I was lying on my back in the boat while Anastasia leaned against my chest, and the stars above shone more brightly than our church lamps. They were the same stars, and they were in exactly the same position above me, as when I had sat outside our hut at Delphi, and at last I imagined I was still there. Then there was a splash in the water, and the boat rocked violently! I cried out loud, for Anastasia had fallen overboard, but just as quickly Aphtanides had leaped in after her, and soon he lifted her up to me. We undressed her, wrung the water out of her clothes; and then dressed her again. Aphtanides did the same for himself. We remained on the water until their clothes were dry; and no one knew about our fright over the little adopted sister in whose life Aphtanides also now had a part.

Then it was summer! The sun blazed so fiercely that the leaves on the trees withered. I thought of our cool mountains and their fresh-water streams, and my mother longed for them too; so one evening we journeyed home. How quiet it was and how peaceful! We walked on through the high thyme, still fragrant though the sun had dried its leaves. Not a shepherd did we meet; not a single hut did we pass. Everything was quiet and deserted; only a shooting star told us that in heaven there still was life. I do not know if the clear blue air glowed with its own light, or if the rays came from the stars, but we could plainly make out the outlines of the mountains. My mother lit a fire and roasted the onions she had brought with her; then my sister and I slept among the thyme, with no fear of the wolf or the jackal, not to mention fear of the ugly, fire-breathing smidraki, for my mother sat beside us, and this I believed was enough.

When we reached our old home we found the hut a heap of ruins, and had to build a new one. A couple of women helped my mother, and in a few days the walls were raised and covered with a new roof of oleander. My mother braided many bottle holsters of bark and skins; I tended the priests' little flock, and Anastasia and the little tortoises were my playmates.

One day we had a visit from our dear Aphtanides, who said how much he had longed to see us; he stayed with us for two whole days.

A month later he came again, to tell us he was taking a ship for Corfu and Patras but had to bid us good-by first; he had brought our mother a large fish. He talked a great deal, not only about the fishermen out in the Gulf of Lepanto, but also of the kings and heroes who had once ruled Greece, just as the Turks rule it now.

I have seen a bud on a rosebush develop through the days and weeks into a full, blooming flower before I was even aware how large, beautiful, and blushing it had become; and now I saw the same thing in Anastasia. She was now a beautiful, fullgrown girl, and I was a strong youth. I myself had taken from the wolves that fell before my musket the skins that covered my mother's and Anastasia's beds. Years had passed.

Then one evening Aphtanides returned, strong, brown, and slender as a reed. He kissed us all, and had many stories to tell of the great ocean, the fortifications of Malta, and the strange tombs of Egypt. It all sounded wonderful, like a priestly legend, and I looked at him with a kind of awe.

"How much you know!" I said. "How well you can tell about it!"

"But after all, you once told me about the most wonderful thing," he said. "You told me something tha

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