Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/71

 Mitsos, to whom spirit was a new thing, recovered himself quickly with a little choking.

"I wasn't frightened at the moment," he said; "I was only frightened before, when I knew I was caught."

Then, as his boyish spirits began to reassert themselves, "Did I—did I behave all right, Uncle Nicholas?"

"I wish to see no better behavior. It is even as your father told me, that you were fit for the keeping of secrets.""

Mitsos flushed with pleasure.

"Then I don't mind if it has made you think that, though, by the Virgin, my stomach was cold. But if I had had my knife there would have been blood let. I cannot think how I lost it."

Nicholas laughed.

"Here it is," he said. "It was even I who took it away from you while you were dozing as you rode. I thought it might be dangerous in your barbarous young hands."

Mitsos put it back in his belt.

"I am ready now. I shall start off again."

Nicholas rose, too.

"I will come with you as far as the plain, and then my road is forward, the piastres were a poor trick, eh?"

"Very poor indeed, I thought," said Mitsos, grinning.

The uncle and nephew walked on together, and the other two men strolled more slowly after them. Nicholas could have shouted aloud for joy. He had found what he had sought with such fastidiousness—some one whom he could trust unreservedly, and over whom he had influence. To do him justice, the cruelty of what he had done made his stomach turn against himself; but he was associated with men who rightly mistrusted