They went to where Nicholas's horse was tied up, and he, hearing the other had bolted, made Mitsos mount his, as he would have to walk back, and himself went on foot. It was in silence that they climbed the pass, but in another hour they came to the junction of the two roads from Nemea and Corinth, and Nicholas told his nephew to go no farther. "It is safer that I should go alone here," he said; "and it is already late, and you will have to walk. Waste no time about getting back to the plain; the nights are short." He paused for a moment, looking affectionately at the boy. "Thus are you baptized in blood," he said, then paused, and he moistened his lips. "A great deal may depend on you, little one," he went on. "I have watched you growing up, and you are growing up as I would have you grow. Distrust everything and everybody except, perhaps, your father and myself, and be afraid of nothing, while you suspect everything. At the same time I want you, and many will want you; so take care." He put his hands on his shoulders. "I shall be back in a year or six months, or perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps never. That does not concern you. Your father and I will always tell you what to do. And now good-bye." He kissed him on the cheek, mounted his horse, and rode off, never looking behind. Mitsos stopped still for a moment looking after him, and then turned to go home. Five minutes more brought Nicholas to the edge of the village where the three men whom Demetri had sent were waiting for him. One of them was a Greek servant, who held Nicholas's horse while he dismounted and changed his Albanian costume for a Turkish dress; the others were leaders of local movements against the Turks, and were going with him to Corinth. Like Nicholas himself, they all spoke Turkish. Nicholas dressed himself quickly, but then stopped for a moment irresolute. Then-- "Take the horse on," he said to the servant. "I will go on foot awhile." Mitsos meantime was walking quickly along the road back towards Argos. He would scarcely acknowledge to himself how very much he disliked the thought of taking that bridle-path through the woods, for the recollection he retained of that end of rope dangling from the tree, with the fragment of tunic fluttering in the breeze, and that heap of white stones glimmering among the bushes, was too vivid for his liking. Even his pony would have been companionable; but his pony, as he hoped, was near home by this time. Once or twice he thought he heard movements and whispered rustlings in the bushes, which made his heart beat rather quicker than its wont. Ordinarily he would not have noticed such things, but the scene at the crossroad still twanged some string of horror within him. However, the road must be trod, and keeping his eyes steadily averted--for like his race he held ghosts in accredited horror--he marched with a show of courage past the spot, and began making his way down the rough bridle-path.