So Maria had her chance, and took it. An adventure and a quest for the good of her country were offered her, and she embraced them. For the moment she rose to the rank of those who work personally for the good of countries and great communities, and then passed back into her level peasant life again. Goura, as it turned out, took no part in the deeds that were coming. Its land was land of the monastery, and the Turks never visited its sequestered valley with cruelty, oppression, or their lustful appetites. Yet the great swelling news that came to the inhabitants of that little mountain village, only as in the ears of children a sea-shell speaks of remotely breaking waves, had to Maria a reality and a nearness that it lacked to others, and her life was crowned with the knowledge that she had for a moment laid her finger harmoniously on the harp which made that glorious symphony. Mitsos' work at Patras was easily done. Germanos was delighted with the idea of the forged letter from the Turk, and was frankly surprised to hear that the notion was born of the boy's brain. Being something of a scholar, he quoted very elegantly the kindred notion of Athene, who was wisdom, springing full-grown from the brain of Zeus, for Mitsos' idea, so he was pleased to say, was complete in itself, mature from its birth. Mitsos did not know the legend to which the primate referred, and so he merely expressed his gratification that the scheme was considered satisfactory. The affair of the beacons took more time, for Mitsos on his journey south back to Panitza would have to make arrangements for their kindling, and it was thus necessary that their situation should be accessible to villages where Nicholas was known, and where the boy could find some one to undertake to fire the beacon as soon as the next beacon south was kindled. Furthermore, though Germanos knew the country well, it would be best for Mitsos to verify the suitability of the places chosen, "for," as the archbishop said, "you might burn down all the pine-woods on Taygetus, and little should we reck of it if Taygetus did not happen to be visible from Lycaon; but we should stand here like children with toy swords till the good black corn grew damp and the hair whitened on our temples."