THE VINTAGE
"One more chance," said the man. "Will you tell us?"
Mitsos had shut his eyes, and he clinched his tecth to help himself not to speak. For a moment they all waited, quite still.
"Then up with him," said the man.
He waited for the choking tension of the rope, still silent, still with clinched tecth and eyelids. But instead of that he felt two hands on his shoulders, and fingers at the knot behind, and he opened his eyes. The third man, who had been silent, was standing in front of him.
"Mitsos," he said, "my great little Mitsos."
For a moment the world spun dizzily round him, and he half fell, half staggered against Nicholas.
"You!" he said.
"Yes, I. Mitsos, will you forgive me? I ought to have been certain of you, and indeed in my heart I was; but I wanted to test you to the full, to put the fear of death before you, for it was necdfal that I should give convincing proof to others. My poor boy, don't tremble so; it was necessary, believe me. By the Virgin, Mitsos, if you had hit one hundredth part of a second sooner one of these men would have gone home with no nose and fewer teeth. You hit straight from the shoulder, with your weight in, your fist. And that double you made up the hill was splendid. Mitsos, speak to me!"
But the boy, pale and trembling, had sunk down on the ground with bent head, and said nothing.
"Here, spirits," said Nicholas, and he made Mitsos drink.
He sat down by him, and with almost womanly tenderness was stroking his hair.
"You were as firm as a rock," he said, "when you stood there, and I saw the muscle of your jaw clinch."
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