ON our return from the monastery we had the great joy of finding my brother at home, back that very day from Europe. I was so delighted I could hardly sit still. My happiness was dashed to the ground, when, in the course of the next half hour, he remarked that he must leave us in a few days to see the Bishop of Xanthy. I was speechless with disappointment until my mother said:
“Oh! that is lucky. The little one needs a complete change to become quite herself again. She can go with you.”
Thus it was quickly settled, and a few days later we set off. The first part of the journey was like any other. We went to Constantinople and took a train, which, after due deliberation, started, and in due time again—or rather, not in due time—reached Koumourtzina. There began what seemed to me our real journey, for we were now to travel entirely on animal-back.
We started on mules, in the afternoon, and rode for three hours at a smart trot. In front of us lay the forest of Koumourtzina. Geography hasalways been a closed science to me, so I have no idea where this is, except that it is somewhere in Turkish territory, and on the way to Xanthy.
It was near nightfall. We took a short rest at a small village, ate a hearty meal, exchanged the mules we had been riding for horses, and started out to cross the forest. There was a silvery moonlight over all the landscape, and the lantern which our guide carried, as he walked in front of the horses, blinded us more than it helped us. We asked to have the light put out, but thekouroudji, who was also the owner of the horses we were riding, insisted on the lighted lantern as part of the convention of the forest.
My saddle was made of camel-bags, filled with blankets and clothes, and the motion of the horse was smooth and soporific. I became drowsy from the long day’s ride, and now and then stretched myself in the saddle.
In the very heart of the forest my horse reared so unexpectedly that had it not been for the vast pillowy saddle I should have been thrown to the ground. My brother’s horse not only reared but whirled about like a leaf in a storm. Thekouroudjiseized the bridle of my horse and patted and spoke to him, while my brother, who was a very good horseman, managed to calm his own mount somewhat, and to keep him headed in the direction we wished to go.
“What is it?” I asked thekouroudji. “Why are they behaving like this?”
The Turk turned to my brother. “The effendi knows?”
“I’m afraid I do. They smell blood.”
“So they do, Bey Effendi. It is not the first time this accursed forest has been the grave of men.Allah kerim!”
He took hold of the bridles of both horses, and spoke to them in endearing terms. There is an understanding between Turks and horses as touching as the friendship between them and dogs.
From a monotonous and tedious journey, our ride, of a sudden, had become most exciting. Although the horses now followed thekouroudjiobediently, they whinnied from time to time, and shivered.
“Don’t be frightened,” said my brother to me, “and whatever happens keep your head, and don’t scream. Screaming will do no good, and it may lead to mishandling.”
“But can’t we go back, Mano?” I asked.
“We shall gain nothing by trying to. If a murder has been committed, we may come upon the corpse. If it is something else, we are already in the trap.”
Before I had time to ask him what he meant by this, a shot was fired over our heads, and, simultaneously, a number of forms emerged from the forest.
We were surrounded, and several dark lanterns flashed upon us.
“Halt! Hands up!”
“All right!” said my brother.
Five men glided close to us, and I saw three pistols pointing at us. I could now see our captors distinctly. They had on the Greekfoustanella, white, accordion-pleated skirts, stiff-starched, reaching to the knees. Below they wore gaiters ending in thetsarouchia, or soft-pointed shoes. Their graceful little jackets were worn like capes, with the empty sleeves flapping. The Greek fez with its long black tassel completed their picturesque costume.
I do not know whether Greek brigands are really any better than Bulgarian or Turkish ones, but the sight of their Hellenic costume lessened my fears considerably. It sounds very silly, but my warm and uncritical patriotism embraced all Greeks—even brigands. Impulsively I cried out:
“Yassas, pallikaria!” (Health to you, men!)
The brigand next me, whose large brown hand was on the neck of my horse, laughed.
“Yassu, kera mou!” (Health to thee, my lady!)
“What is it all about,pallikaria?” my brother asked.
“The master of the forest, hearing of your passing through, claims his privilege of makingyou his guest awhile.” The man laughed at his own pleasantry. “Will you dismount of your own accord, or shall we lend you our assistance?”
“Considering that you are five, and we are only two, and a half—” My brother had a philosophic way of accepting the inevitable.
“We are more than five,” remarked one of the men, pointing behind him into the forest with his thumb.
“You are plenty, in any case,” returned my brother, dismounting. He helped me from my horse. In French he said:
“There is a mistake. It is a long time since you and I possessed enough to attract these gentlemen; but be polite and friendly to them.”
The brigands ordered thekouroudji—who also accepted the whole occurrence with philosophic calm—to proceed to Xanthy and report that his charges were captured by brigands, who would shortly communicate with their relatives.
“Will he really travel for two days, just to carry that message?” my brother asked with curiosity.
“Crossing this forest is his business. He knows that, if he does not do as we say, this forest will become his grave.”
Paying thekouroudji, my brother bade him good-bye, and two of the brigands conducted him off.
They had told us the truth when they saidthere were others in the woods, for presently many more came up, and, with somewhat sardonic humour, bade us welcome.
“We are sorry to have to blindfold you,” said one, and took a big red pocket-handkerchief from his pocket, which he began to fold on the bias, for my eyes.
“Please,pallikari, do you mind usingmyhandkerchief?” I asked.
“If it will please you,kera mou.”
I handed him my handkerchief.
“Ma!that’s too small.”
“Can’t you use two together?” I asked, giving him another.
He took them and tied the ends together, then slipped the bandage over my eyes, while another held up the lantern for him to see by.
“Empross!” (Forward!) they said.
I felt a big rough hand take mine, and we started off into the thick woods. We were mounting gradually, and the underbrush became thicker. Presently I tripped and fell.
“MoreMitso!” my guide called to some one ahead. “Come back and make a chair with me to carry the little girl. She is stumbling.”
The other returned; they joined their hands together, and I took my seat on them, placing my arms around the men’s necks. I was neither frightened for the present nor apprehensive for the future: I was merely excited and enjoyingthe situation. My love of adventure was being gratified to the full, and for once the knowledge that we were poor was a satisfaction. As my brother had said, the days in which we had money were so long left behind that even we ourselves had forgotten them.
I felt sure that as soon as the brigands discovered their mistake they would let us go, the customs of the brigands being as well known as those of any other members of the community. Besides, had not my brother said it was all a mistake—and at the time my brother represented to me the knowledge of the world. I only hoped that the brigands would not realize it before we reached their lair.
Up, and ever up we went, the men sure-footed in spite of the underbrush. They halted at last, and set me down.
One of them whistled.
We waited a full minute, and he whistled again. Then one of them sang in a rich baritone the first lines of the Greek national hymn—
“Oh, Freedom! thou comest out of the holy bones of the Hellenes—oh, Freedom!”
“Oh, Freedom! thou comest out of the holy bones of the Hellenes—oh, Freedom!”
“Oh, Freedom! thou comest out of the holy bones of the Hellenes—oh, Freedom!”
“Oh, Freedom! thou comest out of the holy bones of the Hellenes—oh, Freedom!”
From somewhere in the vicinity another voice took up the refrain, and shortly afterwards there came a crash and a rattle of chains.
Some one took my hand again, and I felt that we passed through an opening. Now we were descending; and gradually the coolness of thenight air changed to warmth, and the smell of food came to our nostrils.
We stopped, and our bandages were removed.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. We were in a large low room, the floor of which was partially covered with sheep-skins. A fire was burning, inside a ring of stones, in the middle of the floor, which was the bare earth, and a man was sitting by it, cross-legged, cooking.
“Kali spera sas kai kalos orisete!” (Good evening and welcome!) he said to us. “The master will be in shortly. Pray be seated.”
We sat down on some sheep-skins, and I looked about me with interest. The longer I looked the larger the room grew. Its shadowy ends seemed to stretch off indefinitely. The ceiling was roughly vaulted, and I judged that it must be a cave, of which there are many in the mountains. Numerous weapons lay on the ground or hung on the walls, but there was nothing terrifying about the place.
Very soon the leader came in. He was a man of about forty, dressed in European clothes and unmistakably a dandy. He was tall and well-built, and his black hair was parted in the middle, and carefully combed into two large curly waves. His long black moustache was martially turned up at the ends.
He bowed to us as if he were a diplomat, and we his distinguished guests.
“Welcome to our mountainous abode. I am very glad to meet you.”
He shook hands with us warmly.
“We, too, are very glad to meet you,” said my brother; “but I cannot understand why you are taking all this trouble. What we could afford to give you would not keep you in cigarettes a week.”
“Are you quite sure, Mr Spiropoulo?”
“Good gracious, my dear sir,” Mano cried, “you don’t mean to say you takeusfor the Spiropouli?”
The chief smiled a most attractive smile it appeared to me; though my brother afterwards described it as fatuous.
“I hope you did not find the ascent too difficult,” the leader inquired solicitously.
“Two of thepallikariamade askamnakifor me,” I put in. “It was very nice of them.”
I have always spoken my mother tongue with considerable foreign accent, not having learned it until after I spoke French, German and Turkish, and this accent at once attracted the attention of our host. Gravely he asked:
“Did you acquire this French accent, mademoiselle, in the short time you have been studying the French language. Let me see, it is three months now since you passed through the forest before. That was the first time you left Anatolia, I believe—and one does not acquire a French accent in Anatolia.”
From Mano’s face I knew that he was troubled, therefore I refrained from being impertinent in answer to our host’s impertinence about my accent. The latter went on lazily:
“We were sorry to miss you before. We fully intended offering you our hospitality then—only you changed your plans so suddenly, and arrived a week before you had intended to. I am glad we were fortunate enough to secure you this time. One pines for social intercourse in the mountains.”
The leader’s Greek was excellent. It was easy to see that he must have been well born, or at least well educated. He stretched himself on a sheep-skin near, and called to the cook:
“A whole one, boys!” Then, turning to us: “No one will be able to say that we did not kill the fatted lamb for you.”
The cook, squatting by the fire, rose, walked over to an opening at one side of the cave, and called:
“A whole one, Steryio!”
Returning to the middle of the room, he lifted up a trap-door, which disclosed a large, bricked-up cavity, and began shovelling live coals and brands into it from the fire.
Mano opened his cigarette case, and offered it to the chief.
The latter accepted it, and examined its contents critically.
“They are good, Mr Spiropoulo,” he said withcondescension, “but I believe you will find mine better.”
From his pocket he drew his own case, and passed it to my brother.
“Excellent!” exclaimed Mano. “I know the brand.”
“They were a present from his Holiness, the Bishop of Xanthy.”
“Do you still give the church five per cent. of your—your revenues?” my brother inquired. “I heard his Holiness mention this devotion of yours to the church.”
Our host laughed pleasantly. “So his Holiness said that, did he?”
Two men came into the room carrying a lamb made ready for roasting. They held it while a third impaled it on a long iron bar. Then the bar was laid across two iron projections, over the bed of embers, and a handle was fitted to the end of the bar. One of the brigands squatted down and began slowly turning the spit, and the others shovelled more embers into the cavity underneath the lamb. We could feel the heat even where we sat.
We all watched with interest the man rhythmically turning the lamb over the fire. Gradually he began to hum a song in time to his turning. It was one of the folk songs about the Armateloi and Kleftai, those patriotic bandits who waged a guerrilla warfare against the Turks for yearsbefore the Revolution broke out in 1821. It is a period dear to the hearts of all Greeks; for it prepared and trained the men who, during the terrible nine years of the Revolution, were to stand up against and defeat the enormous armies of Turkey.
It is a period unique in the history of any nation, a period full of grandeur of individual achievement, and it has been immortalized inLaïkpoetry. I do not believe that there is a Greek to-day who does not know at least some of these long poems, composed by the Armateloi themselves, put to music by themselves, and transmitted to us by word of mouth, from father to son.
As the brigand at the spit went on with his song, it was taken up like an anthem by others, who began to swarm out of little cubby-holes in the sides of the cave, which were hidden from view by hanging sheep-skins. They squatted around the roasting lamb, or stretched themselves on the ground, and snatched at the song, here, there, anywhere; and the fumes of the meat mingled with the song, and the song became part of the meat; and all blended with the vaulted room, and the glorious white fustanella gleaming in the firelight.
One must be born under an alien yoke to understand what the love of one’s fatherland is. Until the last year the Greeks may have gained little in the estimation of the world,since a small portion of them wrenched themselves free from the Turkish yoke. But those who condemn them must remember that since the time of Alexander the Great, the Greeks have passed from one conqueror to another—escaping annihilation only by rendering their conquerors themselves Greeks in literature and thought. At last they fell under the yoke of a race which neither could learn their language nor cared for their civilization, and for four hundred years they dwelled under this Asiatic dominion.
On this night, in the brigands’ cave, I understood the power Greece had over her sons. These men were nothing but cut-throats. They would kill or mutilate a man for money: yet as they sang the songs of those other, more glorious brigands, who had striven for years in desperate fighting against the conquerors of their race, they seemed to be touched by something ennobling. Their faces shone with that light which comes from the holiest of loves—patriotism.
They sang with fervour, and when they came to the parts relating victories over the Turks, they clapped their hands and shouted, “So! so!”
From one song they passed to another, while the lamb ever turned in time to the music, and men brought chestnuts, potatoes, and onions, and roasted them in the edge of the smaller fire—always singing.
Of a sudden one man broke into a gay little song of the monasteries:
“How they rubbed the pepper, those devilish monks!”
“How they rubbed the pepper, those devilish monks!”
“How they rubbed the pepper, those devilish monks!”
“How they rubbed the pepper, those devilish monks!”
To the giddy words and the infectious tune, a dozen men sprang to their feet. They held out their handkerchiefs to each other, and instantly there was a garland of dancing brigands about the fire. It was our national dance, the Syrto, and they went through it with gusto and passion.
By the time that was over, the lamb was cooked. We were invited to sit round in a circle; the meat was torn apart with the hands, and a piece dealt to each person.
Each brigand crossed himself three times, and then fell to, ravenously. I enjoyed my dinner as much as they. My poor brother pretended to. As I learned afterwards, he was afraid that the brigands would kill us from mere annoyance, when they discovered that we were not the rich pair they believed they had in their possession.
The meal over, the brigands crossed themselves again devoutly, and thanked God, and His Son Christ, for the protection they had hitherto extended to them. Then they began to talk of their exploits. Far from being conscience-stricken, or in any way ashamed of their profession, they gloried in it; and being in constant warfare with the Turkish soldiery,theyfelt a really patriotic pride in their manner of life.
They told of running a certain Turkish officerthrough the heart without the slightest pity for the man, or shame of the deed. Was he not a Turk, their arch enemy, and the enemy of their race? Their point of view on the ethics of life was quite original to me, and as they boasted of the things they had done, something barbaric in me responded to their recitals. I loved them, and as for their leader, he was a real hero to me.
Again they passed from themselves to the heroic period of the Armateloi and Kleftai, when brigandage attained its apotheosis.
After the fall of Constantinople, the Greeks were powerless against the Turks. The other powers of Europe, during two hundred years, were too frightened to think of more than saving their own skins; and when, later, they did interfere in behalf of the Christians under the Ottoman yoke, they did so only as an excuse for their personal gain.
Thus the Greeks had to depend on themselves, and in time the flower of Greek manhood took to the mountains. Then the wrongs done by the Turks, to their weak and defenceless fellow-countrymen, were fiercely and brutally punished by these brigands. It was these Armateloi and Kleftai who put an end to the human tax which the Greeks had been forced to pay the conqueror. If a little girl was taken by force from a Greek home, the brigands would fall upon a Turkishvillage, and avenge the wrong on the women and children of the Turks.
It was a very rough form of justice; but gradually the Turks began to fear the brigands, and in this fear they became more considerate toward the Greeks.
That period, with all its ferocity and unspeakable brutality, was the period of modern Greek chivalry; for those men did not attack for money. They levied on the people merely for enough to live; but when they descended on them as avengers of their countrymen’s wrongs they were merciless—and they did rob the Turkish garrisons. In the Revolution of 1821, much of the powder used by the Greeks was Turkish powder, and many a Turk died by a gun he once had carried.
My brigands knew every one of the ballads of that time. They snatched them from each other’s mouths, and recited them with no little talent and dramatic power. They passed on to the Revolution itself, and to the poetry which followed afterward. It was then Mano and I joined in. At that time I knew the poetry of the Revolution better than I have ever known any other subject since. Mano and I recited to them the poems of Zalakosta and of Soutzo, of Paparighopoulo, and of the other great poets who were inspired by the exploits of the Greeks from 1821 to 1829.
The enthusiasm of the brigands became tremendous. These poems, unlike those of the Armateloi and Kleftai, are written in pure Greek, not in theLaïklanguage, and naturally they belong to the educated classes rather than to the people. My brother egged me on to recite, in a way foreign to his nature.
“Tell them the ‘Chani of Gravia,’” he cried.
This poem is one of the finest of modern Greek poems. It relates a fight which took place in an inn, during the Revolution, between a handful of Greeks and a Turkish army. In the middle of the night, during a lull in the fighting, the leader tells his men that death is certain, and that the only thing left them is to cover death with glory. It describes how, each seizing his arms, they burst forth upon their sleeping foes, and by the miracle that sometimes attends on noble courage cut their way through, and every man escaped.
In part, the poem may be apocryphal, but it is founded on fact, and thrills us to the marrow of our bones. It substantiates our claim to be descendants of the old, heroic Greeks. As I recited to them the “Chani of Gravia,” the brigands fell under its spell; and some of the love they felt for that glorious fight fell upon me too. I became a small part of that poem into which I was initiating them.
After I had finished, one of them called hoarsely:
“Say it again!”
I repeated it again, from beginning to end.
When the last line was ended, some of the men were weeping.
“We shall yet drive out the Turks—by the help of God, we shall!”
They were still deeply moved by the poem when my brother spoke to them.
“Pallikaria, you have just heard the little girl reciting to you what can only be learned in an educated home.” He turned to the leader: “You cannot now believe that the child’s unfortunate accent is an affectation, acquired in the last few months.Pallikaria, you cannot for a moment think that my little sister is the Spiropoulo girl, coming out of a parvenu home, with money the only tradition.”
Again he turned to the leader:
“I take it that you speak French. Speak to her and to me in it, and satisfy yourself that we know it. Some of your men here are from Albania, and undoubtedly they know Italian. She can talk with them in that language. Will not all this prove to you that she has lived out of Anatolia all her short life?”
“Who are you then?” cried the leader, but before we could answer he ordered us to remain quiet. He disappeared behind a sheep-skin, and returned with a paper and pencil, which he handed to my brother. “Write here your name andthat of the little girl. Write also from where you come, and whither you are going.”
My brother wrote all he was asked to, and returned the paper to the leader.
The latter read it, surprise and anger mingling on his face. He turned to me:
“Your name?”
I gave it.
“Your brother’s?”
I gave that, too.
“Where have you come from?”
I told him.
“And where are you going?”
Again I told him.
He tore the paper into bits, in a fury.
“Anathema on your heads, you idiotpallikaria!” he cried. “You have captured the wrong people, while the others are now escaping us.”
“I happen to have read in the paper,” put in Mano, “that Spiropoulo and his sister are going by boat to Myrsina, and thence to their homes.”
There was consternation among the bandits.
“We have very little,” my brother continued. “Take what we have, and let us go.”
“Oh, please! please!” I implored, “do not take my ring. It is the only piece of jewellery left to me.”
“Here! here!” one of the men exclaimed;“we are not in the habit of sheering lambs—it’s sheep’s wool we are after, eh, captain?”
The leader did not reply to him. He was regarding us, more in sorrow than in anger.
“When I shook hands with you to-night,” he remarked, “I felt as if I were shaking hands with thousands of golden pounds. And now——”
He wagged his head, like a good man upon whom Fate has played a scurvy trick.
“We shall get Spiropoulo yet,” said one of the men hopefully. “He has entirely too much money, and we have too little. Our motto is ‘Equal Division.’”
“You’re right,pallikari,” another assented, and the two shook hands.
By this time it was the small hours of the morning, and the party began to break up.
Some of the men rose to their feet, put on theirkosocks, saluted the leader, and started off on their business. By the entrance was a large icon of St George, their patron saint. Each brigand, before going out, halted in front of the icon, made the sign of the cross, and reverently kissed the hand of the saint.
“Come with me, my holy Saint,” each implored.
I almost giggled at the idea of St George going with them and assisting in the capture of harmless men.
Then the lanterns in the cave were put out; but first two small oil lamps were lighted, one tobe placed in front of the icon of St George, and the other in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary, which stood in the depth of the cave; for no pious Greek will leave the icon of a saint in darkness, and many poor persons will go without food in order to buy the necessary “oil ofkandilla” for their icons.
All of the remaining brigands, before lying down on their sheep-skins, stood for a minute in front of the icon of the Virgin silently saying their prayers; and then I heard them saying aloud, after kissing the feet of Mary:
“Guard us and keep us healthy and strong, our dear little mother; and now good night, little mistress of heaven.”
They crossed themselves with a piety befitting monks, and I had to stuff my handkerchief into my mouth to keep from betraying myself.
Then slumber descended upon the cave. The fire had died down, and only the dim rays of the two little oil lamps illumined the great room.
It was harder for us to go to sleep than it was for the brigands. In the first place, the sheep-skins they had given us were alive with fleas. Mano lay close to me, keeping his arm around me.
The events of the day had excited me tremendously, and my brain would not rest. When we alone seemed to be awake, I whispered:
“What was that blood which frightened ourhorses? Had the brigands already killed some one?”
“No, I believe it was only the blood of some animal. They often sprinkle the road with it in order to terrorize the horses and assist in capturing the travellers. But now you must go to sleep.”
I was young; I had ridden many long hours; and fleas or no fleas, brigands or no brigands, I fell asleep.
The strong smell of coffee wakened me in the morning. My brother already held a cup of it.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“I must have—but look at my hands!” They were dotted with red bites.
The cave had lost something of its romantic appearance of the night. There were only three brigands in the room, and they were busy preparing food. One of them got a towel, or what served for one, put a few drops of water on the end of it—water seemed to be very scarce with them—and brought it to me to wash my face and hands. He was a very kind young brigand. He brought me some food, and a cup of the strongest coffee I ever tasted.
He watched me eat as if he had been my nurse, and when I was finished, asked a trifle sheepishly:
“How did you learn so much poetry?”
“Out of books,” I replied.
“Then you can write, too?”
“Very well,” I asserted complacently.
He became visibly embarrassed. Finally he blurted out:
“Just write out for me the ‘Chani of Gravia.’ Write it twice—no, three times, for I shall always want to read it two or three times.”
I not only wrote it twice for him, but taught him to spell it out—or rather to memorize it; for his scholarship was very rudimentary, while his memory was excellent. I spent most of the time in this occupation.
During the course of the day we were told, quite unsensationally, that in the evening we might continue our journey.
At nightfall we parted from the brigands with cordial expressions of friendship on both sides. They shook hands with us, and many of them assured us they had enjoyed our stay very much, and were sorry to see us go. Only the leader was sulky in his manner. “I thought you two were worth thousands of pounds,” he repeated grudgingly.
“The ‘Chani of Gravia’ was worth all the trouble we took,” my pupil hastened to say, as if he feared we might be hurt by the lack of cordiality in his chief.
We were again blindfolded, and two of the men led us out of the cave and back to the place where they had captured us.
How they had obtained horses, I cannot imagine, but we found horses waiting for us.
I rode away with an exhilaration I could not calm.
“If I were a man,” I said emphatically to my brother, “I should become a brigand. It is a beautiful life.”
For the leader, with his curling hair and his black moustache, I felt an especial admiration, in spite of his stand-offishness. He was long my ideal of a hero; and it was one of the bitterest disappointments of my girlhood when, some years later, in a fight between his band and an overwhelming number of Turkish soldiers, he alone of all his men put up a pitiful fight, and died like a coward.
I wept when I read about it, not for him, but for my lost ideal—for the trust and admiration I had placed on a man not worthy to be a leader of Greek brigands.