lightest wish actually argued with me:

"Father, there are other confidences which have to be respected in like
wise. Bear with me, dear, till I have told you all, and I am right sure
that you will agree with me. I ask it, father."

That settled the matter, and as I could see that the gallant gentleman
who had rescued me was swaying on his feet as he waited respectfully, I
said to him:

"Rest with us, sir. We shall watch over your sleep."

Then I had to help him, for almost on the instant he sank down, and I had
to guide him to the rugs spread on the ground. In a few seconds he was
in a deep sleep. As I stood looking at him, till I had realized that he
vas really asleep, I could not help marvelling at the bounty of Nature
that could uphold even such a man as this to the last moment of work to
be done, and then allow so swift a collapse when all was over, and he
could rest peacefully.

He was certainly a splendid fellow. I think I never saw so fine a man
physically in my life. And if the lesson of his physiognomy be true, he
is as sterling inwardly as his external is fair. "Now," said I to Teuta,
"we are to all intents quite alone. Tell me all that has been, so that I
may understand."

Whereupon my daughter, making me sit down, knelt beside me, and told me
from end to end the most marvellous story I had ever heard or read of.
Something of it I had already known from the Archbishop Paleologue's
later letters, but of all else I was ignorant. Far away in the great
West beyond the Atlantic, and again on the fringe of the Eastern seas, I
had been thrilled to my heart's core by the heroic devotion and fortitude
of my daughter in yielding herself for her country's sake to that fearful
ordeal of the Crypt; of the grief of the nation at her reported death,
news of which was so mercifully and wisely withheld from me as long as
possible; of the supernatural rumours that took root so deep; but no word
or hint had come to me of a man who had come across the orbit of her
life, much less of all that has resulted from it. Neither had I known of
her being carried off, or of the thrice gallant rescue of her by Rupert.
Little wonder that I thought so highly of him even at the first moment I
had a clear view of him when he sank down to sleep before me. Why, the
man must be a marvel. Even our mountaineers could not match such
endurance as his. In the course of her narrative my daughter told me of
how, being wearied with h