"What if he does? Cannot a stork fly?" asked a black-eyed, roguish maiden, who possibly thought that the American could learn good Greek from more than one pair of lips. This sally evoked such an inordinate peal of good-natured laughter that Curtis was unable to think of an appropriate reply, and contented himself with pulling a rose from the basket hanging at his saddle and throwing it at the saucy girl. In the purple twilight they came in sight of the first of the seven mills. A tall, slanting barrel of masonry received the water that turned the stone wheel that lay upon its face in a small building covered with reddish brown tiles. The miller and his wife, dusty as moths, came out to greet the merry throng that poured into his little plateau with much shouting and singing and strumming of guitars. Two or three shock-headed youngsters peeped from behind the building, and a girl, probably three years old, clothed only in a flour sack that reached to the middle of her stomach, ran, like a frightened chicken, to cover in the folds of her mother's dress. The child was glowing with health and beautiful as an infant Dionysus from the broken arm of a Hermes carved by Praxiteles himself. And now they were come into a region of rank, water-loving trees, great ferns and streams of water that slipped smoothly and silently through square sluices of white masonry. The mills were close together. At the fourth in number they stopped and found that brave preparation had already been made. The plateau before the mill-house was here larger than ordinary and in its midst grew a wide-spreading oak from a lower branch of which hung a powerful lamp, protected from the wind by a glass cage. At the foot of a shielding wall of rock, several lambs were fragrantly roasting upon long wooden spits, and by each an old man squatted, so intent upon turning the carcass that he scarcely looked up to welcome the gay and noisy villagers. "How go the lambs, Barba Yanne?" "Is it tender, think you, Barba Spiro?" "Are they nearly done, Kosta? Holy Virgin, what an appetite I've got!" "And I!" "And I!" With a perfect babble of such exclamations, mingled with much laughter, and many shouted orders and directions, Ambellaki took possession of the place where it had elected to outwear the night with song and feasting and to welcome the First of May. The tables were unstrapped from the backs of the donkeys and set in line. Cloths were spread and candles were lighted in candlesticks surmounted by protecting glass globes. Chairs were taken down from others of the donkeys, and two or three long benches were produced by the miller. A dozen pairs of strong hands were extended to Curtis and he was assisted from the back of his wilful beast to a comfortable seat.