Mitsos since the sun went down had been peering into the darkness over the citadel wall, and hearing the shots supposed that the relief party was passing the Turkish lines and that the alarm was given. Immediately he heard the bleatings of the goats, and, like the Turks, saw only a moving company of gray specks. A party was ready to make a sortie, but as there were but a few shots he waited.
"It is undoubtedly they," he remarked; "but in what fashion are they coming?"
And he went down to the gate, and looking through the window of the chamber saw the specks coming nearer. Before long the foremost were close, and he shouted "Yanni."
And from the darkness Yanni found just enough breath to shout: "Yes, yes, open the gate! Come on, brute."
Mitsos grinned, thinking that the words were to him.
"Surely little Yanni will be sore to-night," he said to himself, and with two others unbarred the gate. Next moment Yanni and Kostas rushed through struggling and panting, each with a horn of the mishandled goat, and the frightened, pattering herd poured after them. The other men had kept behind the beasts, and to right and left were shepherding them; and as soon as the last had passed in the gates were closed again.
Yanni flung himself on the ground, utterly blown, and too exhausted to notice Mitsos.
"Never again! oh, never," he panted, "will I drag a goat up the Larissa. So—don't ask me. Oh, I shall burst."
Mitsos had broken into a roar of hopeless laughter, which was taken up by the hungry garrison, and while Yanni was recovering he and the rest herded the goats together again, and rations of bread were given out, and a few goats killed.
Then having secured a great chunk of bread himself, he came back to Yanni, who was sitting up, still rather breathless. Kostas, with his fat red face, had not yet reached convalescence, but lay large and palpitating on the ground.
"Yanni, oh, little Yanni!" said Mitsos, "but I am one joy to see you. The goats too. It was a miracle of a plan. Yanni, when did you come? You will sleep with me to-night. Oh, there is the Prince."
And Mitsos stood up, and saluted the Prince with a twinkling eye, for he himself was a deserter; and the Prince's face was in patches of red and white, comical to the irreverent, and his breath whistled untunefully in his throat as he drew it. Mitsos fetched him a piece of sacking to sit on, and stood respectfully by him as he paused to get his breath.
"My aide-de-camp," said the Prince at last, smiling, "I had to come to you as you persisted in going away from me."
This was undeniably the statement of the case, and Mitsos waited a little sheepishly, and the Prince continued.
"But we will look it over," said he, getting up, "even a second time. For, indeed, little Mitsos, they would have made a legislator of me, for which I have no call, neither abilities therefor, or inclination, and I would rather be with the people. Show me, please, where I can sleep, and give me first some water, for I am tired and as thirsty as sand with climbing those rocks. Eh, but I have done a finer work to-night than I ever did in the councils of the senate!"
Mitsos soon found quarters for Hypsilantes, of the roughest, to be sure, and it was curious to him to see how the Prince took a sort of childlike pleasure in having to sleep in a shed, on a heap of sacking, with a crust of bread, a little very tough goat's-flesh, and a draught of water for his supper. His face quite lighted up at the thought that he was playing the soldier in earnest.
"This is better than swords and medals, Mitsos," he said, as the latter brought him the food. "There shall be no more honors and decorations for me or from me, for, indeed, there is no help in those things. I should have done better by scrambling up rocks and dragging goats with the others from the first. Listen at the lads singing! I would sing, too, for the lightness of my heart, had God given me a note of music in my throat."
Mitsos left him and went out to find Yanni, whom he had not seen since the taking of Tripoli. The Mainats had fraternized most warmly with the other part of the garrison, and they were lounging and leaning together on the wall, looking towards Argos, when Mitsos came out. The moon had not yet risen, and the party under Petrobey were still out on the far side of the town. But the sky had brightened with the approach of moonrise, and though the plain lay still sombre and featureless, except where the flash of muskets drew a line of fire across the dark like a match scratched but not lit, the bay had caught the gathering grayness of the sky, and lay like a sheet of dull silver. Across the water the lights of Nauplia looked like some huge constellation of stars growing red to their setting, and in the town below they could see that the Turks were on the alert, and little patches of men as small and slow as insects now and then crossed the streets which lay stretched out below them, hurrying towards the southeastern gate. The goats, relieved of their burdens, stood penned near, visible in the firelight which the men had lit to cook the flesh, adapting themselves with the nonchalance of their race to their new conditions, some still sniffing inquisitively at the ground, two or three fighting and sparring together, others lying down half asleep already with ears just twitching. Yanni was among the other men, and when he saw Mitsos coming, left the group, went towards him, and taking his hand, walked off with him to the other side of the citadel.
"Oh, Mitsos," he said, "what need of words? As soon as I knew you were here the devils of the pit could not have held me back. And you—tell me that Suleima has not made you forget me."
Mitsos put his arm round the other's neck.
"Not even Suleima," he said, "nor yet the littlest one, your godson, whom you have never seen, nor yet the Capsina, with whom I have spent more days of late than with Suleima. Did I not swear the oath of the clan to you, and that very willingly, and not a thing to be sworn lightly? And do we not love each other?"
Yanni gave a happy little sigh.
"So that is well," he said. "So now, tell me of all that concerns you. What of the Capsina, for I heard of the deeds in the gulf?"
"Indeed it is difficult to tell you of the Capsina," said Mitsos, "for never have I seen any one to compare with her. The soul of a man, I think, must have been given her; also she is as beautiful as—as Suleima, at least so another would say. Do you remember the journey we went together, Yanni? Well, my cruise with her was like that. Of all women I have ever seen I love one only, and yet I think I love the Capsina in the way I love you."
"And she?" asked Yanni.
"Oh, she likes me," said Mitsos. "I am sure she likes me, else we could not have got on so well together. We used to play and laugh like children, and everything was a joke—that was when we first started, and before she knew of Suleima."
"Why did you not tell her of Suleima?"
"Oh, that was some dear nonsense of Suleima's own. Then one day I did tell her, because she asked me straight who were they at home."
"What did she say?"
"I forget. Nothing, I think. Oh yes, she asked why I had treated her like a stranger, and not told her. I remember now; it puzzled me that she said that. Christos and I were playing draughts at the time, and I remember she went out soon after, though it was most wet and stormy."
Yanni whistled low and thoughtfully to himself, and Mitsos continued:
"I expect she will be soon at Nauplia when the fleet comes. Oh, she is splendid. You shall see."
He pointed down the hill where the relief party had come up.
"Do you see there?" he cried. "There are lights moving at the bottom of the hill, and men. They are drawing their lines more closely where you came up. There will be no passing them next time."
Yanni spat contemptuously over the wall.
"Who cares for the cross-legged Turk?" he said. "I saw Kolocotrones to-day. He says they are in the hollow of his hand. His hand, Mitsos! A dirty hand it is. He gnaws a mutton-bone, holding it in greasy fingers, and licking them afterwards, and drinks sour wine. Why should a man live like a pig when there is no need?"
"Because he has a pig's soul, even as the Capsina has a man's soul," said Mitsos. "Yanni, we must go Turk-sticking on the mountains when we get out of this. There will be plenty of Turks to stick."
"When will that be?"
"When the Turks have no more to eat, or when the fleet arrives, whichever happens first. You see, it is like this: The fleet still comes not, and without the fleet how shall they relieve Nauplia, not having sufficient food themselves. If the fleet does not soon come, they will have to make their way back to Corinth. Meantime, on the mountains, between here and there, every day fresh Greeks collect. How many men has Kolocotrones with him?"
"Ten thousand, he says," said Yanni, "but he always says ten thousand."
"May his saints have made him speak truth at last!" said Mitsos. "Then there are Mainats. How many?"
"A thousand," said Yanni, "and Niketas is already encamped on the hills with two thousand. Oh, Mitsos, it is a nice little trap we have ready for the devils!"
Mitsos suddenly felt in his pouch.
"Tobacco—oh, tobacco!" he cried. "Yanni, not a whiff has been in my mouth for three days, when the tobacco was finished. I will sell you my soul for tobacco. Surely you have some."
Yanni pulled out a roll of it.
"Halves," he said. "Cut it, Mitsos, and remember the saints are watching you!"
Mitsos ran across to the still glowing fire and fetched a light.
"The Capsina said I thought about nothing but tobacco," he remarked, "and indeed I do think about it a good deal. What was it we were saying? Oh yes, we stop here till there is no more food, and then we cut our way out, somehow. There will be broken heads that day. I pray mine shall not be one of them. But if the Turks move first we garrison the place and leave men here sufficient to hold it, and follow the Turks to Nauplia, if this fleet comes, or up into the mountains towards Corinth."
"You will join the Mainats again when we move?" asked Yanni.
"Surely." He paused a moment, frowning. "Yanni, it is absurd of me, but again I am disquiet about Suleima. I ought to have learned by now that God watches her very carefully. But supposing the Turks go towards Nauplia, the house is on the way."
Yanni laughed.
"And Father Andréa, maybe, will run away, leaving Suleima there. Oh, it is very likely," said he. "It is time to go to bed, Mitsos. Where do you sleep?"
"I will show you. There is room for two. Oh, I am a guard for the last two hours of the night, and you will have the bed to yourself. But surely at sunrise I will come back, very full of sleep, and I shall fall on you. Thus you will be flat."
A long barrack-room stretched from near the gate up the north side of the citadel, already nearly full of men stretched, some on the ground, others on sacking, asleep. The night was very hot, and the atmosphere inside was stifling. Mitsos sniffed disgustedly.
"This will not do," he said. "We will fetch the sacks and lie outside. Tell the guard, Yanni, that when my watch comes I shall be asleep by the gate, so that they may wake me."
Other men had come to the same conclusion as Mitsos, and on their way to the gate they passed many stretched out still and sleeping on the dry, withered grass. The moon had long since risen, and the plain was flooded with white light. The fire near the gate had died down, and only now and then a breath of wind passing over the fluffy ashes made them glow again for a moment. A little farther they passed the goat-pen against the wall, and two or three goats looked up inquisitively as they walked by out of long, shallow eyes. The sentry was opposite the gate as they came up, and Mitsos showed him where he would be in a deep embrasure of the wall, where a projecting angle stood out, leaving a dark corner sheltered from the glare of the moonlight. They threw down the sacking here and arranged it lengthwise, making a bed broad enough for two. Mitsos had brought his thick peasant's cloak with him, and this formed an admirable pillow, for the night was too hot to need it as a covering. He kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt, so as to let the cool night air on to his skin, and as his pipe was not yet finished, he sat and talked to Yanni, who lay down.
"But it is hot beyond endurance to-night," he said, "and you will see towards mid-day to-morrow, when there is no shelter for a fly, how fine a grilling-pan is this Larissa. The land is no place for a man to live; he should be on the sea year in and year out."
He beat out the ashes of his pipe.
"Yet it is good to be together again, Yanni," he said, lying down. "And now it is sleeping time. I wish the devil would fly away with sentry duty at night."
Three hours later the sentry came to wake Mitsos, and Yanni, who was not asleep, got up gently.
"I will take Mitsos's duty," he said. "Yes, I am Yanni Mavromichales, who came in to-night."
The man grunted sleepily and turned in, wondering whether, for any consideration in the world, he would take a night watch out of turn.
But with the increase in the number of the garrison the flock of goats dwindled like patches of snow when the spring had come, and after a three days' grilling on the rock, and a calculation which showed that there was food for the whole number of men for only three days more, it was judged more prudent that, since the Turks showed no signs of meditating another assault, half the garrison should cut their way through the Turkish lines and go back to the Greek camp at Lerna and return again with fresh supplies of food. The Turkish fleet, meantime, had not appeared, and it seemed certain that the army would not hold Argos much longer. Forage and food were getting daily scarcer and more distant of gathering, and many men were stricken down with a virulent dysentery and fever, arising, no doubt, from their constant expeditions into the marshy ground and the unripe fruit which they plucked and ate freely. And day by day the Greeks continued to collect on the mountains.
It was decided that the original occupiers should go, for many of them were hardly fit for longer service after their ten days on that gridiron rock; but a few Mainats—and among others Mitsos—sturdily declared that they would not leave the place while there was a piece of goat's-meat or a loaf of bread remaining. Hypsilantes also, whose untrained body felt the heat and the coarseness of the scanty food most severely, was, after many fruitless attempts at persuasion, induced to be of the evacuating party. His object was already gained: he had thrown in his lot with the people, turning his back on the idle and cowardly senators; and it was important, until more food was obtained, to have as few mouths as possible to feed, provided that those who remained could hold the place in case of attack.
Fortune favored their escape, for before sunset on the night on which this partial evacuation was fixed a wrack of storm-clouds, scudding out of the sea from the south and spreading over the sky with a rapidity that promised a hurricane, brought in their train a noisy night of storm. By nine o'clock the rain had come on in torrents, with thunder and lightning, and in the headlong pelt they marched silently out of the gate, and crept down the hill-side towards the Turkish lines. These had been now drawn round the rocks where the Mainats had entered three nights before, and as they had to cut a way through the enemy somewhere, it was best to choose a place where there should be quicker going than down the goat-path. To the left of the rocks the hill ended in a steep earth-covered slope, below which were the lines, and this point most promised success. Under cover of the storm they approached unheard, and then quickening up, they ran down the last slope, which, under the tropical downpour, was no more than a mud-slide. Between the alleys of tents were lanterns, somewhat sparsely placed, and by good fortune the first Greeks who entered the lines came straight upon one of these, round which were two or three sentries. The sentries were neatly and silently knifed before any had time to raise the alarm or fire, and still at the double, the Greeks passed the second line of tents into another parallel passage. Here they were hardly less lucky. A shot or two was fired, and the alarm was given; but under that blinding and deafening uproar of the elements the Turks ran hither and thither, over tent-ropes and into each other, and without loss of a single man the Greeks gained the plain beyond.
Twice during the following week Petrobey attempted to force his way by night through the Turkish lines, which now closely invested the Larissa, for the taking in of fresh supplies to the troops there, but both times without success. The Turks had drawn off a number of troops from the town to strengthen those blockading the citadel, and they were on the lookout for these expeditions. Yet still the fleet did not appear, and it was becoming a question of hours, almost, how long Dramali could remain in Argos, for the intense heat of the last days had withered the scanty forage of the plains, and the men were in no better plight. But meantime the main object of the citadel garrison had been effected. Dramali had been delayed at Argos, not caring to leave this for towns occupied by the Greeks in his rear, instead of pushing on nearer to Nauplia. The Greeks had now collected in force in the hills. But if Dramali was nigh provisionless, the garrison was even more destitute; and on the morning after Petrobey's second attempt it was found that the provisions were coming to an end and, almost worse than that, the water supply was beginning to run short. They had hoped that the tropical storm of a week ago would have replenished the wells, but the sources lay deep, and the thirsty soil absorbed the rain before it penetrated to the seat of the spring. The only difficulty was how to get out.
That evening they had come to the end of the meat, there were only a few loaves left, and the water that day had been muddy and evil tasting; and Mitsos, as they sat round the remains of their scanty meal, tried to persuade himself that Petrobey would have advised their continuing to hold the place, for to propose that they should evacuate was a bitter mouthful. But the more prudent, and so to him less savory, council prevailed. The Mainats were sitting about, gloomy and rather dispirited, and none felt equal to the courage of saying they had better go. Mitsos had been selected by a sort of silent vote to the command, and they waited for him to speak. During a long silence he had been lying full length on the ground, but suddenly he sat up.
"Oh, cousins of mine!" he said; "it is not pleasant to say it, but it shall be said. Assuredly, we cannot stop here any longer. There is no more food, but little water, and that stale and full of the well dregs, and the others have tried twice to get in, and failed. It remains for us to get out."
The Mainats who were close and heard his words grunted, and those farther off came to find out what was forward. Mitsos repeated his words, and again they found a response of grunts. At that he lost his patience a little.
"This is not pleasant for me," he said. "You seem to want to stay here, and you make a coward of me for my thoughts. So be it; we stay. Much good may it do any one."
Kostas raised himself on his elbow. His fine fat face was a little thinner than it had been.
"Softly, little Mitsos," he said. "Give time. I am with you."
"Then why not have said so?" asked Mitsos, in a high, injured voice.
Yanni, sitting close, bubbled with laughter.
"Oh, dear fool," he said, "do you not know us yet? I, too, am with you. So are we all, I believe."
"If it is so, good," said Mitsos, only half mollified; "and if it is not so, very good also."
The clan suddenly recovered their spirits wonderfully. One man began whistling; another sang a verse of the Klepht's song, which was taken up by a chorus. Two or three men near Mitsos patted him on the back, and got knocked about for their pains, and Yanni was neatly tripped up and sat on. Mitsos also regained his equanimity by the use of his hands, and turned to Kostas.
"Is there no word for 'yes' among you but grunts only?" he asked. "Well, let it pass. We must go to-night. Every day the defences are strengthened; and as for that sour bread, thank God, we have done with it," and he picked up the few remaining loaves and hurled them over the fortress wall.
"I am better," he said, "and we will grunt together, cousins."
Now at the back of the Larissa, some hundred yards from the rocks up which the Mainats had climbed, there lay a steep ravine, funnel-shaped, cut in the side of the hill from top to bottom. It ended at the bottom in a gentler slope, and being a very accessible place, since the night surprise it had been closely guarded. The sides of it were sharp-pitched, and a stone dislodged from the top went down, gathering length in its leaps till it reached the bottom of the hill. Kostas had discovered this, for one morning, leaning over the battlements, he had idly chucked a pebble over, and watching its course, saw it fall on the top of a Turkish tent below and, being sharp, rip a hole in it, and Kostas laughed to see that a man popped quickly out, thinking, perhaps, that it was a bullet from above. At the head of this ravine, close to the citadel walls, rose a tall pinnacle of loose, shaly rock. This, too, Kostas had noticed.
His proposal was as follows: A mine should be laid in this rock, with a long fuse. As soon as this was done they should all descend the hill with silence and despatch, keeping on the two ridges that bounded this ravine, and getting as close as possible to the Turkish lines, wait.
"Then," continued Kostas, with admirable simplicity, "will nature and gunpowder work; for the rock will blow up with the gunpowder, and nature will lead the large pieces very swiftly down the ravine. One pebble brought a man from his tent; how many will be left when a mountain falls? We shall be in safety, for stones do not climb steep sides; and when the stones have passed, we will pass also."
Kostas looked round, and knowing the Mainats better than did Mitsos, found encouragement in their grunts, and the grunts were followed by grins.
"There will be broken heads," said Yanni, sententiously, "yet no man will break them. What does the great Mitsos say?"
Mitsos reached out a large, throttling hand.
"There will be a broken head," he remarked, "and I will have broken it. It is borne upon me that Uncle Kostas is the great one. When shall we start?"
"Surely as soon as may be, since Mitsos, in his wisdom, threw the rest of the bread away. We have first to bore a big hole in that rock; five men can do that, while we collect all the powder there is left. We shall need none, because we bolt hare-fashion, and there will not be time for fighting. Also the portion of rock to fall must be very great."
"Then let five men go out very silently now," said Mitsos, "and begin. Let some one watch on the wall, and when we have finished open the gate and come out very gently. Then we will set the fuse and go. Anastasi, collect the powder from each man's horn, and bring it out when it is collected. I go for the boring. Who is with me?"
Mitsos got up and went off with four other volunteers to drill the rock. They chose a place behind it, and away from the ravine, so that the loosened pieces might not fall and perhaps lead to extra vigilance on the part of the Turks. The rock was soft and crumbly, and though the night was a swelter of heat, a hole was drilled without very much labor. By the time it was ready the powder had come, and was carefully rammed in. Mitsos laid a long train of damp powder in sacking, making a fuse of about ten minutes' law, and when all was ready he whistled gently to the watcher on the wall. A moment afterwards the gate was put softly ajar, and the men filed out. He waited till the last had emerged, and then set a light to the train.
The night was not very dark, for although the moon was not yet risen, the diffused light of the stars made a clear gray twilight. But the two ridges of the ravine down which they climbed were rough with upstanding bowlders, and by going very cautiously and quietly, it was easily possible to approach the lines without being seen. Indeed, the greater fear was from the hearing, for the dry stones clanged and rang metallically under their feet, and as they began to get nearer the men took off their mountain shoes, so that their tread might be the more noiseless. Already the foremost were as far as they thought it safe to go, and in silence the others closed up till the shadow of each bowlder was a nest of expectant eyes. The air was still and windless; each man heard only the coming and going of his breath; above them was not a sound except that from time to time a bird piped with a flute-like note among the rocks. The strain grew tenser and yet more tense; now and then a murmur would come drowsily up from the Turkish lines, and the bird piped on. Mitsos was only conscious of one perplexing doubt: would the bird be killed or not?
Suddenly, with a roar and crash and windy buffet, that which they were waiting for came. The crash grew into a roar, which gathered volume and intolerable sound every moment, and in a great storm of dust the shattered rocks passed down the ravine, the smaller pieces leaping like spray from a torrent up the sides, the larger coiling and twisting together like the ropes of water in a cataract. They passed with a rush and roar down on to the Turkish lines below, and as the tumult went on its way there mingled with it the noises of ripped canvas, broken poles, and human cries. Close on the heels of this avalanche came the Mainats; from the tents near men were fleeing in fear of another shower of stone coming; the path of the rocks themselves lay through the lines as if cut by some portentous knife. None thought of stopping them; the lanes through the camp passed like blurs of light, and keeping to the edge of the path cut by the rocks, they reached the plain without a shot being fired at them. But they did not halt nor abate the pace. Though they carried muskets they were without powder, and but for their knives defenceless, and, without even waiting to fall into any sort of formation, they struck out over the plain towards the lower hills at the base of which the camp at Lerna stood.
The vigilance of the Greeks was of another sort to that of the Turks, and knowing that they would run a most considerable risk, if they approached the camp without giving warning, of being shot, they halted some three hundred yards off, and Mitsos yelled aloud.
"From the citadel," he cried, "Greeks of Maina!"
A shout answered him; and now that they were beyond all reach of pursuit, they went the more quietly. The sentries at the first outpost had turned out in case of anything being wrong, but in a moment they were recognized and passed.
Petrobey met them.
"So Benjamin has come home," he said, kissing Yanni. "And oh, Mitsos, you have come to friends."
All that week the Turks in Argos and the Greeks at Lerna and on the mountains waited, the one for the Ottoman fleet to appear, the other for that which should certainly follow on its non-appearance. Already, so it was rumored, some of the Turkish cavalry horses had been killed to supply food for the men, and the Greeks heard it with a greedy quickening of the breath. One morning two ships appeared suddenly opposite Nauplia, and it was feared they were the first of the Turkish ships, but Mitsos announced they were theRevengeand theSophia, though why they had come he knew not. The hills round were a line of Greek camps, waiting, like birds of prey, for the inevitable end. Down at Lerna the men were growling discontentedly at the waiting; the hot, foul air of the marshes smote them, but they swore they would smite in return. And thus in silent and hungry expectation the first week of August went by.
At length, on the morning of the 6th, the end came. When day broke it was to show the long bright lines of Albanian mercenaries who formed the advance-guard of Dramali's army, marching across the plain northward towards the guarded hills. From Lerna, lying low, they were only visible when they began to reach the foot-hills of the range towards Corinth, and by that time the cavalry had begun to leave the north gate of Argos. Instantly in the camp there was a sudden fierce outburst of joy and certain vengeance. The hills were guarded, the Turks in a trap; it only remained to go.
The hills between Argos and Corinth were rough and bowldersown. The main pass over them, called the Dervenaki, lay due north from Argos, and was that over which the Turks under Dramali had come. This, however, had now been occupied five days before by a large body of Greeks from the villages round—hardy men of the mountains, as leaderless as a pack of wolves, and fiercer. They had taken up a senseless position too near the plain and below the gorge through which the road passed, and which was narrow and easily held. The Albanians, therefore, the advance-guard of the force, seeing that the pass was occupied, turned westward towards the village of Nemea by another road, which joined the Dervenaki again, after a long détour, beyond the gorge. Kolocotrones with his son Panos and some eight thousand Greeks were in possession of Nemea, and news that the advance-guard, consisting of about a thousand Albanians, was approaching was brought him as he sat at breakfast in his brass helmet.
Now the Albanians were not Turks, but Greeks serving as mercenaries under the Sultan. Many of them had relations and friends among the Greeks, and a year ago, at the siege of Tripoli, a separate amnesty had been concluded with them, and they had not been prevented from going home. Moreover, they were excellent men of arms and poor. All these things Kolocotrones considered as he debated what to do. While he was still debating the first rank of them came in sight. He looked at them for a moment, and then turned to the scouts who had brought the news.
"May hell receive you!" he snarled. "They are Greeks."
They were Greeks; every one knew that. They were allowed to pass unmolested. They were also poor, and that Kolocotrones knew.
Besides the Dervenaki and the Nemean way to the west, two other possible roads led over the pass, both to the east. Of these one lay parallel with the Dervenaki, and only five or six hundred yards from it, till nearly the top of the pass. The roads then joined and, after running for some half-mile one on each side of a narrow, wedge-shaped hill, became one. Farther away, again to the east, lying in a long loop, was a third road. Both of these branched off from the Dervenaki before coming to the spot where the irregular Greeks on that pass were encamped. The road farthest away to the east was held by the English-speaking Niketas. He had with him two thousand men, including many Mainats.
The advance-guard of the Turks preceded the main army by some half-hour. Dramali rode with the second body of cavalry, and when he saw the Albanians take the western road, which he knew was held by Kolocotrones, he burst into a torrent of Mussulman abuse. He had been betrayed, sold, bartered; these Albanians were in league with the Greeks. So he ordered an advance up the shortest and most direct road—namely, the Dervenaki. His scouts soon returned saying it was held by the Greeks, and Dramali turned eastward into the parallel road, which appeared to be untenanted. A low ridge divided the two, and as he crossed it he was seen by Niketas's outposts. He, without a moment's hesitation, divided his band into two parts. With one he crossed the road Dramali was taking, and took up a position near the top of the pass on the steep, wedge-shaped hill that separated it from the Dervenaki, and on the road itself, blocking it. To the others he gave orders to hang on the right flank of the Turks as they advanced northward. Of the Turks, now that the Albanians were separated from them, the greater part of the cavalry came first as an advance-guard; the most of the infantry followed. Between them marched an army of luggage-mules, with tents and all the appurtenances of Turkish warfare, mules and camels carrying embroidered clothes, gold-chased arms, money, women, and behind, again, the lesser part of the cavalry and the remainder of the infantry.
Meantime the men in camp at Lerna, more than half Mainats, had seen the road the Turks had taken, and were in pursuit. Now that it was seen that the Turks were in retreat, and had no thought of attempting the relief of Nauplia, since the fleet had not arrived, there was nothing to be gained by continuing to hold the Larissa; it was better to concentrate all forces on the hills over which the Turks had to pass, if so be that they passed. The cavalry they had seen had gone first. It was no time to think of prudence and security, and they dashed through Argos and its empty and silent streets and out to the right at the tail of the Ottoman forces, risking an attack as they crossed the plain. But Dramali had no longer any thought of attacking. Those doomed lines with their trains of baggage-beasts moved but slowly, and Petrobey reached the outlying foot-hills before the rear of the Turks had left the plain.
The pass on each side of which Niketas's troops were posted narrowed gradually as it went, and near the top where they waited it was just a road, flanked on the left side by the steep promontory of hill, on the other by a stream riotous only in the melting of the snows, but now a mere starved trickle of water. Beyond that was a corresponding hill, covered sparsely with pines, which grew up big among big bowlders of white limestone, lying like some petrified flock of gigantic sheep. The day had broken with a pitiless and naked sky, and as the sun rose higher it seemed that the world was a furnace eaten up with its own heat. Niketas himself with some hundred men had already taken up his position on the left side of the pass through which the Turks would come on the steep turtle-backed ridge dividing it from the Dervenaki. Another contingent was on the road itself, employed in heaping up a rough wall of stones across it to shelter themselves and delay the advance of the cavalry vanguard. On the right of the road were the remainder of Niketas's troops, some five hundred in number, dispersed among the pines and bowlders of the hill-side, which rose so sheerly that each man could see the road, as it were a stage from the rising tiers of theatre-seats, and shoot down on to it. Petrobey sent Yanni forward to find Niketas and ask him where he would wish the fresh troops from Lerna to be posted, and the answer came back that they were most needed in the road to help the building of the barricade and stop the first cavalry charges. Those already there were under Hypsilantes and the priest Dikaios; would Petrobey take council with them? It was possible also that a reinforcement would be needed on the right of the road; if so, let the Mainats be divided. He himself had sufficient men to hold the hill on the left, and it was all "damn fine." Finally he wished Petrobey good appetite for the feast; Mainats he knew were always hungry.
The Turks were still half an hour away, and Petrobey led his troops down on to the road from off the uneven ground of the hill, so that they should make more speed, and in ten minutes they reached the place where the rest were building the barricade. Here all set themselves to the work: some rolled down stones from the slopes into the valley, others fetched them from the bed of the stream, while those on the road carried them to the site of the growing wall and piled them up. Now and then a warning shout would come from the hill-side, and a rock would leap down, gathering speed, and rush across the road, split sometimes into a hundred fragments and useless, but for the most part—for the limestone was hard—a valuable building stone. Eight or ten men, like busy-limbed ants at work, would seize it and roll it up to the rising barricade, piling it on top if not too heavy, or using it to form part of a buttress. But their time was short and the wall was but an uneven ridge across the road and stream, four feet high or so in places, elsewhere only a heap of stones, when it was shouted from the outposts that the cavalry was approaching, and the men ceased from their work and, gathering up their arms, retreated to behind the improvised barricade and waited.
To the left of the road, and below the barricade, rose the wedge of hill on which Niketas's contingent was stationed. They were drawn up in five ranks of about two hundred men each, in open order, with a space of some thirty paces between the last three ranks, so that, owing to the steepness of the ground, each man commanded a view of the road and each rank could fire over the heads of those in front. The ground, however, was of a more gradual slope as it approached the road, and the first rank lay, sheltering themselves as far as possible, among the bowlders not twenty paces from the road itself; the second rank, five paces behind it, knelt; and the third stood. On the right of the road the hill was too rugged and uneven, being strewn with bowlders and sown with shrubs and trees, to allow of any formation, and was in fact one great ambuscade, the men being hidden by the trees and stones. Here and there a gun-barrel glistened in the sun, but a casual passer-by might have gone his way and never suspected the presence of men. A bend in the road, some two hundred yards below, concealed the barricade and its defenders from the Turks.
The vanguard of the Turks halted a moment, seeing that the hill to the left of the road was occupied, and then set forward again at a brisk trot, meaning perhaps to go under fire along the road commanded by Niketas and then, wheeling at the top of the pass, attack him, and thus enable the rest of the troops to march through the ravine while they were engaging its defenders, and reach the open ground which lay beyond. Just before the first ranks reached the bend in the road Niketas opened fire on them, but they did not wait to return it, and putting their horses into a canter swept round the bend.
At that the hill-side on their right flank blazed and bristled, and every shrub and stone seemed to burst into a flame of fire. On each side the Greeks, at short range, poured a storm of bullets into them; at each step another and another fell. Suddenly from in front the Mainats from between their barricades opened fire; retreat was impossible, for the whole of the cavalry were now advancing from behind; to stop meant one congestion of death, and they spurred savagely on. In a moment they were at the wall. Some leaped the lower parts of it, alighting, it seemed, in a hell of flame; others were checked by the higher portion, and their horses reared and wheeled into their own ranks; others passed through the stream-bed, or putting their horses at the wall of defenders as at a fence, found themselves faced by the rear rank of Mainats, who were waiting patiently higher up the road till they should have penetrated into their range.
Meantime the check given to the first division of the cavalry at the barricade had resulted in a congestion all down the advancing lines. The second division had closed up with the first, the third with the second, and on the heels of the cavalry came the infantry. Dramali, who was stationed in the rear still, almost on the plain of Argos, had ordered them to advance, at all costs, till they gained the top of the pass, whence they could intrench themselves on the open ground, and every moment added a crust to the congealment of destruction. The masses of those moving on from behind pushed the first rank forward and forward, all squeezed together, and pressing against the wall of barricade, as a river in flood presses against the arches of a bridge. At two or three points it had been entirely broken down, and through these—now free for a moment, now choked again with the bodies of horses and their riders—a few escaped through the first ranks of Mainats and into the road beyond, raked indeed by the other ranks, who held the pass higher up, but no longer exposed to the full threefold short range fire from Niketas, the barrier, and those in ambush on the left. Already the wall of dead and dying was heaped higher than the barricade that the Mainats had raised, and the horses of the Turks who forced their way through trampled on the bodies of the fallen. But pass they must, for they were forced forward, as by some hideous, slow-moving glacier, by a stream of dead and living. Here and there a dead horse carrying a dead rider was borne on upright and unable to fall because of those who pressed so closely on each side, the rider bowed forward over the neck of his horse or sprawling sideways across the knee of his fellow, the horse's head supported on the quarters of the beast in front or wedged between it and the next. More terrible even was some other brute, wounded and screaming, but unable to move except as it was moved and carried along for some seconds perhaps, till two or three of those in front forced their way through the breaches in the barricade of horses and riders and gave it space, so that it fell and was mercifully trampled out of pain and life.
For five deadly minutes they pressed on hopelessly and gallantly, while the leaden hail hissed from either flank and from in front into the congested horsemen; but at the end the Turks broke and fled in all directions, some up the hill where Niketas's troops, still untouched and unattacked, were stationed, others up the hill-side opposite, which still spurted and blazed with muskets. There every bush was an armed man, every stone a red flower of flame. But the rush could not be stopped any more than a rush even of cattle or sheep can be withstood by armed men. The Turks fled, scattering in all directions, northward for the most part towards Corinth, where they would find safety, and the Greeks troubled not to pursue, but shot as a man shoots at driven deer. Almost simultaneously with the breaking of the troops, those of the cavalry who had passed the first ranks of the Mainats who guarded the wall, once of stones, but now a heap of men and horses, succeeded, in spite of the steady fire of the rear ranks and with the cool courage of desperation, in clearing some sort of passage round by the stream-bed, which was now fuller than it had been, but red and with a froth of blood, and through this some four hundred of the cavalry passed. They drove the Mainats from the barricade with much slaughter, forcing them up the two hill-sides which bounded the ravine, and charging forward passed the other ranks without sustaining heavy loss, and made their way into the open ground, reaching Corinth that night.
Dramali's cavalry had been divided into two parts, the larger of which formed the vanguard. Of these four hundred had passed through that valley of death, of the rest the red and fuller flowing stream gave account. Behind them had followed the first division of the infantry, some three thousand men, now scattered over the armed hillsides, and behind again the baggage mules and camels. Dramali himself rode with the second division of the cavalry, some three hundred yards behind, and the rear was brought up by the remainder of his foot-soldiers. He himself had been checked in the lower part of the pass by the congestion in front, and waited in vain to move again. Aides-de-camp were sent off to ascertain the cause of this contravention of his orders, but before any came back, the sight of the hill-sides, covered with flying men, brought him quicker and more eloquent message.
He paused a moment, then in nervous anger drove his spurs into his horse, and checked it again, biting the ends of his long mustache.
"Why do they not go forward?" he said. And again, "Why are they scattering?" Then, with a sudden spurt of anger, "Oh, the dogs!" he cried; "dogs, to be chased by dogs!" But the fire in his words was only ash.
He looked round on the calm, impassive faces of his staff, men for the most part without the bowels of either mercy or fear, who would meet death with as perfect an indifference as they would mete it out to others. The absolute nonchalance of their expression, their total disregard of what might happen to them, struck him into a childish kind of frenzy, for he was of different make.
"If we push on, we all die," he said, in a sort of squeal; "and if we turn back, what next?"
At that the officer near him turned his head aside, hiding a smile, but before Dramali had time to notice it a fresh movement of the Greeks from in front made up his mind for him. Those under Niketas, on the left of the pass, were seen pouring down off the hill on to the road, and almost before the Turks saw what was happening had cut his army in two, drawing themselves up just behind the baggage animals, hardly three hundred yards in front of the second division of the cavalry with whom Dramali rode. That was enough for the Serashier. Dearly as he loved his battery of silver saucepans, his embroidered armor, and all the appliances of a pasha, he loved one thing better, and that at least was left him; he was determined to save it as long as possible.
"Back to Argos!" he screamed. "Let the infantry open out; the cavalry will go first." And putting his spurs to his horse he fairly forced his way back, and not drawing bridle, rode through the scorched plains which he had passed that morning, and by twelve o'clock was back at Argos again.
On that afternoon and all the next day he remained there in a feverish stupor of inaction, crying aloud at one time that Allah was dead, and the world given over to the hands of the infidels, at another that the ships were already at Nauplia, and that he would march there. Then it would seem that the world only contained one thing of importance—and that a certain narghile of his with a stem studded with turquoise and moonstone—and that this had fallen into the hands of the Greeks. Let them send quickly and say that he would give an oke of gold for it, and two Greek slaves of his which had been taken at Kydonies: one was sixteen, and the other only fourteen; they were worth their weight in gold for their beauty only, and Constantine, the elder, made coffee as it could only be made in paradise. Let Constantine come at once and make him some coffee. Anyhow, Constantine and coffee were left him, and nothing else mattered.
Two days later the remnant of the Turkish force again started for Corinth. This time Dramali, who had abated a little his contempt for the Greek dogs, making up the complement in fearful haste, took the precaution to send forward an advance-guard during the night, who should find out if any of the passes were unoccupied. The Greeks under Niketas, who were in no hurry to engage the Turks again—for, since their escape was impossible, they could afford to wait—were still holding the pass which the Turks had attempted to cross two days before, and the reconnoitring party of Dramali found the road farther away to the east unoccupied. Niketas, when it was seen which way they were going, hastened across to secure a repetition of what had gone before, and making his way over the hills, again stopped the advance. But the road here was wider, lying between hills less easy to occupy, and the Turkish cavalry, by a brilliant charge, won their way through and escaped to Corinth, abandoning the remainder of the infantry and the rest of the baggage. On them the Greeks settled like a cloud of stinging insects, and that evening Constantine, the coffee-maker of paradise, exercised his functions in the house of his father, a refugee from Kydonies, who had taken service with Niketas.
Thus the great scheme came to an end, a pricked bubble, a melting of snow in summer. No ships had yet appeared off Nauplia, and Dramali's invincible army, which waited for them, had come and gone. The eager, hungry eyes of those besieged in Nauplia starved and watched in vain, and to the hungry mouths the food was scantier. Slowly and inevitably the cause of the people, in the hands no more of incompetent leaders, was gaining ground against the intolerable burden of those heartless and lustful masters, and link by link the chain of slavery was snapping and falling as the husks burst and fall from corn already mature and ripe.
TheSophiaand theRevenge, as Mitsos had seen, had come to Nauplia a week ago, but neither he nor yet the Capsina herself could have fully explained why they remained there. Indeed, the girl seemed to be wrestling with some strange seizure of indecision. She would determine to go after the Turkish vessels which had sailed, for Patras; again, she would say that she would remain blockading Nauplia till it was taken. She had heard that Mitsos was with those who held the citadel of Argos, and it seemed impossible to her to leave Nauplia until he was out; then, when news came that the defenders had joined the camp at Lerna, there was still another reason that detained her. She felt she must see Suleima; why, it puzzled her to say, except that some fever of jealous curiosity possessed her. Yet the days went by, and every day saw her unable to do that most simple thing—namely, to walk up to the white house which had been pointed out to her, a magnet to her eyes, say she was the Capsina and the very good friend of Mitsos, and be received with honor and affection, both for her own sake and for his. Meantime no urgent call bade her leave Nauplia; the Turkish fleet would soon be back from Patras, and it was as well to wait here as to go cruising after them; only it was unlike her to prefer to wait when to cruise after them would have done as well. They must certainly pass up the Gulf of Nauplia, and those narrow waters were a model battle-field for light-helmed ships like hers, and cramping to the heavy and cumbrous Turkish vessels. Thus she told herself, as was true, that in all probability, even if there had never been a lad called Mitsos, she would have waited there. Then fate, pitying her indecision, took the helm out of her hands and steered her straight for Suleima, and in this wise.
It was the evening after Dramali's first evacuation of Argos. All morning they had heard the sound of firing coming drowsily across the water, and before noon had seen the body of Turks who, with Dramali, had escaped back to Argos across the plain again, but as yet there was no certain news of what had happened. But about five of the afternoon more authentic tidings came: there had been a great slaughter; the Turks had broken and fled, the most towards Corinth, but that some hundreds of them, this being unknown to Niketas, had collected on the hills, and despairing of getting through to Corinth, were marching towards Nauplia, with the object, no doubt, of seeking safety—and starvation had they known it—in the citadel.
Now, though this was a mad and impracticable scheme, yet there was great disquietude in the news. The women and children of the Greeks who were besieging Nauplia were largely gathered on the hill of Tiryns, some two miles from the gate, and defenceless. Tiryns lay on the route of the Turks, and three hundred yards farther up the road away from Nauplia stood the white house.
The Capsina was on the quay when the news came, the impassive Kanaris with her. She sent him off at once to the ships with orders to bring both crews back armed, leaving only a few in charge. Already women and children from Tiryns were beginning to pour, a panic-stricken crowd, with all they could carry of their household gear, into the town, with confirmation of the approach of the Turks. A shepherd lad feeding his sheep on the lower hills had fled before them, leaving his flock behind him; there were not less than three hundred of them.
The Capsina's men were the first to start; another contingent drawn off from the besieging troops were to follow. They were to march straight to Tiryns and guard the place through the night, and in the morning they would be relieved. There still remained many Greek women and children there, and the place was also a sort of hospital for sick men from Argos and Corinth; and the Capsina's eye blazed.
"Women, children, and wounded men!" she cried, "a tit-bit for Turks!"
Kanaris had done his utmost to persuade her not to come with them. If the news was true, and the Turks attacked Tiryns, there would be wild, hazardous fighting in the dark, each man for himself, no work for a woman. There were no sort of fortifications or even houses at the place; the people lived in wry-set rows of pole booths, roofed in with branches and maize-stalks. The Turks would enter where they pleased. But the girl only laughed.
"It is as well to die one way as another," she said, "and this is one of the better ways. Besides, I mean to sail theRevengemany times yet. Oh man, but I killed five Turks at Porto Germano; and had it not been for Mitsos, the fifth would have killed me. I was happy that day. If God is good, I will kill five more. One was as big as you, Kanaris, and fatter by half."
The sky was already growing dusky red with sunset when they set off. The land-breeze had set in shrill and steady, rattling the dry maize-fields, whistling in the stubborn aloes and cactuses along the road, and whispering in the poplars. Here and there they passed little knots of women flying into Nauplia, all with the same tale. The Turks were undoubtedly coming, and there were still many left in the town; they had been seen not two miles off, and that ten minutes ago.
A gaunt set of apparitions awaited them at the place, men shaking with fever, leaning on crutches, with bandaged arms and swathed heads. Some few only had muskets, the most part short knives, but many only stakes of wood, pointed and hardened in the fire. A crowd of women and children, crying and bewailing themselves, hung about them, unable to make up their minds to face the perils of the dark road into Nauplia, and convinced that Turks were in ambush there. They clung to the men, now beseeching them not to desert them, now begging them not to fight but to surrender. What chance had they against three hundred armed men?
To these the sight of the Capsina and her sailors was like a draught of wine.
"Praise the Virgin," cried one, "it is the Capsina!" And she fell on the girl's neck, sobbing hysterically.
The Capsina disengaged herself.
"There is no time to lose," she said to Kanaris. "Take the women off, and put them in the centre. The attack will be from the north; at least they come from there. These men are useless. Man!" she cried, turning to one, "if your arm shake so, you will as like cut off your own head as the head of a Turk. Get you with the women. You too, and you!"
The second contingent from Nauplia had not yet arrived, and even while the Capsina spoke a man from a farm near, half dressed and bleeding from a wound in the hand, rushed in saying that the Turks had pillaged his house. He had escaped from there with a sword-cut; they were not two hundred yards off. The last of the women were pressing into the centre of the town, and there was only one child left, a boy about three years old, who was clinging, with howls, to his father, a gaunt, fever-stricken man, but capable of using a knife. The Capsina spoke to the child.
"Father will come to you if you will go with the others," she said. "Oh laddie, let go of him. Take charge of the child," she said to the last of the women. "Mind, I leave him with you."
She paused a moment, listening. Above the whistling of the wind could be heard the tramp of feet along the road.
"The others are not here yet," she said. "These feet come from the north. To your posts along the huts by the north, three men together! There are no other orders except to kill; that only, and to save the women."
The men filed off quickly, but without confusion, but before more than half had gone there came a sudden rush from outside, and a band of Turks poured up the narrow lane of booths. For a few moments the two crowds surged together without fighting-room, then they broke up right and left into the narrow alleys, fighting in groups. The Capsina found herself wedged up in the crowd, a Turk between her and the door-post of one of the huts, each staring wildly at the other, and neither able to move. Then, as the pressure behind grew greater, the door-post gave under the weight, and they both tumbled headlong in. The Capsina's pistol went off wildly in the air, a musket-bullet whistled by her, and the hut was suddenly full of smoke. She had fallen straight across the man, but in a moment she struggled to her knees and stabbed fiercely at something soft below her. The soft thing quivered and was still, and something warm spurted onto her hand with a soft hot gush.
At that the madness of fresh blood took possession of her, and she laughed softly, a gentle, cooing, cruel laugh, like in spirit to the purring of a wild cat which has killed its evening meal and is pleased, not only with the thought of the satisfaction of its hunger, but with having killed. She stayed still a moment, the silent centre of the shouting confusion outside, waiting to see if the man moved again. Outside the fight had surged and wavered and moved away, and though she was on her feet again in less than a minute from the time when she and her prey had fallen together headlong into the hut, she looked out to find the little alley, where the first rush had been made, empty except for a few forms which lay on the ground, and a Turk who was leaning against the post of a hut opposite, in the shadow of death. His side had been laid open by a sword-cut, and he was trying, but very feebly, because he was already a dead man, to stanch the flow of blood. Looking up he saw the Capsina, his mouth gathered in a snarl, and with an effort he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. But it had already been fired, and he threw it from him with a grunt of disgust and took no more notice of her. And she laughed again.
Listening, she heard the turmoil of the fight sweeping away round to the east of the hill, and she was just about to dash off again to rejoin the rest when up the lane by which the Turks had entered came a woman with a baby in her arms. In the dim light of the stars and the grayness before the rising of the moon the Capsina could not clearly see her face, only she was tall. The baby was hidden under the shawl in which her head was wrapped; she carried it on her left arm, and in her right hand she held a pistol. Then catching sight of the Turk opposite propped against the hut door, she paused a moment and pushed noiselessly but with all her weight against the door of another hut, seeking shelter.
The Capsina came out of the shadow and beckoned to her.
"Here, come in here," she said; "but why are you not with the other women?"
The woman sank down in a corner of the hut, and then swiftly got up again.
"What is it here?" she said. "There is some one here!"
The Capsina laughed again.
"Limbs and a body," she said. "A Turk. I killed him. Where are you from?"
"From a house near," she said. "I left it in haste, and had to hide in a ditch till the Turks passed. I saw the Greeks from Nauplia enter here, and I thought I should be safer with them than on the road."
A question was on the Capsina's lips, but at that moment a Turk came by within a yard of the door of the hut, and seeing a comrade lying opposite, spoke to him. The Capsina had drawn Suleima into a corner, but stood herself opposite the door. She saw the wounded Turk raise his head feebly and point at the door of the hut where she was, and on the instant the other put up his musket in act to fire. But the Capsina was the quicker—had the man passed by, she would not have risked a shot, for she and Suleima were alone there, but she guessed what that pointed finger meant—and while yet the man's musket was but half way to his shoulder, he fell, shot to the heart.
She handed back the pistol to Suleima, with her case of powder and bullets, while the child crowed with delight at the flash of the fire.
"Give me your pistol," she said, "if it is loaded, and load mine again if you know how. That child should be a soldier some day."
She stepped swiftly out of the hut, and without a quiver of a muscle pointed the pistol at the wounded Turk's head.
"I should have shot you at once," she said, and then with the smoking pistol in her hand stepped quickly back into the hut, leaving the thing fallen forward like a broken toy, thinking only of her unasked question.
Still she could not frame her lips to it, and Suleima having loaded the pistol handed it back to her.
"You have save my life and that of the littlest and dearest," she said. "I kiss your hand for it, and thank you from my heart."
But the Capsina drew her hand quickly away.
"I could do no less," she said, shortly, "but I want to ask you—"
Suddenly the child broke out into a little wailing cry, and Suleima turned to it.
"Oh littlest Mitsos," she said, "hush you, my little one. The father never cried when he was such as you."
The Capsina stood quite still, and suddenly her throat felt dry and burning.
"The child's name is Mitsos?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Surely, after the name of his father."
The two girls could not see each other in the darkness of the hut, but for a moment Suleima thought she felt the other's hand touching the baby lightly, and there was silence for a space.
"You did not seem frightened when you came in here," said the Capsina, at length.
"I had no time or thought to spare for fright. I had the child with me."
A great burst of shouting broke out at the moment, and the Capsina rose to her feet.
"It is the others from Nauplia," she said.
Then from no long distance her name was called out, and she went to the door of the hut.
"Kanaris—is it Kanaris?" she cried. "I am here and safe."
Kanaris ran up, breathless and bloody, and more enthusiastic than his wont.
"It is all over," he panted; "we have driven them out of the village, and the rest from Nauplia are seeing to those who have escaped. Surely you bear the good luck with you, Capsina."
"That is as God wills!" Then lowering her voice: "I am attending to a woman in here, a Greek. Take command of the men, Kanaris, and leave me here. We stop here till morning, and let a good watch be kept. Ay, man, I have killed three Turks, one with the knife and two with the pistol."
Then she went back into the hut again and sat down by Suleima.
"Your name is Suleima, then," she said, in a cold and steady voice, "and your husband's name Mitsos Codones?"
"Surely," said Suleima. "Oh littlest, hush you, and sleep."
"Give me the child," said the Capsina, suddenly, with a cruel choking in her throat; "let me hold it. Children are good with me."
She almost snatched the baby out of Suleima's arms, and in the darkness Suleima, wondering and silent, heard her kissing it again and again, and heard that her breath sobbed as she drew it.
In truth the stress and tempest of the impossible battling with the heart's desire had burst on the girl. At one moment she wondered that her hand did not take up the loaded pistol that lay beside her and kill Suleima as she sat there, and at another that she loved the woman who was loved of Mitsos, and could have found it in her heart to kiss her and cling to her as she had clung to the baby. So this was she whom so strange a pathway had led to her, this Suleima, whom she had seen so often in the visions painted by her imagination. She had pictured herself a hundred times meeting Suleima, killing her, and passing on with the road clear to Mitsos at the end of it. She had pictured Suleima coming to her for safety from the Turks, she had heard herself say: "You come to me for safety?" and laughing in her face at the thought and turning her back to where some hell of death received her. She had seen Suleima a dull hen-wife, fond of Mitsos, no doubt, and clever at the making of jam. What she had not seen was a woman, motherly like this, yet not afraid, a pistol in one hand, the little one on the other arm. Here they were, sitting together in the deserted hut, they two and the baby and the dead Turk, who sprawled on the floor, and yet she fulfilled none of these visions. The knowledge that Suleima had heard her name called by Kanaris, the suspicion that she had betrayed herself, troubled her not at all; the child was Mitsos's, and she devoured it with kisses.
Suleima sat silent, and by degrees the Capsina grew more quiet. Her breath came evenly again, and only now and then a sudden sob caught in her throat. Suleima had heard Kanaris call the other's name, and the truth and solution of the situation were instantly flashed into her mind. Her sweet and womanly nature, her utter trust in Mitsos, and the enthusiastic honor in which she held the Capsina for her brave deeds, struck out of her mind all possibility of jealousy, and she was only sorry, deeply and largely sorry, for this wonderful girl with whose name all mouths were full. At last, not being very clever and being very honest, she laid her hand on the Capsina's knee.
"I am so sorry," she said. "Believe me, I am very sorry."
The Capsina sat perfectly still and rigid for a moment, and then with a sudden spasm of ungovernable anger her hand leaped out and she struck Suleima on the face.
"You lie!" she cried. "Take back the baby. You lie!"
Suleima took the baby and got up. The blow, delivered in the dark, had nearly missed her, but her ear was tingling with the Capsina's fingers as they flashed past. The other sat still.
"Capsina," she said, "you have saved my life. I am wholly yours to command at any time. I can say no more. Good-night, and may the Holy Virgin watch over you."
She moved a step towards the door of the hut and would have gone out, when suddenly the gates of the Capsina's heart were flung wide.
"Ah, no, no!" she cried; "Suleima, wait. What can I do? I am sorry and ashamed—I who have never been ashamed before. Wait; do not go. Sit down. Where did I strike you? Indeed I did not mean it; my hand came and went before I knew it. Sit down again—and first, you forgive me?"
Suleima came back, and knelt by the girl.
"Forgive you? That is easily done, and it is done. The thing was not," she said, "and the fault was mine. I should not have said that. See, take the baby again. That will show, will it not, that there is nothing between you and me?"
The Capsina took the baby again, and began to sob hopelessly and helplessly. Suleima sat close to her and put her arm round her.
"It comes ill from me to say it, Capsina," she said, "but we both love the lad; and is not that a bond of union between us? And he—you should have heard him speak of you! If ever I could be jealous, it would be of you I was jealous. There is none in the world to compare with you he says."
"Ah, what does that matter?" sobbed the girl. "It is not that I want. It is he. Strike back if you will. It is monstrous I should say that to you. Oh, baby! littlest Mitsos! Mitsos! Mitsos!"
And she fell to kissing the child again.
"I have been a brute, a brute!" she wailed. "I would have taken him from you if I could. I would have tempted him, only he was not temptable. Often and often I would have killed you, often I have killed you in my thoughts. How can you trust me? I am unclean. How can you let me touch the child? I shall defile it. Take it back! No, let me hold it a little longer. It does not know who I am. Do not teach it to curse me."
Suleima laughed gently.
"It is an ignorant little one, and knows little," she said, "but he can say 'father' and 'mother,' and one other word. How quiet the child is with you, Capsina. Sometimes he fights me as if I was a Turk. Wake, little Mitsos. Say 'Capsina.'"
From the darkness came a little treble staccato pipe:
"Cap-sin-a."
"Mitsos taught him that," continued Suleima. "When he was home from the cruise with you, he would sit with the little one in his arms for an hour at a time, saying 'Capsina, Capsina,' to it. Ay, but it is a great baby I have for a husband!"
The girl rocked the child to and fro gently.
"Say it again, little one," she whispered, "say 'Capsina.' I know not why that is so sweet to me," she continued to Suleima, when the child had piped her name again, "but somehow it seems to put me more intimately with him and you. Surely he would not have taught the child my name if he was not my friend. So clearly can I see him doing it, sitting there by the hour smoking, and lazier than a tortoise. Indeed, he is a baby himself; we used to play child-games on theRevengewhen we sailed from Hydra, and laughed instead of talked."
"He has told me," said Suleima—"he has told me often!"
After that they sat for a while in silence. Now and then one of the women of the village would go by the illuminated square of the door, or one of the Greek sentries would pass on his round, whistling softly to himself. Otherwise the world was a stillness. The moon was risen, and little bars and specks of light filtered in through the roof of branch and bough. The body of the Turk, still lying where he had fallen, sprawled in the other corner, but neither of the women seemed to notice it. An extraordinary sense of effort over had possession of the Capsina; she had betrayed herself, and that to the one woman in the world to whom she would have thought it impossible to speak. Her pride, her strong, self-sufficient reserve, her secret, which she thought she would have died to keep, had been surrendered without conditions, and the captor was very merciful. She was tired of struggling, she had laid down her arms. And it was wonderfully sweet to hold Mitsos's child.... It was not easy for her to speak, but when a reserved nature breaks down it breaks down altogether, and when she spoke again she held nothing back.
"Even so," she said. "I loved him as soon as I saw him, and I love him still. But in this last hour I do not know how a certain bitterness has been withdrawn; perhaps the bitterness of hatred which was mixed up with it, for I hated you, and you were part of Mitsos. That is your doing—you would not let me hate you, and indeed it is not often that I am compelled like that. And now, Suleima, get you home. I will send a couple of men with you to see you safe; but the Turks are gone. There is no danger."
"You will come with me, Capsina?" asked the other. "Will you not sleep at the house to-night?"
"I must wait here with my men." She hesitated a moment. "But do you ask me? Do you really ask me?"
"Ah, I hoped you would come," said Suleima, smiling. "You will come, will you not? Did I not hear you tell Kanaris he was in charge this night?"
"And may I still carry the little one?"
"Will you not find him heavy?"
"Heavy? And do you never carry the little one because he is too heavy?"
And she got up quickly and moved towards the door. There Suleima paused a moment.
"Shall we not say a word for those whom you have killed?" she said. "It is kinder, and they will offend us no more. So send peace to their souls, thrice holy Mother of God!"
She crossed herself thrice, and followed the Capsina out. The moon had already risen high towards the zenith, and shone with a very pure, clear light. Like a caressing and loving hand, it touched the sun-dried and bowlder-sown ground between them and the road; it was poured out like a healing lotion over its roughness, and lay on it with a cooling touch. The noises of the night joined in chorus to make up the one great silence of the night. A bird fluted at intervals from the trees, frogs croaked in the marshes below, an owl swept by with a whisper of white wings and a long-drawn hoot. Below lay the bay, an unemblazoned shield of silver, and on the left hand the fires of the Greeks round Nauplia pierced red holes in the dark promontory. A falling star, ever a good omen to the peasants, shot and faded in the western sky, and the stream that ran through the vineyards towards the marsh spoke quietly to itself, like one talking in sleep. And something of the spirit of the stillness touched the Capsina's soul. The great impossible thing was not less impossible nor less to be desired, but she had not known till now how aggravating and chafing a thing it had been to feel this wild, vague hatred against Suleima. That had gone. She could no more hate this brave, beautiful girl, who had treated her with so large and frank a courtesy, with such true and stingless sympathy, than she could have hated Mitsos himself. Only an hour ago it would have seemed to her that pity or sympathy from Suleima would be the crown of her rank offence; now it was a thing that soothed and strengthened. Her pride did not disdain it; it was too gracious and large-hearted to be disdained. And the baby slept against her heart, that baby with its three words—father, mother, Capsina.