‘You fools! The guns of the ship will mow you down before you can touch a hair of the head of a single soldier.’ A deep derisive groan met my attempt at dissuasion. ‘On, on!’ they cried. ‘It’s certain death,’ I shouted, and now I saw one or two of the women hesitate, and look first at me and then at each other with doubt and fear. But Orestes would not listen, and called again to them to take the road. Thus we were when the door behind me opened, and Phroso was again by my side. She knew how matters went. Her eyes were wild with terror and distress. ‘Stop them, my lord, stop them,’ she implored. For answer, I took my revolver from my pocket, saying, ‘I’ll do what I can.’ ‘No, no, not like that! That would be your death as well as theirs.’ ‘Come,’ cried Orestes, in the pride of his sudden elevation to leadership. ‘Come, follow me, I’ll lead you to victory.’ ‘You fools, you fools!’ I groaned. ‘In an hour half of you will be dead.’ No, they would not listen. Only the women now laid imploring hands on the arms of husbands and brothers, useless loving restraints, angrily flung off. ‘Stop them, stop them!’ prayed Phroso. ‘By any means, my lord, by any means!’ ‘There’s only one way,’ said I. ‘Whatever the way may be,’ she urged; for now the column was facing round towards the harbour. Orestes had taken his place, swelling with importance and eager to display his prowess. In a word, Neopalia was in revolt again, and the death-chant threatened to swell out in all its barbaric simple savagery at any moment. There was nothing else for it; I must temporise; and that word is generally, and was in this case, the equivalent of a much shorter one. I could not leave these mad fools to rush on ruin. A plan was in my head and I gave it play. I took a pace forward, raised my hand, and cried: ‘Hear me before you march, Neopalians, for I am your friend.’ My voice gained me a minute’s silence; the column stood still, though Orestes chafed impatiently at the delay. ‘You’re in haste, men of Neopalia,’ said I. ‘Indeed you’re always in haste. You were in haste to kill me who had done you no harm. You are in haste to kill yourselves by marching into the mouth of the great gun of the ship. In truth I wonder that any of you are still alive. But here, in this matter, you are most of all in haste, for having heard what the Lady Phroso said, you have not asked nor waited to hear what I say, but have at once gone mad, all of you, and chosen the maddest among you and made him your leader.’ I do not think that they had expected quite this style of speech. They had looked for passionate reproaches or prayerful entreaties; cool scorn and chaff put them rather at a loss, and my reference to Orestes, who looked sour enough, won me a hesitating laugh.