‘No, not yet,’ said Kortes gravely. I am bound to add that he took the news of Francesca’s death with remarkable coolness. In spite of his good qualities, Kortes was a thorough Neopalian; it needed much to perturb him. Besides he was thinking of Phroso only, and the affairs of everybody else passed unheeded by him. This was very evident when I asked his opinion as to waiting where we were, or essaying the way that Mouraki’s suspicious carelessness seemed to leave open to us. ‘Oh, the passage, my lord! Let it be the passage. For you and me the passage is very dangerous, yet hardly more than here, and the Lady Phroso has her only chance of escape through the passage.’ ‘You think it very dangerous for us?’ ‘Possibly one of us will come through,’ he said. ‘And at the other end?’ ‘There may be a boat. If there is none, she must try (and we with her, if we are alive) to steal round to the town, and hide in one of the houses till a boat can be found,’ ‘Mouraki would scour the island.’ ‘Yes, but a clear hour or two would be enough if we could get her into a boat.’ ‘But he’d send the gunboat after her.’ ‘Yes; but, my lord, am I saying that escape is likely? It is possible only; and possibly the boat might evade pursuit.’ I had the highest regard for Kortes, but he was not a very cheering companion for an adventure. Given the same desperate circumstances, Denny would have been serenely confident of success and valiantly scornful of our opponent. I heaved a regretful sigh for him, and said to Kortes, with a little irritation: ‘Hang it, we’ve come out right side up before now, and we may again. Hadn’t we better rouse her?’ During this conversation Kortes had been standing on the lowest step of the staircase, and I facing him, on the floor of the hall, with one hand resting on the balustrade. We had talked in low tones, partly from a fear of eavesdroppers, even more, I think, from the influence which our position exerted over us. In peril men speak softly. Our voices sounded as no more than faint murmurs in the roomy hall; consequently they could not have been audible--where? In the passage! But as I spoke to Kortes in a petulant reproachful whisper, a sound struck on my ear, a very little sound. I caught my companion’s arm, imposing silence on him by a look. The sound came again. I knew the sound; I had heard it before. I stepped back a pace and looked round the balustrade to the spot where the entrance to the passage lay. I should have been past surprise now, after my sojourn in Neopalia; but I was not. I sprang back, with a cry of wonder, almost (must I admit it?) of alarm. Small and faint as the noise had been, it had sufficed for the opening of the door, and in the opening made by the receding of the planks were the head and shoulders of a man. His face was hardly a yard from my face; and the face was the face of Constantine Stefanopoulos.