And he went down to the gate, and looking through the window of the chamber saw the specks coming nearer. Before long the foremost were close, and he shouted "Yanni." And from the darkness Yanni found just enough breath to shout: "Yes, yes, open the gate! Come on, brute." Mitsos grinned, thinking that the words were to him. "Surely little Yanni will be sore to-night," he said to himself, and with two others unbarred the gate. Next moment Yanni and Kostas rushed through struggling and panting, each with a horn of the mishandled goat, and the frightened, pattering herd poured after them. The other men had kept behind the beasts, and to right and left were shepherding them; and as soon as the last had passed in the gates were closed again. Yanni flung himself on the ground, utterly blown, and too exhausted to notice Mitsos. "Never again! oh, never," he panted, "will I drag a goat up the Larissa. So--don't ask me. Oh, I shall burst." Mitsos had broken into a roar of hopeless laughter, which was taken up by the hungry garrison, and while Yanni was recovering he and the rest herded the goats together again, and rations of bread were given out, and a few goats killed. Then having secured a great chunk of bread himself, he came back to Yanni, who was sitting up, still rather breathless. Kostas, with his fat red face, had not yet reached convalescence, but lay large and palpitating on the ground. "Yanni, oh, little Yanni!" said Mitsos, "but I am one joy to see you. The goats too. It was a miracle of a plan. Yanni, when did you come? You will sleep with me to-night. Oh, there is the Prince." And Mitsos stood up, and saluted the Prince with a twinkling eye, for he himself was a deserter; and the Prince's face was in patches of red and white, comical to the irreverent, and his breath whistled untunefully in his throat as he drew it. Mitsos fetched him a piece of sacking to sit on, and stood respectfully by him as he paused to get his breath. "My aide-de-camp," said the Prince at last, smiling, "I had to come to you as you persisted in going away from me." This was undeniably the statement of the case, and Mitsos waited a little sheepishly, and the Prince continued. "But we will look it over," said he, getting up, "even a second time. For, indeed, little Mitsos, they would have made a legislator of me, for which I have no call, neither abilities therefor, or inclination, and I would rather be with the people. Show me, please, where I can sleep, and give me first some water, for I am tired and as thirsty as sand with climbing those rocks. Eh, but I have done a finer work to-night than I ever did in the councils of the senate!"