"I will sing you," replied Curtis, without the least hesitation, "a Greek song that I have myself written," and turning to Michali, "I can't quite explain that in Greek: it is an American college song that I have translated into Greek. I have read it over two or three times to Panayota and she says she understands it. Indeed, she has changed it a little." And he sang in a baritone voice of indifferent timbre, but with great spirit, the following words to the tune of "The Man Who Drinks His Whiskey Clear": [Illustration: Greek song] "Tell them," said Lindbohm to Michali, "that I cannot sing in Greek, but that I desire to do my share and, with their permission, I will sing a little song in my own language, appropriate, I assure you, to the occasion." Michali translated and there was no doubt as to the reception of the proposition. Lindbohm had not gone farther than the first line before smothered "Ahs!" of admiration were heard. He was a singer. His voice was mellow, pleading, tender, rich. The song was evidently something pathetic, for it brought tears to the eyes of the impressionable Greeks. The last, deep, vibrating note died upon a couch of silence. A long interval ensued, for to the Cretans it seemed profane to reward such beautiful sound with a rude clatter of hands. At length Panayota rose from her place, and walking straight up to Lindbohm, laid a wreath of red roses and myrtle upon his brow. They packed the mules and started home long before daylight. The procession wound down a rocky path and into the gray town in the silver dawn, with a chill breeze blowing from the sea, and one great, white star glowing in the heavens like a drop of dew. The wreaths had been threaded upon the roasting-spits, and the girls, two and two, carried them. Before sunrise a fresh wreath was hanging over the door of every house in Ambellaki. CHAPTER VII A DEMAND, AND A COWARD "Hello!" cried Lindbohm, "what's the hubbub?" It was the morning of the second of May. Curtis and his two friends were sitting in the mayor's café, drinking muddy black coffee, served in tiny cups.