How the next hours passed he scarcely knew. He felt so utterly tired and beaten that he was hardly conscious of himself, his very weariness probably dulled his powers of sensation, and all he knew was that as he pushed on with limbs dropping from fatigue, eyes aching for very weariness, and a hammering of the pulse in his temples, the trees by the road-side seemed to pass, of their own movement, by him like ghosts. Now and then he tripped over the uneven, stony road, and it scarce seemed worth while to make any effort to recover himself; and more than once he felt and knew, but only dimly, that his trousers were torn on the stones, and his knees were cut and bleeding. He thought of the pony which had fallen and cut itself, and felt vaguely envious of its fate.
Lower down the pass where the hills began to melt into the plain it grew warmer, and in a half dream of exhaustion for a moment he thought that a treeless hollow of the hills was the bay of Nauplia, lying cool and dark beneath the night. Nauplia, the bay, the white wall--it seemed that that time belonged to a boy called Mitsos, but not himself; a boy who had been happier than the kings of the earth, whereas he was a foot-sore, utterly beaten piece of consciousness, that would plod along the white ribbon of road forever.
Then suddenly as he thought the sky lightened and grew gray with dawn, and the next moment the day had broken with the swiftness of the South, and when the sun lifted itself above the hills to the east, it showed him Tripoli all shining in the dawn, still about a mile off.
Mitsos stopped dead. He was too late. During the day it would be impossible for him to get into the governor's house, and during the day, some time before the blessed night fell again, the soldiers from Panitza would be there; Petrobey would have escaped, trusting to his getting to Tripoli first; and Yanni would be.... Who was Yanni? Oh, a boy he had travelled with once; they had had a fine time, and he believed he had promised to come and get him out of Tripoli....
Then suddenly with a sob he beat his hands together.
"Oh, Yanni, Yanni!" he cried; "little Yanni!"
There had been a white frost during the night, and the fields were all stiff and glistening. He had just enough sense to strike off the road and lie down under the shade of a tree, sheltered from the sun and untouched by the frost, and there rolled over on his side, and next moment was sleeping deep and dreamlessly like a child tired with play. There he lay without moving, one arm shielding his face from the light, and when he woke it was past mid-day, the blessed gift of sleep had restored him body and mind, the trouble in his brain had run down like the tainted water of a spate, leaving it clear and lucent, and the strength had come back to his limbs.