Nicholas only frowned, and passed his hand wearily over his eyes. The other bandaged arm was lying outside the thin bed-covering under which he lay. "I looked everywhere," he muttered, "and I could not find her. Will little Mitsos ever forgive me, I wonder--yet I did all I could. Why does not the dear lad come? Has he forsaken me?... No, it will never do; this traffic brings disgrace on us all. Stop it, Petrobey, stop it, in God's name.... Ah, that is better, up, up, hand over hand, quick, give me the flag. Where is the flag, O devils of the pit? but give it me. Ah, you are no better than the Turks.... Yes, I will pay you well to give it me, if that is what you want. A million piastres? I will give you two millions.... Ah, up with it." The muttering sank down again into silence, and the eyelids drooped wearily. Mitsos, kneeling there, felt that the life was leaving him. Suleima dead, Nicholas dying, there was but little left of the Mitsos he knew. Dry-eyed he knelt there in the blank, black despair of a hopeless anguish. If only it was he who was lying there! There was nothing to live for; everything was gone in this moment of victory, when his heart should have been larklike, soaring with song. Petrobey brought him in food and wine. "Drink, little Mitsos," he said; "it is very good wine." But Mitsos would not even look at it. "Leave me alone," was all he said; "I will call you if he wants you. Oh, go, man," he repeated, in a shrill whisper, and with a sudden burst of childish, impotent anger, which gave Petrobey a more pitiful moment than he had ever known; "may not my heart break in peace?" It had been past midnight when Mitsos came in, and already the stars were beginning to pale in the east when Nicholas stirred and woke. He saw Mitsos by him, and knew him and smiled to him. He spoke slowly and faintly. "Ah, little Mitsos," he said, "so you have come at last, but not much too soon. My poor lad, you know I did all I could; Yanni and I looked for her everywhere, but found her not. Oh, little Mitsos, my heart is bleeding for you. Tell me you know I did all I could." At the sound of that dear voice, obeying again the will and the brain of the man he loved, no longer wandering idly as a thing apart, Mitsos broke down utterly, forgetting all but the dear, dying uncle. "Oh, you will break my heart if you speak like that," he sobbed. "I know--how can I but know?--that you did all the best and noblest of men could do. Oh, uncle, I cannot do without you. Oh, come back, come back." Nicholas's hand gently stroked the boy's head as he knelt with his face buried in the bed-covering.