Nicholas remained perfectly firm, and Petrobey eventually desisted from his attempt to persuade him to take up his commission again, for he might as well have tried to lever the sun out of its orbit. But he still continued to ask Nicholas's advice about the affairs of the army, which the latter could not very well withhold. Among the men, and especially among the Mainats, he underwent a sort of upsidedown apotheosis. Germanos had made villanous accusations; here was a fine answer. As for that proud man himself, he found his position was no longer tenable. So far from being able to profit by Nicholas's action, he discovered, though too late, that he had overreached himself in making so preposterous a statement about his enemy, and the army buzzed away through his fine woven web, leaving it dangling in the wind. He saw that his chance of power was over, and, accepting the inevitable, took his departure for Kalavryta, where he hoped his authority remained intact. But, alas! for the triumphal reception by the united army--alas! too, for his chance of the Patriarchate. His name, which he had prospectively throned in the hearts of myriads, was flotsam on the tide of their righteous anger against him, thrown up on the beach, tossed to and fro once or twice, and then left. His followers, the primates and bishops, less wise than he, still stayed on, hoping against hope that the popular favor would set their way. But the evil he and his had done lived after them; nothing now could undo the distrust and suspicion they had caused, for their first malignant slander had found fulfilment, and the army distrusted its officers, while the officers were not certain of their men. Nicholas had cleared himself, leaping with a shout of triumph free from the web spun round him; others had not the manliness to do the same, to challenge the evidence, for they knew there was evidence.