CHAPTER I

THE CAPSINA

_An Historical Novel._

By

E. F. Benson

_Author of_

_"The Vintage" "Limitations" "Dodo"_

_"The Judgment Books" etc._

_With Illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood_

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1899

[Frontispiece: "HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"]

ILLUSTRATIONS

"HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"

"UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"

"THE SPIRIT OF THE STILLNESS TOUCHED THE CAPSINA'S SOUL"

"HALF A DOZEN MEN BURST INTO THE CUSTOM-HOUSE"

CHAPTER I

The little town of Hydra, white-walled and trailing its skirts in the

Ægean, climbs steeply up the northeastern side of the island from

which it is named, and looks towards the hills of Argolis on the

mainland and the setting of the sun. Its harbor sheltered from the

northern and southern winds, and only open towards the west, where

the sea is too narrow ever to be lashed into fury by gales of that

quarter, was defended in the year 1819 by a very creditable pier and a

good deal of swift and rakish shipping. The inhabitants lived a life

somewhat sequestered from their oppressed and down-trodden countrymen,

supporting themselves by enterprises of fishing and the humble sort

of commerce, and the hand of the Turk, then as now lustful, cruel,

and intolerable, lay but lightly on them, for the chief products of

the island itself were only stones and cold water, untaxable goods.

But something of the spirit of stones and cold water, something of

the spirit, too, of that quickly roused sea, soon made furious, soon

appeased, but always alive, had gone to the making of the men of Hydra;

and they were people frugal and hardy, resourceful and industrious, men

of the wave and the mountain. Of its various clans--and its regime was

highly feudal--that of Capsas was the wealthiest and most influential;

but just now, a tragic prologue to this tale, a blow so direful had

fallen on those much-esteemed men, and in particular on Christos

Capsas, a youth of about two and twenty, that the clan generally, and

Christos in particular, were in a state of paralyzed inaction strange

to such busy folk. It had happened thus:

The head of the clan, Nicholas Capsas, had died some nine months

before, leaving an only daughter, Sophia, henceforth officially called

the Capsina, just nineteen years of age. The clan all remembered that

they had warned each other that trouble would come on account of the

Capsina, and they found to their unspeakable dismay, and without a

grain of pleasure in the fulfilment of their prophecy, that their

gloomy forebodings were completely accomplished. Sophia was a girl of

much greater force of will than it was at all usual to look for in a

woman, for the most refractory women, so the clan believed, chattered

and scolded, but obeyed. The Capsina had struck out a new and eminently

disconcerting line in following her own desires in silence, deaf to

remonstrance. The beginning of trouble had been a very stormy scene

between her and her father when, following the invariable law of

clan etiquette, she had been betrothed on her eighteenth birthday to

her cousin Christos, on whom now so paralyzing a consternation had

fallen. She had submitted to the ordeal of formal betrothal only on

condition that she should marry Christos when she thought fit, and

at no other time. Such an irregularity was wholly unprecedented, but

Sophia declared herself not only ready, but even wishful to throw

the betrothal wreaths into the fire sooner than marry Christos at

any time not fixed by herself, and the ceremony took place only on

this understanding. Three months later her father had died suddenly,

and when Christos on this morning, one tremble of timorousness, but

conscious of the support of the entire clan, went to the Capsina,

offering his hand and heart, to be taken by her with the greatest

expedition that mourning allowed, she looked him over slowly from head

to heel and back again, and said, very distinctly, "Look in the glass."

This her betrothed had rightly interpreted as a sign of dismissal.

Sophia, after hurling this defiance at her family, gave Christos

time to retreat, and then went about her daily business. Her mother

had died some years before, and since her father's death she had

had sole management of the house and of all his business, which was

ship-building. But she had been accustomed from the time she could walk

to be in and out of the building-yards with him, and the outraged clan,

even in the unequalled bitterness of this moment, would have confessed

that she was quite capable of managing anything. She was tall and

finely made, and the sun had joined hands with the winds of the sea to

mould her face with the lines of beauty and serene health. Her eyes and

hair were of the South, her brow and nose of her untainted race, her

mouth firm and fine. She watched Christos out of the gate with all the

complete indifference her great black eyes could hold, and then set off

down to the ship-yard where a new brig was to be launched that day.

There she stood all morning among the workmen, bareheaded to the sun

and wind, directing, and often helping with her own strong hands, and

though it would have seemed that she had her eyes and all her mind at

the work, she yet found time to glance through the open gate on to the

pier, where she could see a talking knot of her clan gathered round the

rejected Christos; and, in fact, her mind was more given over to the

difficult question of what step she should next take with regard to the

question of marriage than to the work on hand. For, indeed, she had no

intention of marrying Christos at all. Since her father's death her

work and position had become more and more absorbingly dear, and she

did not propose to resign her place to a somewhat slow-minded cousin,

whom, as she had candidly declared on her betrothal, she loved only

as much as is usual among cousins. The question was how to make this

indubitably evident.

The ship was to be launched about mid-day, and, as the time drew near,

Sophia began to wonder to herself, not without a spice of amusement,

whether the clan would think it consistent with the correct attitude

of disapproval to attend the launching to which they were as a matter

of course invited. After the barrel of wine, in which the success

of the new ship would be drunk, had been hoisted on deck, she even

delayed the event a few minutes to give them time if they wished still

to come. But it was evident that she had offended beyond forgiveness,

and she stood alone on the ship when she hissed stern foremost, true

to an inch, into the frothed water. Sophia, ever candid, was not at

heart ill-pleased at the absence of the clan, for as she was godmother

so also she was peculiarly mother to the new ship, departing therein

from certain formulated rules as to the line of the bows and the depth

of the keel, which, so she thought, if made deeper would enable her to

sail closer to the wind, and she loved her great child more than she

loved her betrothed. She had even, which was unusual with her, spent

several intent and sleepless hours in bed at night when the ship was

yet on the stocks, her mind busy at the innovations. Surely the ships

that others built were too high in the water, especially forward; a

sudden squall always made them sheer off into the wind, losing way

without need. A less surface in the bows was possible. Again, a longer

depth of keel would give more grip on the water and greater stability,

and it was with much tremulous hope and frequent misgivings lest this

new departure should involve some vital and unforeseen error that she

had laid down the lines of the ship in a manner perfectly new to the

shipwrights of the island.

And as the building progressed and the timbers of the hull rose to

their swifter shape, her hopes triumphed over misgiving, and she felt

that this new ship was peculiarly hers--hers by the irresistible right

of creation, not shared with any.

She stayed on board till a late hour that evening, seeing to the

hoisting of the tackle by which the masts should be raised the next

day, absorbed in the work, and dwelling with a loving care on the

further details, and it was nearly dark, and the workmen had gone

ashore an hour already when she rowed herself back to the yard. Not

till then did her mind return to the less enticing topic of Christos,

which she had left undetermined, and she walked home slowly, revolving

the possibilities. Her great, stately watch-dog, a terror to

strangers, and not more than doubtfully neutral to friends, received

her with the silent greeting of a wet nose pushed into her hand, and

when she had eaten her supper, the two went out on to the veranda.

That was the companionship she liked best, silent, unobtrusive, but

sensitive, and she took the great brute's fore-paws and laid them on

her lap, and talked to him as a child talks to its doll.

"Oh, Michael," she said--the adoption of a saint's name to an animal

so profane had greatly shocked the clan, but the Capsina remarked that

he was a better Christian than some she knew--"oh, Michael, it is an

impossible thing they would have me do. Am I to cook the dinner for

Christos, and every evening see his face grow all red and shiny with

wine, while he bids me fetch more? Am I to talk with the other women

as sparrows twitter together in a bush? Am I to say I love him? Oh,

Michael, I would sooner stroke your hair than his. Then what of the

cousins? They will call me an old maid, for many cousins younger than

I are married. But this I promise you, great dog, that unless I love I

will not marry, and what love is, God knows, for I do not. And if ever

I love, Michael--yes, they say I am fierce, and of no maiden mind. So

be it; we will sail together in the brig _Sophia_, for so will I name

her--you and I and she. And if some one, I know not who, comes from

the sea, all sea and sun, some one not familiar, but strange to me and

stronger than I, you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I

shall be his, all of us, all of us; and we all, he and I and you and

the ship, will go straight up to heaven."

She laughed softly at herself, and buried her face in the dog's shaggy

ruff. "Oh, Michael," she whispered, "the cousins are all saying how

queer a girl I am. So perhaps am I, but not as they think. I should be

the queerer if I married Christos, and yet to their minds my queerness

is that I do not. Why did you not bite him when he came here this

morning? for so he would have run away, and this thinking would have

been saved. Yet you were right, he is a familiar thing, and we do not

bite what is familiar. Perhaps, when the strange man comes, I shall

hate him, although I do nothing else but love him. Yet, oh, I am proud,

for we are prouder, as the proverb says, than the Mavromichales of

Maina. But, Christos, he is slower than a tortoise, and less amusing

than a mule; oh, well enough no doubt for some, but not for me. Perhaps

I shall marry none; that is very likely, for the men I see here, for

instance, are not fit things to marry, and so, I make no doubt, they

think me. And there is always the ship-building. Oh, we will get very

wise, Michael, and sail our ship ourselves, and see strange countries

and over-sea people. There must be some one in this big world as well

as I, and yet I have not seen him, but we will do nothing without

thinking, Michael, unless it so happens that some day we no longer want

or are able to think. Perhaps that--there, get down, you are heavy."

She pushed the dog's paws off her lap, and, rising from her chair, went

to the end of the veranda to look out upon the night. The full moon

swung high and white among the company of stars, and the sea was all a

shimmer of pearly light. A swell was rolling in soft and huge from the

south, and the end of the pier was now and again outlined with broken

foam. Beneath the moonlight the massive seas looked only a succession

of waving light and shadow, and the rattle of the pebbles on the

shingly beach outside the pier in the drag of the swell came rhythmical

and muffled. The Capsina, in the unrest and ferment of her thoughts,

was unwittingly drawn towards that vastness of eternal and majestic

movement, and slipping her embroidered Rhodian hood over her head, she

whistled softly to Michael, and went down through the strip of garden

towards the shore.

She passed along the quay and out beyond the harbor; all the wandering

scents of a night in early summer were in the air, and the rough strip

of untrained moorland which lay beyond the town was covered with

flowering thyme and aromatic herbs, rooty and fragrant to the nostrils.

She walked quickly across this and came down to the shingly beach which

fringed the promontory. All along its edge the swell was breaking in

crash and flying foam, for the south wind of the day before had raised

a storm out to sea, and several ships had that day put in for shelter.

Far out she could see a pillar of spray rise high and disappear again

over a reef of rock, gleaming for a moment with incredible whiteness

in the moonlight. Michael snuffed about in rapturous pursuit of

interesting smells among the edge of rough herbs that fringed the

beach, making sudden excursions and flank movements inland, and

grubbing ecstatically among the tussocks of cistus and white heath

after wholly imaginary hares. By degrees Sophia walked more slowly,

and, coming to the end of the promontory, stopped for a moment before

she began to retrace her steps. No, she could not marry Christos; she

could not cut herself off from the thrill that her large independence

gave her, from working for herself, from the headship of the clan. For

her she thought was a wider life than that of the women of her race.

How could she limit herself, with her young, strong body, and the will

which moved it, to the distaff and the spinning-wheel? Christos! He was

afraid of Michael, he was afraid of the sea, he was afraid of her. But

how to make this clear to demonstration to the clan was beyond her.

Moreover--and the thought was like a stinging insect--there lay at home

the deed of her betrothal to her cousin.

She whistled to Michael and turned back into the town. Several groups

of men were scattered along the length of the quay, and the Capsina,

walking swiftly by, saw that Christos was among them. She hung on her

step a moment, and then, with a sudden idea, turned round and called to

him.

"Christos Capsas," she said, "I would speak to you a moment. Yes, it is

I, Sophia."

Christos disengaged himself from the group a little reluctantly and

followed her. He was a somewhat handsome-looking fellow, but rather

heavily made, and slow and slouching in his movements. The Capsina,

seeming by his side doubly alert, walked on with him in silence for a

space, and then stopped again.

"See, Christos," she said, "I have no wish to offend you or any. If

what I said this morning was an offence to you, please know that to me

now my words were an offence. Yet I will not marry you," and on the

word she suddenly flared out--"oh! be very sure of that! And I have

something to say to the clan. Be good enough to tell them that I expect

all the men to dinner with me to-morrow, when I will speak to them. You

will come yourself. Yes? Let me know how many will be there to-morrow

early. Good-night, my cousin. Michael, be quiet, and come with me."

The clan signified their intention of accepting the Capsina's

invitation in large numbers, for they too felt that their family

affairs must come to a crisis, and that something explicit was needed.

The Capsina, they were sure, would supply this need. As the day was

warm, she gave orders that the dinner should be served in the veranda,

and that the barrel of wine which had been put on board the brig should

be brought back, for it was her best. All morning she attended to the

things for their entertainment, first going to the market to buy the

best of the freshly caught mullet and a lump of caviare, wrapped up in

vine leaves, and choosing with care a lamb to be roasted whole over

the great open fireplace; then, returning to see that the _pilaff_ of

chicken was properly seasoned, that the olives were dried and put in

fresh oil, and herself mixing the salad, flavoring it with mint and

a sprinkling of cheese and garlic. After that the rose-leaf jam had

to be whipped up with cream and raw eggs for the sweets, and another

pot to be opened to be offered to the guests, with glasses of cognac

as an appetizer; cheese had to be fetched from the cellar, and dried

figs and oranges from the store cupboard. Then Michael, to whom the

hot smells were a tremulous joy, must be chained up, and in the midst

of these things there arrived a notary from the town, who, at Sophia's

dictation, for she had but little skill at writing herself, drew up a

deed and explained to her where the witnesses should sign or make their

mark. By this time it was within an hour of dinner, and she went to her

room to dress, and think over what she was going to say.

Sophia had an inbred instinct for completeness, and she determined

on this occasion to make herself magnificent. She took from their

paper-wrappings her three _fête_ dresses, one of which had never been

worn, and looked them over carefully before deciding between them.

Eventually she fixed on the new one. This consisted of three garments,

a body, a skirt, and a long sleeveless jacket reaching to the knees.

The body was made of fine home-spun wool buttoning down the side, but

the whole of the front was a piece of silk Rhodian embroidery in red,

green, and gold, and a narrow strip of the same went round the wrists.

The skirt was of the same material, but there was stitched over it

a covering of thin Greek silk, creamy-white in color, and round the

bottom of the skirt ran a trimming of the same Rhodian stuff. Before

putting the jacket on she opened a box that stood by her bed, and

took from it four necklaces of Venetian gold sequins, one short and

coming round the neck like a collar, and the other three of increasing

size, the largest hanging down almost as far as her waist. Then she

put on the jacket, which, like the other garments, was bordered with

embroidery, and draping her hair in an orange-colored scarf of Greek

silk, she fastened it with another band of Venetian gold coins, which

passed twice round her head. Then, hesitating a moment, she went back

to the box where her gold ornaments were kept, and drew out the great

heirloom of her clan, and held it in her hand a moment. It was a belt

of antique gold chain, more than an inch in width, each link being

set with two pearls. The clasp was of two gold circles, with a hook

behind, and on each of them was chased the lion of Venice. Scroll-work

of leaves and branches, on which sat curious archaic eagles, ran round

it, and eight large emeralds were set in each rim. Sophia looked at it

doubtfully for a moment or two, and then fastened it round her waist,

inside her jacket, so as to hide the joining of the body and skirt.

Her guests soon began to arrive, the first of them being Christos,

the father of her betrothed, with his son. The old man had determined

to be exceedingly dignified and cold to Sophia, and as a mark of his

disapproval had not put on his _festa_ clothes. But the sight of that

glorious figure, all color, walking out from the shade of the veranda

into the brilliant sunlight to meet them, took, as he said afterwards,

"all the pith" out of him.

Sophia received him with a sort of regal dignity as befitted the head

of the clan: "You are most welcome, Uncle Christos," she said, "and you

also, cousin. I was sorry that your business prevented your being able

to come to the launching of the new boat, but perhaps you will like to

see her after dinner."

Uncle Christos shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"I had no idea you would be so grand, Sophia," he said, "and I have

come in my old clothes. Christos, too, you slovenly fellow, your shirt

is no fresh thing."

The younger Christos's _fustanella_ was as a matter of fact quite

clean, but he smoothed it down as if ashamed of it.

"But, Sophia," went on the old man, "they will not be all here yet. I

will run to my house and be back in a moment," and he fairly bolted out

of the garden.

Christos and Sophia were thus left alone, but Sophia was quite equal

to the occasion, and spoke resolutely of indifferent things until the

others arrived. By degrees they all came, the elder Christos the last,

but in the magnificence of all his best clothes, and they sat down to

dinner. And when they had finished eating and the pipes were produced,

Sophia rose from her place at the head of the table and spoke to them

that which she had in her mind.

"It is not my wish," she said, "to hurt the feelings of any one, but I

will not violate my own. As you perhaps have heard"--and the slightest

shadow of a smile passed over her face, for she knew that nothing else

had been spoken of for the last four-and-twenty hours--"my cousin

Christos has asked me to fulfil my betrothal to him, and I wish to make

my answer known to you all. You understand me, then: I will not marry

my cousin, either now or at any other time. I have here"--and she took

up from the table the deed of the betrothal--"I have here that which

is witness of my betrothal to Christos Capsas. With the approval of

my family and clan I will tear it up and burn it. If there is any one

here who objects to this, let him say so, and I will tell you what I

shall then do. Without his approval, and without the approval of any

one else, I shall send to the town for the notary, procure witnesses,

and sign my name to this other deed. I am no hand with the pen, but so

much I can write. In it I bequeath all my property, to which I am sole

heiress--for my father, as you know, died without a will, suddenly--not

to my clan, nor to any one of my clan, but to the priests."

A subdued murmur of consternation ran round the table, and the elder

Christos called gently on the names of five or six saints, for the clan

were not on good terms with the church, and the Capsina herself had

threatened to loose Michael on the first priest who set foot uninvited

in her house. A paralyzed silence succeeded, and Sophia continued her

speech.

"See," she said, "I am perfectly in earnest. We are prouder, as our

proverb says, than they of Maina, and, being proud, I for one do not

threaten things which I am unable or unwilling to perform. Perhaps

marriage seems to me a different thing from what it seems to you. But

that is no reason that I am wrong or that you are right. My betrothed I

believe to be an admirable man, but I am so made that I do not choose

to marry him, nor, at present, any other man. And now the choice is

with you. I destroy in your presence and with your consent both these

papers, or I will sign in your presence and without your consent that

which only needs my signature. I will leave you here for half an

hour, and when I return, Christos Capsas, the father of Christos, my

betrothed, will tell me what you have decided. Uncle Christos, you will

please take my place here and tell the servants to bring you more wine

when you want it. You will find the white wine also very good, I think."

And with these paralyzing words the Capsina dropped her eyes, bowed

with a wonderful dignity and grace to the clan, who rose to their feet

despite themselves at the beauty of the girl, and marched into the

house.

At the end of half an hour she returned, and standing a moment in her

place turned to the elder Christos.

"You have decided," she said, and taking up the two deeds in answer to

a nod from her uncle, she tore them across and across. Then she gave

the pieces to a servant.

"Burn them," she said, "there, out in the garden, where we can all see."

Certainly the Capsina had a sense for the dramatic moment, for she

stood quite still where she was in dead silence until a puff of wind

dispersed the feathers of the ash. Then she turned briskly and filled

her glass.

"I drink prosperity to him who was betrothed to me," she said, "and

wish him with all my heart a better wife than I should ever have made

him. And here," she cried, unbuckling the great gold belt, "take your

wife to-morrow, if you will, or when you will, and here is my gift to

the bride."

And she handed the gorgeous thing across to her cousin, clinked glasses

with him, and, draining her own, flung it to the ground, so that none

other should drink from it.

Then sitting down again:

"This is a fortunate day for you, Christos, if only you knew it, and

for you all. For here am I, a free woman, who knows her trade, and will

give all her time and energy to it, and indeed I am not lazy, and so

double the riches of the house, instead of sitting at the distaff and

picking up the olives. For, in truth, I do not think that I am of the

stuff that wives are made of. You have often told me, uncle, that I

should have been a man, and, before God, I think you were right. And

you, dear Christos, some day I should have tried your patience beyond

all bearing, and you would have raised your hand to strike me, and

then, perhaps, you would have felt my fists rattling about your face,

or maybe, if I really was angry, for I do not think I could take a blow

from any man, I should have set Michael at you. And then, if you were

wise, you would have run away, for I think Michael would kill whomever

I told him to kill, for he is greatly obedient, and a fine thing it

would have been for the folk to see the head of the clan running

from a four-legged dog, while his wife hished the beast on from the

threshold."

A roar of laughter greeted this, and Sophia looked up, smiling herself.

"So we are friends again, are we not?" she said; "and we will never

again give others cause to say that they of the clan are of two minds

among themselves. And now, cousins, if you have smoked and drunk what

you will, let us go down and see the new brig, for indeed I think she

will have no luck unless you all come. To-morrow the masts are hoisted;

this morning I have had no time to attend to my business."

The brig was duly inspected, and though some of the elder men shook

their heads over this new-fangled keel, and the somewhat egoish name of

_Sophia_ for the Capsina's ship, the general verdict was satisfactory.

To celebrate this day of her emancipation she let all the workmen

go home, giving them half a day off work, and returned alone to her

house towards evening. She went at once to loose Michael from his

unaccustomed confinement, and stood for a moment with her hand on the

dog's neck.

"Michael," she whispered, "does it not seem to you that Christos

desired the money more than he desired me? Yet, perhaps, it was the

others who urged him, for, in truth, he looked a little downcast. But

that a man should consent to that! Well, I am too happy to-day to find

fault with any one."

For that year and the next Sophia worked with unintermittent energy in

her ship-yard. Sometimes it seemed to herself that a kind of frenzy

for ships and the sea had possession of her, and, busy with open-air

thought, she never even noticed the glances which men cast on her.

Her fame, the stories of her wonderful knowledge of ships, her fiery

beauty, her utter unconsciousness of men, had passed beyond the island,

and sailors who had put in at Hydra would wait about on the quay to

catch a glimpse of her, or speak to her, for she would always have a

word for sailors. She was not content to know that her ships were truly

built and seaworthy, but she cruised about, mastering the individuality

of each; for, as she said, a ship, like a horse, would obey one master

when it would not obey another, and her own brig, the _Sophia_, turned

out a miracle of speed, and could sail, it seemed as by magic, into

the teeth of a gale. She commanded it herself, directing its course

with an apparent recklessness, really the result of knowledge, through

the narrow channels and swirling currents of the close-sown islands,

through passages where rocks were ranged like a shark's teeth, row on

hungry row, and the green water poured over them with the speed of an

autumn gale, or beating about, close-hauled, past the reef of wolves

which lie waiting off Methana. Sometimes she would charter herself to

a merchant, and carry trading produce as far as the Asiatic coast, or

to Alexandria; but for the most part she seemed possessed merely by

the desire for the sea, an instinct of her race, but coming to flavor

in her, for the fierce battling of skill calculated against the brute

force of the incalculable elements, for the hundred tactics which

nothing but practical intimacy can teach. To her clan she became a sort

of cult, the more so as she had left all her property, if she died

unmarried, to Christos, who, in point of fact, took to himself a wife

within six months of the final rejection.

In 1821, when she was now near the end of her twenty-first year--alert

for adventure--came the stinging news of the outbreak of the revolution.

To Hydra, that small and frugal island, tales of Turkish cruelty,

greed, and lust, and the inchoate schemes of vengeance, had come only

as echoes vague and remote, and the news of the outbreak was like the

bolt out of the clear sky. For the Turks had formed a sufficiently

accurate conception of the character of those dour islanders, and while

there were women, and to spare, in the other places, and it seemed

that on the mainland, peopled, so they considered, with richer and

softer folk, taxation might be indefinitely increased, it was not for

a fattened pasha to procure with trouble and fighting what an indolent

order given over his pipe could bring him. Sophia, on the eve of her

return from a prolonged and prosperous cruise, interviewed the captain

of a caique who had put in with the news of the taking of Kalamata,

and heard a tale to make the blood bubble and boil--how the rising had

run like fire through summer-dry stubble from north to south and east

to west, how that Greece was to be free, and pull no longer under an

infidel yoke. Tale followed tale; the man had seen with his own eyes

free-born Greeks, man, woman, and child, treated as an unmerciful

master will not treat his beast; he had tales of torture, followed at

the last by death, lingering and painful, but welcome as the end of

pain--of things unnatural and bestial beyond word or belief. There

had been a cousin of his living near Nauplia. He had come back from

the fields one day to find his wife dead and abominably mutilated on

the threshold; his two daughters had been carried off--with them his

two younger sons; the elder lay stifled by his mother. They had--And

Kanaris stopped, for the thing could not be told. It was on the quay,

within half an hour of her landing, that the Capsina heard the first

news, and in her brusque way she whisked the man up to her house and

gave him wine and tobacco, and listened while he talked. Others of

the clan were there to welcome her, and stayed to hear, old Christos

among them, and the tales were stopped and pointed with exclamations

of fierce horror and curses on the Turk. Sophia sat in dead silence,

but her eyes were black flames, and more than once her lip trembled at

some story of hideous outrage on women and children. She only asked one

question--"They are Greeks, to whom the devils do such things?" And on

the answer, "And we too are Greeks," she said, and her hand clinched.

Her foreman had been waiting for orders as to the unloading of the

brig, and when the tales were over, she sent for him.

"Begin the unloading now, at once," she said, "and let the work go on

all night. Oh, man, are you a stuffed bird, that you stare so at me?

Do you not understand the tongue of your fathers, or shall I speak

Turkish? I will be down there in an hour. Unload at once." Then turning

to the captain of the caique, "You will sup with me," she said, "and

you too, Christos. By-the-way, what is your name?"

"Constantine Kanaris."

"That is a good sea-name. Do you hate the Turk, and can you handle a

boat?"

"The one as thoroughly as the other."

"I offer you a birth in the _Sophia_, directly under me. I command my

own ship."

"And I, too," said Kanaris, "as my father and grandfather have done

before me."

"You accept the post?"

Kanaris looked rather bewildered.

"Capsina," he said, "you are one of few words, and so am I when work is

to be done. I have told you of Nicholas Vidalis, who is among the first

movers of this revolution. Him I have promised to serve, in the cause

of the war. I cannot go back from that."

The Capsina frowned, and struck the table impatiently.

"Do you not understand?" she said--"that his work is my work? Oh,

Uncle Christos! what is the matter with you? Has the sky fallen, or do

you hear the trumpet of the archangel? God in heaven! for the present

there is no more trading for me. Do you not see that there must be a

fleet, or these devils will keep on sending more arms and armies into

the country? Are you a Greek, man--are you anything but a fiend from

the pit, that you can wonder at me, when you hear how they treat other

clans, free-born and scornful as ourselves, like slaves and beasts? That

I should be busy like a mule carrying silk stuff, when such things are

going on! There must be a fleet, I tell you, and the _Sophia_ is the

first ship of that fleet. By God! but I have found my work at last! It

was not for nothing that I have built ships, and learned how to sail

them, and take them where the devil himself would be afraid to trust

to his luck. Now quick," she said to Kanaris--"do you take this berth

or not? I want a man something like you, who hates and works and is

silent. You will suit me, I think."

"Our purpose is war on the Turk and no other purpose?" asked Kanaris.

"That is better," said the Capsina--"we are getting to business. Yes,

only war on the Turk. War? Extermination, rather, for that is the only

business of Christians with regard to them. And you shall be no loser,

if we prosper; and if we do not prosper, I pay you still the wage of

the captain of a brig."

Kanaris flushed.

"Why do you say that?" he asked. "Is it for that that Nicholas--God be

thanked for him!--and those like him serve?"

"I was wrong," said Sophia, "but you were a stranger to me till this

moment, but you are no stranger now. You will come?"

"I will come," he said.

With that they fell to supper, and when supper was over Sophia and

Kanaris went down to the harbor. The brig was lying close in unlading,

and returning boats were passing to and fro from it to the shore. Two

great resin flares on the deck showed them a crowd of men working at

the crane by which the freight was conveyed from the hold and swung

over the side to the barges that received it. The cargo was of silk

from the Syrian coast and was for Athens and Salonica; but the foreman,

in blind obedience to Sophia's instructions, was unloading it and

storing it in her shed on the quay. They found him there when they got

down, and she nodded approvingly when she saw what progress the work

had made.

"Have we another ship in?" she asked.

"Yes, the _Hydra_, but she is due to sail to-morrow to Syria," said he.

The Capsina stood for a moment thinking.

"May the Virgin look to Syria!" she said. Then, "What is your caique

doing?" she asked Kanaris.

"Picking up chance jobs."

"Here is one then, and Syria is all right. Will you undertake to

deliver the silk to Athens and Salonica?"

"Before what date?"

"This day three weeks. My men shall do the freighting for you, and

you can sail to-morrow night. You will carry it easily; it is only a

quarter of the _Sophia's_ cargo, for we have discharged at Crete and

Melos. Also it is the season of south winds."

The matter was soon arranged, and the two went on board the _Sophia_,

that Kanaris might see the ship. To him, as to the Hydriots, the build

of the vessel was new, but she had acquitted herself too well on her

previous cruises to allow of any doubt as to the success of what had

been an experiment, and Kanaris, who had more than once been on board

English and French cruisers and men-of-war, talked with Sophia as to

the guns she should carry. They could obtain these, he told her, at

Spetzas, where the revolutionists had formed a secret arsenal. It would

be better, he suggested, to delay any alteration in the bulwarks and

disposition of the ship till they saw what guns were to be got.

At the end of an hour or so they went on shore again, Kanaris to his

caique, Sophia back to her house. The night was still and windless, and

from her room she could see the flares on the _Sophia_ burning upright

and steady in the calm air, and the rattle of the gear of the crane was

audible. She felt as if her life had suddenly burst into blossom, and

the blossom thereof was red.