Maria slipped down from her mule and spoke low to Priketes.
"And oh, father, there is something more, but I cannot remember the words I was to use; but I know what it means, for Mitsos, the nephew of Nicholas, told me."
"It is this: if you have guns stored in readiness southward, get them back. It will not happen just as Nicholas expected. You will want all your men and arms here."
"I know not; but in a few days Mitsos will come from Patras. Oh, you will know him when you see him--as tall as a pillar, and a face like a spring morning or a wind on the hill--and to see him does a body good. He knows and will tell you."
"I will expect Mitsos, then," said Priketes. "You will stay here to-night; there shall be made ready for you the great guest-room--for you are an honored guest--the room where the daughter of an emperor once lodged."
"I could get back to some village to-night," she said. "I ought not to delay longer than I need."
"And shame our hospitality?" said Priketes. "Besides, you are a conspirator now, my daughter, and you must use the circumspection of one. What manner of return would you make at dead of night to where you slept before, with no cause to give? To-morrow you shall go back, and say how pleased your novice brother was to see you--and the lie be laid to the account of the Turk, who fill our mouths perforce with these things--and how you had honor of the monks. Give your mule to the lad, my daughter. It shall be well cared for."
So Maria had her chance, and took it. An adventure and a quest for the good of her country were offered her, and she embraced them. For the moment she rose to the rank of those who work personally for the good of countries and great communities, and then passed back into her level peasant life again. Goura, as it turned out, took no part in the deeds that were coming. Its land was land of the monastery, and the Turks never visited its sequestered valley with cruelty, oppression, or their lustful appetites. Yet the great swelling news that came to the inhabitants of that little mountain village, only as in the ears of children a sea-shell speaks of remotely breaking waves, had to Maria a reality and a nearness that it lacked to others, and her life was crowned with the knowledge that she had for a moment laid her finger harmoniously on the harp which made that glorious symphony.