Lambro having called for his chibouque, perched himself upon a chair and sat cross-legged upon it in oriental fashion, while Jacintha at his command took a live coal from the fire by aid of the tongs, and applied it to the bowl of his pipe. Then the old Palicar puffed away in placid contentment while Jacintha went off to prepare a room for Barbara. "Those cigars," Lambro presently remarked, addressing Paul, "have never paid Austrian duty. Whence do I procure them? From the sea,--my constant friend. A toast, a toast," he cried, raising his glass of maraschino. "Here's to the storm-fiend, and may he never cease to send us rich flotsam and jetsam. The dress I wear," he added, patting his gay costume with pride, "comes from the body of a drowned compatriot. If the signorina requires a new dress we can supply her with one as rich as that she now has. No, I am not a wrecker," he continued, as if in answer to Paul's suspicions. "I simply take the gifts the waves send me, and they send them pretty frequently on this wild rocky coast. Sometimes it is a Turkish vessel that goes to pieces on the reef out yonder," he went on, nodding in the direction of the sea. "Jacintha and I can hear their cries, but we are unable to help them. I would not help them if I could," he exclaimed with a fierce flash of energy, and taking the pipe from his mouth. "Are not the Turks the enemies of Greece? When I hear their shrieks rising above the sound of the storm--A-a-h!" He finished the sentence with a smack of his lips. It would be impossible to imagine any being more weird than this little Greek, as he sat there cross-legged, tricked out in the finery of the dead, his eye glittering wildly, and his moustaches tied at the back of his head. Paul deemed it advisable on Barbara's account to give a different turn to the conversation. "This must have been a grand old castle when entire," he said. "The property, is it not, of the Italian Marquis Orsino?" "Not so," replied Lambro, with a shake of his head. "The marquis sold it seven years ago to my present Master--" "My guide-book is evidently not up to date." "Though," added Lambro, "the sale was kept a secret." "Why so?" "All the Master's ways are secret." "May one ask his name?" "He has forbidden me to reveal it." Paul, though conscious that he was treading on delicate ground, could not repress his further curiosity. "Where does he live when not here?" "He has never told me." "What is his nationality?" "That is equally a mystery to me." Paul's interest in the Master increased, and as Lambro did not seem to resent his questioning, he continued,-- "How often does he visit this place?" "It may be once only in the year, it may be twice or thrice." "I gather from your first words when I knocked at the door, and also from the previous state of this table, that you are expecting him at the present time?"