"Four, to begin with, says he!" exclaimed Tombazes, in a lamentable treble voice. "And how many to end with, and with what will you be paying the crews? Man, do you think you will find enough to keep them in pipes and tobacco with what is in the treasury? Four, to begin with!--save us all!" "The crews will average sixty men each," continued Economos, "and that will make two hundred and forty. Every year the treasury pays the wage of two hundred and fifty men. I deal with facts, you see." "Come, then, let's have facts," cried Tombazes, "and surely I will help you. It's facts the man will be wanting. Why, you must have a fever or an ague in your blood! You want bleeding, man, I see it in your eye. Do you think we collect the taxes for a whole year together?" "I suppose what there is in the treasury will last us a month." "Well, say it lasts a month," said Tombazes. "What then? You will return here for more money. Much will you find when you have taken from the island just those men who pay the bulk of the taxes. I'm thinking that your admirable notion is even sillier, if we look into it, than it appeared on the surface. And even the look of it on the surface made me think you had been better for blood-letting." "See, father, listen to me," said Economos, with sudden earnestness. "Have you heard what has happened? Surely you have not, or you would not speak thus. Do you know that Kalamata has been taken by the Greeks, that the beacons of liberty have flashed from one end of the country to another? A free people have stood in the meadows round Kalamata and sung the 'Te Deum' for that great and wonderful victory. Is that not a thing to make the blood tingle? In the north, Germanos, archbishop and primate, has raised the revolt. The monks of Megaspelaion are up in arms; Petrobey and they of Maina have come forth like a herd of hungry wolves." Tombazes' eye flashed. "It is fit that you should tell me all you have to say for their mad scheme. Go on, man, go on. Tell me all you know. I--I can judge better so."