t before it was daylight that
morning, and exchanged clothes with a burly friar whom he met in a quiet
place."

"But how did the friar agree to that?" asked Arisa in surprise.

"He had nothing to say. He was dead," answered Aristarchi.

"Do you mean to say that he chanced to find a dead friar lying in the
road?" asked the Georgian.

"How should I know? I daresay the monk was alive when he met my man, and
happened to die a few minutes afterwards--by mere chance. It was very
fortunate, was it not?"

"Yes!" Arisa laughed softly. "But what did he do? Why did he take the
trouble to dress the monk in his clothes?"

"In order to receive his dying confession, of course. I thought you
would understand! And his dying confession was that he, Michael Pandos,
a Greek robber, had killed the man for whose murder I was being hanged
that morning. My man came just in time, for as the friar's head was half
shaved, as monks' heads are, he had to shave the rest, as they do for
coolness in the south, and he had only his knife with which to do it.
But no one found that out, for he had been a barber, as he had been a
monk and most other things. He looked very well in a cowl, and spoke
Neapolitan. I did not know him when he came to the foot of the gallows,
howling out that I was innocent."

"Were you?" asked Arisa.

"Of course I was," answered Aristarchi with conviction.

"Who was the man that had been killed?"

"I forget his name," said the Greek. "He was a Neapolitan gentleman of
great family, I believe. I forget the name. He had red hair."

Arisa laughed and stroked Aristarchi's big head. She thought she had
made him betray himself.

"You had seen him then?" she said, with a question. "I suppose you
happened to see him just before he died, as your man saw the monk."

"Oh no!" answered Aristarchi, who was not to be so easily caught. "It
was part of the dying confession. It was necessary to identify the
murdered person. How should Michael Parados, the Greek robber, know the
name of the gentleman he had killed? He gave a minute description of
him. He said he had red hair."

"You are not a Greek for nothing," laughed Arisa.

"Did you ever hear of Odysseus?" asked Aristarchi.

"No. What should I know of your Greek gods? If you were a good
Christian, you would not speak of them."

"Odysseus was not a god," answered Aristarchi, with a grin. "He was a
good Christian. I have often thought that he must have been very like
me. He