DORIS MOORE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17131, 9 April 1919, Page 6

DORIS MOORE.

BY GUY THOME,

COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XVll.—(Continued.) 1 The man started back and then peered , at his reflection. The old lips writhed! into a puzzled but triumphant smile. Ho turned to Mavrogodato. " Lordos," he said, " let this magician ■ do with me what you will; already lam twenty yeare younger. They will never take me back to PalamiJi now." Esau pushed him once again into his chair- " Now if you will only keep reasonably still," he said, "I shall have a chance to complete this work of ait. What did he say, Mr. Mavrogodato? " j "He i? quite pleased now, Esau. He says that ho is already twenty years younger." I " Wait a bit!" said tho comedian. I' They watched him, enthralled. Moment ' by moment the face changed, was moulded, and grow into another face under the l touch of that incomparable skill. I The dark complexion was lightened by I grease skilfully mixed and rubbed into the pores of the skin until it seemed the very 'texture itself. The beak-Kko nose was widened at each nostril by india-rubber pads, a suit of tweed, a collar and tie I were donned. The final touch was added by a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. ■ As Esau was standing back, regarding his handiwork with, joy, ProcoupiJefl I pulled Tluisos roughly from his chair and took him to the mirror againWhat appeared there was a tall, aristocratic man of middle ago, clean-shaven, i with black hair and eyebrows', a somewhat ' drooping and discontented mouth, wrinkles ] at the side of tho cheeks and eyes which j looked a little tired behind the gold- . rimmed glasses. Any day in London duri ing the season a dozen such men may bo met with in Piccadilly or Park Lane. Suddenly Esau stepped to tho end of the saloon and snapped off the electric lights. It was dawn, tho Water Witch was slowing down as she entered the harbour of Astros. The clear, blue-grey light floodod in from above. There was the clanging of a bell from, tho bridge, answered deep down in the engine-room. Esau took Thasos by tho arm. He bowed. He flourished his left hand. " Allow me," he said, " to introduce you all to my friend, Lord — ho hesitated for a moment. " Lord Eipus," Peter shouted' in uncontrollable glee. Tito door of the saloon opened. The fine ; prey lights of earliest dawn, the fresh seaborne air floated in. Daphno stood there, a dim figure in a fleecy wrap. I "I have slept all tho night long," she ' cried. " I know not what haa happened. Father, Peter, is it all right? Wo are not at Nauplin. What has happened? " I Peki was the first at the door of the ' faloon. 1 "Everything is going perfectly, sweetheart." he whispered. " I am so glad, but who is that? " Siho v*!;? looking at a tall, e'ean-shaven gentleman with gold spectacles. " Somebody new?" i "Yes, darling, a dear old friend of Esau's, who is going to help as a great deal." At that moment a small voice was heard. It twittered like the morning lark. " All! Daphne, my dear, here we are again! " The gtfl stared for a moment, and then ' foil upon the little man with a cry of joy. " Where havfc you been? Where have you been? " " Don't bo angry, Daphne. I havo mads it up with your father and Peter here. Even the incomparable Duck has forgiven mo. To tell tho troth, Daphne, i I felt compelled to take a little holiday I upon an island."

CHAPTER XVin. It was the evening ol the third day after tho Water Witch had swung into the harbour of Astros at dawn. , The cavalcade straggled over a high road winding'its way into the vory heart of the mountains of Argolis. The horses progressed at ft quick walk. The Greek hone is not trained to trot or amb'e, but travels fast at a walk, and can endure Iftnything. He will climb a mountain ! path like a goat and will never stop till lie drops. Proconpides and Thasis rode a little diead of the others. The old brigand chief, though shorn of his locks by such a very latter-day Delilah as Esau Duck, was his old self again. He had discarded tho sedate Bond Street clothes in which ho had landed. A habit more suited to his wishes had been provided for him, and he had donned it when they were ten j miles out of tho town. Huge baggy | trousers were tucked into high teaselled ' hoots. He wore an accordion-pleated j kilt of'thc Creek Highlander. A modern ! automatic pistol, with which he was childishly delighted when its mechanism was ! shown to him, was tucked into his broad j red sash. He rode with his right hand i upon his bip and his old brown eagle noso sniffed the dear air from which he had bcon debarred for so long. He led them now, a grand and eplondid figure,, to whom something of youth and power had returned. , The sun was sinking. They were riding up a deep gorge, the two Greeks in front, Daphne and'Poter following them d a distance of soma fifty yards. Tho lovers eat easily upon the wooden-framed saddles, covered with rugs. They had adopted the native custom, and sat sideways on the samari. _ It was a change from the ordinary position, and eminently adapted to the quick walk of their steeds. Where they rode was chill. They passed throuc'h black shadows where the dew was falling and the sound of their 1 passing echoed in the rocky pass with a I weird and eerie noise. Daphne shuddered and put <wt her I hand to Peter. " We are getting very close now, dear," ' she said. " Thasos has promised us that i we shall camp to-night within » stone's ; throw of the end of all our endeavours, But I feel now as if we were walking through the Valley of the Shadow." Peter swung himself easily into tho astride position and leant over toward* her. towering abeve her, & strong, confident figure. " My darling," he said, " there are m shadows. It is all illusion. We an coming into our own at last!" He had hardly spoken when the curving . road took a sharp turn. | The Greeks in front quickened up theii i horses. The lovers followed and a grea' bar of crimson suddonly irradiated thi path as they turnod the outcrop of tin hill. Then from cold and purple slm dow they were standing in a hauntinj brilliance of light which made them catcl their breath at the wonder and glory o it. The sun was sinking and about t< say good-bve. But ho flung his largess* still upon "them. Immediately in fron the road lost itself on a high plateai covered with undergrowth and winter hea ther, now painted old gold and royal pur pic by the !'ast spear-like rays. Thasos and Procoupides had pnsho< their horses onwards. They were pcrhap two hundred yards away, the animals knee deep in the heather and horses and rider outlined in dark silhouette against tin glowing pavements of the sky. Daphn and Peter reined in. There was a sown of hoofs behind them, and Mavrogodato the professor and Esau trotted up. Be hind again, still in the dark gorge, th narty heard the tintamirre of the baggagi Worses, riddon and led by three bold rtu fianß lent for the expedition by Miliotis. ' Mavrogodato touched his horse with hi heels and cantered up to his daughter am her lover. He was breathing rather heav j ily. like a man who had been running. A milo away over the rolling purpl I plain rose an abrupt hill. It was not par 'of the great chain of mountains tha j bounded to the horizon beyond. It ros out of the plateau to the height of gom

our hundred feet, like a sugar loaf set moil a tabic. The very last lights of the sun were louring upon it, and they saw that this onely pinnacle, in the cehtro of the vast •lain, was crowned with white walls and >illars of gleaming marble. It glowed .here like a great pearl. I "It is there! It is there! " Mavrogolato said, and dropping his reins, ho put v lis hands to his face and burst into a >assion of tears. From the two pioneers beyond there ;, :ame a single bugle note. , c Peter saw Thasos raise his arms on high md.a great voice, musical as the bay of a iunting hound, surged back to them. ( , "Kalos Orissate! Kalos Orissate!" , Daphne, who was a perfect horsewoman, turned her horse and pushed to her ather's eide. She put her arm round hi ihoulders and he embraced her. * Suddenly lie gave a great gulp and * nraed to Peter, whose head was Dotted lpon his breast in silence. "Peter," he said, "forgive me for ( )reaking down. My father lived all his c ife, I have lived all my life up to the jresent, foe just this moment! " ' Then he, too, raised his head and cried £ ,he great. Greek salutation. "Kalos, kalos { Hisscte!" . , , , I The distant Acropolis sfemed to gleam nore brightly in answer. It shone for one brief moment in lovely radiance of rose ind pearl. Then the sun sank behind the , far mountain peak and battalions of grey shadows coursed over the moor to meet mi enfold them. Procoupides trotted back to them. " What is your wish, Lordos? ' ho said to Mavrogodato. "There is water here not, i hundred yards away. It is ft good place for a camp, or shall wo press forward to i the citadel and camp among the ruins* " press forward, press forward. 1 am impatient to be there. We can then begin i the search at dawn." J He gave the word to the rest of the » party, and through the lengthening shadows, with the undergrowth often up 1 to the girth of the saddles/ they moved slowly over the plateau towards the Acropolis. „ ~ ' "It is the Acropolis of Pallantion, said , tho professor, " one of the lonliest and |. most forgotten in Greece. Mycen» and . Tiryns have been rifled of all their trea- | mm, but Pallantion has been left undisturbed. Some German savants and excavators made a superficial survey some • ten years ago, but they decided it was . no good to proceed further and that there , was nothing to bo found there." . "Strange," Mavrogodato joined in, ; " that this, after all, should be the goal , we have sought ec many years. 1 should never have dreamt it for a moment had not my long researches brought me at last ( to Thaaos, and he supplied the missing j link-" „ . . "There was a legend," he went on, , straining hia eyes through the diiflk, that - it was here Praxiteles killed Kntois, the \ sculptor of the bear. There is no actual | proof that Praxiteles ever slew his rival, only the strong presumption that they met in some secret place and that the lesser master perished." " None of the country people will ever i 00 near that Acropolis,'" said Thasos with , a. little laugh. " There «no village within sixteen miles, but none of the people there will draw near Pallantion. it was so in my youth, and it is eo to-day. It is said to be haunted by evil spirits, and again he laughed strangely. "Why do you laugh, my friend? asked 'Mavrogodato. " Well do I know that citadel and well did my father know it before me. The spirits of thosold dead may indeed linger about it still,'and I will not say that 1 have not seen strange things there when; I was a young man. But it was there 1 and my 'band lived! That's why the peoplo "of Argolis fear and shun it still. We were mountain eagles then, Lordos, and swooped down upon the merchants. and the Turkish caravans as they brought, merchandise over tho Peloponnesas. An. i those were brave days! I have seen. . . His voice died away in a murmur and his head fell upon his breast as tho wild fierco past came back to him m a flood of memory. '. „ . '•It is like coming home to me. he said at length, " and it is there I would "Is there a good camping placo there? asked the prole: '. „ " There are a hundred camping places, the old man answered. " There, are deep tombs which none have yet fully explored; there are passages hewn out of rock. There are rained courts, a temple to Aphrodite, all roofless and fallen now. once let us win there, all tho soldiers of Greece will never take Thasos again. There is a well of clear water deeper than any man knows. Lordos, there are nine' of us wo have provisions and are wellarmed. Let us make our nest (here as in the old days and harry the country for fifty miles round. Malistu, then they i would hear tho name of Thasos, and my, long captivity be avenged." _ ! "What's old 'Lord Elpus saying? I Esau asked the professor; " the old gen- . tleman seams excited." The professor explained. " What a sanguinary old ruffian, a regular Ali Baba, isn't he? I don't think I see tnyslf as a member of a robber band, though, despite the recent lawless operations in which we have been engaged.' " It would hardly do, Duck," said the professor, " would 'it? But still I could imagine there are points about such a life." It was quite dark when they came to a rough and winding road covered with 2roat boulders which led up to the walls of the Acropolis two hundred feet above. Slowly and carefully they toiled up it, dismounting and leading the horses until thoy came out into an open space flanked on each side by Cyclopean masonry, which three thoueand yeaTßi. could not disturb. In front of them was 4i immense archway with sculptured lions fighting above it, as at the bettor-known Acropolis of Mycwu*. 'Once the peat nail-studded doors had hwtg there, but now it stood all open to the sky. ' " Let us camp here, LordoSj said Thasos. "We will not enter tho citadel until the moon is up. There are many end deep pitfalls within. It is a labyrinth in which even I do not wish to try 3,nd find my way in the dark. During the' forty-five years since I have seen it, columns may have fallen and pavements subsided. 'We shall be better at the gatewav." "And your nephew, Mitsos? " Mavrogodato asked. " Ho should be hidden within by now,' said the old man, " for I caw trust him to have shaken off his pursuers and not to have approached this secret spot until they had lost him. He knows the place in which ho is to await me, and he has had ample time, for he should have arrived yesterday. But wait till the moon conies." Thev pitched camp. Tho pack horses were 'unloaded and the tents run up. A fire of brushwood lit between two enormous blocks of slono which would effectually hide its lirjht from any wanderer below, or from the sides of the adjacent mountains, and supper was pre- , pared. They had ridden into Astros as fast as their horses could take them, only sleeping for five hours upon the first night of ; the journey. Now, they were all exhausted, except only Mavrogodato, who made merely a pretence of eating, and walked up and down before the huge dark . gateway like a sentinel. "I can't rest," he told Peter, who Dressed him to join the party by the fire. "It is no uso my dear boy. Think of what it means to me!" Peter understood. He also was sensible of a rising excitement and disturbance of the nerves, which he fought against. An excellent supper and a cup of "Mavrodaphne" from a great wine--1 skin 6oothed him, and after" a little chat with Daphne, who then retired to her ' tent for tho night, the young man threw 1 himself down by the embers of the fire, i under the shadow of a projecting block of stone, and fell into the Bleep of uttet exhaustion. He was wakened up by a sudden glare 1 of light and a sound of crackling brushwood. Pushing off the rug with which he had covered himself, he sat up, and found that Mavrogodato had just cast fuel on the fire and was sitting beside it smoking. "I did not wakim you, Peter," the big man said Boftly, "but you ought to have i been in your tent, for the night is cold." "I havo slept perfectly here, thank ■ you," Peter said, joining the other and i Llre'tching out his hands to the blare. 1 (To be continued on Saturday next.)