Helplessness brings its own peculiar consolation. After a week’s planning and scheming what you will do to the enemy, it is a kind of relief to sit with hands in pockets and wonder what the enemy may be pleased to do with you. This relaxation was vouchsafed to my brain when I awoke in the morning and found the sun streaming into the whitewashed cell-like room. It was the feast of St Tryphon, all praise to him! Kortes said that I could not be executed that day. I doubted Constantine’s scruples; yet probably he would not venture to outrage the popular sentiment of Neopalia. But nothing forbade my execution to-morrow. Well, to-morrow is to-morrow, and to-day is to-day, and there will be that difference between them so long as the world lasts. I stretched myself and yawned luxuriously. I was, strangely enough, in a hopeful frame of mind. I made sure that Denny had found his way safely, and that the Cypriote fishermen had been benevolent. I proved to myself that with Constantine’s exposure his power would end. I plumed myself on having put Vlacho _hors de combat_. I believe I said to myself that villainy would not triumph, that honest men would come by their own, and that unprotected beauty would find help from heaven: convictions which showed that relics of youth hung about me, and (I am afraid it depends on this rather) that I was feeling very well after my refreshing sleep. Alas, my soothing reveries were rudely interrupted. ‘At a touch sweet pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth!’ And at the sound of a gruff voice outside my dreams melted: harsh reality was pressing hard on me again, crushing hope into resignation, buoyancy into a grim resolve to take what came with courage. ‘Bring him out,’ cried the voice. ‘It’s that brute Demetri,’ said I to myself, wondering what had become of my friendly gaoler, Kortes. A moment later half-a-dozen men filed into the room, Demetri at their head. I asked him what he wanted. He answered only with a command that I should get up. ‘Bring him along,’ he added to his men; and we walked out into the street.