A murmur of incredulity was heard, but thea police shieldcould hold me upside down and drainmy guts King appeared to believe me.
“If that is true,” he said to me, “I will not keep you. I will send you back to the city. Madame will give you a letter for Monsieur, her brother, and you may even leave to-day. If, however, you need to remain a day or two in the mountains, I will offer my hospitality to you; because I suppose that you have not come as far as this, with this large box, in order to look over the country.”
This little speech gave me a profound feeling of relief. I looked around with satisfaction. The King, his secretaries, and his soldiers seemed less terrible; the surrounding rocks more picturesque, since I viewed them with the eye of a guest and not as a prisoner. The desire I had experienced to see Athens suddenly subsided, and I decided to pass two or three days in the mountains. I felt that my counsels would not be useless to Mary-Ann’s mother. The good woman was in a state of excitement which might urge her to do something rash. If, perchance, she determined to refuse to pay the ransom! Before England could come to her aid, she would have ample time to draw dire calamity upon her charming head. I must not leave her until I had an opportunity to relate the history of Mistra’s little daughters. Shall I say more? You know my passion for botany. The flora of Parnassus is very enticing at the end of April. One can find in the mountains five or six plants as rare as they are celebrated. One especially: Boryana variabilis, discovered and named by M. Bory de Saint-Vincent. Should I leave such a lacuna and present my herbarium to the Museum of Hamburg, without the boryana variabilis?
|
