Curtis had made great progress in Panayota's language. He had found the girl very willing to talk with him and not a little interested in his efforts to acquire fluency in her native tongue. He had also made this discovery, which pleased him greatly, that the Greek of these sturdy mountaineers was easier for him than that of Athens, as it possessed a more archaic flavor. "Marvelous! marvelous!" shouted the demarch. "Your progress is wonderful. I observe it every day." "Ah, this is comfortable," said Curtis, sitting on a bench with his back against the plane tree. "Are all the Cretan villages as pretty as this?" "Some are much more beautiful," cried Michali. "That is, those which the Turks have not destroyed. But this village is not so easy for them to reach. You see how hard it is from the sea to come. And behold, we have all around us a circle of mountains." "An enemy couldn't get in at all," said Lindbohm, casting an experienced eye about. He was striding nervously to and fro, fencing with an imaginary opponent. "Yes, one way. There is, what you call it--a cut in the hill--" "A ravine," suggested Curtis. "Yes, I think so. A ravine, very deep and very crooked. But the shepherds watch him all the time." The conversation did not progress rapidly, because Greek politeness demanded that Michali translate every word for the demarch, whose own remarks, moreover, it was necessary to turn into English. "Would you like to see the inside of my store?" asked the latter, a lull in the conversation making him feel that he must do something for the entertainment of his guests. Michali had again described the shipwreck, the English had been denounced as barbarians, worse than the Turks, and the demarch had told a story of a famous battle in which thirty Cretans slew two hundred Mohammedans, on which occasion he himself had led the victorious party. There seemed to be nothing more to talk about. "I have some very fine pictures inside," said the mayor. "Come, Lieutenant, Mr. Stork, Michali." "Where are the pictures?" asked Curtis, when they had entered, hoping that his host possessed a collection of Byzantine, or perhaps Venetian, works of art. Kyr' Nikolaki glanced about the room and waved his hand majestically. "They are hanging on the walls," he replied. Borrowing Lindbohm's cane, he made the circuit of the room, pointing to the wretched prints that were hung high up, close to the ceiling. "This," he explained, "is Marko Botsares, a famous Greek patriot of the war of independence. Have you ever heard of him?" "Heard of him!" cried Curtis. "At midnight in his guarded tent The Turk lay dreaming of the hour, When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent Should tremble at his power!"