Читать книгу Like Another Helen - George Horton - Страница 5

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It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at the foot of the tremendous rocky dam which they must scale to reach the village. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the dozen or more rivulets that were racing and leaping downward glittered like molten silver. From the bed of the ravine not a house was visible. Lindbohm made a trumpet of his hands, and, looking upward, shouted lustily, drawing out the last syllable of the word as though it were a vocal telescope.

"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!"

A girl came to the edge. She appeared to be standing on the top of a wall. She was floating in sunlight; she was glorified. Tall, straight, deep-bosomed, she wore a skirt of blue home-spun and a short jacket of the same material, with sleeves that were white from the elbows down. Her hair, that was in reality a soft brown, seemed of gold; one massive strand fell over her bosom quite to her knees. Her face was oval, the features as clearly cut as those of a goddess. Her large brown eyes, wide apart beneath a low, broad forehead, beamed with fearless innocence and wonder. On her left shoulder rested a huge earthen water jug, two-handled, bulging near the top and dwindling at each end. Her right hand held this in place, and her left rested on her hip.

"What is it, strangers?" she called down, in a winning voice.

"Sphakiote," said Michali.

"What's sphakiote?" asked Lindbohm; "Greek for goddess?"

The Cretan shouted back a few words of explanation, and the maiden disappeared. Ten minutes later the edge was lined with the citizens of Ambellaki; tow-headed children, women, old and young, tall pallikaria, boys and maidens. All the males, of whatever age, wore high yellow boots, voluminous blue trousers and soft red fezzes, that broke across the crown and fell backward, ending in a long black tassel. The women and girls were for the most part attired like the maiden who had first appeared, though several of them wore handkerchiefs tied about their heads.

"Here's the demarch," shouted a chorus.

"And Papa-Maleko," cried the rest, as though in response.

A majestic old Cretan, with two silver-mounted pistols and a long pearl-handled knife in his belt, took his place in the middle of the line. He was soon joined by a priest in venerable robes and tall hat. Curtis imagined that the inhabitants of some comic opera town had come out on the walls to hold parley with himself and his two friends. He wondered what character he was, but his foot hurt so that he was unable to make up his mind.

… imagined that the inhabitants of some comic opera town had come out on the walls to hold parley

"What is your business with us?" asked the demarch, pompously, remembering that he was acting in official capacity in the presence of his entire constituency.

Michali explained at length. His story threw the listening Cretans into a state of great excitement. Several of them had lighted the beacon for the guidance of the Holy Mary. Two or three youngsters, letting themselves down from the edge of the natural battlement, descended by means of shrubbery and jutting stones, sprawling in midair like huge spiders. On reaching the bottom, they commenced an animated conversation with Michali, the upshot of which was that they must all go up as the youngsters had just come down, and that it was very easy if you had courage. In proof of which, a boy of fifteen sprawled skyward again, looking back every moment to laugh and shout "Enibros!"

"I can do it easily," said Michali, with pride. "All Cretans can climb, if some of them cannot swim. Can you follow me?"

"I can certainly try," replied the Lieutenant.

Finally Michali and Lindbohm concluded to mount, and consult with the citizens as to the best means of assisting Curtis to the top.

"There's some other way to get up," suggested the Cretan, "only they are suspicious of us as yet, and will not tell."

Michali, true to his boast, climbed the face of the terrace with the greatest ease. Lindbohm reminded Curtis of the frog and the well in the mental arithmetic.

"How long will it take him to reach the top," he mused, "if he stops to rest during every seventh minute?"

He was a genius at mental arithmetic and had nearly figured out the proposition to submit it to Lindbohm, when he heard people shouting above. Looking up, he perceived that they were letting down a long rope, and that several young Cretans, accompanied by Michali, were coming with it.

"Put it around your waist," explained the latter, "they will pull on the other end, and so you will go up, slowly, slowly. You can use your hands and the good foot to help and to keep yourself away from the stones and bushes."

Several pairs of strong hands pulled Curtis safely up the wall, and he found himself in the public square of a picturesque little village. White, two-story houses surrounded an open space, in the midst of which stood an immense platane tree. Under this latter were four rickety tables and a dozen or so of chairs, for the accommodation of those who chose to enjoy the beauties of nature in the open air and partake of the mayor's coffee or masticha. The mayor, be it observed, was proprietor of the only refectory the town was large enough to support. The influence of the saloon in politics is felt even in the mountains of Crete.

Lindbohm and the priest rushed forward and assisted the American to one of the chairs. The mayor brought another and tenderly placed the lame foot upon it, shouting, meanwhile, a storm of voluble orders, in a good-natured, blustering voice. Michali arrived and interpreted, for which Curtis was thankful, as he did not understand the mayor's guttural, rapid Greek.

"He bids you welcome in the name of all Ambellaki! He has ordered you a glass of masticha. Ah! Here it comes now. You are to stay in the priest's house, who will say a prayer over your foot as soon as he gets you home."

The group was by this time surrounded by the entire population of the town, or as much of it as was not out in the vineyards, or on the hills with the sheep and the goats. Curtis rose on one leg.

"Behold the human stork," he exclaimed in English, because he did not know the Greek for "stork."

"What does he say?" asked the demarch. Michali explained the joke at length. "He compares himself to a stork, because a stork usually stands on one leg. He, being lame, and unable to stand on both legs, rests his entire weight on one, like a stork."

"But he does not at all resemble a stork," objected several voices.

"They say you do not resemble a stork," explained the interpreter.

"O, thanks! But I was joking. Don't you Cretans understand a joke?"

"He says he is joking, and he fears we do not understand a joke."

"It is a joke, my children," cried the demarch, "an American joke, and it is the part of hospitality and politeness to laugh," whereupon he smote the table with his mighty palm and burst into a roar of Olympian laughter. The constituency looked on in silent amazement.

"Laugh, you donkeys!" cried the demarch. "Laugh, I command you. Are we uncivilized like the Turks?" And he strode threateningly toward the group, which broke in all directions and darted for cover. They laughed, however, long and conscientiously at first, but, ere they had ceased, a genuine ring crept into their mirth. The priest and the demarch assisted Curtis to his temporary residence. On the way shockheaded boys looked out at him from over ruined walls of adobe and cobblestones, and, pointing their fingers, cried, "There goes the stork!" and girls peeping from behind doors or pushing their blooming faces through screens of trellised vine, giggled, "How are you, Mr. Stork?"

Curtis' name was seldom asked in the mountains of Crete. He was known and is to this day, as Kyrios Pelargos—Mr. Stork. As soon as opportunity presented he made a new head in his note book and entered the following observation:

"Character of the modern Cretans. First: Extraordinary sense of humor."