Crete (Greece) -- History -- Insurrection, 1866-1868 -- Fiction
Curtis stood watching him as he was rowed away, hoping against hope
that he would turn around and wave his hand or make some sign. But no,
he sat up very straight, his arms hanging a little out from his body,
the back of his neck looking very broad and red. The straw hat leaped
from his head. He caught it in midair, jammed it back and held it in
place with one big hand.
And so Peter Lindbohm went back to his love--Peter Lindbohm, true
knight and noble gentleman, with the heart of a lion and the soul of a
child. As friend he was stanch even to his own seeming undoing, and
made no moan; as lover, he was great enough to be faithful unto more
than death, and for such there is a full reward. No sacrifice awaited
him, but a long lifetime of peaceful joys. If Peter Lindbohm ever goes
to war again, it will be in defense of wife and children.
And John Curtis, to whose romantic and brave nature there was attached
an automatic brake of New England prudence, sailed away to his own
land. And the last sound that he heard from Crete was the voice of the
Swede's boatman singing:
From the bones of the Greeks upspringing.
Who died that we might be free,
And the strength of thy strong youth bringing,--
Hail, Liberty, hail to thee!
He stood for a long time leaning over the rail, watching the receding
isle.
As the land became more distant, it grew more beautiful. The purple
haze of Greece settled upon the mountains. Curtis thought of Panayota
as of a lovely Greek whom he had met in his dreams; he sighed and
murmured:
I enter thy garden of roses,
Beloved and fair Haidee!
A steward touched him on the shoulder and said in German: "Lunch is
ready."
Curtis turned briskly around, and followed the man half the length of
the deck, struggling to drag a sentence from the unfrequented German
corner of his brain. At last it came:
"I am ready, too. This sea air makes one hungry."
He was glad to see there were genuine Frankfurters for lunch. He
ordered a bottle of Rhine wine and talked German with the Captain.
When he came up on deck to smoke his cigar, the ship was purring
through a placid, opalescent sea, and Crete was a faint outline
sketched against a gray-blue sky.
THE END.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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