!” said Helena in triumph; “I felt that something was going to happen!”

“Yes, but you thought it would be an eruption,” answered Justinian, with apparent indifference, though there was an anxious look on his face; “as to an earthquake, why, these Greek islands are all volcanic, so that means nothing.”

“How did you get on after I left you, uncle?”

“Why, I set my men to work, to build up the barricade again, with turf and bags of sand. You were a long time gone, my son, and I became afraid that you had been cut to pieces, so, when the work was done, I intended taking some men and going after you. Then the earthquake occurred, and we heard the fall of the roof at the cliff entrance. I thought you were dead for sure, and cannot tell you of the anguish I felt at your loss. However, Temistocles brought me the news of your safe arrival at the western pass, and I breathed freely again. Oh, my dear Maurice,” continued the Demarch, taking his nephew’s hand, “how fervently do I thank God that you are alive! for if those scoundrels had killed you, indeed I do not think I would have had the heart to continue living in Melnos.”

Maurice was greatly touched with his uncle’s emotion, which was a rare thing for the iron old Demarch to display, for as a rule he took both good and bad fortune with the utmost equanimity, and seldom gave any outward signs of his feelings on such occasions. His nephew, however, was very dear to his heart, and he looked upon him with great pride, both as his future son-in-law and successor, so it had been a terrible blow to him, to think he had lost a young man on whom all his future hopes depended.

As for Helena, she said nothing, but, genuine offspring of her father as she was, bore up pluckily, though it could be plainly seen that she had suffered much during the absence of her lover. Fortunately, the time which had elapsed between Maurice’s supposed death and subsequent reappearance had been too short to permit of her knowing of the calamity, else, brave as she was, she would certainly have given way under such a cruel misfortune. As it was, however, he now sat beside her safe and sound, so all the terrible events which he detailed with such coolness only seemed to be some hideous nightmare which had vanished at the coming of morning.

She insisted upon Maurice’s going to bed for a good sleep after breakfast, in which insistence she was supported by her father, who saw that Maurice was more shaken by his late fatigue than he chose to acknowledge.

“You can sleep for a few hours at all events, my son,” he said affectionately, “for Alcibiades has lost too many men to think about making another attack, at least for some time.”

“Are you not going to sleep yourself?”

“No, I am going down to the valley to look at those hot springs. This earthquake has rather unnerved me, and I wish to see for myself if there is any probability of an eruption. Crispin, will you come with me?”

“If you desire it; but, to tell you the truth, I also am rather tired.”

“Pshaw!” said the man of iron, with good-humored scorn; “you have no stamina, Crispin. If you had been through all that Maurice has undergone, you might talk. However, take your sleep for an hour or so.”

Crispin really was very delicately constituted, and could not do without that sleep which Justinian despised, but, in order to be ready for any emergency, he curled himself up on a divan in the court, and rested there without removing his clothes. Maurice, on the contrary, completely worn out with fatigue and anxiety, to say nothing of his scalp wound, went straight to bed, and slept soundly most of the day, while Helena, tenderly solicitous of his comfort, watched beside him the whole time, with her little hand lying in his warm grasp.

Meanwhile, Justinian, who, in spite of his age, scarcely seemed to feel the effect of the previous night’s vigil, took a cold bath to freshen himself up, and then started on a journey of inspection round the island. Like a careful general, his first visit was to the outposts at the western pass, where he found everything in an extremely satisfactory condition. Part of the men were sleeping, while the others kept guard, waiting to take their turn of rest when their comrades awoke. Notwithstanding the hard fighting, all those who had been engaged in the defence of the tunnel seemed in a wonderfully good condition, while Dick and his nine sailors, hardened by a seafaring life, seemed to feel no fatigue whatsoever, in spite of constant watchfulness and anxiety.

With a view to seeing the position of the enemy, Justinian climbed up a small path which led to the hills from the inner side of the outward palisade, and, using his field-glass, soon discovered that Alcibiades was concentrating his forces below in order to storm the pass. Boat after boat filled with desperadoes came sweeping round the breakwater into the smooth sea of the harbor, and tents were being erected on the beach by the besiegers. Evidently they had discovered that there was no chance of entering by the tunnel, which was completely blocked up by the fallen rocks, so were determined to effect an entrance by the western pass, where at least they would have the advantage of fighting in daylight. Carefully surveying the disorderly host, Justinian calculated that there still remained about two hundred men, against which he could only bring ninety-five or thereabouts. Still, intrenched behind his barricades, and having the pass swept by two cannon, he thought the invaders would find it somewhat difficult to dislodge him from such a strong position, the more so as they lacked discipline, and their leaders were quite ignorant of military tactics.

Having ascertained all this, Justinian descended into the gorge again, where he gave Dick his final instructions, which were simply to keep a sharp lookout on the enemy, and, in the event of seeing any movement uphill towards the mouth of the pass, to at once send off Temistocles to the Acropolis with the information.

Dick having promised faithfully to obey these instructions, the Demarch, escorted by a couple of his men, went along the mulberry avenue, in order to survey the tunnel, which he had not entered since driven from thence by the earthquake some hours previous. The electric light was turned off, as the Demarch, now that the danger lay more in the west than the east, judged it advisable to reserve all the power of the dynamo for the one light which swept the western pass, and therefore, bidding his men take torches, went downward into the darkness of the tunnel with such illumination only.

Passing down to the ruins of the palisade, where so fierce a fight had taken place, he crossed that boundary, and, turning the angle of the staircase, came in sight of the landslip caused by the earthquake. The red flare of the torches but feebly showed the amount of damage done, but Justinian saw sufficient to assure him that there was no chance of the tunnel being made use of again for at least some months. Extending from the cliff entrance to some considerable distance back, the whole roof had collapsed, and tons of dÉbris piled upward from floor to vault completely sealed up the mouth of the passage. It would take a goodly amount of dynamite and blasting powder to remove those massive blocks; and, now that he knew Maurice was safe, the Demarch had time to grieve over the damage done to his beloved tunnel. Justinian, however, was too practical a man to waste time in useless lamentation, and promptly decided that, as soon as Alcibiades was beaten back,—an event which he was assured would come off without much difficulty,—he would set gangs of men to clear away the obstruction, and restore, with as little delay as possible, the tunnel to its pristine excellence. The burning of the palisade also had taught him a lesson, and, to obviate the chances of such defence being destroyed by fire, he decided to build a kind of stone bastion in the same place, with loopholes for guns, and also to fortify it with two field-pieces, which would simply mow down an enemy advancing up the staircase like ripe corn.

The inspection of the tunnel being concluded, Justinian returned upward to the light of day, and descended the grand staircase in order to pay a visit to the springs. He looked upon these as a kind of thermometer, useful in warning him of seismic disturbances, for, in spite of the long silence of the volcano, Justinian knew that the subterranean forces were still at work under the crust which covered the crater; and with the remembrance of the great eruption of Vesuvius, in the year 79, constantly in his mind, was not without certain fears that this long-slumbering monster might reawaken from the sleep of centuries. The volcanic forces, however, having a vent in the adjacent island of Santorin, he had hitherto calculated that Melnos would remain quiescent, but the terrible earthquake which had so unexpectedly occurred inspired him with great uneasiness, and he was in deadly fear lest it should prelude the renewed activity of the mountain.

As before described, the hot springs of Melnos somewhat resembled the geysers of Iceland, save that they were less active, and did not send up jets of water to any great height from their uncanny mouths. On this day, however, when the Demarch approached the desolate gorge where they had hitherto rested as slightly bubbling pools of water, he was astonished and dismayed to find them in full activity. Clouds of thin steam almost obscured the yellow, red, and green lava of the rocks behind, and amid this ominous vapor the springs were spouting furiously at intervals. Thick jets of boiling water would gush up from the ragged clefts in the sulphur-streaked blocks to a considerable height, and, after expending their fury, would sink down again into the bowels of the earth. After a time the muttered bellowing of the monsters would be heard, and amid groanings and gurglings, which told of the colossal forces at work beneath, the great columns of water would again shoot skyward with hideous roars.

The Demarch noticed this unusual disturbance of the springs with great uneasiness, as during his whole forty years’ residence on the island never had there been such signs of danger. Even where he stood, the earth was cracked in many places, and little jets of steam escaped with a whistling noise, which could be heard shrilly when the bellowing of the geysers ceased. All the Melnosians were in a terrible state of alarm, and it took all Justinian’s eloquence to persuade them that this was simply a local disturbance caused by the earthquake, and that there was no danger of an outbreak on the part of the long-sleeping volcano.

Truth to tell, in spite of his speech, he was not at all easy in his mind as he climbed up the staircase to the Acropolis, for these ominous signs boded but ill for the safety of the island, and he dreaded lest without further warning the crater should burst out into full fury, in which case every being therein would certainly be killed. He was unwilling, however, to communicate his fears to Helena or to Maurice, and thus disturb their minds at this critical period of the siege; but, feeling that he must have some one with whom to talk, awoke Crispin from his siesta, and, taking him into his own room, gave him a description of the geysers’ activity.

“The deuce!” said Crispin in dismay, when he heard this unpleasant recital. “I hope we are not going to have the destruction of Pompeii over again; but I must say it looks uncommonly like it!”

“Do you think Melnos will break out again?”

“Those spouting geysers certainly don’t bode any good, sir, nor that earthquake either. Perhaps it is a warning from Hephaistos that we had better leave the island.”

“I won’t leave the island,” said Justinian obstinately, drawing his iron-gray brows together: “after forty years of incessant toil, I would indeed be a coward to leave Melnos simply because things look a trifle ominous.”

“Yes; but volcanoes are delicate things to deal with. These signs are slight; but who knows but what they may be followed by a blowing up of the crater’s crust, in which case I am afraid everything in connection with Melnos will be at an end.”

“But the volcano has been extinct for thousands of years!”

“So was Vesuvius,” replied Crispin coolly, “and that mountain in New Zealand—Tarawera, was it not?—that awoke to activity after centuries of quiescence. You can’t trust volcanoes, sir. They are most treacherous monsters, and when least expected break out in full fury.”

“An eruption is going on at Thera.”

“All the more reason that the volcanic action will extend to Melnos.”

“There I don’t agree with you. If the subterranean forces find vent in one place, there is less chance of them breaking out in another. Besides, Thera has always been active. Herodotus, Appollonius, and Plutarch all speak of previous eruptions. Then there was one in 1457, when the Venetians occupied the island; another in 1707; and I think the last outburst took place in 1866.”

“Well, according to Georgios, there is one going on now, which is a bad sign for us.”

“On the contrary, a very good sign. Don’t you see, Crispin, that, whereas Thera has burst out every hundred years or so for many centuries, there is no record of Melnos being active. This temple of Hephaistos was built long before Christ, during the supremacy of Hellas in these seas, and had the crater not been extinct then, it could not have been built on the inner cup, nor could any eruption have taken place since, as it would have been destroyed; so as the mountain, to all appearances, has been extinct for thousands of years, and the volcanic forces find vent at Thera, I really do not see why, because of an earthquake and a spouting geyser, we should think it likely the crater will break out again.”

“Still, you see the Hellenes must have known this was a volcanic island, and, perhaps, put up this temple to the god of fire in memory of an eruption. If I remember rightly, the Rhodians built a temple to Poseidon Asphalios after some early eruption, in order to propitiate the gods; so this shrine may have been erected for a similar reason.”

“Scarcely, if the volcano was active then. I don’t think even the pious Hellenes would have risked their lives in building a temple under the very nose of Vulcan in full work. But what do you think is best to be done?”

“Well, certainly it would be foolish to leave Melnos, after all the work you have expended upon it, without very good reason, and, until something more serious occurs, I should be inclined to remain. In spite of these signs, the volcano has been as quiet as a lamb for thousands of years; so I do not see why it should break out now, save out of sheer contrariness. We had better go on defending Melnos from Alcibiades, and take no notice of the volcano; but if anything serious occurs, we must get away as quickly as possible.”

“But how? Alcibiades has destroyed all our boats.”

“Well, we will seize his; or else, as soon as I can guess The Eunice is at Syra, I will go over and bring her to Melnos; so that in case of danger I can save every one.”

“Over a hundred and fifty people! Impossible!”

“There won’t be a hundred and fifty people by the time Alcibiades is beaten,” replied Crispin dryly. “It is not that I am afraid of; but if such a contingency as the volcano becoming active does arise, my difficulty will be to get through the besieging army out into the open sea.”

“I’m afraid there’s no chance of that,” replied the Demarch gloomily.

“Well, it certainly looks impossible, but there’s nothing like trying. However, there may be no necessity for such daring. Don’t trouble about the volcano, Justinian; I’ve no doubt Hephaistos will warn us again before proceeding to extremities.”

“I am of the same opinion myself. Still, your words have given no great comfort, Crispin; for, after all the money and labor expended on this island, it would indeed be a terrible thing if it became nothing but a smoking mass of black lava, to say nothing of the destruction of my schemes.”

“You won’t tell Maurice or Helena of this?”

“No. Maurice has quite enough on his mind already, and it would only frighten Helena to death. She is brave enough at most dangers, but I think a volcanic eruption would frighten the most stout-hearted. I have to a great extent calmed the feelings of those in the village, so it will be best for you and I to keep our own counsel, and not uselessly alarm our friends.”

“I hope it is a useless alarm,” said Crispin uneasily. “But it is a very unpleasant idea to think that one is living on top of a powder-magazine which may explode at any moment.”

“As far at that goes,” answered the Demarch dryly, “the whole globe is nothing but an egg full of fire, and we all live on the surface of an explosive bombshell whirling through space, which may burst at any moment. My island is only a sample of the whole earth.”

“I wish you wouldn’t look at things in such an unpleasant light,” cried Crispin, laughing. “My nerves will be destroyed before I leave this island. However, I am going to finish my sleep.”

“And Maurice?”

“He also is asleep, and I’ve no doubt will wake up quite fit for another midnight attack.”

“Egad, and he’ll get it!” said the Demarch grimly. “That villain Alcibiades is getting ready for another assault.”

“Well, in spite of the benefits conferred, it is to be hoped Hephaistos won’t interfere this time with his earthquakes.”

“He has warned us twice,” replied Justinian, as he walked out into the court with the poet; “once by the earthquake, again by the springs. Heaven help us when the third warning comes!”

“Oh, there’s luck in odd numbers,” said Crispin flippantly. “And, in any case, if we come to grief, our enemies will be in the same plight as ourselves.”