These troubles and perplexities vanished before the zest and interest which our preparations and start excited. Denny and I were like a pair of schoolboys off for a holiday, and spent hours in forecasting what we should do and how we should fare in the island. These speculations were extremely amusing, but in the long run they were proved to be, one and all, wide of the mark. Had I known Neopalia then as well as I came to know it afterward, I should have recognized the futility of attempting to prophesy what would happen there. As it was, we spun our cobwebs merrily all the way to Rhodes, where we arrived without event and without accident. There we picked up Hogvardt, and embarked in the smart little steam yacht which he had hired for me. A day or two was spent in arranging our stores and buying what more we wanted, for we could not expect to be able to procure anything in Neopalia. I was rather surprised to find no letter for me from the old lord, but I had no thought of waiting for a formal invitation, and pressed on the hour of departure as much as I could. Here, also, I saw the first of my new subjects, Hogvardt having engaged a couple of men who had come to him, saying they were from Neopalia and were anxious to work their passage back. I was delighted to have them, and fell at once to studying them with immense attention. They were fine, tall, capable-looking fellows, and they, too, with ourselves, made a crew more than large enough for our little boat; for both Denny and I would make ourselves useful on board, and Hogvardt could do something of everything on land or water, whilst Watkins acted as cook and steward. The Neopalians were, as they stated, in answer to my questions, brothers; their names were Spiro and Demetri, and they informed us that their family had served the lords of Neopalia for many generations. Hearing this, I was less inclined to resent the undeniable reserve and even surliness with which they met my advances. I made allowance for their hereditary attachment to the outgoing family; and their natural want of cordiality toward the intruder did not prevent me from plying them with many questions concerning my predecessors on the throne of the island. My perseverance was ill rewarded, but I succeeded in learning that the only member of the family on the island, besides the old lord, was a girl whom they called "the Lady Euphrosyne," the daughter of the lord's brother, who was dead. Next I asked after my friend of the Optimum restaurant, Constantine. He was this lady's cousin once or twice removed--I did not make out the exact degree of kinship--but Demetri hastened to inform me that he came very seldom to the island, and had not been there for two years. "And he is not expected there now?" I asked. "He was not when we left, my lord," answered Demetri, and it seemed to me that he threw an inquiring glance at his brother, who added hastily: "What should we poor men know of the Lord Constantine's doings?"