I do not know which made more stir among the people, my talk of his wife or my hint about the secret. They crowded round me, hemming me in. I saw Phroso no more; but Kortes pushed his way to my side. Then the eyes of all turned on Constantine, where he sat with face working and nails fiercely plucking the turf. ‘What is this lie?’ he cried. ‘I know nothing of a wife. True, there was a woman in the cottage.’ ‘Ay, there was a woman in the cottage,’ said Kortes. ‘And she was in the guardhouse; but I did not know who she was, and I had no commands concerning her; and this morning she was gone.’ ‘That woman is his wife,’ said I; ‘but he and Vlacho had planned to kill her, in order that he might marry your Lady and have your island for himself.’ Demetri suddenly cried, with a great appearance of horror and disgust: ‘Shall he live to speak such a slander against my lord?’ But Demetri gained no attention. I had made too much impression. ‘Who was the woman, then,’ said I, ‘and where is she?’ Constantine, tricky and resourceful, looked again on the dead Vlacho. ‘I may not tell my friend’s secrets,’ said he, with an admirable assumption of honour. ‘And a foul blow has sealed Vlacho’s lips.’ ‘Yes,’ cried I. ‘Vlacho killed the old lord, and Vlacho brought the woman! Indeed Vlacho serves my lord as well dead as when he lived! For now his lips are sealed. Come, then--Vlacho bought the island, and Vlacho slew Spiro, and now Vlacho has slain himself! Neither Constantine nor I have done anything; but it is all Vlacho--the useful Vlacho--Vlacho--Vlacho!’ Constantine’s face was a sight to see, and he looked no pleasanter when my irony wrung smiles from some of the men round him, while others bit their lips to stop smiles that sought to come. ‘Oh faithful servant!’ I cried, apostrophising Vlacho, ‘heavy are thy sins! May’st thou find mercy for them!’ I did not know what cards Constantine held. If he had succeeded in spiriting away his wife, by fair means or foul, he had the better chance; but if she were still free, alive and free, then he played a perilous hand and was liable to be utterly confounded. Yet he was forced to action; I had so moved the people that they looked for more than mere protests from him. ‘The stranger who came to steal our island,’ said he, skilfully prejudicing me by this description, ‘asks me where the woman is. But I ask it of him--where is she? For it stands with him to put her before you that she may tell you whether I, Constantine Stefanopoulos, am lying to you. Yet how long is it since you doubted the words of the Stefanopouloi and believed strangers rather than them?’ His appeal won on them. They met it with murmured applause.