Each of those villages had its own Saint, whose business it was to forestall accidents of this kind.  If they failed in their duty through incapacity or mulishness, nothing was easier than to get rid of them; there were others to choose from—­dozens of others, waiting for the job!  Thinking thus, the islanders gave vent to an immense sigh if relief.  They wished long life to their Patron Saint, with whose services they had reason to be satisfied.  Their own crops and lives were safe from harm, thanks to the martyr Dodekanus.  He loved his people, and they loved him.  He was a protector worthy of the name—­not like those low-bred bastards across the water.

CHAPTER XXXII

Mr. Heard had just finished his early Italian luncheon.  Sitting at his coffee and smoking a cigarette, in a mood of considerable contentment, he gazed over the mirror-like surface of the sea towards the volcano, whose pyrotechnical display on the previous evening had kept him awake to a late hour.  Yet another glistering day!  Each one warmer than the last, and never a change in the wind!  Presently he would retire for an hour or two into his cool and darkened bed-room.

One little thing troubled his mind.  There had been no reply to the note—­a kind of note of enquiry—­which he had left at the villa Mon Repos on the preceding day.  Though he knew little of his cousin, he could not help feeling anxious.  She was all by herself in that lonely little place, suffering—­perhaps, and too proud or too shy to complain.  Mr. Eames’ description of her had made him uneasy.  Why should she look as if she had seen a ghost?  What could that signify?  The bibliographer was a level-headed person, by no means given to flights of imagination.  Imperceptibly, he felt, there had been established an under-current of sympathy between himself and this solitary woman, whom everybody seemed to like.  She was different from the ordinary type; the kind of woman whom a man could not help respecting.  She contrasted favourably with some of his recent female acquaintances who, however charming or witty, dissatisfied him in this or that particular.  His cousin’s devotion to child and husband appealed to his heart.  She seemed to be perfect of her kind.

Africa had boiled most of the starch out of Mr. Heard.  But his acquaintance with some of the saddest and wildest aspects of womanhood only deepened his conviction of the sanctity of the sex.  Some called him old-fashioned or quixotic, because he was not altogether in sympathy with modern feministic movements; they called him an idealist, because he had preserved his belief in the sacred mission of women upon earth—­his childlike faith in the purity of their souls.  They were a humanizing influence, the guardian angels of mankind, the inspirers, the mothers, the protectors of innocence.  It pleased him to think that woman had softened harsh dealings between man and man; that