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us as though we were aborigines. To be always subordinate and inferior in your own country— that is intolerable.”
    Conway nodded slowly. “All right—you put your country first. That still doesn’t equip you for a hard, dangerous mission.”
    “You talk as though I were a delicate little flower, Mr. Conway—as though I’d lived a very sheltered fife. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. I spent three months in an English prison in Spyros—for distributing illegal literature. I have also been beaten up in the street by the police. But that was really nothing.... Two of my friends, two boys still in their teens, were hanged a year ago. And even that is not the worst. I have seen terrible things happen—things I wish I could forget.... So you see , I am not a little flower.”
    “Maybe it was a hasty judgment,” Conway said. He was silent for a moment. “What had your two friends done ?“
    “They threw bombs. They considered themselves at war.”
    “Have you thrown bombs?”
    “No. I’m against violence and terror. Its results are too horrible.”
    “I agree with you.... What was that particularly frightful thing I heard on the radio while I was at sea— a description of some village where three young men who wouldn’t join your movement were mutilated and killed, as a lesson to others. Perhaps that wasn’t true. I don’t know.”
    “It was true. It was in Meos. I wasn’t in Spyros then— I’d been forced to leave because the police wanted me again, and I was already working for Victor—but I know it was true. It was the most ghastly thing that has happened —almost unbelievable.... There has been so much killing and being killed, so much hate and misery. I can understand that, to some people, violence seems the only way. The English have been so stupid and smug and deaf to argument. But I’m sure it’s wrong. My friends who were hanged were brave, so brave, but I think they were wrong, too. I think that real freedom will only come through reason and negotiation—however long it may take. And that, as Victor told you, is why we need Kastella.”
    Conway said, “Do you know Kastella? Have you met him?”
    “I met him once,” she said, her dark eyes lighting up. “The struggle was just beginning. I’d helped to organize a meeting for him, and afterward he shook hands with me. He is a fine, humane man, and a wonderful leader. He hates violence—he worked in the Resistance against the Nazis during the last war and saw more than enough of it then. He is clever and farsighted and patient. Once he is free, he will end the terror—he will negotiate a settlement, and the English will go. Then we shall have a peaceful and happy country again.”
    Conway said, “H’m!”
    “You sound unsympathetic, Mr. Conway—yet you are an Irishman; you should understand what it feels like to live under the English.”
    “In Ireland ,” Conway said, “that was a bit before my time. I can’t say I’ve any personal grudge against the English. There are no martyrs in my family.”
    “But you can’t have any love for them.”
    “I wouldn’t say I’d any love for them, no. I don’t like the way they’re always pushing other people around from the highest moral motives. I don’t like being pushed around myself, and I don’t like pushers. So I’m with you most of the way—I can quite understand why you want to get rid of them. Anyway, all countries want to run their own affairs—it’s natural.”
    “Then why did you look so cynical just now?”
    “You were so sure that everything would be fine afterward. You’re an idealist, Miss Sophoulis, you have belief and faith. Free Kastella, you say, and then we shall have a peaceful and happy country. Then, everything will be all right. But it never is. Often, it’s worse. Slavery can be comfortable and freedom can be hell. The dreams never come true.”
    “One can always hope.”
    “Oh, sure.... What I’m trying to say is that our