"That, and not only that," said Kanaris, "the whole fleet will see us in the open, so we must make the attempt by night, which is far less sure a job."
"It happened in the gulf of Nauplia," remarked Mitsos.
"They were not acquainted with fire-ships then," said Kanaris, "whereas now, between one thing and another, they are no longer strangers. But if they pass between the island and the main-land, first, we have better chance of a breeze; secondly, they cannot make the straits at night, for they are narrow, and there is a current; therefore they will anchor for the night, and we can approach very early in the morning, and, in addition, theRevengecan shelter unseen behind the headlands, so that she will be near to us. Also the fleet will be scattered; we can choose our ship, and run less risk from the rest."
Two days afterwards Tenedos rose from the north, but still no wind sprang up, and the Turkish fleet sidled and lumbered along with sails spread to catch the slightest breeze, but hanging all day idly. Next morning, however, a brisker air sprang up from the west, and making some five knots an hour, they drew rapidly closer. By three o'clock it was already clear that the Turks meant to pass inside the island, and the wind continuing, and showing signs of increasing towards nightfall, theRevenge, which towed the caiques, stopped to pick up Kanaris and the two Psarians, leaving theSophiahove to to wait for their return. The wind had swept clear the sky, and the myriad stars made a gray shimmering of brightness on the water, sufficient to sail by. They carried no lights for an hour after sunset; the lanterns on the Turks were visible, and, as Mitsos remarked, "where you can see lights, thence can lights be seen."
Tenedos, comely in shape as a woman and tall, drew near, black against the sky on their port bow. On the starboard bow were the lights of the nearest Turkish ships, and, the wind still holding, they cast anchor under shadow of the land, some mile away from where the Turks were anchored. Like wolves they had followed the trail; here was the lair.
The night was very brisk and fresh, and the west wind sang through the cool air. Under shelter of the land the water was smooth, and in that mirror the stars shone and wheeled with scarcely less clearness than overhead. A planet, low in the east, had risen above the hills of the Troad, and traced across the water a silvery path, scarcely less luminous than a young moon. Soon after midnight Kanaris and Mitsos cast off in the one caique, the Psarians in the other, and, with the Capsina waving them farewell and good luck, rowed out of the sheltered bay till they should get the wind. But they had hardly gone a furlong from land when the wind dropped again, and they were left becalmed. The current of the backwater, however, drifted them gradually on, though diagonally to the proper path, yet diminishing the distance between them and the Turks. On the dropping of the wind a mist rose about mast high from the surface of the water, and the lights from the Turkish ships showed blurred and fogged. The ripples washed idly against the boat, rocking it gently to and fro, otherwise they were in a vast silence.
Kanaris frowned and frowned; the man was a frown.
"It is the devil's work, Mitsos," he said. "There is nothing to be done but to row in the darkness as near as we dare and wait for a wind. If there is none an hour before dawn, we shall simply row up to the nearest Turk and set light to the fire-ship. That will not please me."
"If there is no wind, where is the use?" asked Mitsos. "The flames will rise straight; they will toast their bread in our fire and then spit at it till it goes out."
"Also we cannot pick our vessel in the dark," said Kanaris. "Well, we must do the best. Come, lad, row."
They rowed on cautiously and silently till the blurred lights began to show clearer through the mist. The second caique was a little astern, and soon joined the other. Kanaris told them what to do, and giving Mitsos the first watch, he lay down, and sleep was on him as speedy and calm as if he was in his own house at home.
Mitsos sat with an oar in his hand, by which he kept the same position towards the light of the Turkish ships, whistled softly to himself, and kept an eye on the Greek sailors' "beacon star," the dipping of which was the signal for his waking Kanaris. Less phlegmatic than the other, his heart beat full and fast at the risk and adventure of the next day; he pictured to himself how they would run the ship in; he contrasted with a shudder the pleasing excitement of this adventure with the flaming horror of the other at Nauplia, and when the beacon dipped he awoke Kanaris. The latter, wide awake at once, took the oar from him and looked round.
"I dreamed there was a fine wind blowing," he said. "Good sleep to you, little Mitsos."
It was in the aqueous light of that dim hour before dawn when Kanaris awoke him. The air was tingling and cold, and the mist of the night was drifting eastward. Between them and Tenedos to the west, a mile away, the sea view was clear; in front a little mist still hung between them and the nearest Turk; a furlong off farther to the east it was still thick. Kanaris had a smile for him.
"Look," he said; "it is already clearing. Wet your finger, and you will feel it cold from the west. Oh, Mitsos, my dream is true: the wind will be here with the dawn. It and the dawn are waking together."
Mitsos sniffed with head thrown back.
"It is so," he said; "I smell it."
"There are two ships near us," said Kanaris, "both of the biggest kind. The farther one you and I take, the nearer the Psarians. Pray God, they are not utterly fools. With wind I would burn that ship with a tobacco-pipe."
Mitsos smiled sleepily but hugely.
"A fine big tobacco-pipe is this caique," he said. "Are the sails fastened?"
"I have done all while you slept," said Kanaris. "Look and see if it satisfies you. The turpentine only remains. There are the cans; we will do that now. After that no more tobacco."
"That is the drawback to fire-ships," said Mitsos.
Kanaris had nailed the sails to the mast so that they would stay there burning till all the canvas was consumed, and fastened the yards with chains so that they too would blaze until they were entirely burned, and not drop. The brushwood he had piled in the bow, half-mast high, and it only remained to pour the cans of turpentine over sails, deck, and fuel. Even as they were thus employed the stars paled, and were quenched, and with the first definite saffron light in the east a sudden shiver shook the sails, and the boat lifted and moved a little. After a moment another whisper came from the east; the sails flapped, and then began to draw. Kanaris and Mitsos went to the stern, and then Kanaris took the rudder, while Mitsos kindled an oil-lamp and soaked a little dry moss with turpentine, wherewith to fire the ship. A sudden rose flush leaped up to the zenith from the east; the boat rose to a new-born ripple and came down with a cluck into the trough of it; one star only, as if forgotten, hung unextinguished in the sky. The wind had yet scarcely reached the Turkish ships, and they still hung on their anchors, their stern swung round by the current, presenting a starboard broadside to the wind, which now blew shrill and steady, taking the caique along with hissing forefoot and strained canvas. Already Kanaris and Mitsos had passed under the bows of the first Turkish ship, and were not a hundred yards from the second when the Psarian sailors set light too soon to their fire-ship, and, jumping into the boat they towed behind, rowed away. Kanaris gave one grunt of dissatisfaction, for he saw that they had miscalculated their time, and that the fire-ship would only just catch in the bowsprit of the Turk, and also that they had fired it too soon, giving the alarm perhaps to the others. But the wind was brisk, and he had hardly turned his head again, when Mitsos said quietly, "It is time."
Kanaris nodded, put the helm hard aport, and jumped into the boat behind, as Mitsos thrust into the heap of brushwood at the bottom of the mast the pile of burning moss he had kindled at the lantern. He had calculated his distance to precision. The fire-ship struck as Mitsos jumped, staggering with the shock, into the smaller boat, just abaft the forechains, and was instantly glued to the side of the Turk by the force of the wind. In a moment a pillar of flame leaped from the deck to the top of her mast; an eddy of fire shot out like a sword-stroke across the deck of the Turk. Next moment the brushwood in their bows caught, and rose, a screaming curtain of fire, over the forepart of the other. Nor was the fire-ship of the Psarians without use to them. It had caught only in the bowsprit, and was even then drifting harmlessly away to leeward; but at least it burned bravely and poured out dense volumes of smoke, which, coming down the wind, hid them from their victim. And half blinded and choked with it, yet grateful, they took up their oars and rowed away south till they were a safe distance from the anchored ships.
They did not stop till they were some half-mile from them, and then, panting and exhausted, they paused and looked back. The flames were well hold of the ship, and as they mounted and triumphed, they roared with a great hollow uproar of bellowing.
Kanaris stroked his beard complacently.
"Will that be enough for them to toast their bread by, little Mitsos?" he said. "I am thinking they will be toasting their souls in hell. Satan will see to their fuel now, I am thinking."
But Mitsos, tender-hearted, felt a certain pity through his exultation.
"Poor devils!" he said.
And that was their requiem.
But the pity passed, and the exultation remained. The stories of Greek fugitives, the monstrous sights he had himself seen at Elatina on the roads, throughout the breadth and length of his land, had become part of the lad's nature. Lust, rapacity, murder, crimes unspeakable had here their answer in the swirling flame and stream of smoke which stained the pearly beauty of that autumn morning. The wind had died down again; for scarcely an hour, with divine fitness, had it blown, and it seemed as if God had sent it just and solely for their deed. And they watched their deed, a sign of fire. From other ships boats had put off to try to rescue the doomed crew, yet as often as they got near the fierce heat of the flames drove them back. A pillar of murky flames swathed the masts, and even as they watched, one, eaten through at its base by the fire, tottered and fell flickering overboard, carrying with it a length of the charred bulwarks. Many leaped overboard, some with their clothes on fire, but few reached the boats; planks started from the deck, the bowsprit fell hissing into the sea, and before long the boards opened great hissing cracks to the air. Then the destruction reached the waterline. With a shrieking fizz the sea poured in, and in smoke and steam, midway between fire and water, she began to sink, bows first. The deck-beams jumped upward like children's jack-toys as the compressed air forced them, guns broke loose and slid down the inclined boards into the sea, and with a rending and bubbling she disappeared. Kanaris watched in silence, with the air of an artist contemplating his finished picture, and once again he fell on enthusiasm, which was rare with him.
"Thus perish the enemies of Christ!" he cried. Then, half ashamed of himself at this unwonted exhibition of feeling, "You and I did that, little Mitsos," he said. "Shall we get back to the Capsina? For it is finished."
Mitsos had been watching also in silence, with the thought that they were of the race who had taken Suleima, had dishonored Nikola's wife, burning like the ship he watched in his head, and as he took the first stroke with his oar, "God give them their portion in hell!" he cried.
Kanaris laughed.
"Do not trouble yourself," he said; "it is certain."
By the time they were close in to the promontory behind which they had left the Capsina, the stain of smoke had rolled away eastward, and now hung over the Troad. The little breeze there was was from the west, but hardly perceptible, and even if there had been any thought of pursuit from the Turks, they could not have sailed after them. But they must have been seen from the nearest ship, and while they were still about a hundred yards from the promontory, a sudden spurt of fire appeared at a port-hole of the ship which the Psarians had tried to destroy, and before the report of the gun reached them, the shot, fired horizontally, splashed like a great fish only two hundred yards from them, and with a whistle and buffet of wind, ricochetted over their heads and on to shore.
At that Kanaris laughed aloud, and Mitsos, standing up in the boat, waved his cap with a cheer of derision. Then bending to their oars again, they were soon behind the promontory.
They were received with shouts of triumph by the Capsina and the crew, and the unsuccessful Psarians joined in their welcome to the full extent of their heart and voice. Envy was dumb. Once had Mitsos, once had Kanaris destroyed a man-of-war; now the two had destroyed another together; and by the hands of the two not less than twenty-five hundred Turks had perished. Kanaris came up on the deck first, and the Capsina rushed at him with open arms, and kissed him hard on both cheeks. A moment after Mitsos followed.
She ran to him, then stopped, and for a moment her eyes dropped.
She paused perceptibly; and he, flushed with triumph, joy and the music of their welcome dancing in his eyes, stopped too. The color had been struck suddenly from her face, and burned only in two bright spots on her cheeks. But before he had time to wonder she recovered herself.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, little Mitsos!" she cried; and throwing her arms round his neck, and drawing his head down, she kissed him as she had kissed Kanaris. Her eyes were close to his; his short, crisp mustache brushed the curve below her under-lip; his breath was warm on her. And what it cost her to do that, and how cheap she held the cost, God knows.
They waited behind cover of the land till dark drew on, and then, since they were land-bound, they manned the boats and warped theRevengeround the promontory. The Turkish ships, all but one which now lay black and fish-haunted in the ooze of the channel, had weighed anchor again, but were moving only very slowly northward. Once free of the southern cape of Tenedos, the Greeks found a breeze in the open, and making a southwesterly course, sailed quietly all night, and in the morning found theSophiawaiting for them. Here Kanaris and the two Psarians left theRevengeto join their own ship, and once more Mitsos and the Capsina were alone.
That day it seemed that the sun and the elements joined in their audacious success. Great white clouds, light and rainless, made a splendid procession on the blue overhead, and their shadows, purple in the sea, raced over the blue below. TheRevengedanced gayly like a prancing horse, playing and coquetting with the waves, and they in turn threw wreaths of laughing spray at her, which she dashed aside. Under the light wind their full sails were easily carried, and once again an irresistible lightness of heart, bred of success, and health, and sea, as in the first days together, possessed the Capsina. That bad moment in the morning had passed; and, with a woman's variable mood, she fell into the other extreme. Nothing mattered; she loved Mitsos, and he did not love her; here was the case stated. In any case he liked her; he gave her shadow for substance; so she would play with the shadow as a child plays.
After their midday dinner they sat on deck, and Mitsos again told over the adventure of the day before.
"And it was odd," he said, "that when I saw the ship blazing, when, in fact, I saw that that was accomplished for which I had come, I was suddenly sorry. Now, Capsina, you are a woman, and understand things men do not. Why did I feel sorry?"
"Because you are a very queer kind of a lad."
Mitsos reflected.
"No, I don't think I am," he said; "indeed, it seems to me that I am just like others. As for Kanaris, he stroked his beard and said they had gone to hell."
"So they had."
Mitsos smiled, and looked at Michael, who had flopped himself down on deck, with his back to them.
"No doubt; but you are not telling me what I asked. Oh, great, wise Michael, come here. May I pull him by the tail, Capsina?"
"Certainly, and hemaybite you."
"I think not. Oh, Michael, do not lick my face. You know Suleima washes my face sometimes, Capsina. That is only when she has cut my hair, and the little bits are everywhere, and the most part down my neck. But though it is kind of her, I had sooner go to the barber's for it. What can we do next when we get back to Nauplia?"
"You want another cruise?"
"Surely. Are there not more ships in the Gulf of Corinth? Indeed, I think those were of the best weeks in my life."
"That is not a bad idea, little Mitsos," she responded. "Whether there are Turkish ships in the gulf I do not know, but we might make ourselves very useful there. There is Galaxidi, for instance; we ought to have a naval station there."
"Galaxidi?" said Mitsos. "I know what is in your mind."
"What, then, is in my mind?"
"The baby Sophia you left there," said he. "Indeed, Capsina, you should have been a mother. For Suleima said you had a way with babies."
"I should have married Christos," she asked, "and been a fish-wife of Hydra? Indeed, little Mitsos, I knew not in how high esteem you held me."
And she got up from where she sat, and made him a great flouncing mock curtsey.
"Yet you are right," she continued, "I had the baby Sophia in my mind among many other things"—and she thought to herself how it was there she had learned of Suleima—"but for that reason I would not go. It is of the ship-station I am thinking. Once we have a station there, how foolish become the Turkish forts at Lepanto. Nor should it be long before we take Lepanto itself. Yet, oh, Mitsos, sometimes even in the heat and glory of it all, there is nothing I would love so well as to go quietly home and live in peace again, for of late I have had no peace; I have had no moments of my own."
"They could not be better spent," said Mitsos.
"If that is so, God will take account of them. But sometimes my heart is a child; it cries out for toys and playfellows and silly games of play, knowing that its house and its food are secure, or rather not needing to know it, and wanting only to be amused. But I doubt the toys are broken, and the playfellows are all grown up."
And she stopped abruptly.
"But that is not often," she continued after a moment. "There are other things, are there not?—and I am grown up, too—glory; red vengeance; the sharing in a great work. No, I would not sacrifice a minute of these for all the games of play. Also I think that I and the silliest boy in Greece played more in one week, that first week of our voyage, than is given to most. See, it is nearly sunset; what of the evening?"
Mitsos got up and went forward. TheSophiawas bowling along a mile to port, running, like them, straight before the wind and keeping the pace. On the starboard bow Scyros had just risen low and dim above the sea, but the horizon was sailless. The sun was near setting; and a golden haze, curtain above curtain of thinnest gauze, stretched across the western heaven. The sea seemed molten with light. High overhead swung a slip of crescent moon, still ashy and colorless. Above the sun stretched a thin line of crimson-carded fleeces of cloud; the wind was soft and steady. He went back to the girl and sat down again.
"It will be very fair weather," he said, and she answered not, but through her head his voice went ringing on and on persistently, like an endless echo, saying the words again and again.
They stopped at Hydra a day, both to give the news and learn it. Nauplia was still blockaded; not a shot had been fired on either side. The Turkish garrison it was supposed were still not without hope that help would come; the Greeks, equally confident it would not, made no effort to storm the place, but waited till famine should do their work for them, and indeed the end could not be far off. Kolocotrones was not there; it was the earnest prayer of all the Greeks that he would be absent when the town fell, for otherwise it would be but little spoil that fell outside the brass helmet. And Christos Capsas, the once betrothed of the Capsina, who, with others like him, stopped at home at Hydra nominally to defend the place in case the Turks made a descent on it, spat on the ground.
"He is a dirty, greedy ruffian," he said.
He and his wife, slovenly and shrill-voiced, wearing the Capsina's wedding-gift, the heirloom girdle, and misbecoming it strangely, were dining with the girl on her ship, and she, looking across at Mitsos, saw his nose turned rather scornfully in the air.
"Yet he is a brave man, Christos," said she. "Do you not think so? He runs risk cheerfully, anyhow."
"For the sake of fatness and riches," grumbled Christos.
The Capsina, who loathed Kolocotrones, suddenly found herself taking his part when Christos called him to account. She laughed, not very kindly.
"Yet you are not thin, Christos," she said, "and they say you are getting rich. Ah, well, God makes some to stay at home, and others to go abroad, and thus to each is his work allotted. Now of the island what news?"
"The news of Father Nikola, Father no longer. You have heard?"
"No," said the Capsina. "He is like the lemon: the older and nearer to ripeness it gets, the sourer it grows. He must be nearly ripe in my poor thought."
"Well, then, he has become the orange," said Christos. "I love him not, yet he is sour no longer."
And he told the story of the return of his wife.
The Capsina listened in silence.
"An old man like that," she said, "and she, you say, also old. Will you love and be loved when you are gray-headed, Mitsos? And the two old folks have gone off on the brig together! How absurd it is, and how—how splendid!"
"They go hand-in-hand," said Christos, "and when the boys laugh, they laugh too."
"Nikola laughing!" said the Capsina. "I did not think he knew how."
"Yes, with the open mouth," said Christos.
The Capsina leaned forward across the table.
"He loves this old woman, you say, as others love?" she asked. "His eye glows for her? He is hot and cold?"
"That is what one does when one loves," put in the experienced Mitsos. "How did you know, Capsina?"
She laughed.
"Have I sailed with you for weeks, and not seen the thought of Suleima with you? May not I look at you now and then? And she loves him, gray-headed, sour old Nikola? That is hardly less strange."
She looked across at the fat, white face of Christos's wife, at her slovenly habit and uncleanly hands.
"Yet there are many strange things in the world," she said. "Make Michael his dinner, will you, little Mitsos?"
Christos's wife stared with interest as Mitsos put gravy, bones, bread, and, lastly, a piece of meat in Michael's wooden bowl.
"It is not right!" she cried, shrilly; "you must not feed a dog like a Christian."
"I honor his name, cousin," said the Capsina, laughing.
"His name! That is as unsuited to a dog as his food."
"Therefore I honor him," said the Capsina; and the wife, making nothing of this, thought it more prudent to be silent; and Christos, equally puzzled, hushed her.
"You do not understand," he said, which was true enough.
Next day they set sail again for Nauplia; the blockading fleet was stationed outside the harbor, and, having anchored, the Capsina, with Kanaris and Mitsos, went off to the admiral's ship to make report. As the news spread from crew to crew, the shouting rose and redoubled, and Suleima, who had come down with the littlest one, on the news of their arrival, to the quay, could scarce get at Mitsos for the press, and for the time the two had to be content with letting their eyes seek and find each other from afar, saying that it was well with them. But the Capsina had gone back to her ship, and was alone.
The last days of the beleaguered town had begun, and it was only from fear of treachery—not, alas! unwarranted—on the part of the Greeks that the besieged still held out. The scenes at the capitulation of Navarin, not eighteen months old, the repetition of them at Athens, scarcely six months ago, had not encouraged the Turks to hope for honorable dealings with their enemies, or rather with the half-brigand chiefs, such as Kolocotrones and Poniropoulos, who commanded the forces. Hypsilantes, they had learned from the previous negotiations which were concluded by him and taken out of his hand by Kolocotrones, was no more than a cipher put first among other figures, and while there was still the faintest hope, they had determined not to surrender.
Since the beginning of December the stress of famine had set in; already all the horses had been killed for food, their bones boiled to make a thin and acrid broth, and the man who caught a couple of rats was reckoned fortunate. Children, wasted to skeletons, with the hollow eyes of old men, were found dead in the street; their fathers thanked Allah that their suffering was over. A soldier one day fell from sheer exhaustion as he was mounting the steep steps of the fortress, the Palamede, cutting his hand badly, and a comrade, coming up a minute or two later, found him sitting down and greedily licking up the blood which dripped from the wound. At length it was impossible to hold the Palamede any longer; those who had to go down to the lower town to fetch the diminished rations were too weak to remount the long ascent, and on the 11th of December it was abandoned, the gate between it and the lower town was closed, and the whole garrison quartered in the latter.
From the ships Miaulis had seen the lines of soldiers filing out on the evening of the 11th, and gave notice of it to Poniropoulos. The latter, seeing that no treasure was possibly to be obtained from there, notified the abandonment of the fort to Hypsilantes, who with infinite difficulty was hauled up over the parapeted wall which defended the steps, and, with a voice tremulous, not with emotion, but breathlessness, took possession of it in the name of the supreme government of the Greek republic. There was still a good deal of powder in the magazines, and this somewhat barren triumph was announced to the rest of the army by volleys of artillery. The top of the fortress was quite enveloped in smoke, and the effect, if not the cause, was exceedingly magnificent.
But the sound of the guns and the smoke of the firing carried too far. Kolocotrones, still encamped on the top of the Dervenaki, in the hope that the Turkish garrison of Nauplia would attempt to cut their way through the Greeks and escape to Corinth, was waiting there for the end, seeing that the most part of the treasure of Nauplia was exhausted in purchasing provisions, and that a fine harvest might be expected from the ransom of the Turks of rank who escaped. They must pass over the hills of the Dervenaki, and he would thus gain the honor of their capture, and also, what was the dearer to him, the money of their ransom. But repeated volleys from the Palamede, while no firing came from the lower town, could mean but one thing. Were the Turks opening fire on the Greeks, they would use the guns of the lower fortress at shorter range rather than those of the Palamede. Again no answer came from either side, the Burdjee or the fleet. Also his practised ear could distinguish even at that distance the hollow buffet of blank firing from the sharper noise of the discharge of shot or shell. So on went the brass helmet, and at the head of his eight thousand irregular but strangely efficient troops, he set out for the town. Certainly none could say that he spared himself. He marched on foot with the others, all smiles and bluff encouragement, going, with all his fifty years and gray head, with a foot as light as a boy's. He roared out strange and stimulating brigand songs one after the other, the men taking up the choruses; he sat with the rest under a desolating shower for dinner, and when the repeated rain put out the fire on which he was roasting a sheep for himself and his staff, he laughed, and cut off with his sword a great hunk of flesh more than half raw, and ate it as if it had been meat for a king. They had set off in such haste that they had forgotten to bring wine with them. It mattered not; rain-water, he said, was the best of drinks, and he washed down the raw lamb with a draught from a puddle among stones. Then when at the last a flask of spirits was produced, he would none of it; he had drunk his fill, let those who had not yet drunk have the brandy. Of what good were meat and drink but to fill the stomach? His own was full, and he licked his greasy fingers.
All this endeared him in a savage way to his men. Here at least was a man who was of themselves, made generalissimo of the Peloponnesian troops by the supreme council. Indeed, had he not been without a sense of honor where treasure was concerned, they could have had no better. Petrobey had shown himself weak at Tripoli; Hypsilantes had never been otherwise; Mavrogordatos was busy with his titles.
As his custom was, Kolocotrones came laughing and shouting into the Greek army with a joke and a slap on the back for his friends, an outburst of genuine affection for his son, Panos, total indifference to the cold faces of the Mainats, and an enormous appetite.
"Tell me not a word of news, Panos," he cried, "till I have eaten. Bad news is the better supported when one has food; good news tastes sweeter after food."
Early next morning Mitsos was on the quay, having spent the night at home, but returning to the ship to ask if the Capsina would not come that day to see them. As he passed Kolocotrones's tent he came out and recognized him.
"Mitsos Codones, are you not," he said, "and connected with the clan of Maina? I have heard of that business of yours and Kanaris with the fire-ship. It was not badly done; no, it was not badly done."
Mitsos bristled like a collie dog. The manner of the man was insufferable.
"As you say, it was not badly done," he remarked, "but there was no booty to be got by it." And he turned on his heel.
Kolocotrones broke out into a great laugh. He was rather proud than otherwise at his own adeptness in matters of plunder.
"You are sulky, silent folk, you of Maina," he said.
Mitsos turned back again slowly, and let his eye rest on a level with the top of the spike of Kolocotrones's helmet.
"Little men have very fine helmets," he said.
That struck home. Kolocotrones's face flared.
"Were you of the army, I would have you whipped," he snarled.
"But I am of the navy just now," said Mitsos. "Yet if you will, come and whip me yourself. Or shall I call some three or four men to help you?"
He waited a moment, and then turned again. Kolocotrones itched to send a knife into him, but as Kanaris and Mitsos were just now the most popular pair in Greece, it was difficult to say exactly where such an action would end. For him, very likely, in the ooze of the harbor at Nauplia.
Mitsos had not gone a dozen paces when a buzzing murmur rose, which grew into a shout, and the pasty Panos rushed out and pointed to the wall above the northern gate of Nauplia. A white flag was flying there.
Kolocotrones saw it and slapped his thigh.
"It was ever so!" he cried. "I come, and they surrender."
Mitsos could not resist a parting shot.
"Not so," he cried; "you come, and the hungry are filled, and your pockets are heavy. Go, then, on the errand of mercy, and good luck to your bargains!"
Kolocotrones looked angrily round, but his popularity with his men being due to the fact that he so put himself on an equality with them, he found them laughing, as if the joke had been directed against one of them, not against their general. From all sides the men poured out of their tents to look at the flag, and Mitsos found himself in a crowd of these, to whom the news of the last fire-ship had only come when they arrived with Kolocotrones, and he was pulled this way and that and made to drink wine, and had to tell the story again, and yet again.
Presently after, Panos, also bearing the flag of truce, was sent up to conduct the Turks down to the council of chiefs. Kolocotrones was the chairman, and with him were Miaulis, admiral of the fleet, Poniropoulos, Hypsilantes, and Petrobey.
Selim and Ali, governors of Argos, represented the besieged. It was pitiful to see even two of the hated pashas so weak with lack of food. Yet, with the fine manners of their race, they bowed and smiled on their way through the crowd, and exchanged little compliments with Panos in rather halting Greek, and spoke of the freshness of the morning. Mitsos had shouldered his way back through the press, and recognizing and being recognized by his friend Selim, who had promised to put a knife into him if ever they met except in time of truce, hardly knew the man. But with a rough sort of kindness, half of pity, half of mockery from the inborn joy of seeing the foe like this, he took a loaf from a baker's cart standing near, and gave it to him.
"For to-morrow, at least," he said; and seeing the hungry gratitude which leaped to the man's eye, was ashamed at having done so little, and at the half-taunt in his words. Selim had taken one fine bite out of it before he entered the tent of Kolocotrones, and was, with watering mouth, waiting for another. He stood with it concealed under his soldier's cloak, but in sitting down it fell back from his shoulders, and before he had time to shift the loaf to new concealment Kolocotrones had seen it. He broke out into a hoarse, rude laugh, pointing at it.
"Truly it was time to come to terms," he said, "when the pashas snatch a loaf as they go by. Eat it, man; we will talk after."
Selim bowed.
"With your permission, I will," he said; "for we came in haste this morning, and without breakfast."
Kolocotrones laughed again.
"And maybe without dinner last night!" he cried.
Selim raised his eyebrows, as if in silent deprecation of the rudeness of an inferior which it was not worth the breath to answer, and breaking the loaf in half, passed the one part with quiet dignity to Ali, who took it without haste, and ate it like a man already surfeited. Kolocotrones wriggled in his chair with coarse delight.
"I warrant that tastes good," he said.
Ali looked at him a moment without speaking. Then, "We are here to discuss terms of capitulation, I understand," he said, "not the matter of our diet."
"That would be but little food for discussion there," said Kolocotrones, unabashed, and grinning at Poniropoulos, who went into wide-mouthed and toothless laughter.
Ali merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat his bread slowly. Indeed, it was a strange reversing of the position of Turkish pashas and Greek countrymen, and, in spite of those long years when the Turks had ground down even to starvation their oppressed province, it seemed a breach of manners to the other officers that two of them should sit cutting their blunt jokes at the men whom the wheel of destiny had brought low in its revolution, but whom it had altogether failed to rob of the dignity of high breeding in the very stress and publicity of their misfortunes. And when they had finished Ali spoke again.
"Selim Pasha and I are here," he said, "to ask what terms you will give us for our capitulation. For ourselves we offer the same as we offered before: safe transport—not such transport as was given to those at Navarin," and he looked at Poniropoulos—"to Asia Minor, and the retention of one-third of our property. It is now six months since the ships which were to transport us were spoken of. We imagine they must be ready."
"It is six months ago since those proposals were made," said Kolocotrones, becoming suddenly business-like; "for six months longer has the siege and the expense of the siege been maintained. No, no, we must find something different to that. Moreover, the treasure in Nauplia is not the same as it was then."
"But where has it gone," said Ali, "if not to the pockets of the Greeks?"
"And from where did provisions come," asked Kolocotrones, "except from whither the treasure has gone?"
Ali laughed.
"Is there not a considerable balance?" he asked.
Kolocotrones screwed up his eye in malevolent amusement.
"I have not lately examined the accounts. But what if there is? The bargain was made; we gave provisions and received money. Well, you have made your proposals; in an hour's time you shall hear ours."
Petrobey rose.
"My quarters are close, gentlemen," he said; "may I give you lodging and refreshment there while we consult?"
Ali and Selim accordingly withdrew, and Petrobey having conducted them to his quarters, where Yanni was charged with giving them food, returned to Kolocotrones's tent.
Already high words were passing, not on the subject of the terms of the capitulations—for that seemed to be but a secondary matter in the minds at least of Kolocotrones and Poniropoulos—but as to how the booty should subsequently be divided.
Kolocotrones was on his feet, stamping and thumping the table.
"Who was appointed commander-in-chief by the council but I?" he cried. "It is I who will take possession of Nauplia; it is I who will receive and—and distribute the booty."
Miaulis, who was seated, had hitherto taken no part in the discussion, but at this he spoke.
"The distribution of Kolocotrones!" he said, blandly. "The Lord help us all!"
This was disconcerting, for even Kolocotrones acknowledged the integrity and honesty of the young admiral, and could make notu-quoquerejoinder.
"Then what do you propose?" he asked.
"That those who have besieged Nauplia for all these months have some one to represent them in the division of the booty," he said, with that wonderful, frank manner of his. "We expect fair-play from General Kolocotrones; that is no reason why we should not see that we obtain it."
Petrobey rose to his feet. That opportunity for which he had been waiting ever since Nikolas had given him the example at Tripoli was come.
"You were not at the siege of Tripoli, admiral," he said. "I was, and I do not in the least expect fair-play from Kolocotrones. Oh, hear me out; you will be the gainers; even you, Kolocotrones. I warn you, if he gets hold of the treasure of Nauplia, not a piaster will you see. What has his share in the siege been? This, that he has sold provisions to the garrison at starvation rates. Once already, at Tripoli, would he have made the name of Greece a scoffing and a by-word had it not been for the deed of a better and a wiser man than any of us, Nikolas, who stormed the place out by hand. At the Dervenaki what did he do? He let the Albanians by, as you all know. For that he claimed, out of what Niketas took, thirty thousand piasters. So be warned. And now I can only follow the example of Nikolas, and withdraw from this assembly. Hard blows are better than hard words, and, to my taste at least, better than money. The Mainats go with me, for I take it that the siege is over."
Petrobey distinctly had the last word, and the last word was a true one. All knew that he spoke facts about Kolocotrones, and none could say that he spoke from interested motives. He rose as he finished, and turned to Kolocotrones.
"I give notice," he said, "that the Mainats are withdrawn, the work of the siege being over."
Miaulis jumped to his feet.
"And all good go with you, Petrobey," he said. "I would that the fleet were as loyal to me as your Mainats are; but God knows what might happen if I went back saying that I had resigned all claim to the booty. There would, I think, be an admiral the less, and I doubt if there would be so many generals."
Petrobey shook hands warmly with him and went out, leaving silence in the tent. Many Mainats were collected outside, and his voice, as he spoke to them, was distinctly heard.
"The Mainats are withdrawn," he said; "we march in an hour."
And a clear young voice answered.
"What has the greedy old brigand been doing, uncle?" it asked.
"Be silent, Mitsos," said Petrobey. And inside Miaulis giggled audibly, and the Prince Hypsilantes visibly smiled. Even Kolocotrones took a moment to recover himself, but he recovered completely, for it was no time to think of dignity when the spoils of Nauplia were yet dangling.
"We will arrange the claims of the fleet," he said.
Again Miaulis interrupted.
"You have not yet arranged who takes possession of Nauplia, or, rather, who takes possession of the treasure," he said. "For me, I propose that it be registered in the presence of us all here assembled."
Kolocotrones could not well afford to quarrel, not only with the rest of the army, but with the whole fleet. From outside a murmur, ever rising shriller and higher as the cause, no doubt, of the withdrawal of the Mainats became known, warned him not to go too far. The whole Greek fleet was there. If he was determined to exercise his prerogative of commander-in-chief, he was not at all sure that they might not determine to resist it. And while he still hesitated Miaulis spoke again.
"I represent the entire fleet," he said, "and the fleet prevented help coming to Nauplia by sea. Also, if so I order, the fleet will storm the place. I was appointed, I may remind you, by the council which appointed Kolocotrones."
Kolocotrones lost his head and his temper.
"By the blood of all the saints," he cried, "what do you want?"
"A voice in the matter," said Miaulis.
"Do you not trust me?" he stormed.
"The fleet, who do not know you, have no reason to trust you," said Miaulis, "and I am in the interest of this fleet."
"But these others know me!" cried Kolocotrones, pointing to Hypsilantes and Poniropoulos.
"And Petrobey knew you," said Miaulis.
Kolocotrones drew back his upper lip from over his teeth and showed them in a snarl. If he had to yield, he would yield only step by step.
"Nauplia then will be taken possession of by Admiral Miaulis and myself," he said, "he representing the fleet, I the army. Is that agreed?"
"No, it is not agreed!" cried Poniropoulos. "You came here yesterday, Kolocotrones. What of me and mine, who have stood the burden of the siege? I demand that the treasure be registered and divided in just proportions. Who receives the submission of the town I care not."
"It is a fine thing," said Kolocotrones, bitterly, "when the commander-in-chief has to be watched like a school-boy lest he should steal sweets."
Again there was silence in the tent; only outside the murmur of men rose higher, almost to a roar.
"And, by the tears of the Virgin, I will not stand it!" he screamed, now red and flaming. "I refuse to accept this spying and checking."
Miaulis held up his hand.
"But it seems that many call for it," he said. "My part is done; the fleet is represented in the matter by your own promise. I will leave the generals to settle about the claim of the army."
At the end of an hour Ali and Selim again entered the tent. On the terms of the capitulation, at any rate, all were agreed. The Turks were to retain a single suit of clothes, a quilt for bedding, and a carpet for prayer, and were to be safely transported to Asia Minor, being fed on the way. All their property was to pass into the hands of the Greeks. They received the proposal in silence, and withdrew to the citadel to consult with the other officers.
Eventually, and with a very bad grace, Kolocotrones was forced to yield. Poniropoulos with two other officers, Kolocotrones with his son and another, Niketas with two officers, Miaulis with Tombazes and the Capsina, and Hypsilantes were to take joint possession of the property in Nauplia. Hypsilantes was appointed arbitrator, and was to settle the claims for the division of it in case of dispute. The town itself would be occupied jointly by Kolocotrones and Miaulis in the name of the republic.
But no sooner were these arrangements made known than the tumult of discontent among the men rose to a head. Poniropoulos's band distrusted their commander as much as their commander distrusted Kolocotrones; Kolocotrones's men, who had taken no part in the siege, and had expected no share in the booty, hearing that their general would certainly have a finger in it and auguring ill for their own chances, fraternized with the troops of Poniropoulos, and determined to resist an arrangement which would put the whole into the hands of four or five men already fattened by the marketing with the besieged. The Mainats, discontented, yet top-heavy with pride at the action of Petrobey, and knowing that they alone were out of this disgraceful quarrel, grinned sardonically, and told the others they might as well leave too, for not a piaster would they see. Orders were issued that every man should go to his barracks. They were disobeyed. The men gathered and gathered round the gate through which the commanders would enter Nauplia, threatening to storm the place, and declaring that they would not allow the chiefs to appropriate everything. Below, in Kolocotrones's tent, sat the men who had been chosen to enter the place. They knew that their own faithlessness and avarice had raised this storm of distrust; they could not deny the justice of it; they were powerless to quell it.
Meantime in the citadel an assembly of hungry faces and hollow eyes debated the proposal of the Greeks. The terms were hard, but not preposterous, for their case was hopeless. If they refused, the Greek fleet, as they knew, could shell their walls into stone-dust; that done, they knew what to expect—pillage, massacre, and at the end a shambles. Ali and Selim alone held out. They had seen the greed in the eye of Kolocotrones, and Ali spoke.
"We may as well have the value of our money," he said. "The chiefs will again agree to sell us provisions, I doubt not, till it is exhausted. I am pretty sure our case cannot be worse. Let us surrender when the money is finished."
But the others were against him. The Greek soldiers were a mutinous crowd at the gate. It was impossible that they should allow the chiefs to sell provisions again till the treasury was empty. The troops were utterly out of hand; any moment they might storm the place. It would be another Navarin.
Then came one of those wonderful incidents which raise history to a level more romantic than the romances of a wizard. They were assembled in a room of the fort looking over the gulf, and Selim was opposite the window. He gazed out a moment vaguely, then focussed his eyes with more intentness, and rose from his seat.
"An English frigate," he said, simply.
That decided it. Selim and Ali still held out from a sort of barren pride, but in half an hour the capitulation was drawn out and signed. And Selim looked again.
"She has anchored next the admiral's ship," he said, "and a boat with officers is going ashore."
While this was going forward Kolocotrones had made another attempt to stop the riot. He was made of bravery, and had gone out alone to face the scowling and threatening riot. He slapped one on the back; he scolded and stormed at another; he gave tobacco to a third; he told a coarse story to a fourth; but the day of his gorilla blandishments was over. He pleaded the orders of the Greek government, the fear of another massacre if the soldiers were let into the place, and found only black looks and unconvinced silence. Then came the news that the English frigate had entered the harbor, and for the moment men's minds were turned to this new development in the situation. But the crowd did not leave the gate, and Kolocotrones returned.
Captain Hamilton of theCambrian, frigate of war, had been for some years in charge of ships at the Ionian islands. He spoke Greek with colloquial fluency; he was known personally to Kolocotrones and other chiefs, who much respected him; and in appearance he was admirably calculated to influence the soldiers. He was tall and well made, of the Saxon type, blue eyes and fair; his voice rang true; his manner was hearty and open. And these children of the air and the mountains, who make their judgment of a man, and for the most part not erroneously, more by how he looks than by what he says, regarded him at first with friendly eyes, and, when his message to Kolocotrones was made known, with minds of admiration.
The deed of capitulation was handed out of the fortress just as Kolocotrones turned from the crowd of men he had vainly tried to pacify, to meet Hamilton, and, with it in his hands, he went back to his tent. Hamilton was already there; his words were short and greatly to the point.
"I hear there is a dispute about the division of booty, or what not," he said, "that concerns me not; but what I have seen is that now, while the capitulation is in the hands of your chief, a mob of soldiers besiege the town gate. What that may mean you know and I know. Now this I tell you: If certain disgraceful things which happened at Tripoli, at Navarin, and Athens happen also at Nauplia, to the rest of Europe Greece will appear as a country of wild beasts, of barbarous men. I care not one jot what happens to the booty, but this I will see done: I will see the Turks safely embarked, according to the capitulation, without being hurt or molested. I am here a friend to Greece, but a foe to faithlessness. There are fourteen hundred Turks still in Nauplia, I am told. I will embark five hundred on theCambrian, and I will see the remaining nine hundred safely embarked on other ships, and I will escort them to Asia Minor. Do not make yourselves to stink in the nostrils of civilized countries. I have spoken. With your leave, I will go and talk to the soldiers."
He saluted and stepped out in silence, leaving the others to digest his wholesome and unsavory words, and walking with his swinging sailor's step up to the crowd around the gate, with two or three officers behind him, spoke to the men:
"What I have said to your chiefs I say to you. Let this thing be done honorably. With what follows afterwards I have no concern; but I have something to say to you which I have not said to your chiefs. You are on the eve of mutiny. Be steady till the Turks are out. Do not make brute beasts of yourselves. When the Turks are out and safe on ship I care not what happens; I will leave that to—to your chiefs and, which perhaps is the more important, you. Now do not carry tales and get me into trouble."
And with a smile and a salute to the men, he turned on his heel. There was one moment's silence, then a roar of laughter and cheering. His frankness won their hearts; his solution of their trouble amused them. By all means, the Turks out first.
His proposal was accepted by the chiefs, but with some demur. Hypsilantes, still clinging to the dream of Russian intervention, viewed with suspicion the interference of the English; others viewed with suspicion the interference of anybody. But Miaulis, Niketas, and Kolocotrones all acknowledged without reserve the honesty and reasonableness of the advice.
By the evening the ships were ready, and in perfect order the famine-stricken procession left the town. Five hundred men embarked on theCambrian, the rest on the Greek ships. The quay was thronged with sailors from the Greek fleet, and with soldiers only waiting for the departure of the Turks. There they stood, eager yet patient, until the last boatload left the land; then, with a rush, they poured up into the citadel. Kolocotrones and the others reaped the well-earned fruit of their avarice. The booty was large; the inefficiency of the chiefs supreme. Poniropoulos, maddened with the thought that he would get nothing, fought and scrambled with the rest. Kolocotrones, a little more dignified, sat in his tent empty-handed. And at last Nauplia was in the hands of the Greeks.
Suleima and the Capsina were sitting in the veranda of the white house a few days after this, and the adorable one was pulling Michael's tail with gurglings of glee and apparent impunity. From inside came Mitsos's voice, singing.
"So do not think thus," said Suleima, "for indeed I would have him go. What should I think of a man who loafed his days in a house with womenfolk? Such a man I should never have cared for, nor you either, so I believe."
She laughed.
"It was that I cared about first in Mitsos," she went on, "at the time I have told you of. I was pent in the perfumed house. It seemed better to live as he lived, half in the sea and all in the air; the sea-gull, Zuleika and I used to call him. So take him again. Indeed, I doubt if he would stop even if I bade it, and I do not bid it. But bring him back to me safe, Capsina; bring him yourself."
The girl sat silent, and Suleima, with a woman's tact, rose and spoke of other things.
"It is a day taken from summer," she said, "and yet in a week it will be Noël. By the New Year, or soon after, you will be back. Oh, littlest one, Michael will surely open his mouth at you and take you down at one gulp like a fig, if you are so bold with him. How would you like to have a great man, as strong as you, pull your tail?"
She picked the baby up and brought it to the Capsina.
"Was ever such a fighter seen?" she said. "He fights all the creatures of God. First he fought the frogs, and then the hens and chickens, then the cat; now it is Michael. Soon he will be fighting the boys, and come home with a blacker eye than he has already, and after that, pray God, he will fight the Turks. If there are any left to fight, oh, pray God, he will be a good fighter against the Turks."
"He will surely find none in Greece," said the Capsina. "Oh, the day is not far when not one will be left. You will see it yourself, and if I am not with you on that day, Suleima, think of me and account me happy."
Suleima looked at her out of the depths of her great eyes.
"I pray the Virgin every day," she said, "that you may be very happy, happy in all that is best, and in all that the soul and the heart desire; happy, dear friend, as you deserve. And, indeed, I think that is not a little."
The girl sat with down-dropped eyes.
"Is the Virgin as generous as you, I wonder?" she said. "You know the worst of me, Suleima; I think I have told you the worst; yet how can you think I deserve happiness?"
"You have told me the worst," said Suleima. "Yet what if I find the whole very good? Is that my fault? Not so; your own. Ah, dearest friend, I have no tongue to tell you how fully—" and she broke off. "It is best said in a word," she continued, "and that is that I love you; and thus all is said. And the blessed Mother of God is more loving than I. Let that suffice."
The child thrust out an aimless, fat-fingered hand and pawed the Capsina's face.
"Cap-sin-a! Cap-sin-a!" it crowed in a voice of staccato rapture.
The girl put out her arms suddenly and lifted the baby to herself. "Yet Capsina is a wicked girl," she whispered, bending over it, "and she hates herself. But she will grow better in time, or so we hope. In time even she may not be ashamed to look her friends in the face."
Suleima laid her hand on her knee.
"Ah, don't, don't!" she said. "Indeed you are talking nonsense."
The Capsina kissed the baby, and gave it back to its mother.
"You are right; I won't," she said, rising and giving herself a little shake. "And now I must go. I have many things to arrange in Nauplia to-night, for theRevengemust set off to-morrow. Tell little Mitsos we shall pass here and call for him by midday."
She held Suleima's two hands for a long moment in her own, gave her a quick, trembling little kiss, and went off down the garden-path and mounted her pony at the gate.
The Turkish fleet had gone back to Constantinople; not another ship was in Greek waters, and it was certain that until spring there would be no more work for theRevenge. Mitsos was too much disgusted with the conduct of the siege of Nauplia to take any part in operations by land. Indeed, the only commander he would have served under, Petrobey, had gone back with his Mainats home, vowing that he would never again co-operate with Kolocotrones. That chief was boasting far and wide of his exploits. Already he called himself the conqueror of Dramali; he had only to show himself at the walls of Nauplia, and the Turks surrendered; it was Joshua and Jericho, and not a penny of the treasure had he taken for himself. This last fact was true, and he ground his teeth at it. But Galaxidi, the port in the Corinthian gulf where the Capsina had begun to make a naval station, where also she had left the baby saved from Elatina, gave a scope to their energies, and she was going to start overland next day with Mitsos and most of the sailors from the two brigs to spend a month there fortifying and arming the place. Kanaris had gone home to Psara, and the brigSophiawas laid by for the winter, so, with the sailors from her and most of those on theRevenge, she would march four hundred men. Enough sailors were left on theRevengefor the working of the ship, but no more, for it was certain there were no Turkish vessels now in Greek waters. TheRevengemeantime was to sail round, carrying on board some half-dozen guns to be mounted in a battery at Galaxidi, and join them there. The Turkish fort at Lepanto would be thinking that all the Greek fleet was still at Nauplia, and the risk of passing the guns of the fort could again be neutralized by co-operation with Germanos in Patras, to whom the Capsina sent her compliments. For themselves they were to march across the Isthmus of Corinth—a brush with the small Turkish garrison there was possible—north along the east end of the gulf, passing through Vilia, which they had defended from the raid of the Turkish ships the winter before, and so westward to Galaxidi. It was an informal, haphazard little excursion, after the heart of the Capsina, with a great goal of usefulness for its end. Nominally the march was to be on foot; any one who could do so might, however, provide a beast—the term was left vague—for himself. The keep of the beast would go to the charges of the expedition. Mitsos was in command of the men during the march, and in case of any attack; for the work of fortification at Galaxidi itself he might claim the right to be heard, and no more.
It still wanted an hour to noon when the "Capsina's Own," as Kanaris had christened them, appeared on the road from Nauplia, strangely irregular in appearance, but certainly fighting fit. A convoy of baggage-mules shambled along in front, carrying what baggage there was, and that was little, and most of the "Capsina's Own" were mule-drivers for the time being. Here a gay Turkish horse pranced along by the side of the road, the very sailor-like seat of its rider provoking howls of laughter and derision. Close beside it trotted a demure, mouse-colored donkey, the rider of which, being long in the leg, could paddle with his toes on each side of the animal. Other men, a minority, were on foot, and for these there were stirrup-leathers and tails to hold by. In the middle of the heterogeneous crowd came a great Bishareen camel, once the property of Selim, with a howdah on its back, on the curtains of which were embroidered the crescent and star; but, by way of correction, a short flagstaff, bearing the blue-and-white ensign of Greece, rose above the roof-beam and fluttered bravely in the wind. Out of the curtains of the howdah peered the face of the Capsina, rather anxious.
"Oh, lad!" she cried to Mitsos, as soon as they were within hearing, "this is like being at sea again in a heavy roll, and I feel as if I had sprung a leak somewhere. You will have to come up here and lend a hand with the tiller. The tiller is one rope, as you see, and it appears to me as if the brute's head were a long mile off. Here, furl the main-sail, one of you! I mean, take hold of its head and knock it down. I want to get off."
The camel sank down joint by joint, and the Capsina held on to the side with fixed and panic-stricken eyes.
"There are six joints in each leg!" she screamed; "and each joint is six miles long, and the joints are moved singly and in turn."
The "Capsina's Own" cheered wildly when the camel was brought to anchor and she slid down out of the howdah.
"Oh, stop laughing!" she cried to Mitsos. "Indeed, you will not laugh when you are up there. But I would have it; it looks so grand. Hark! How it groans! Am I not like some barbarous queen?"
And she gave him a great poke in the ribs, and was half-way up the garden-path to meet Suleima.
"And I have come with a light heart," she cried, "and a heavy one—heavy to go and blithe to go. Where is the child? Let him say 'Capsina,' please, so. And it is good-bye."
The two turned and walked a few paces away.
"To-day I have a light heart," said the girl, "such as I have not had for months. Indeed, I think you have laid a spell on me. I am not going to be wicked any more; indeed I am not. Where is Mitsos? Come here, lad; we will say good-bye together."
Mitsos came up the path to them, and the three stood hand-in-hand. In the middle of them the child sat on the ground, chuckling and babbling to itself.
"Pick it up, Mitsos, and lay it on your arm," said the girl. "So; it is complete."
She stood there a moment smiling, but with dimmed eyes, fresh, vivid, alert, looking first at Mitsos and the baby, then at the mother.
"So we part with a smile and with love," she said, "and there is no parting." And she kissed the baby, and clung awhile round Suleima's neck, and then, disengaging herself, stood looking at her a moment more.
"Bring him safe back, dear one," said Suleima; "bring him back yourself."
The girl nodded without speaking, and went off down the path. Mitsos handed the baby to Suleima, folded them both together in his huge arms, said only, "Suleima, Suleima!" and followed.
About four of the afternoon the cavalcade reached the hills leading up to the Dervenaki, and they encamped that night at the village of Nemea. The juvenile portion of its population were inclined to think that they were a circus, and seemed to take it as a personal matter that they were not, yet hung about, hoping that thefantasiamight, after all, take place. Dimitri supped with the Capsina and Mitsos, and again it was like children playing. This time, at least, there was no spice of danger to make anxious any parting; they would merely advance the work at Galaxidi, returning before spring was ripe for hostile movements. The camel particularly seemed an admirable comedy. His injured, remonstrant face, his long, ungainly legs—"nigh as long as Mitsos's," quoth the Capsina—his unutterable groaning and complaints when they mounted him, were all an excellent investment in merry spirits. The men had lit their fires in a great circle in the market-place; jests, songs, and wine went freely; and after supper the chiefs visited the men of the "Capsina's Own" and made the night loud with laughter.
When the girl was alone she threw herself on to the rugs on which she was to sleep, and lay awake wondering at herself.
"What does it mean?" she asked herself. "Is it that I am cured of my suffering? Has the Virgin heard the prayer of Suleima? Yet he is no less dear." And her thoughts grew vaguer with the approach of sleep, and sleeping, she slept sound.
They passed Corinth about noon next day, openly and ostentatiously, with the hope of drawing a Turkish contingent out of the citadel; but the contingent came not, and they went by without opposition, a thing which Mitsos put down to the fierce and warlike eye of the camel.
"Let us go to Constantinople," he said to the Capsina, "you and I and the camel. Thus will the Sultan fall off his throne, and the Capsina shall sit thereon, and I shall be her very good servant."
And the howdah creaked and rocked and swayed over the broken ground, and presently after they put into port, so it seemed, for dinner. In the afternoon they crossed the isthmus, and thereafter for four days they marched an aromatic journey among the pine-woods which fringed the gulf. And if in the open the camel was a comedy, among the trees he was not less than a farce. When the older trees gave way to a garden of saplings, the howdah moved as a ship on green water above the feathery tops, and the camel grunted no more, but nipped off the young plumes with great content, but when the trees were big the progress was but slow, an endless series of collisions with and steerings round the strong boughs. Once, forcing him along, the girth snapped, and they were stranded, a preposterous bird's-nest, eight feet off the ground. Indeed, the joke seemed to be of that superlative kind in which repetition and variation of the same theme only add to the humor. Feet went silently over the carpet of needles; sea, air, and pines made an inimitable perfume; roe-deer and boar were plentiful, and it is doubtful whether, in the whole history of strategy, there was ever so cheerful an expedition.
It was still two days before the Noël when they reached Galaxidi. From the hill-side above they had seen the roofs of the Capsina's custom-houses on the quay, and descending farther, it was soon clear that the men of the place had not been idle during the year. The harbor lay looking south; on the east ran an artificial mole, continuing the line of a narrow promontory; on the west the land itself ran in a curve, making the other side of the harbor. The town itself lay to the northern end of the harbor, and on the western promontory; the eastern lay barren, for it was but narrow, and a gale from the east would raise waves which would stop traffic. On the mole itself was only the "custom-house," very business-like to the eye, and built strong enough to weather a heavy-breaking sea. And the face of the girl flushed as she looked.
"It will do," she said. "Mitsos, in a little it will do very well. Look on the west, too; they are building another custom-house, as I said. Surely the two will command the harbor so that no foreign goods shall pass."
That day, being so close to their journey's end, they had no midday halt, but pushed on, and reached the town about three. The men at once began throwing up a camp on the promontory to the west of the harbor, outside the town, and close to the building custom-house. On the march they had cut numbers of poles and beams from the pine-trees, which would form the skeletons of their huts, and over these they would make thatching with pine-branches, canvas, or whatever came handy. The Capsina found lodging with her cousin, the Mayor Elias. Mitsos went with the men.
The camp was on ground sloping away to the harbor, and, like the town, below the top ridge of the promontory which rose some fifty feet above it. It lay in oblong shape; at the south end was the custom-house, and the powder-magazine adjoining it; at the north the first houses of the town began. Along the top ridge of the promontory, running down as far as the sea and up towards the town, was a stout wall, banked up with earth; when finished it would run the complete circuit behind the town and join the sea again at the neck of the eastern promontory. Thus, in case of a party landing from Turkish ships, the town was easily defensible also on the land side. As yet it was finished only from the sea on the west to about half-way between the custom-house and the town; it had also been begun at the eastern end, and was being pushed rapidly forward in both directions. Out of the three Turkish ships which the Capsina had captured at Porto Germano they had taken twelve guns, four from each. Of these, five were already mounted in the custom-house on the mole, and the custom-house on the west of the quay was to receive five more. The other two, both 32-pounders, were, according to the plan of Elias, to be mounted farther back in the harbor in case a ship got through.
Next morning the Capsina got up at the unearthly hour between day and night, and stormed at the camp till Mitsos, a sort of Jonah to save the rest, was thrown out to her, heavy with sleep. But the cold, pungent air soon shook off the cobwebs from him, and he went with the girl on a tour of inspection. The walls of the western custom-house had already risen above the gun-holes, and they could see that their position and direction was well chosen. The ports were wide, and the guns could be trained to a range of about forty-five degrees, and commanded an area some miles broad, through which ships attempting to come to Galaxidi must pass. The five guns in the other custom-house, on the contrary, commanded the immediate channel and entrance to the harbor, and could hardly fail at that close range to make good shooting. This fort was very low, and was protected outside by an earthwork and an angle of masonry.
"It looks but little like a custom-house," remarked Mitsos. "If I were a Turk I should not come near though the Sultan himself held the Turkish flag on the roof."
"I wish he did," said the Capsina, savagely; "he should not hold it long. But see, Mitsos, I have a plan in my head."
"I have sleep only."
"Well, you are awake enough to listen. There are two other guns not yet mounted, 68-pounders. Now the harbor has guns enough, or, at any rate, with the six theRevengebrings, will have enough. So come a little walk with me down to the water."
"The intention is kind," remarked Mitsos, guardedly, "but I will not be pushed into the sea by accident so that I may be more awake."
"You shall not be, great sleepy one; only come."
They went out, and climbing the scaffolding of the rising wall, dropped down on to the stony moorland outside. The sun was risen, and a fragrant rooty smell of herbs and damp earth rose into the morning. The Capsina sniffed it with a great contentment.