"So you have come," and she looked up. "Ah, it is day already," and she quenched an oil-lamp that was burning by her. "I was going to send for you and more men when day broke, for it was no good coming at night. I only stayed because I could not go away. Send for more men from our ship, little Mitsos, and you, Kanaris, from yours, for we must make speed, leaving only a few there and a few on the shore, who will send word if the Turks are seen. And let those on board be in readiness to sail at a moment. Ah!" she went on, with a sudden lifting of her hands indescribably piteous, "we should have come straight through Lepanto and chanced everything. Then, perhaps, we might have saved the place. This," and she clasped her hands together and then threw them apart—"this was the house from which my father took his bride. Ah, ah!"—and she took up her axe and fell to hewing at the beam again, like a thing possessed.
It was no time to waste words, and as soon as the fresh contingents came, some with axes, others with ship's cutlasses and capstan-bars, or anything that would help clear the wreckage, Mitsos and Kanaris went off and began searching the houses for those who might still be alive. They found that the massacre had taken place and been done with thoroughness before the burning began, and the devil's work had been carried out coolly and systematically. At the end of the street leading up out of the village towards the mountain there had evidently been some sort of combined stand made by the villagers, for there the corpses lay thick; and higher up on the path lay others who had run for their lives, only to be shot down by those infernal marksmen as they climbed the steep hill-side. But an hour's search was rewarded by Mitsos finding one man who still breathed, but who died not half an hour after; and farther on, in the front room of a house, he discovered a woman lying dead, while on her breast lay a baby, alive and seemingly unhurt, who pulled at its mother's dress crying for food.
Then he turned and searched the houses opposite on the other side of the street, but found nothing that lived, and so came back to the church, which stood with doors open, and being built of stone throughout, the Turks had not attempted to fire.
To make the search thorough, though not expecting to find any one there, he entered, and then stopped with a quick-drawn gasp.
No pillage had been done there, the place was orderly and quiet; a row of little silver lamps untouched and lighted hung across the church above the low altar-screen; a big brass candlestick stood on the left, filled with the great festa tapers, still burning. Only from the great wooden crucifix which stood above the altar the carved Christ had been removed, and in its place, fastened hand and foot by nails and bound there by a rope, was the figure of a young man, naked.
Mitsos paused only for a moment, crossed himself, and without speech beckoned to the others. The door of the altar-screen was locked, but putting his weight to it, he burst it open. Then, with three others, he mounted onto the altar, and lifting the cross from its place, laid it on the floor. The figure on it lay quite still, but there was no other mark of violence on it than the rents in the hands and feet made by the nails, and even as Mitsos wrapped a piece torn from his shirt round one of them to get a firmer hold, the lad stirred his head and opened his eyes.
"Fetch Kanaris," said Mitsos, to one of the men; "he has skill in these things."
One by one the nails were loosened and the limbs freed, and Mitsos carried the lad down the church out into the fresh air, where he propped him up against the door. The blood had clotted thickly round the wounds, and though the withdrawal of the nails had caused it to break out afresh, Mitsos managed to stay the flow by bandaging the arms and legs tightly where they joined the body, as Nikolas had taught him to do. The lad had fainted again, but one of the sailors, a rough Hydriot fellow down whose cheeks the tears were running, though he knew it not, had spirits with him, and poured a draught down the young man's throat, and in a little while he moved one arm feebly. Another had found his clothes laid by the altar, and Mitsos tenderly, like a woman, wrapped these round him as well as he could without jarring him, and then, lifting him gently off the stones where they had set him down, laid him across his knees, supporting his head on his shoulder.
Before long Kanaris came, washed and bound up the wounds, and, as the life began to run more freely and the hopes of saving him increased, arranged a litter with leaves and branches strewn on an unhinged door, and had him carried down to the ship.
When he was gone Mitsos went back into the church, and putting the carved image back onto the cross, set it again in its place above the altar. Then for that he had committed sacrilege in standing there, he knelt down before he left the church.
"Oh, most pitiful!" he said, "if I have sinned Thou wilt forgive."
When he got outside again the rest of the men had gone back to the work, but he paused on the church steps a moment, blind with pity and hate and the lust for vengeance, and with a heart swelling with a horror unspeakable. The wounds of that living image of the crucified should not cry to deaf ears. The very sacrilege that had been done seemed to consecrate his passion for revenge, to lift his human hate and pity into a motive of crusade for the wrong done to Christ. Blasphemously and in hideous mockery those incarnate devils had turned their inhuman cruelty into a two-edged thing, cutting at God and man alike. And with the Capsina feeding hate in the ruins of her mother's home, and Mitsos feeding hate at the house of God, it was likely that their ship had not been named amiss.
The work was over an hour or two before the sunset. The Capsina had found in her mother's house nothing but the dead, but, elsewhere, two women who were still alive, but died before the noon; Kanaris had found none, so that from what had been a flourishing village two days ago there were left only the young man with whom they had preferred to commit outrageous blasphemy, leaving the body to a lingering death rather than to kill, and the baby untouched by some unwitting oversight. Only a few bodies of Turks had been found—the thing had been massacre, not fight. As the Capsina and Mitsos were going down to the ship again in silence, he saw her turn aside to where a dead Turk was lying under a tree. She stamped on the face of the dead thing without a word, and followed by Mitsos, stepped into the boat that was waiting for them.
No sooner had all got on board than the Capsina gave the order to start. But before they had gone half a dozen miles the breeze failed, and, for the night was close upon them, they lay to waiting for the day, fearing that if a breeze sprang up in the night they might, by taking advantage of it, overshoot those for whom they were looking. The lad the Turks had crucified was on Kanaris's ship, where he would receive better doctoring than either Mitsos or the Capsina had the skill to give him, but the baby was on theRevenge.
They had not tasted food since morning, the Capsina not since the night before, and they ate ravenously and in silence. Once only during their meal did the Capsina speak.
"When I have hung those who did this thing," she said, "I may be able to weep for my own dead."
But when they had eaten, and were still sitting speechless opposite each other, a little wailing cry came from the cabin next them, and the Capsina rose and left the room. Presently after she brought the baby in, rocking it in her arms, and before long the child ceased crying and slept, and Mitsos, looking up, saw the girl weeping silently, with great sobs that seemed to tear her. And at that he got up and went on deck, thinking that it would be the better to leave her alone with the baby.
He awoke before dawn next morning to a haunting sense of horror and excitement, to which by degrees awakening memory gave form, and only throwing on his coat, went up. A thick white mist hung over the bay higher than where he stood on the deck, but it seemed to be not very thick, and strangely luminous. So he climbed up the rigging of the mainmast as far as the cross-trees and looked out. The sky was cloudless—a house of stars—in the west the moon was pale and large. They were not more than a mile from a rocky headland, which peered out darkly into the white mist farther down; perhaps a mile away another pointed a black finger into the water, and between the two the line of coast was lost, and Mitsos rightly supposed that they were opposite some bay. Then suddenly, with a catch of his heart, his eye fell on a couple of masts which rose pricking the mist scarcely half a mile distant, and looking more closely he saw the masts of two other ships, one to the right, the other to the left, a little farther off. And with fierce excitement he climbed down and went to the Capsina's cabin. In a moment, so quickly that she could not have been asleep or undressed, she came out to him with a finger on her lip.
"Hush!" she whispered, "the baby is asleep. What is it, Mitsos?"
"Three ships are lying not far from us," he said. "I make no doubt they are the Turks. You can see their masts from the cross-trees; on deck there is white mist."
"Where are they?"
"Between us and land, which is a mile off, on the entrance of a bay."
"Is there wind?"
"Not a breath; but when day wakes the wind will wake with it, and the mist will lift. The sun will be up, I should think, in an hour. There is the smell of morning already in the air."
The Capsina paused a moment, thinking intently, and went out on deck.
"Praise be to the God of vengeance!" she said. "Oh, Mitsos, pray that our revenge may be complete. See, this is what we will do. As soon as the wind comes we sail round them into the bay, Kanaris attacks them on this side. Send across to Kanaris at once. Saints in heaven, but how are we to find him in the mist? Go aloft again, lad; see if you can spy his masts: he cannot be far, for when we lay to last night he was close by us, and look out to see if there is a sign of wind coming."
Mitsos returned speedily. "He is not a quarter of a mile from us to seaward," he said, "and it is already lighter, and I see where we are: the farther cape is just this side Galaxidi. And oh, Capsina, there is a great black cloud coming up from the west; the wind may be here before the sun."
In a few minutes theRevengewas all alive, though silent and soft-footed, making ready, as a cat makes ready for its spring. A boat had put off for Kanaris's ship with Mitsos in it, who was to explain what their tactics were to be. All that they could be certain of was to take theRevengein between the land and the Turks, for they would get the breeze first, while Kanaris waited outside to stop them if they would not engage but tried to escape across the gulf. If they stood their ground he was to close in on them.
Mitsos was back again in less than twenty minutes, but already the jib, halyards, and upper and lower yards had been set, in case the wind came down on them, as so often happened in that narrow sea, in a squall; the men were all at their posts, the cutlasses and muskets were laid out in depots on the deck, if it came to a hand-to-hand fight, and the Capsina was on the bridge. Dimitri, who was a kind of first mate, being directly under Mitsos and the Capsina, was standing with her, and even as Mitsos joined them there came through the still thick mist the shiver of a sigh, and the jib flapped once and again. Then from down the gulf, without further warning, the squall was upon them; in a moment the mist was rent and torn to a thousand eddying fragments, theRevengeheeled slowly over to the wind and began to make way. For a short minute sea and land were as clear as in a picture; they saw Turkish ships lying half a mile off, to the northeast, at the mouth of the bay, and next moment the rain fell like a sheet. But that glimpse had been enough; there was room and to spare to pass between the nearer headland and the ships, and the Capsina pointed without speaking, and Dimitri roared his order to the men at the tiller. TheRevengetrembled and struggled like a thing alive; once the tiller broke from the two men who held it, and she sheered off straight into the wind again; but next moment they had it fastened down and they tacked off northeast, and for a minute the rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the ship threshed on through the ruffled water, gathering speed.
The men were ready at the guns, but the order had been not to fire till they were broadside. Already they could see a stir and bustle on the nearest Turk, and sailors were putting up the jib, as if to run out to sea. Then it seemed they sighted theRevengebearing down on them, and they hesitated a moment, and presently after Mitsos saw two or three ports being opened. But they were too late; by this time theRevengewas broadside, and all three batteries poured a deluge of shot into her, slipped past her like a swan, and fired again as she crossed their bows, leaving the three Turks, as the Capsina had intended, between her and Kanaris.
Once in the bay, the face of the squall reached them not so violently, for they were under shelter of the promontory close to which they had passed; but the Capsina ran on some half-mile before putting about. Of the Turkish ships they could see that the middle one, lying too close to the one on the leeward of it, had, in trying to put out to sea, fouled the other, and Kanaris observing this, hauled up his halyards, beat up a little way against the wind, and then, turning, fired a broadside into them. Meantime, the ship first attacked, whose foremast had been shot in two by the Capsina's broadside, had cut away the wreck and was making for the open sea, and seeing this theRevengewas put about, and making a wide tack to eastward, passed near the two which had fouled each other, and got in two rounds, with only the reply of one. Kanaris, whose business it was to stop any of them getting away, instantly put about to head the escaping ship, but the other slipped by him, and the two beat out to sea together.
The Capsina saw this.
"He will overhaul her in two miles," she said to Mitsos; "and now to our work again," and her face was grimmer than death and hell.
The other two ships were now free; but they saw at once that the one which had received the fire both of theRevengeand Kanaris was already doomed, and from minute to minute as they overhauled them she was visibly settling down with a cant to leeward. There was no doubt that she had been struck by one or the other below the water-line, and, indeed, as they neared her they could see the pumps vomiting water down her sides. She still carried sail, for they seemed to hope to get near the land before she foundered, but her sails dragged her farther over, until from the deck of theRevenge, now some three hundred yards distant, they could see both lines of bulwarks, with a strip of deck in between. Then they saw them begin to lower the boats, and at that the Capsina gave the word to fire, and Mitsos, thinking on the deeds of the day before, felt his heart laugh within him. At that range the heavy guns of the brig were the sentence of destruction, and their whole broadside went home, sweeping the decks and tearing fresh holes in her side. Already the list was so great that she could no longer reply, and as they neared her the Capsina again gave the command to fire.
Then was seen a disgraceful thing; for the second ship, still untouched, put about, leaving her companion a wreck at the mercy of theRevenge. But indeed there was little to be saved, and the Capsina, seeing the tactics of the other and not wishing to waste shot now the work was done, put down her helm and, passing by the bows of the disabled ship, went in pursuit. The other carried two stern guns, and she opened fire, but both balls hummed by harmlessly—the one missing altogether, the other just carrying off a few splinters from the starboard bulwarks; and in answer theRevengesheered off a moment into the wind, which was still shifting to the north, and replied with the three starboard guns of the upper deck. One shot went wide, but of the two others the bow gun made a raking gash in the stern of the chase, and that amidships, which fired a little after, took the rudder, smashing the rudder-post below the juncture with the tiller, leaving her simply in the hand of the wind. In a moment she swung round from her course and pointed straight across the bows of theRevenge.
On the instant the Capsina saw her chance, for in a second or two she would cross close.
"Let go the helm!" she shrieked; "get ready to fire starboard guns."
The tiller banged against the side, and theRevengeswung round into the wind, while every moment the two ships got closer to each other, and at a distance of not more than a hundred yards they were broadside to broadside. Then:
"Fire!" she cried.
For a moment they neither saw nor heard anything through the wreaths of their own smoke. Then, as the wind dispersed it, they saw the great ship a wreck on the water. She heeled over till the yard-arms dipped and the sails trailed in the water. The deck, they could see, was covered with men holding on, as if to prolong the bitterness of death, to whatever they could catch. Some climbed up the mast, others clung to the bulwarks, some jumped overboard. But the Capsina scanned it all with hungry eyes, and, as if unwilling to leave the feast, gave an order to shorten sail, and in the slackening speed ran to the stern of theRevengeto look her last on the drowning men.
Then she turned to Mitsos.
"We may leave them, I think," she said; "they are more than a mile from land."
Kanaris and his charge were out of sight, and theRevengeput about to the ship she had left before. She was sinking fast, but they saw that the crew had manned some half-dozen boats, which were rowing to land, and the Capsina called Dimitri.
"Sink all," she said.
The hindermost boat was not more than two hundred yards ahead, but the Capsina delayed her fire. Then, as they got within fifty yards of it, she walked slowly and calmly to the side of the ship, and spoke in Turkish.
"We are more merciful than those who crucify," she cried. And then, "Fire!"
The other boats seeing what had happened, and resolving, if possible, to sell their lives more dearly, got ready their muskets. But the Capsina saw this, and while they were out of musket range:
"The bow guns for the rest," she said. "It is good target practice."
Five out of the six boats had been sunk, and they were already preparing to fire on the sixth when a sudden pity came over Mitsos.
"Look," he said, "there are women in that boat!"
The Capsina shaded her eyes for a moment against the glare of the water.
"Turkish women only," she said.
"But women!" cried Mitsos, with who knows what memories of one who had lived in a Turkish house.
"There were women in Elatina," said the Capsina. "Fire!" Then turning to Mitsos: "Are you a woman, too?" she said—and suddenly her voice failed as she looked at him. "Mitsos, little Mitsos!"
And he looked at her, biting his lip to check the trembling of his mouth.
"Even so," he said, and turned away.
The first squall had blown over, and an hour of checkered sunshine succeeded; but in the west again the clouds were coming up in wind-tormented ribbons, and they had only just cleared the bay when a second hurricane was on them. For some three-quarters of an hour the wind had been slowly shifting into the north, and the wreckage of the ship they had sunk at the mouth of the bay had drifted a little out to sea, and they cut between drift-wood and masts and here and there a man still afloat. Where Kanaris and the third ship were they had no certain idea, but it was impossible for the clumsy Turkish ships to tack against a violent wind without having the masts crack above their heads, and this one, as they knew, was without its foremast, and must have sailed nearly down wind. The second squall was even more violent than the first, and theRevengescudded out to sea with only jib and halyards flying. As they got farther from the funnel of land down which the wind came, the force of it decreased a little, and they hoisted the upper yards on the mainmast. But for an hour or more they raced across a choppy and following sea, obscured by driving squalls of rain, before they sighted either. All this time the Capsina had hardly spoken, and Mitsos, standing by her, was as silent. But as they came in sight of the two ships, both running before the wind, she stamped on the bridge.
"Hoist this foresail!" she cried.
Mitsos looked up: the ship, he knew, was carrying as much sail as she could.
"You will lose your mast," he said.
The Capsina turned on him furiously.
"Let us lose it, then!" she cried.
"And you will go none the faster," he said. "More sail will only stop the ship."
"That is what they say," she remarked. "They say it pulls a ship over, and makes the bows dip. What do you advise, little Mitsos?"
"By no means hoist the foresail. Even if the ship can carry it you will go the slower," he said. "Is it an order?"
"Yes."
Then suddenly she turned to him.
"Do not judge me," she said, "for indeed I am not myself. When this is over, if God wills, I shall be myself again. Oh, lad!" she cried, "have you water or milk in your veins? Do you forget what we saw yesterday?"
Mitsos looked at her a moment, and caught something of the burning hate in her eye.
"I do not forget," he said. "But the women—oh, think of it!"
"I too am a woman," said Sophia.
Then, after a pause: "Ah, but look; is not the ship worthy of its name? See how she gains on them! Oh, Mitsos, go below if you will, and take no part in this. But I must do what I must do. Surely God is with us. Do you forget what you saw in the church? You do not. Neither do I forget the house of my mother."
Again the rain came on, a cold scourge of water, and in the lashing fury of the downpour both ships were again lost for a while.
Then there followed a raking gleam of sunshine, which struck the gray of the sea, turning it to one superb blue, and already they could see the figures of men on the ships. Kanaris was on the port side, trying evidently to head the Turk, and if she came on to give her a broadside, or if she declined to drive her back. The sea was rising every minute, and the three ships rolled scuppers under, and it was evidently out of the question for him, in such a sea and at the distance they were apart, to fire at her.
The Turk had made a good start against Kanaris, and though theSophiawas overhauling her, it was clear that she was no tub, and as they were both running before the wind, it was more a question of which ship could carry most sail than of seacraft; and for another mile or more they ran on, the two pursuing ships gradually gaining on the enemy, but not very rapidly. It was evident that she was making for some port on the southern side of the gulf, perhaps where she expected the second trio of Turkish ships, and it was this the Capsina wished to prevent. But the Turk saw that both were gaining on her, and knowing that the opposite coast must be at least nine miles off, hoisted the mainsail. The Capsina started in amazement as she saw the great canvas go up; the mast bent like a whip for a moment, but stood the strain, and she scudded off.
"It is desperate," she said to Mitsos; "she cannot stand it. In ten minutes she will be ours."
The Capsina was right; only a temporary lull could have let them get the sail up, and before many minutes the squall came down on them again; the mainmast bent, and then, with a crash they could hear from their ship, broke, and a great heap of canvas encumbered the deck.
"Two points to starboard!" said the Capsina. "Get ready to fire port guns!"
More rapidly than ever the distance diminished; theRevengecreeping up on the starboard side, theSophiaholding her course to port, until at length the doomed ship was nearly between them, and on the moment the Capsina gave the word to fire, and the broadside crashed into the Turk. A moment after Kanaris fired, and the Turk replied with a broadside to each. The Capsina did not wait to reply again, but sailed past her, and then put the helm hard to port, risking masts and sails, so that the ship swung round with her broadside to the Turk's bows some five hundred yards off. Kanaris, who kept his distance, fired again, and section by section, slowly and with deliberate aim, the Capsina volleyed at her bows. Steady shooting was impossible on such a sea, but some of the shot they saw went home, one hitting the bowsprit, and several others crashing through the bulwarks and raking the ship lengthways. No fire answered them, but her broadside replied twice or thrice to Kanaris, doing some damage.
The Turk was now practically a log on the water, and the Capsina, knowing there was time and to spare, made a wide tack off into the northeast, and returning on the opposite tack again closed up with the Turk from behind, putting a broadside into her stern.
At that there was only silence from the Turk, and the Capsina closed in again on the starboard quarter, signalling Kanaris to do the same on the port side, and as they approached they saw that the decks were strewn with dead. A company of men were marshalled forward with muskets, who separated into two companies, and manned the bulwarks on each side, waiting for the ships to come to a closer range.
But the Capsina laughed scornfully.
"I would not waste the life of a man on my ship over those dogs," she said. "Train the bow guns on them and do not sink the ship. Kill the men only."
The wind was abating and the sea falling, and in a quarter of an hour of the eighty or a hundred men who had been left they could only see sixteen or twenty. But these continued firing their muskets coolly and without hurry at the approaching ships, and a couple of men on theRevengewere wounded and one killed.
"I should not have thought Turks were so brave," said the Capsina. "Be ready with the grappling-irons! Port the helm! And be quick when we get in. Fifty men with muskets man the port side. Keep up the fire! Keep under shelter of the bulwarks all of you!"
TheRevengeslid up to the Turk's starboard quarter, and as they got within a hundred yards the Capsina gave orders to furl all sail; as the distance lessened, the irons were thrown, the ropes were pulled home, and the two ships brought up side by side.
A dozen Turks or so were still gathered in the bows, but as the crew of theRevengeswarmed the deck, they laid down their muskets and stood with arms folded. One of them, in an officer's uniform, was sitting in a chair smoking.
He got up with an air of indolent fatigue, still holding the mouth-piece of his pipe.
"I surrender," he said, in Greek. "Where is your captain?"
The men made way for the Capsina, and she walked up the deck between their lines.
"I am the captain," she said.
The man raised his eyebrows.
"Indeed!" and he laughed softly to himself. "You are too handsome for the trade," he said. "You are better looking than any of my harem, and there are several Greeks among them. Well, I surrender."
"For that word," said the Capsina, "you hang. Otherwise perhaps I should have done you the honor to shoot you."
The man blanched a little, and his teeth showed in a sort of snarl.
"You do not understand," he said. "I surrender."
"You do not understand," she replied. "I hang you. For my mother was of Elatina."
She came a step nearer him.
"If it were not that I hold the cross a sacred thing," she said, "I would crucify you, very tenderly, that you might live long. Oh, man," and she burst out with a great gust of fury, "it is you and what you did in Elatina that has made a demon of me! I curse you for it. There, take him, two of you, and hang him from the mizzen yards. Do not speak to me," she cried to the captain, "or I will smite you on the mouth! It is a woman you are dealing with, not a thing from the harem."
In a moment two men had bound his legs and pinioned his arms, and, with the help of two more, they carried him like a sack up the rigging and set him on the yard. Then they made fast one end of the rope to the mast and noosed the other round his neck, while the Capsina stood on the deck, unflinching, an image of vengeance. And at a sign from her they pushed him off into the empty air.
Mitsos gave one short gasp, for though he would have killed a man, laughing and singing as he drove the knife home, in fight, his blood revolted at the coldness of this, and he turned to the Capsina.
"You say you are a woman!" he cried. "Is that a woman's deed?" and he pointed to the dangling burden.
"He insulted me," said the Capsina, "and I repay insults. As for the rest, shoot them," and she turned on her heel, with her back to Mitsos, and he could not see that her lip was trembling.
But it was not at the hanging or the shooting that she trembled. She had sworn she would avenge the death of those in Elatina—for to her these were not prisoners of war, but murderers of women—and that she did without flinching. But Mitsos's words recalled her to herself, and thinking inwardly of the child's-play on the ship with him, she wondered if it were possible that this stone which seemed to be her heart could ever be moved again to tears or laughter, or that Mitsos could smile again or jest with so cold and cruel a girl. And at that thought she turned to him piteously.
"Oh, Mitsos, it is not me, indeed it is not!" she cried, passionately. "Take me as I am now out of your remembrance, for pity's sake, and think of me only as I was before. I will be the same again; I will be the same. Ah, you don't understand!"
The prize was divided equally between the two ships, as it had been agreed that all taken on this cruise, by whichever ship captured, should be shared in common, after one-half had been appropriated to the fund for the war, out of which the wages of the crew were paid. Evidently the spoils from Elatina had been carried on this ship, for they found many embroidered Greek dresses, several vestments, presumably from the desecrated church, and a considerable sum of money, packed in hampers. TheRevengehad hardly suffered at all in the encounter, but a hole had been stove high in the bows of theSophia, some five yards of bulwark had been knocked into match-wood, and the round-house was a sieve. They had also lost eight men killed, and from both ships some thirty wounded. Under these circumstances it was best to put in at Galaxidi for repairs, and, as the crew would not now be sufficient for the handling of the ship in case of a further engagement, for the raising of a few recruits. Kanaris himself had a graze on the wrist from a musket-shot as they were getting to close quarters, but the hours had been sweet to him, and his cold gray eyes were as of some wild beast hungry for more.
The Capsina examined the gear and sailing of the prize with scornful wonder. "A good hole for rats to die in," was all her comment. But there were half a dozen serviceable guns and a quantity of ammunition, the latter of which they divided between the two brigs. She would have liked to remove the guns also, for, apart from their use, she felt it would be a pleasant and bitter thing to make them turn traitors to their former owners, but there was no tackling apparatus fit for such weights, and they had to be left. But as she had no notion of letting them again fall into the hands of the Turks, she set fire to the ship before leaving it, and saw it drift away southeastward, a sign of fire, with its crew of death, its captain still dangling from the foremast and swinging out from right to left beyond the bulwarks as the ship rolled. There was a gun loose in the deck battery, and they could hear it crashing and charging from side to side as the unruddered vessel dipped and staggered to the waves, with flames ever mounting higher. Then another squall of impenetrable rain swept across the sea, and they saw her no more.
The Capsina had intended to escort Kanaris as far as Galaxidi, on the chance of other Turkish ships being about, but when they came near and saw that the coast was clear, she turned off into the bay where they had fought that morning to see if there was anything left of either of the other two ships worth picking up. But she found that both had sunk, one in deep water, the other in not more than fifteen fathoms, and through the singular clear water they could see her lying on her side, black and dead, while the quick fishes played and poised above and round her. The sight had a curious fascination for the girl, and, after putting about, she lay to for an hour under shelter of the land, while she rowed out again to the spot and leaned over the side of the boat, feeding ravenously on the sight, angry if a flaw of wind disturbed the clearness of it. But to Mitsos, though his heart could be savage, the poor ship seemed a pitiful thing, and he wondered at the fierceness of the girl.
They reached Galaxidi before the evening and the land-breeze fell, and the Capsina, who had cousins there, went ashore with the baby, intending to leave it there, for, indeed, on the brig they had but little time or fit temper for a child that should have been still lying at its mother's breast. She heard from her friends of a young mother who would perhaps take charge of it, for her own child, a baby of three days old, had suddenly died, and the Capsina herself took it there, nursing it with a singular tenderness, and jealous of all hands that touched it.
"See," she said to the mother, "I have brought you this to care for. I am told that your own baby has died. It seems like a gift of God to you, does it not? Yet it is no gift," she added, suddenly; "the child is to be mine. But I will pay you well."
The young woman, no more, indeed, than a girl, came forward from where she had been sitting, and looked at the baby for a moment with dull, lustreless eyes.
Then suddenly the mother's love, widowed of its young, leaped into her face.
"Ah, give it to me," she cried, quickly. "Give it me," and a moment afterwards the baby was at her breast.
The Capsina stared for a little space in wonder and amazement, then her face softened and she sat down by the girl.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Catherine Vlastos," and her voice caught in her throat; "but Constantine Vlastos, my husband, is dead, and the little one is dead."
Again the Capsina waited without words.
"Tell me," she said, at length, "what is it you feel? How is it that you want the child? It is nothing to you."
"Nothing?" and the girl laughed from pure happiness. "It is nothing less than life."
"You will take it for me?"
"Take it for you!" Then, as the baby stirred and laid a fat little objectless hand on her breast: "You are the Capsina," she said, "and a great lady. They tell me you have taken three Turkish ships. Oh, that is a fine thing, but I would not change places with you."
Sophia rose from her seat, and walked up and down the room.
"You loved your husband?" she said, at length. "Was that why you loved your baby, and why you love this baby?"
"I don't know. How should I know?"
Sophia stopped in her walk.
"And I love the baby, too," she said, "and I know not how or why. Perhaps only because it was so little and helpless, for, indeed, I do not like children. I don't want to leave it here. Yet I must, I suppose. Will you promise to keep it very safe for me? Call it Sophia, that is my name; and, indeed, it has a wise little face. I must go. Perhaps I shall call here again in a few weeks. Let me kiss it. So—I leave money with you, and will arrange for you to be supplied with more."
She turned to the door, but before she was well out of the house she came back again and looked at the baby once more.
"Yes, it is very curious," she said, "that I should care for it at all. Well, good-bye."
Mitsos, meantime, had gone across to Kanaris's ship, where they were busy with repairs. The squalls had blown themselves out, and sky and sea were a sheet of stars and stars reflected. The work was to go on all night, and he had to pick his way carefully between planks and hurrying workmen, doing the jobs by the light of resin flares. The resin flares brought the fishing into his mind—the fishing those dear nights on the bay, and the moonlight wooing and winning of Suleima. How strange that Suleima should be of the same sex as this fine, magnificent Capsina—Suleima with all her bravery and heroism at the fall of Tripoli, woman to her backbone, and the Capsina, admirable and lovable as she was, no more capable of being loved by him than would have been a tigress. Yet she had sobbed over the little crying child—that was more difficult still to understand. And Mitsos, being unlearned in the unprofitable art of analysis, frowned over the problem, and thought not at all that she was of a complicated nature, and then felt that this was the key to the whole situation, but said to himself that she was very hard to understand.
He found Kanaris dressing the wounds of the lad who had been crucified. Healing and wholesome blood ran in his veins, for though they had been dressed roughly, only with oil and bandages, they showed no sign of fester or poisoning. The lad was still weak and suffering, but when he saw Mitsos coming in at the cabin door his face flushed and he sat up in bed with a livelier movement than he had yet shown, and looked up at him with the eyes of a dog.
"I would rise if I could," he said, "and kiss your hands or your feet, for indeed I owe you what I can never repay."
Mitsos smiled.
"Then we will not talk of that," he said, and sat himself down by the bed. "How goes it? Why, you look alive again now. In a few days, if you will, you will be going Turk-shooting with the rest of us. Ah, but the devils, the devils!" he cried, as he saw the cruel wounds in the hands; "but before God, lad, we have done something already to revenge you and Him they blasphemed, and we will do more. How do they call you?"
The boy was sitting with teeth tight clinched to prevent his crying out at the painful dressing of the wounds, but at this he looked up suddenly, seeming to forget the hurt.
"Christos is my name," he said. "That is why they crucified me. Oh, Mitsos, do you know what they said? They looked at me—you know how Turks can look when they play with flesh and blood—when I told them my name, and one said, 'Then we will see if you can die patiently as that God of yours did.'"
The lad laughed suddenly, and his eyes blazed.
"And though I wince," he said, "and could cry like a woman at this little pain, yet, before God, I could have laughed then when they nailed me to the cross, and set me up above the altar. I cannot tell you what strange joy was in my heart. Was it not curious? Those infidel men crucified me because my name was Christos. Surely they could have had no better reason."
Kanaris had finished the dressing of the wounds, and the boy thanked him, and went on:
"So I did not struggle nor cry at all; indeed, I did not want to. Then soon after, it was not long I think, hanging as I did, the blood seemed to sing and grow heavy in my ears, and my head dropped; once or twice I raised it, to take breath, but before long I grew unconscious, supposing at the end that I was dying, and glorying in it, for I knew that the Greeks would come again and find me there, and the thought that I should be found thus, with head drooped like the wooden Christ, was sweet to me. And they came—you came—" and the lad broke off, smiling at the two.
Mitsos's throat seemed to him small and burning, and he choked in trying to speak. So for answer he rose and kissed the boy on the forehead, and was silent till again he had possession of his voice.
"Christos," he said, and involuntarily, with a curious confusion of thought, he crossed himself—"Christos, it is even as you say. For it seems to me that somehow that was a great honor, that which they did to you, though to them only a blasphemous cruelty."
Mitsos paused a moment, and all the dimly understood superstitious beliefs of his upbringing and his people surged into his mind. The half-pagan teaching which suspected spirits in the wind, and saw gods and fairies in the forest, strangely blended with a child-like faith which had never conceived it possible to doubt the truths of his creed, combined to turn this boy into something more than human, to endow him with the attributes of a type. He knelt down by the bed, strangely moved.
"It is I," he said, "who should kiss your hands, for have you not suffered, died almost on the cross, where wicked men nailed you for being called by His name?"
Mitsos was trembling with some mysterious excitement; and his words were so unlike anything that Kanaris had suspected could come from him, that the latter was startled. His own emotions had been far more deeply stirred than he either liked or would have confessed, and to see Mitsos possessed by the same hysterical affection frightened him. He laid his hand on his shoulder.
"Get up, little Mitsos," he said; "you don't know what you are saying. See, the Capsina has gone on shore; you will have supper with us. We will have it all together here, as I have finished the doctoring. You feel you can eat to-night?" he said, turning to the boy.
Christos smiled.
"Surely, but you and Mitsos must feed me," and he looked with comic contempt at his bandaged hands.
"That is good," said Kanaris, and, clapping his hands, he told the cabin-boy to bring in supper for the three.
Mitsos's serene sense soon came back to him, and he wondered half-shamedly at himself, and thought of his previous excursion into the kingdom of hysterics, which he had made after the fight at the mill. Certainly Christos was human enough at supper, and they put victuals into his mouth, and in the vain attempt to ply him with wine simultaneously, brought him to the verge of choking.
Mitsos found the Capsina waiting up for him on theRevengewhen he got back. She was sitting idle, a thing unusual, and she looked as if she had been crying. But she smiled at him, though rather tremulously, as he entered, and pointed to a seat, and all Mitsos's amazed horror at the hanging was struck from his mind.
"Oh, Capsina," he said, "you do not know how sorry I feel for you. Surely you were no more than just to those on the Turkish ships, and indeed this is no time for gentleness. You have been thinking of those that—that were in Elatina?"
The Capsina nodded.
"Of them, and, oddly enough, of the baby, which I have left here. How is the lad they crucified? You have seen him?"
"Yes." Then in a whisper, "Is it not strange?" he said; "his name is Christos."
"Oh, Mitsos! Was that why they did thus to him?"
"Yes. They said they would see if he could die as patiently."
The Capsina flushed, and her eyes were fire.
"Then may Christ never forgive me if I do not revenge this thing by blood and blood and blood! Here and by this I vow," and she laid her hand on the little shrine at the end of the cabin, "that if ever I stay my hand or spare one of those accursed enemies of Him, that that day shall be the last day of my life, for indeed I shall not be worthy to live and breathe pure air of His making. So I swear. And may all the saints of heaven, and may the blessed Christ, and the thrice-holy mother of Christ, help me to keep my vow!"
She knelt a moment before the shrine, crossing herself, and then turned to Mitsos.
"We will take the lad with us, if he will come," she said, "for I think that the blessing of God cannot fail to rest on the ship that carries him. I will go and see him in the morning. And now, little Mitsos, let us go to bed, for it has not been a very quiet day for us; and for me, I could sleep like a child tired with play. Good-night, lad. I thank God every day for that meeting of ours."
She held his hand in hers for a moment, with a gentle pressure, looking at him with great shining eyes and smiling mouth.
"Good-night," he said; "and oh, Capsina, I bless God for that meeting, too, and as far as there is strength in me I will help you to keep your vow. It is even so; they are the enemies of the Christ, and He has graciously made to us for Him. Yet—yet, do not hang a man again. For somehow it seems to me poor manners to add insults to death, and to insult is what Turks do."
Sophia looked at him, silent, then laughed, passing her hand wearily over her eyes.
"And as you are of the Mainats, and I of the clan of Capsas, you think we should have fine manners. Oh, little Mitsos, you are a boy of the very oddest thoughts. Well, be it as you say. I was angry when I did that, and indeed we have no time for anger, for the sword does not feel angry when it strikes. It only strikes, and strikes true. So."
From the moment of entering the Gulf of Corinth one precaution was of primary necessity to the success of the Capsina's expedition, and that was that no word of the coming of her ships should go about between the various Turkish ships in the gulf. Their good fortune had determined that the nine ships which they knew were there were separated into groups of three, and she felt confident that her two could tackle three. But supposing word went about, and the remaining six mobilized, the position would be serious enough to steady even those two brigs full of tigers.
It was practically certain that the Turkish garrison of Lepanto had before this received news from Patras of their entrance into the gulf, and if so only the most dire stress of circumstance would drive the Capsina to attempt to pass again, except at night, for the channel was altogether commanded by the heavy guns of the fortress, and she preferred the windy waters of the gulf, with room to turn and manoeuvre, to that tight-rope of a way. Hitherto all had gone well, for of the three ships they had encountered neither man, woman, or child would do aught else than toss with the ooze and tangle of the gulf, and tell their tale to the fishes; and a further point in their favor was that only a very few villages on the shore had Turkish garrisons, so that any combined movement to drive them into a corner would be difficult of execution. Their safety chiefly lay in expeditious action, and their danger in the escape of any Turkish ships which might manage, after being attacked by them, to join the others.
Now the Capsina's recklessness was of the more judicious kind, or, rather, it may be said that she was prudent, except when the occasion demanded a free disregard of possible consequences; it was clearly a poor economy to save a little time and go to sea with ships not thoroughly up to the mark, and she waited with a rebellious patience until theSophiawas altogether fit for action again. The folk of Galaxidi regarded her more in the light of some splendid incarnation of the spirit of insurrection than a woman, and to them, as to Mitsos, Christos was almost a sacred thing. Men and women came in shoals on to theRevenge, where the Capsina had caused him to be moved when he was enough recovered, and looked with a kind of religious awe at the lad whom the infidels had crucified. And the great pride the boy took in what had been done to him was inspiring to see.
But the Capsina's impatience found a bridle in directing and superintending, with Mitsos and Kanaris, the establishment of a fort at Galaxidi which should command the harbor. Galaxidi boasted one of the few well-sheltered harbors on the gulf which could for certain be reached by a well-handled boat in stormy weather, for while the harbor at Aegion faced nearly north and was impossible to make in a northwesterly gale, and the harbor at Corinth had so narrow an entrance that, with a heavy cross sea, a ship was as like as not to be shouldered on to the breakwater, at Galaxidi the harbor faced south, and had a wide entrance protected from the violent westerly winds by the long headland, on the other side of which lay Elatina. Otherwise, the shore for several miles was rocky and inhospitable, and no enemy's ship, as the Capsina saw, could take Galaxidi unless it first had possession of the harbor, and it was on the end of the promontory which commanded it that she caused the defences to be begun.
Heretofore the whole of this coast district had taken no part in the work of the Revolution, and the bloody scheme of the Turks was to wipe out those fishing villages one by one, so as to secure themselves against the possibility of such movements in the future. Such had been the fate of Elatina; for such a fate, no doubt, had Galaxidi been devilishly designed, when the two Greek brigs overtook and spoke with the designers thereof.
On the second day of their stay there, when even the Capsina had been forced to be prepared to stop at least a week, she and Mitsos prowled about the quay and harbor like whelps on some sure trace of blood, how rightly no future was to prove.
"It is a death-trap, little Mitsos," said the girl. "See, this is my plan. Let us put up a big shed on the quay, for all the world like a Turkish custom-house, with the Turkish flag over it, if you will—don't frown, Mitsos, you seem to think that it is our mission to render the Turkish nation immortal—a flag to give confidence, as I was saying. But it shall be no custom-house, or rather a custom-house where the dues are rather heavy, and of our sort. Thus, supposing by some devil's luck either of those two companies of ships escape from us, we can at least do our best to head them towards Galaxidi."
"Where they will see their own flag flying," put in Mitsos. "Eh, but I am a partner with a tigress."
"And I with a ba-a-lamb, it seems," went on the girl, with a glance at this fine-grown ba-a-lamb. "Thus they will sail in unsuspecting, and all the fiends in hell are in it if ever they sail out," she concluded, with a sudden flare.
"There is more to it than that," said Mitsos. "We are in this gulf for a month, or more than a month maybe. It is well to have a place for breathing in. It is sure that we cannot get out of the gulf until the coming of the fleet, or so I think. Well, with a fort here in the hands of the Greeks, we shall not need to."
The Capsina stood silent a moment surveying the harbor, with her head a little on one side.
"It is by no means a rotten egg we are trying to hatch," she said, at length. "The mayor, who is my cousin, shall dine with us to-day, and there will be much talking. Go back to the ship, lad, and smoke your pipe. That is what you want."
"Am I so stupid this morning, then?" asked Mitsos.
"There is no mellowness in tobacco," said she, sententiously, quoting a Greek proverb. "No, you are not stupid, but I have other business in which you have no share."
"And what is that?"
"And who will have made the little Mitsos my confessor?" said she, drolling with him. "Well, father, I am going to see the baby."
"The blessing of the saints be on your work, my daughter," said Mitsos, with prelatical solemnity. "But you are never away from the baby, Capsina. Am I to be superseded?"
She flushed a little.
"Not from my affection," she said, with secret truth; "only in the matter of advice, I claim a right to consult another." And she turned and walked briskly away from the quay.
The mayor, Elias Melissinos, was a little withered man, with a face the color of a ripe crab-apple. His eyes, bright and black like a bird's, peeped out from a great fringe of eyebrow, and seemed the very hearth and home of an infernal shrewdness. He was the first cousin of the Capsina's mother, but thought nothing of his connection with the clan, remarking with much truth that the same God made also the vermin, and the tortoises upon the mountain. But as he had grave theological doubts as to whether it was God or the devil who had made the Turks, he was a suitable ally. He ate his dinner peeking and peering at his food, and swallowing it gulpingly like pills, with a backward toss of his head, occasionally glancing at Mitsos, who fed Christos and himself alternately, and asking sharp little questions. When they had finished they went on deck, and Elias sucked at his pipe like a grave little baby, while the Capsina made exposition.
"See, cousin," she said, "Mitsos and I have examined the quay, and we both think that it is easily defensible and hard to take. There is already a big shed on there; you will have to build another one on the promontory, opposite; between them they will command the harbor like a two-edged sword."
"You will be putting guns on the sheds, maybe?" asked Elias, briskly.
"There would not be much advantage to us in building the sheds and leaving them totally empty," remarked Mitsos.
"Yes, but my dear cousin," said Elias, "where are the guns to come from? For I never yet authentically heard that they grew on the mountain-side. Muskets we have and plenty of them, but I am thinking that before a Turkish ship gets within musket-shot our sheds will be spillikins and match-wood; and, if it comes on to rain, the muskets will get rusty; but, indeed, I don't know that there will be any other result worth the mentioning."
"You can have two four-inch guns from theRevengeand two from theSophia," said the Capsina, "for we are a little overarmed if anything. What say you, Mitsos?"
Mitsos scratched his head.
"I say that I wish there were not so many good guns lying at the bottom of the Gulf of Corinth," he said.
"Where do they lie?" asked Elias.
The Capsina sprang up.
"Indeed, the little Mitsos has no wooden head, though he thinks slower than snails walk, cousin. One ship and all its guns lie in fifteen-fathom water, not a mile from land, in the bay westward from the point of Galaxidi. I could lead you there blindfolded. Can you raise them, think you?"
"We can try," said Elias. "But if your brigs are over-armed—"
"They are not overarmed!" cried the girl. "I wish we had more guns."
Elias bowed, with a precise little smile on his lips.
"The mistake is mine," he said. "I was wrong when I thought I heard you say so. Please continue, cousin."
"For the expenses, I will provide out of the money we have put aside for the war fund," continued the Capsina. "How much have we, little Mitsos? Oh, is there nothing you know? In any case there is enough. Then you want men. Are there plenty here who are ready to take up arms?"
"They are ready to stand on their heads, cousin, if you bid them," said Elias.
"Good; now about the attempt to raise some of those guns," and she plunged into details of rafts and gear and divers and tackling, leaving, it is to be feared, both her listeners in a state of bewildered confidence in her powers to draw the moon to the earth if so she wished, but confused as to the methods she purposed to adopt.
In such ways the Capsina drew a curb on her impatience to be gone again, and derived a certain satisfaction in curtailing the hour of Mitsos's tobacco smoking. The six guns, after an infinity of trouble and the swamping of two rafts, were raised and towed to Galaxidi; the corn-mills were put to grind powder, a black flour of death; another shed was run up opposite the quay, and loads of earth and sand to be packed in corn sacks were stored as a protection for both forts. The quantity indicated, as Mitsos pointed out, an outrageously impossible harvest; but, as the Capsina retorted, Turkish ships coming to raid a town do not usually pause to consider whether the preceding summer has been weather suitable for the crops.
But the Capsina having put these preparations in train, intrusting their complete execution to Elias, stayed not an hour after theSophiawas again fit for sea, for every hour wasted meant an hour's risk to some perhaps defenseless village, and eight days after their arrival they put to sea again eastward, touring round the gulf, and leaving Galaxidi humming like a hive of bees.
For several days they made but little way, the winds being contrary or calm, and the hours were the first hours of the cruise lived over again. With the help of two crutches Christos was soon able to limp about the deck, and, as his boyish spirits reasserted themselves, became pre-eminently human, showing only a dog-like affection for Mitsos, who fussed over him insistently. The thing both pleased and enraged the Capsina; half the time she was jealous of the lad, but for the rest found it suitable enough that the little Mitsos should have rescued him, and that the rescued should agree with her in his lovableness. When the deck was wet and Christos's crutches showed a greater aptitude for slipping than supporting, Mitsos would take him and carry him across to some sheltered place, where the three would sit by the hour, talking and laughing together.
On one such evening, following a day of fretful and biting rain, the sky had cleared towards sunset, and they were tacking out to sea for a mile or two under a northeasterly wind, to anchor, as soon as the land-breeze dropped, at the end of the second tack, making, if possible, a dark wooded promontory which lay due east. The Capsina always kept as near as possible to the shore, so as not to run the least risk of missing the Turkish ships, which, as they knew, were going from village to village, and a watch was kept for the enemy's ships, the Capsina offering a prize to the sailor who first sighted them.
Mitsos had come slipping and sliding across the deck with Christos in his arms, and a sudden roll of the ship had come near upsetting them.
"So, hereafter," said Mitsos, "you shall shift for yourself, Christos, for you put on the weight of a sack of corn every day. You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"
"Not in any way."
"Are you sure?"
The Capsina burst out laughing.
"Oh, little Mitsos, that I should compare you to a hen. But a hen with one chicken, no other—you and Christos."
Mitsos sat down and filled his pipe and Christos's.
"Well, I know one who clucked considerably over a baby," he said. "And I like taking care of people. There's your pipe, lad. Open your mouth."
The Capsina laughed again.
"Chuck, chuck, chuck," said she.
"Well, let me have two chickens, then," cried Mitsos. "What can I do for you, Capsina?"
"You can be my very good comrade."
"Surely, I hope so. But let me fuss for you. Christos is getting well, and I must take care of somebody."
"Well, you can tell me if it is time to put about."
"Eh, but I didn't bargain that I should have to get up," said Mitsos, raising himself foot by foot, and looking out. "Well, yes, we shall make that promontory on the next tack, and then we can lie to. Nothing been seen of the devils, Dimitri?"
Dimitri shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, we'll put about. You'd best move, Christos. When we go on the other tack you'll get wet there."
"It is of no consequence whether I get wet," remarked Sophia.
"Well, come along, then," said Mitsos. "I'll carry you across first."
Sophia hesitated.
"Help me up, then," said she, and laughed.
Mitsos bent down, gathered her up, and staggered across the deck with her, half laughing, half puzzled.
"Eh, but God made you a big woman," he said. "Why, Christos is half your weight. Steady, now."
But the Capsina slipped from his arms.
"Oh, Christos; it is always Christos!" she cried. "There, go and fetch him, little Mitsos! He is trying to walk himself, and he will get a fall."
Mitsos stared a moment, but obeyed, and the Capsina finished the journey across the deck alone, and stood looking out over the sea for a moment with a flushed face and a hammer for a heart. A thrill of tremulous exultation shook her, and unreasonably sweet she found it. The thing had been nothing—he had taken her up as he would take a child up to help it over a brook, but for a moment she had lain in his arms, with his face bent laughing into hers, and the very fact that this had meant no more than the shadow of nothingness to him gave her a sense of secret pleasure to be enjoyed alone. She had felt the sinews of his arm harden and strain as he lifted her—her own arm she had cast, for greater security, round his neck. She had felt on her wrist the short hair above his collar, for since they had come to sea he had cut it close, saying that the salt and spray made it sticky. And at that physical contact the last shred of unwilling reserve went from her.... She was his, wholly, abandonedly....
In a few moments Mitsos returned with Christos's long legs dangling from his arms, and for an hour more they sat together beneath the lee bulwarks, while the ship started on its last tack. The sun was already a crimson ball on the sea, and the mountains on the north of the gulf were obscured in a haze of luminous gold which seemed to penetrate them, making them glow from hither. A zigzag line of fire was scribbled across from the horizon to the ship, and from the sheets of spent foam which flung themselves over the weather-side as the brig shouldered its way along through the great humping seas, the spray turned for a moment to a rosy mist before it fell with a hiss white and broken on the weather-deck. With a crash and a poise the bows met the resounding waves, then plunged like a petrel down the sheer decline of the next water valley, and the black promontory which they were already opposite, with its fringe of foam, rose and fell like the opening and shutting of a window over the jamb of the bulwarks. The land-breeze was steady and not boisterous, and hummed like a great sleepy top in the rigging. Mitsos sat on the deck with his back to a coil of rope, facing the other two, his face turned rosy-brown by the sunset, and the Capsina, looking at him, knew the blissful uncontent of love. And the sunset and the sea died to a pearly gray; one by one the stars pierced the velvet softness of the sky, until the whole wheeling host had lit their watch-fires, and presently, after the brig passed the promontory, the white sails drooped and were furled, and the whole world waited, silent and asleep, for the things of the morrow.
They were now nearing the easternmost end of the gulf, and about twelve of the next day they could see dimly, and rising high in heaven, the upper ridges of Cithaeron—"a house of roe-deer," so said Christos. The sea-haze rose, concealing the lower slopes, but the top was domed and pinnacled in snow, clear, and curiously near. All the coast was well known to Christos, for his father had been a man of the sea, trading along the shore. Vilia, so he told them, was the chief village at the gulf's end; the immediate shore was without settlements, except for a few cottages which clustered round certain old ruins, walls, and high towers, so he said, big enough for a garrison of Mitsos's men; and thus his ears were pulled. Porto Germano was the name of the place, because a man of outlandish language, so it seemed, and of guttural voice, had made great maps of the place. "There are only walls and towers," said Christos; "yet he spent much time and labor over them, and gave money to those who held machines and tapes for him, writing many figures in a book, and talking to himself in his throat."
Mitsos and the lad were sitting aft as Christos delivered this information in a half-treble staccato voice, with an air of sceptical innocence, and shyly as to a demigod. The Capsina had left them and gone forward, but she returned soon to them with a quicker step and a heightened color.
"Mitsos," said she, "come forward. No, come you, Christos, for you are sharp-eyed, and you, little Mitsos, signal to Kanaris that he join us."
"Is there, is there—" began Mitsos.
"Oh, little Mitsos!" cried the girl. "But there will be blood in the sunset, if God is good. Go you and signal, lad; and come forward, Christos. It seems I have won my own prize."
They were some six miles off the eastern shore of the gulf, running before a favorable wind, and after Mitsos had signalled to theSophia, which was between them and the north coast, on the port tack, and had seen her put about on the starboard tack in answer, he went forward to join the Capsina and Christos.
Right ahead and close in to land they could see the masts of three ships, but the hulls were down. The moment was critical, for the ships were evidently at anchor, as no sails were spread, and they were close in shore. Thus, every minute, perhaps, was murder and rapine to some Greek village. It was possible that they had only just come, and that the Capsina was in time to save a village. Again, it was possible that the infernal work was even now going on, even that it was over.
The Capsina stood in thought for a moment only.
"It is this," she said to Mitsos. "We are certain that Vilia is the village they are making for. Vilia is how far inland, Christos?"
"Two hours and a steep way through pine-woods."
"Thank God for the pine-woods. Look, Mitsos, they will have meant to leave the ships at anchor while they raided Vilia, but beyond any shadow of doubt they will have left some part of their crews on board, who will, of course, give the alarm if Greek ships are seen approaching. We have to get between their ships and the men they have sent up to Vilia. There is no village on the mountain-side except Vilia, Christos?"
"None."
"How are we to do it?" asked Mitsos. "The moment they see us they will send after their men."
"There is no time to lose," said the Capsina, quietly. "Hoist the Turkish flag," and she looked at Mitsos as if questioningly, and Mitsos met her gaze.
"Yes," he said, "it is one of the things I do not like, and I am unreasonable. There is no other way of getting in, and all things are right to save Vilia. I would turn Moslem if so I could kill more of them. Oh, Capsina, I quite agree with you. I will even hoist it myself. How comes it you have one?"
"Because I am one who looks beyond to-morrow," said she, much relieved. "I made it in Hydra myself."
The signal was made to Kanaris, and a few moments afterwards they saw the Turkish flag run up on theSophia. The wind still held, and theRevengetook a reef in to let theSophiajoin her, and by the time the hulls of the Turks had risen above the horizon line of water, the two were sailing close together.
They approached quickly, under a steady and singing west wind, and before two o'clock they could already see the thin line of cutting ripples breaking on the shingle, and yet from the Turkish ships came no sign. They lay at anchor some furlong from the shore, it would seem deserted.
The Capsina's orders were to be ready to fire on the word, but if possible to pass the Turkish ships without firing a shot and cast anchor between them and the shore. Her object was, if the men had landed to take Vilia, to cut them off from their ships, which, if possible, they would capture; but at present there was no means of telling in what state things were; only the deserted appearance of the Turkish ships argued the probability of the raid having set forth. The Capsina, if this probability should prove true, had given orders, signalling them to Kanaris, to leave one-third of the men on the ships and land with the rest in pursuit of the Turks, for if, as was now certain, since the brigs had been allowed to approach so close, they had no suspicion that armed ships of the Greeks were in the gulf, they would have attacked Vilia with all their available men, leaving a handful only on their ships.
As they came alongside, with sails already furled, moving only by their impetus and ready to swing round and cast anchor, a Turk strolled across the deck of the ship nearest to theRevenge, and, leaning carelessly on the bulwarks, shouted in Turkish, and for answer had only the hiss of the lapping water and the sight of Mitsos's unfezzed head, for the Capsina had told the rest to keep out of sight; and as the appearance of a woman on the bridge would have seemed odd to even those indolently minded folk, she had left Mitsos alone there, while she crouched in concealment behind the bulwarks. At that suspicion seemed to awake, and he popped his head down and was seen no more, and a moment afterwards, just as the anchor of theRevengesplashed plunging into the sea, two shots were fired in rapid succession from the Turk's bow gun, which was pointing out to sea and evidently aimed at neither theSophianor theRevenge.
At that the Capsina jumped up.
"That is a signal," she cried; "there is no time to lose! Down with the devil's flag and up with the cross!"
A great cheer went up from the men as the blue-and-white ensign was hauled up the mast, for, like Mitsos, they put the hoisting of the crescent among the things they "did not like," and in three minutes the first boatloads were on their way to the shore. Along the beach were drawn up the boats in which the Turks had landed, guarded only by a few men, who, as the Greeks drew near the shore, fled incontinently into the olive-groves that grew down to within fifty yards of the sea, and climbed to the foot of the pine-forests of the upper hills.
"Let them run," said Mitsos, "for I could ever run faster than a Turk," and he vaulted clean and lithe over the boat's side, and pulled her in through the shallow water to the shore. "Eh, Capsina," he added, "but it won't do to let those boats stop there, else the men will be embarking to their ships again when we chase them, and sail off with our prizes. Dimitri, see that as soon as we have gone all boats are taken away from the shore and tied up to theRevengeor theSophia."
"So shall it be," said Dimitri. Then: "Oh, most beloved little Mitsos, cannot I come with you?" he asked; "for I should dearly like to hunt the turbaned pigs through the forest."
Mitsos shook his head.