Julian mounted the steps and turned in the dark frame of the doorway. The people had come to a standstill, filling the narrow street. It was now they who looked up to Julian, and he who looked down upon them, considering them, still remote and preoccupied, conscious that here and now the seed sown in the club-rooms must bear its fruit, that life, grown impatient of waiting for a summons he did not give, had come to him of its own accord and ordered him to take the choice of peace or war within its folded cloak. If he had hoped to escape again to England with a decision still untaken, that hope was to be deluded. He was being forced and hustled out of his childhood into the responsibilities of a man. He could not plead the nebulousness of his mind; action called to him, loud and insistent. In vain he told himself, with the frown deepening between his brows, and the people who watched him torn with anxiety before that frown--in vain he told himself that the situation was fictitious, theatrical. He could not convince himself of this truth with the fire of the people's gaze directed upon him. He must speak to them; they were silent, expectant, waiting. The words broke from him impelled, as he thought, by his terror of his own helplessness and lack of control, but to his audience they came as a command, a threat, and an invitation. 'What is it you want of me?' He stood on the highest of the three steps, alone, the back of his head pressed against the door, and a hand on each of the flanking columns. The black-robed priest had taken his place below him, to one side, on the ground level. Julian felt a sudden resentment against these waiting people, that had driven him to bay, the resentment of panic and isolation, but to them, his attitude betraying nothing, he appeared infallible, dominating, and inaccessible. Tsantilas Tsigaridis came forward as spokesman, a gold ring hanging in the lobe of one ear, and a heavy silver ring shining dully on the little finger of his brown, knotted hand. 'Kyrie,' he said, 'Angheliki Zapantiotis has hailed you. We are your own people. By the authorities we are persecuted as though we were Bulgars, we, their brothers in blood. Last week a score of police came in boats from Herakleion and raided our houses in search of weapons. Our women ran screaming to the vineyards. Such weapons as the police could find were but the pistols we carry for ornament on the feast-days of church, and these they removed, for the sake, as we know, not being blind, of the silver on the locks which they will use to their own advantage. By such persecutions we are harried. We may never know when a hand will not descend on one of our number, on a charge of sedition or conspiracy, and he be seen no more. We are not organised for resistance. We are blind beasts, leaderless.' A woman in the crowd began to sob, burying her face in her scarlet apron. A man snarled his approval of the spokesman's words, and spat violently into the gutter.