stories to tell, and he
reviewed the adventures of the monk and himself with such vivacity and
humor that the King nodded his head in delight, and even the priest
smiled indulgently at the recollection.

Kalonay had seated himself on one of the tables, with his feet on a
chair and with a cigarette burning between his fingers. He was a
handsome, dark young man of thirty, with the impulsive manner of a boy.
Dissipation had left no trace on his face, and his eyes were as
innocent of evil and as beautiful as a girl's, and as eloquent as his
tongue. "May the Maria Santissima pity the girls they look upon," his
old Spanish nurse used to say of them. But Kalonay had shown pity for
every one save himself. His training at an English public school, and
later as a soldier in the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, had saved him
from a too early fall, and men liked him instinctively, and the women
much too well.

"It was good to be back there again," he cried, with a happy sigh. "It
was good to see the clouds following each other across the old
mountains and throwing black shadows on the campagna, and to hear the
people's patois and to taste Messinian wine again and to know it was
from your own hillside. All our old keepers came down to the coast to
meet us, and told me about the stag-hunt the week before, and who was
married, and who was in jail, and who had been hanged for shooting a
customs officer, and they promised fine deer stalking if I get back
before the snow leaves the ridges, for they say the deer have not been
hunted and are running wild." He stopped and laughed. "I forgot," he
said, "your Majesty does not care for the rude pleasures of my half of
the island." Kalonay threw away his cigarette, clasping his hands
before him with a sudden change of manner.

"But seriously," he cried, "as I have been telling them--I wish your
Majesty could have heard the offers they made us, and could have seen
the tears running down their faces when we assured them that you would
return. I wished a thousand times that we had brought you with us.
With you at our head we can sweep the island from one end to the other.
We will gather strength and force as we go, as a landslide grows, and
when we reach the capital we will strike it like a human avalanche.

"And I wish you could have heard him speak," Kalonay cried, his
enthusiasm rising as he turned and pointed with his hand at the priest.
"There is the leader! He made my blood turn h