advances. I made allowance for their hereditary attachment to the outgoing family, and their natural want of cordiality towards the intruder did not prevent me from plying them with many questions concerning my predecessors on the throne of the[Pg 24] island. My perseverance was ill-rewarded, but I succeeded in learning that the only member of the family on the island, besides the old lord was a girl whom they called ‘the Lady Euphrosyne,’ the daughter of the lord’s brother who was dead. Next I asked after my friend of the Optimum Restaurant, Constantine. He was this lady’s cousin once or twice removed—I did not make out the exact degree of kinship—but Demetri hastened to inform me that he came very seldom to the island, and had not been there for two years.

[Pg 23]

[Pg 24]

‘And he is not expected there now?’ I asked.

‘He was not when we left, my lord,’ answered Demetri, and it seemed to me that he threw an inquiring glance at his brother, who added hastily,

‘But what should we poor men know of the Lord Constantine’s doings?’

‘Do you know where he is now?’ I asked.

‘No, my lord,’ they answered together, and with great emphasis.

I cannot deny that something struck me as peculiar in their manner, but when I mentioned my impression to Denny he scoffed at me.

‘You’ve been reading old Byron again,’ he said scornfully. ‘Do you think they’re corsairs?’

Well, a man is not a fool simply because he reads Byron, and I maintained my opinion that[Pg 25] the brothers were embarrassed at my questions. Moreover I caught Spiro, the more truculent-looking of the pair, scowling at me more than once when he did not know I had my eye on him.

[Pg 25]

These little mysteries, however, did nothing but add sauce to my delight as we sprang over the blue waters; and my joy was complete when, on the morning of the day I had appointed, the seventh of May, Denny cried ‘Land!’ and looking over the starboard bow I saw the cloud on the sea that was Neopalia. Day came 

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