d told to me, the
tale of Captain Macedoine's Daughter? Behold it, transmuted into
something you would never recognize, as is the way of stories when a
novelist of romantic tendencies gets at them! And what I want you to
observe is that the inspiration, as far as I am concerned, was based
upon your brief yet intensely vivid projection of your life in that dull
street in a Saloniki _faubourg_, a street so like many of ours in the
_faubourgs_ of London, stretching away into dim, dusty distances; but
unlike ours in that beyond it rose ranges of hard, sharp mountains that
looked as though they had been cut out of pasteboard, and stuck against
a sky so unreal in its uncompromising blueness that it seemed to be
aniline-dyed. And as the days passed, and the story grew, here by the
blue waters of the Gulf I suddenly realized that the spell of the
dream-woman had been broken, that behind my story of Captain Macedoine's
Daughter another story was working out--the ghost of a story if you
like--the drama of the end of an illusion. My old antagonist had met her
match at last. She tried to frighten me with her slightly satirical
smile. She invoked the innumerable memories and sentiments in which I
had been born and reared. But she had met her match. I took her by the
arm and opening the door, thrust her gently outside. And then, while you
were down there in the garden, I went on to write the tale of Captain
Macedoine's Daughter.

There is another long-drawn shriek--the train is leaving the station
next to ours--and I take a last look out upon the well-remembered view.
Across the shining waters of the Gulf the lights of the city are
glittering already against the many-coloured facades, with their marble
and cedar balconies, their bright green jalousies and gay ensigns.
Already the war-ships in the _rade_ are picked out in bright points, and
the mast-head lights are winking rapid messages to each other. The
western sky over the headland is a smoky orange with pale green and
amber above, and the moon, an incredibly slender crescent of pure
silver, hangs faintly over Mount Pagos. It is quite dark down under the
cypresses, and a smell of humid earth mingles with the perfume of the
jasmine.

Yes, I am now quite ready. No, I have left nothing behind, except
perhaps....

Well, it is for you to say.

_Bairakli._
_W. M._

CAPTAIN MACEDOINE'S DAUGHTER

CHAPTER I

None of the men sitting in deck chairs under the