It went to my heart to give up that last treasured shot of mine. But he was treating me as an honourable man. I handed him my revolver with a bow, saying: ‘I depend on you to protect me from that fellow and the rest till you deliver me to those you speak of.’ ‘In my charge you are safe,’ said Kortes, and he stooped down and lifted the curtain from Vlacho’s face. The innkeeper stirred and groaned. He was not dead yet. Kortes turned round to Demetri. ‘Stay here and tend him. Do what you can for him. When I am able, I will send aid to him; but I don’t think he will live.’ Demetri scowled. He seemed not to like the part assigned to him. ‘Are you going to take this man to my Lord Constantine?’ he asked. ‘Leave another with Vlacho, and let me come with you to my lord.’ ‘Who should better stay with Vlacho than his nephew Demetri?’ asked Kortes with a smile. (This relationship was a new light to me.) ‘I am going to do what my duty is. Come, no questioning. Do not I command, now Vlacho is wounded?’ ‘And the lady here?’ asked Demetri. ‘I am not ordered to lay a finger on the lady,’ answered Kortes. ‘Indeed I don’t know who she is.’ Francesca interposed with great dignity: ‘I will come with you,’ said she. ‘I have my story to tell when this gentleman is put on his trial. Who I am you will know soon.’ Demetri had climbed in at the window. He passed me with a savage scowl, and I noticed that one side of his head was bound with a bloodstained bandage. He saw me looking at it. ‘Aye,’ he growled, ‘I owe you the loss of half an ear.’ ‘In the passage?’ I hazarded, much pleased. ‘I shall pay the debt,’ said he, ‘or see it paid handsomely for me by my lord.’ ‘Come,’ said Kortes, ‘let us go.’ Fully believing that the fact of Kortes being in command instead of Demetri had saved me from instant death, I was not inclined to dispute his orders. I walked out of the house and took the place he indicated to me in the middle of a line of islanders, some ten or twelve in number. Kortes placed himself by my side, and Madame Stefanopoulos walked on his other hand. The islanders maintained absolute silence. I followed their example, but my heart (I must confess) beat as I waited to see in what direction our column was to march. We started down the hill towards the house. If we were going to the house I had perhaps twenty minutes to live, and the lady who was with us would not long survive me. In vain I scanned Kortes’s comely grave features. He marched with the impassive regularity of a grenadier and displayed much the same expressionless steadiness of face. Nearer to the fatal house we came; but my heart gave a sudden leap of hope and excitement, for Kortes cried softly, ‘To the right.’ We turned down the path that led up from the town, leaving the house on the left. We were not going straight to death then, and every respite was pregnant with unforeseen chances of escape. I touched Kortes on the shoulder. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.