"My cousin," said Yanni, "who comes with me on the business of the corn. Oh, all our necks are in one noose. Do not be afraid." The little old man seemed strangely reassured at this brutality of frankness, and setting the door wide--"Come in, both of you," he said, shortly. Inside the noise of the mill was almost deafening, but Gregoriou pinned the wheel, the two stones stopped grinding, and only the water splashed hissing down the channel. "Black corn, did you say; black corn for the Turk?" said the little old man, peering into Yanni's face, with blinking eyes, like a noonday owl. "I grind corn all day, for there will be many hungry mouths. Look you, I am no fighting man; I leave that to those who are taller than the pillars in the church, like this cousin of yours; but where would the fighting be without such as I? But, lad, don't give hint of this to the woman-folk, else I shall have the clan of them a-screaming round me like the east gale in the mountains." He rubbed his hands together and broke out into a screeching cackle of a laugh, which showed a row of discolored, irregular teeth. "Look here," he said, opening a bin behind the door, "is not this good, strong corn? I have ground it all myself. None but I have ground it." His face took an expression of diabolical cunning. "They have promised to buy it of me, all at a sound price," he said; "but it is not that so much that makes my heart go singing--it is that I want it to do its work well, and give the Turk an indigestion of lead. This is good business for me. I will be a rich man, and I shall have brought death to many devils." He slipped back to the lever that brought the wheel under the stream, and as the stones began to turn again, from their lips there dribbled out a black powder, which he scooped up in a wooden ladle and emptied into a cask. Then, seeing that the door was still open, he gave another shrill animal cry of fright and sprang to lock it. "Charcoal!" he shouted to them across the rumbling din of the stone, "charcoal ground fine, for so it is the more nourishing. And here are the sulphur and saltpetre. To-night I shall mix them carefully--oh, so carefully--and I shall be glutted with the thought that there will be a red death for every stroke in the mixing." And then he got him back to the stones and fed them tenderly with fresh lumps of charcoal, as one would feed a sick dog. Mitsos and Yanni were in a hurry to take the road again, and so they left him absorbed in the grinding, and heard the key grate in the lock as soon as they got outside.