"'The day of my wedding had already been fixed, when an imprudent person happened to point out to me the man who had done us a grievous wrong--the man who had torn our baby brother from my mother's breast, the man whom I hated even more and worse than those who had killed my father. Well, as you can well understand, I slew that man. Put yourself in my place, and tell me if you would not have done the same?
"'After that deed it was useless to think of marrying. I fled from Chios; I went to Smyrna. There I put myself at the head of a gang of robbers.
"'My life from that day was that of many _heydukes_; that is to say, we got by sheer strength what most people get by craft--our daily bread and very few of the superfluities of life. One thing I can say: it is that neither I nor any of my men ever spilt a single drop of Christian blood. It is true that I was the bane of the Turks, and I never spared them any more than they had spared us. I was beloved by the poor, with whom I often shared my bread; treated with consideration by the rich, who preferred having me as their friend rather than as their enemy; regularly absolved by the Church, whose feasts and fasts I always kept. I was only dreaded by the Turks, who set a very great price upon my head. Thus I got to be in some years a rich and powerful man. I left Asia Minor and passed into Europe, and then, feeling that I was growing old, I was about to retire from my trade, when--when you saved my life.'
"'And now,' I asked him, 'what are you going to do?'
"'What! That, indeed, is more than I know.'
"He remained musing for some time, and then he added:
"'When a man is without any ties, when he has drunk deep the free mountain air, when the woods have been his dwelling-place and the starry heaven his roof, when he has lived the lawless life of a _heyduke_, can he think of cooping himself up within the narrow walls of a house and live the life of other men?'
"He stopped for a while, as if lost in his thoughts, and then he added:
"'The girl I loved is married; my brothers whom I hoped to meet again, and for whom I had bought the ground our family once owned at Chios, are for ever lost to me--doubtless, they perished upon that dreadful day--therefore, why should I live to drag on a life which henceforth will be wearisome to me?'