The fleet put to sea again in the last week of May, cruising in the
Archipelago, eager for the spring coming of the Ottoman ships. They
took a northeasterly course, and on the 5th of June sighted a single
Turkish man-of-war to the north of Chios. But it put about, before
they were in range to attack, and ran before them to the mainland,
anchoring in the harbor of Erissos, beneath the walls of the Turkish
fort. To attack it there at close quarters meant exposure to the fire
from the fort as well; moreover, the harbor was nearly landlocked,
and thoroughly unsuited to that rapidity of manoeuvre by which alone
these little hawks could dare attack the ravens of the Turkish fleet,
for, except when the sea-breeze blew, it lay nigh windless. Tombazes
could scarce leave it to sail south, but his plan of action was
determined by the appearance, on the morning of the 6th of June, of
more Ottoman ships from the north--a man-of-war, three frigates, and
three sloops--and before noon news arrived from a Greek town called
Aivali, farther up the Asiatic coast, that the garrison of Turks had
been suddenly increased in the town.
Here, then, was work sufficient: the single Turk must not sail south,
the fresh convoy of ships must be stopped, and help must be sent to
Aivali. What this increase of garrison might mean, Tombazes could not
conjecture, but he told off fifteen vessels to follow the Turkish
ships, while the rest waited at Erissos to destroy the blockaded vessel
at all costs and with all speed, and then sail on to Aivali. A meeting
of the captains was held on the admiral's ship, and it was resolved to
attempt the destruction of the Turk by fire. A Psarian in the fleet
was said to know the use and handling of fire-ships, and one was
prepared, but badly managed, and the only result was that two of its
crew were first nearly roasted and then completely drowned. However,
on the following day another Psarian volunteered to launch one, which
was managed with more conspicuous success. The boat was loaded with
brushwood, and brushwood and sails were soaked in turpentine. It set
off from the fleet while it was yet dark, and, conveniently for the
purpose, a white mist lay over the harbor. The air was windless, and it
had to be rowed swiftly and silently up to the anchorage of the Turk.
They had approached to within a cable's length when they were sighted
from on board the enemy, but the captain of the fire-ship, Pappanikolo,
knowing that a few moments more would see the work done, urged the men
on, and drove his boat right into the bows of the Turk, contriving to
entangle his mast in the bowsprit ropes. Then, bidding his men jump
into the boat they towed behind, he set fire to the ship and rowed
rapidly off. A few muskets only were fired at them, and they escaped
unhurt. Not so their victim. In a moment the fire-ship blazed from stem
to stern, pouring such vast clouds of smoke up from the brushwood,
which was not quite dry, that it was impossible for those on board or
from the fort to reach the seat of the flames. Many of the sailors
jumped overboard and swam to land, but the ship itself burned on till
the fire reached the powder-magazine and exploded it.
This being done, the remainder of the Greek fleet weighed anchor and
went north again. While rounding Lesbos they met the ships which had
pursued the rest of the Ottoman fleet returning. They, too, had shunned
the Greeks, but with the south wind had escaped into the Dardanelles,
where the Greeks had not ventured to follow. Most of the pursuing
vessels had been of the primates, and the Capsina expressed her scorn
in forcible language.
Aivali was a wealthy commercial town in the pashalik of Brusa and on
the coast of Asia Minor. Since the outbreak of the war several similar
Greek towns had been plundered by irregular bands of Turks, and the
pasha, seeing that his revenues were largely derived from Aivali, for
it was the home of many wealthy Greeks, was personally very anxious to
save it. Thus the troops which, as Tombazes had been truly informed,
had been sent there, were designed not for its destruction but its
preservation. But the news of the destruction of the ship at Erissos
had raised the excitement of the Turkish population at Aivali and
desire for revenge to riot point, and already several Greeks had been
murdered in the streets. Such was the state of things when Tombazes'
fleet dropped anchor outside the harbor.
That night, under cover of the darkness, came a deputation to the
admiral. Unless he helped them their state was foregone. Their
protectors would no doubt guarantee them their lives, but at the
sacrifice of all their property; but, as seemed certain if the Turkish
population rose against them (for they had heard that irregular bands
of soldiers were marching on the town), the luckier of them would be
murdered, the fairer and less fortunate sold as slaves. They appealed
to Tombazes to rescue them, and take them off on the fleet, and this he
guaranteed his best efforts to do.
Aivali was built on a steep hill-side running up from the sea. The
lower ground was occupied with wharves and shipping-houses, then higher
up came the manufacturing quarter, consisting mainly of oil-mills, and
on the crest of the hill the houses of the wealthier inhabitants. It
was these which would be the first prey to the mob.
Early next morning Tombazes landed a company of soldiers to protect the
families who embarked. The troops of the pasha, who wished to prevent
any one leaving the town, replied by occupying a row of shops near the
quay, and keeping up a heavy musket fire on the troops and the ships.
Meantime the news that the Greek fleet would take off the inhabitants
was over the town, and a stream of civilians had begun to pour down.
The soldiers returned the fire of the Turks, while these were embarked
in small boats and taken out to the ships; but the odds were against
them, for their assailants were firing from shelter. But suddenly a
shout went up from the fleet as the _Sophia_ weighed anchor, and,
hoisting her sails, came close in, shouldering and crashing through a
line of fishing-boats, risking the chance of grounding. Then, turning
her broadside to the town, she opened on the houses occupied by the
Turks, firing over the heads of the soldiers and embarking population.
The first broadside knocked one shop to pieces, and in a couple of
minutes the Turks, most of the regular troops, were swarming out of
houses like ants when their hill is disturbed, and flying to some
position less exposed to the deadly and close fire of the _Sophia_.
Simultaneously the Greeks of the town, fearing that this occupation
of the houses lower down by the regular troops should cut off their
escape, in turn occupied some houses in the rear, and kept up another
fire on them. Between the _Sophia_ and them the troops were fairly
outclassed, and the line of retreat for the population was clear again.
But this engagement of the regular troops with the Greeks gave the
rabble of the Turkish population the opportunity they desired. They
rushed to the bazaar and rifled the shops, spoiling and destroying what
they did not take; and, after leaving the quarter gutted and trampled,
made up the hill to the houses of the wealthiest merchants, from which
the Greeks were even now fleeing, and captured not only goods, but
women and children. Unless some speedy move was made by the troops, it
was clear that the bulk of the population would escape or fall into
the murderous hands of the rabble; and unable, under the guns of the
_Sophia_, to make another attempt to hold the quay against the Greeks,
they set fire to various houses in a line with the shore, that a
barrier of flames might cut off the lower town from the upper. Meantime
they collected again at the square which lay to the left of the town,
with the purpose of making another formed attack on the troops on the
beach. The Greek soldiers seeing this, as it was now hopeless to try
to save the town from burning, themselves set fire to another row of
houses at right angles to the beach in order to cut them off from
the line of embarkation, and between the quay and the new position
taken up by the Turkish troops. In a short time both fires, under the
ever-freshening sea-breeze took hold in earnest.
Meantime boat-load after boat-load of the sailors had put to land;
among the first, when the guns of the _Sophia_ were no longer needed,
being the Capsina and Kanaris, with some two dozen of the crew. They
went up the town to help in protecting the line of retreat, and the
fires being then only just begun, passed the oil-mills, and reached
the wealthier quarter. The Turkish population, seeing they were armed,
ran from them, and in an hour, having satisfied themselves that the
upper quarter of the town was empty, turned back again towards the sea.
But suddenly from some quarter of a mile in front of them rose a huge
pillar of smoke and fire, and with it a deep roaring sound as if all
the winds of heaven had met together. Kanaris first saw what it was.
"Quick, quick," he said, "it is an oil-mill caught! There is a whole
row of them below us!"
They hurried on, but before they had gone many yards they saw at the
end of the street down which they were to pass another vast volume of
flame break out, sweeping across to the opposite houses in long tongues
of fire. From inside the mill came a crash, and next moment a river
of flaming oil flowed out and down the street. To pass that way was
impossible, and they turned back to make a détour to the other side of
the town, away from the quarter where the troops were assembled. But
before ten minutes had passed a dozen more mills had taken fire, and
when at length they had passed the extremity of the line of fire, and
came out on the quay, it was to find the beach empty, and the boats no
longer at the shore. The torrent of flaming oil had poured down the
steep and narrow streets, and thence across the quay over on to the
water, where it floated, still blazing, and a belt of fire some thirty
feet broad lined the water along the bay. The charred posts on the edge
of the harbor-wall were hissing and spluttering, sending out every now
and then little lilac-colored bouquets of flame, and it was somehow
across that burning canal that their retreat lay.
The Capsina stood still a moment and then broke out into a laugh.
"We shall get through tighter places together, Kanaris," she said.
"See, the oil has already ceased flowing, but we cannot stop here. The
troops may be down again. Look you, there is only one way. A run, a
good long breath, a dive; if we catch fire, next moment the water will
put it out--and up again when we are past the flames. It is not more
than thirty feet."
Meantime the Turkish troops hearing that one party, at any rate, of
the Greeks was still in the town, and thinking that all retreat by the
beach was now cut off, had stationed themselves away to the left beyond
the flames. The Capsina waved her hand to them.
"No, no, we don't go that way, gentlemen!" she cried, and next moment
she had run the dozen scorching and choking yards across the quay and
plunged into the flames. Kanaris followed, and after him the others
with a shout. The Turks, seeing this, discharged their muskets at them,
but ineffectually. A moment later a boat had put off from the _Sophia_,
and, as they rose safe beyond the flames they were dragged on board
dripping, yet strangely exhilarated and thrilled with adventure.
The deck of the _Sophia_ was packed with men, women, and children
rescued from the sacked and burning town, and strange and pathetic were
their stories. Many did not know whether their families had been saved
or not, for in the panic and confusion of their flight the children
perhaps had been carried off in the boat from one ship, the parents in
another. Some had come on board with nothing but the clothes they were
in, others had dragged with them bags of money and valuables, but all
were in a distraught amazement at the suddenness of the hour which had
left them homeless. The sun was already sinking when the Capsina got
back to her ship, but the glow of the sunset paled before that red and
lurid conflagration in the town, and after dark, when the land breeze
set in, the breath of it was as if from some open-mouthed furnace,
and the air was thick with ashes and half-consumed sparks, making the
eyes and throat grow raw and tingling with smoke. So, weighing anchor,
they sailed out to the mouth of the harbor, some miles away from the
burning town, where the heat was a little assuaged and the air had some
breath of untainted coolness in it.
By next day the fire had died down, a smouldering of charred beams
and eddying white ashes had taken the place of blazing houses and
impenetrable streets, and once more the town was searched for any
Greeks that remained. Some few were found, but in no large numbers;
and that afternoon the fleet turned south again to give the homeless a
refuge on one or other of the revolted islands. Many of the able-bodied
at once enlisted themselves in the service of the revolutionists,
others seemed apathetic and stunned into listlessness, and a few, and
these chiefly among the older men and women, would have slunk back
again, like cats, preferring a ruined and wrecked home to new and
unfamiliar places.
Throughout August and September the fleet made no combined cruise; some
ships assisted at the blockade of Monemvasia, others made themselves
red in the bloody and shameful work at Navarin. Then for a time all
eyes and breathless lips were centred on the struggle going on at
Tripoli; the armies and ships alike paused, watching the development of
that inevitable end.
Autumn and early winter saw the Capsina at Hydra, busily engaged in
building another ship on the lines of the _Sophia_, but with her
characteristic points even more developed. She was going to appoint
Kanaris to command the old _Sophia_, and to sail the new one herself.
December saw her launched, and about the middle of January the Capsina
took her a trial-trip up as far as Nauplia.
It was one of those Southern winter days which are beautiful beyond all
capacity of comprehension. There was a sparkle as if of frost in the
air, but the sun was a miracle of brightness, and the wind from the
southeast kindly and temperate. The sea was awake, and its brood of
fresh young waves, laced here and there with a foam so white that one
could scarcely believe it was of the same stuff as those blue waters,
headed merrily up the gulf, and the beautiful new boat, still smelling
aromatically of fresh-chiselled pine wood, seemed part of that
laughing crowd, so lightly did it slip on its way, and with a motion
so fresh and springing. From the time she left the harbor of Hydra
till she rounded the point of Nauplia, her white sails were full and
brimming with the following wind, and it was little past noon when they
swung round to the anchorage.
All that afternoon the Capsina was busy, for there were many friends
to see, and she spent some time on the Turkish ship which she had
captured in the spring and which was being made ready for sea again;
and all the time her heart was full, she knew not why, of a wonderful
great happiness and expectancy. The busy, smiling people on the
quay, the sparkle of the gulf, the great pine-clad hills rising up
towards the fallen Tripoli, her own new ship lying at anchor in the
foreground--these were all sweet to her, with a curious intimacy of
sweetness. Her life tasted good; it all savored of hopes and aims, or
fine memories of success, and she felt a childlike happiness all day
that did not reason, but only enjoyed.
She was to sleep on board that night, returning to Hydra next day, and
about the time of sunset she was sitting with Kanaris on the quay,
talking to him and a Naupliot friend. The sky was already lit with
the fires of the west sun, and the surface of the bay, still alive
with little waves, was turning molten under the reflection. A small
fishing-boat, looking curiously black against that ineffable blaze, was
beating up to the harbor, and it gave the Capsina the keen pleasure
of one who knows to see how well it was being handled. These small
craft, as she was aware, were not made to sail close to the wind, but
it seemed to her that a master who understood it well was coaxing it
along, as a man with a fine hand will make a nervous horse go as he
chooses. She turned to Kanaris.
"See how well that boat is handled," she said. "She will make the pier
on this tack."
Kanaris looked up and judged the distance with a half-closed eye.
"I think not," he said. "It cannot be brought up in one tack."
The Capsina felt strangely interested in it.
"I wager you a Turkish pound it can and will," she cried. "Oh, Kanaris!
you and I have something to learn from him who sails it."
The Capsina won her pound, to her great delight, and the boat drew up
below them at the steps. It was quite close under the wall, so that
they could only see the upper part of its masts, but from it there came
a voice singing very pleasantly, with an echo, it seemed, of the sea in
it, and it sang a verse of the song of the vine-diggers.
Up the steps came the singer, from the sea and the sun. His stature
was so tall as to make by-standers seem puny. His black hair was all
tousled and wet. He was quite young, for his chin and cheek were
smooth, and the line of mustache on his upper lip was yet but faintly
pencilled. Over his shoulder he carried a great basket of fish,
supporting it freshly, you would say, and without effort, and the
lad stood straight under a burden for two men. His shirt was open at
the neck, showing a skin browned with the wind and the glare of the
water, and the muscles stood out like a breastplate over the bone. His
feet were bare and his linen trousers tucked up to his knees. And it
was good also to look at his face, for the eyes smiled and the mouth
smiled--you would have said his face was a smile.
The Capsina drew a long, deep breath. All the wonderful happiness of
the day gathered itself to a point and was crowned.
"Who is that?" she asked the Naupliot, who was sitting with her.
"That? Do you not know? Who but the little Mitsos? Hi lad, what luck?"
Mitsos looked round a moment, but did not stop.
"My luck," he said. "But I must go first to Dimitri. I am late, and he
wants his fish. For to-day I am not a free man, but a hireling. But I
will be back presently, Anastasi, and remember me by this."
And with one hand he picked out a small mullet from his basket, threw
it with a swift and certain aim at Anastasi's face, and ran laughing
off.
So Mitsos ran laughing off, and a moment afterwards Anastasi got up too.
"We had better go," he said to Kanaris, "or the market will be closed,
and you want provisions you say."
"Ah, yes," said the Capsina, "it is good that I have you to think for
me, Kanaris, for I declare the thing had gone from my mind. Let them be
on board to-night, so that we can sail with day."
The two went off together towards the town, and Sophia was alone.
"Some one from the sun and the sea"--her own words to Michael came back
to her--"and you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I shall
be his." The dog was lying at her feet, and she touched him gently with
her toe.
"And will you be his, Michael? Will you be Mitsos's?" she said. "And
what of me?"
Surely this was the one from the sun and the sea, of whom she had not
dreamed, but of whom she could imagine she had dreamed, he who had gone
at night and burned that great ship from Kalamata, returning, perhaps,
as he had returned this evening, laughing with a jest for a friend and
a ready aim, of whose deed the people sang. She had wondered a hundred
times what Mitsos was like, but never had she connected him with the
one of whom she spoke to Michael.
She rose from her seat and went to lean over the quay wall. She was
convinced not in thought--for just now she did not think, but only
feel beyond the shadow of doubt--that Mitsos was ... was, not he whom
she looked for, her feeling lacked that definiteness, but he for whom
she would wait all her life. He was satisfying, wholly, utterly; the
stir and rapture of glorious adventure had seized him as it had seized
her; the aims of their lives were one, and was not that already a bond
between them? He was a man of his arm, and his arm was strong; a man of
his people, and a man not of houses but of the out-of-doors. She had
taken him in at one glance, and knew him from head to heel: black
hair, black eyes, a face one smile, but which could surely be stern and
fiery; for any face so wholly frank as that would mirror the soul as
still water mirrors the sky, the long line of arm bare to the shoulder,
trousers all stained, as was meet, with salt and sailing gear, the
long, swelling line of calf down to feet which were firm and fit to
run--surely this was he for whom she had been designed and built, and
she was one, she knew, at whom men looked more than once. And her heart
broke into song, soaring....
[Illustration: "UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"]
She stood up, a tall, stately figure, yet girlish, still looking out to
sea. He had left his boat below the wall; he had said he would be back
soon, and she meant to wait his coming. The wind was strong, and a coil
of her glorious hair came unfastened, and she raised her hands to pin
it up again; her skirt was blown tight and clinging against the long,
slim lines of her figure, her jacket doubled back against itself by the
wind, and like Mitsos, perhaps with thinking of him, her face was one
smile.
The sun had quite set, but over the sky eastward came the afterglow
of the day, turning the thin skeins of cloud to fiery fleeces, and
flooding the infinite depth of the sky with luminous red. Behind her
the town flushed and glowed, and the white houses were turned to a
living gold. After a while she faced round again, for she heard steps
coming, and seemed to know that it was Mitsos back again.
"Oh, Anastasi!" cried a voice, "but is there not a fool waiting behind
that corner with a good fish to throw and waste? Take it home to your
supper, man, and thank God for a dinner you have not earned except in
that you have a large face easy to hit. Eh, do you think I cannot see
you? You'll be thought a fine hand at hiding, will you?"
Mitsos advanced cautiously, for he was meaning to go to his boat, where
he had left his coat and shoes, and the boat lay behind a corner most
convenient for a hiding man. The Capsina was standing close by, and
Michael bared his teeth as Mitsos came up.
"Fool, Michael!" said the Capsina; "is it not he?"
Then as Mitsos got within speaking distance--
"Anastasi has gone," she said; "you were over quick, were you not, at
seeing him?"
Mitsos laughed, but paused a moment as Michael made the circuit of him,
sniffing suspiciously.
"This is what I never entirely enjoy," he said, standing still. "Now
no man can go sniffing round my bones and have a sound head on his
shoulders. But there is less sport, so I take it, in fighting a dog.
Ah, he is satisfied, is he? That is for the good. But where is fishy
Anastasi?"
"He went to the market with Constantine Kanaris to buy provisions."
"Is Constantine Kanaris here?" asked the boy. "No, I know him not; but
Nikolas Vidalis, the best man God ever made, and my uncle, knew him for
a fine man. But why, if Kanaris is here she is here, for he serves with
her."
"She! Who?"
"Who but the Capsina? I would give gold money to see her. Why--" Mitsos
stopped short, and Sophia laughed.
"Thus there is double pleasure," she said, "for I, too, have often
wished to see the boy of whom the people sing. Yes, I am the Capsina;
why not?"
Mitsos's big eyes grew round and wide.
"What must you have thought of me?" he said. "But indeed I did not
know--" and he bent down from his great height and would have kissed
the hand she held out to him.
"Not so!" she cried, laughing; "they of Maina and we are equal."
"That is true," said Mitsos, standing upright a moment; "but where is
her equal who took three Turkish ships?" and bending again he kissed it.
"Yet a lad I have heard of burned a ship of war," said she.
Mitsos flushed a little under his brown skin.
"That was nothing," he said, "and, indeed, but for my cousin Yanni
there would have been no burning." Then changing the subject quickly:
"You came to-day only, Capsina? Surely you will not go again
to-morrow." Then, "Ah," he cried, "but I, too, am going to sea, so I
may say, with you, for I am to be of the crew of the Turk you brought
in here. But you will have a fleet soon!"
"I cannot have too many brave men to work with," said Sophia. "But you
under me! Lad, you could sail a double course while I sailed single.
Though I have known you perhaps ten minutes, yet you have made me the
richer," and she held out the Turkish pound she had won from Kanaris,
telling him how she had gained it.
Mitsos grinned with pleasure.
"Well, I think I do know this bay," he said, "for indeed I must have
been more hours on it than in the house. But, oh, Capsina, when will
that Turkish ship you took be ready for sea, for indeed it eats my
heart to go catching fish when I should be catching Turks."
"They tell me in six weeks," she said, "but they seem a little slow
about it all. They want more speediness. See you, Mitsos," she said,
then stopped.
Mitsos looked up.
"See you," she said again. "Kanaris after this takes command of the
old _Sophia_. I want some one who knows the sea, and who is better at
home on a ship than on his own feet, to be under me: or it is hardly
that--to be with me, as Kanaris will tell you. Come. I sail from here
to-morrow, or I will even wait for two days or three: or if that is not
time sufficient for you--yet what do you want, for your hands and feet
you carry with you?--you can join me as soon as maybe at Hydra. So. It
is an offer."
"Then to none other shall it now be offered," said Mitsos. "And what
shall I want with two days or three? See, I will sail home now on the
instant across the bay, to say good-bye to those at home, and they I
know will be blithe to let me go, or rather would think scorn of me if
I stopped and went not; and what does a man want with two days or three
days to sigh or be sighed over? For my life I could never see that. Oh,
Capsina, may God send us great winds and many Turks! I am off now; I am
a fool with words, and how gratefully I thank you I cannot tell you.
And Dimitri has never paid me my day's wage. May he grow even fatter on
it!"
The Capsina laughed with pleasure.
"You go quick enough to please me," she said, "and that is very quick.
And I hope, too, I may be found satisfactory, for indeed you do not
stop to think what sort of a woman I may be to get on with."
"You are the Capsina," said Mitsos, with sturdy faith.
"You find that good guarantee? So do I that you are Mitsos; little
Mitsos, they call you, do they not? That will be the name you'll hear
from me, for indeed you are very big."
"And growing yet," said Mitsos, going down the steps to his boat.
"Well, this is a fortunate day for me. I will be at your ship again in
three hours, or four, if this wind does not hold. My homage, Capsina."
"And mine, little Mitsos."
He shoved his boat out from the wall, and she stood with sails flapping
and shivering till he pulled her out from under shelter. Then with a
heel over and a gathering whisper of water she shot out into the bay,
and faded, still followed by the Capsina's gaze, into the dim starlit
dusk.
So he was coming--he. Surely there could be no mistake about it all. A
stranger, she had seen a stranger at sunset on the quay, and her heart
had embraced him as its betrothed. Only an hour, less than an hour, had
passed, and as if to confirm the certainty, all arrangements had been
made, and this very night he would be on her ship. Day after day they
would range the great seas together with one aim and purpose.
How could it fail that that welding should leave them one? Had not
her soul leaped out to him? How strange such a meeting was, yet not
strange, for it was the inevitable thing of her life. How impossible
that they should not have met, and met, too, at this very time, she in
the height of her freedom and success--yet, oh, how ready to be free
no longer!--he, just when he hungered to be up and throwing himself
against the Turk. Michael, too, surely Michael knew, for when Mitsos
was going off again, he had walked down to the bottom step above the
water and watched him set off, wagging his tail in acceptance of him.
She would have wagered herself and the brig and Michael that they were
all going up to heaven.
Presently after came Kanaris from the market, and he whistled across to
the ship that it should send a boat to take them off. He was surprised
to find the Capsina still on shore, supposing she would have gone
back to supper on the ship, or would be with some friend in Nauplia.
Indeed, a friend had gone seeking her on her ship, bidding her to sup
with him, but she, wishing still to be alone, had said she was just
going home. This was half an hour ago, and she lingered yet on the quay
with Michael for guard. As they sat watching for the boat, hearing the
rhythmical and unseen plash of oars getting nearer, this struck Kanaris.
"You have supped, Capsina?" he asked.
She looked up.
"Supped?" she said. "I don't think I have. Indeed, I am sure I have
not. I am hungry. I got to looking at the sky and the water, Kanaris,
as one does on certain days, when there is no wind at sea, and it is
certain I forgot about supper. Surely I have not supped. We will sup on
the ship when we get back, and, as we sup, we will talk. Yes, I have
been thinking a big cargo of thought. I will tell you of it."
They were rowed back across the plain of polished harbor water, and
went on board in silence. Supper was soon ready--a dish of eggs, a
piece of the broiled shoulder of a roe-deer, which the Mayor Dimitri
had sent to the Capsina with a present of wine and cakes made of honey.
And when they had eaten, Sophia spoke of her plans.
"Kanaris," she said, "I have found him who will take, your place when
you have command of the old _Sophia_, as you will on this next cruise.
Oh, be tender with her, man, and remember, as I have always said,
that she must be humored. She will sail to a head wind if you do not
overburden her, but too much sail, though no more than others carry,
would ever keep her back. Ah, well, you know her as well as I do. What
was I saying? Oh yes, Mitsos Codones, the little Mitsos, you know, will
join me here; he who gained me a pound this afternoon. He sails with me
in place of the Captain Kanaris."
Now the offer of the presidency of Greece would have been less to the
taste of Kanaris than the command of the _Sophia_, and his gratitude,
though not eloquent, was sincere. But presently after the Capsina,
looking up, saw doubt in his eye.
"Well?" she said.
"It is this," said Kanaris, "though indeed it is no business of mine.
Mitsos is but a lad, and, Capsina, what do you know of him? Surely this
afternoon he was a stranger to you."
Sophia smiled, and with a wonderful frank kindness in her black eyes.
"And you, Kanaris," she said. "Did not a strange sea-captain come to
Hydra one evening? Did he not talk with me--how long--ten minutes? And
was not a bargain struck on his words? Was that so imprudent a job? By
all the saints, I think I never did a better!"
"But he is so young, this Mitsos," said Kanaris.
"Am I so old? We shall both get over it."
Kanaris filled his glass, frowning.
"But it is different: you are the Capsina."
"And he is of the Mainats. That is as good a stock as ours, though our
island proverb says we are the prouder. And, indeed, I am not sure we
are the better for that, for I would sooner have Mitsos here than, than
Christos."
The Capsina, it must be acknowledged, found an intimate pleasure in
putting into plain words what Kanaris could not let himself conjecture
in thought.
"Christos?" he said. "Well, certainly. And if, he being a cousin of
yours, I may speak without offence, it would be a very bold or a very
foolish man who would wish to have Christos only to depend on in the
sailing of a war brig."
"And the sailing of my brig will be the work of Mitsos," said Sophia.
"Oh, Kanaris, you have lost a pound, and how bitter you are made."
Kanaris laughed.
"Well, God knows he can sail a boat," he said. "My pocket knows it."
"Then why look farther for another and a worse?" said the Capsina.
Kanaris was silent; the Capsina had hinted before that she meant him
to command the _Sophia_ in the next cruise, but he had yet had no
certain word from her. And, indeed, his ambition soared no higher,
and to no other quarter--to command the finest brig but one in the
island fleet was no mean thing; but it is a human failing common to
man to view slightingly any one who takes one's own place, even when
it is vacant only through personal promotion. Kanaris's case, however,
was a little more complicated, for the Capsina was to him what he
had thought no woman could have been. His habit of mind was far too
methodical to allow him the luxury of doing anything so unaccounted for
as abandoning himself to another; but there were certainly three things
in his soul which took a distanced precedence of all others. Ships were
one, destruction of Turks another, and the Capsina was the third. In
his more spiritual moments he would have found it hard to draw up a
reliable table of precedence for the three.
And certainly he was in one of his more spiritual moments just now,
for there were no Turks about, his ambition to command a fine ship
was satisfied, and the Capsina seated opposite to him had never so
compelled his admiration. To-night there was something triumphant and
irresistible in her beauty, her draught of sparkling happiness had
given a splendid animation to her face, and that flush which as yet
he had only associated in her with anger or excitement showed like
a beacon for men's eyes in her cheek. But in her face to-night the
heightened color and sparkling eye had some intangible softness about
them; hitherto, when it had been excitement that had kindled her, she
looked more like some extraordinarily handsome boy than a girl, but
to-night her face was altogether girlish, and the terms of comradeship
on which Kanaris had lived with her, uncomplicated by question or
suggestions of sex, were suddenly and softly covered over, it seemed to
his mind, by a great wave of tenderness and affection. The Capsina, the
captain of the boat, the inimitable handler of a brig, were replaced
by a girl. He had been blind, so he thought; all these weeks he had
seen in her an able captain, a hater of Turks--a handsome boy, if you
will--and he was suddenly smitten into sight, and saw for the first
time this glorious thing. But Kanaris was wrong; he had not been blind,
the change was in the other.
But here, coincident with the very moment of his discovery, was the
moment of his departure, and he left her with another, a provokingly
good-looking lad, the hero of an adventure just after the Capsina's
heart, and the subject for the songs of the folk. Was not Mitsos just
such as might seem godlike to this girl? In truth he was.
She filled his glass again, and he sat and drank in her beauty. She
seemed different in kind to what she had ever looked before--her eyes
beat upon his heart, and the smile on her beautiful mouth was wine to
him. He looked, weighing his courage with his chance, opened his mouth
to speak, and stopped again. Truly such perturbation in the methodical
Kanaris touched the portentous.
The Capsina had paused after her question, but after a moment repeated
it.
"So why look farther for another and a worse?" she said again.
"Don't look farther," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
twisting the sense of her question to his own use; "look nearer rather.
Look nearer," he repeated; "and, oh, Capsina--"
The smile faded from her mouth but not from her eyes, for it was too
deeply set therein to be disturbed by Kanaris.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"It is that I love you," said he.
But she sprang up, laughing.
"Ah, spare yourself," she said. "You ought to know I am already
betrothed."
"You betrothed?"
"Yes, betrothed to the brig. No, old friend, I am not laughing at you.
You honor me too much. Let us talk of something else."
Mitsos meantime was on his way back to the Capsina's betrothed. He had
sailed rapidly across the bay, and made the anchorage close to the
house in no longer than half an hour. His father, Constantine, had
died two months ago, and since then he and Suleima had lived alone.
Just now, however, Father Andréa was with them, staying a few days on
his way to Corinth, where he was summoned by the revolutionists, and
Mitsos, going through the garden to the house, saw him walking up and
down by the fountain, smoking his chibouk.
"Ah, father," he said, "I am late, am I not? But I must be off again.
I met the Capsina to-day in Nauplia, and she has offered me a place on
her brig--the place Kanaris held under her, or rather with her, she
says. She sails to-morrow morning. Suleima is in the house?"
"Yes, with the child, to whom the teething gives trouble. This is very
sudden; but, lad, I would not stop you, nor, I think, will Suleima. Go
to her, then."
Suleima had heard voices, but she was trying to persuade the baby
to go to sleep, while the baby, it seemed, preferred screaming and
struggling. She was walking up and down the room with it, crooning
softly to it, and rocking it gently in her arms. She looked up smiling
at her husband as he entered.
"I heard your voice," she said, "and I would have come out, but I could
not leave the adorable one. Poor manikin, he is troubled with this
teething!"
"Give me the child," said Mitsos; and the baby, interested in his own
transference from one to the other, stopped crying a moment, and Mitsos
bent over it.
"Oh, great one," he said; "is heaven falling, or are the angels dead,
that you cry so? How will you be able to eat good meat and grow like
the ash-tree, unless there are teeth to you? And how should there be
teeth unless they cut through the gums--unless, like an old man, you
would have us buy them for you?"
The baby ceased crying at the deep, soothing voice, and in a moment or
two it was asleep.
"It is wonderful," said Suleima, taking it back from Mitsos, and laying
it in the cot; "but, as you know, I have always said you were often
more a woman than all the women I have ever seen."
Mitsos laughed.
"A fine big skirt should I want and a double pair of shoes," he said.
"And, oh, Suleima, but it were better for the Turks I had been just a
chattering woman."
"Eh, but what a husband have I got," said she, pinching his arm. "He
thinks himself the grandest man of all the world. But what is there you
have to tell me?--for I read you like father reads a book--there is
something forward, little Mitsos."
"Yes, and indeed there is," said Mitsos, "but what with you and the
child, and all this silly, daffing talk, it had gone from my mind.
But this it is, most dear one, that the Capsina is here, and she has
offered me the post just under her on the new ship she has built, that
one you and I saw put in this morning. Eh, but it is grand for me! She
will sail to-morrow."
"To-morrow! Oh, Mitsos!" Then, checking herself. "Dearest one, but
your luck is still with you. She is a fine, brave lass they say, and
handsome, too, and, so Dimitri told me, her ship is the fastest and
best in Greece. So go, and God speed you, and I will wait, and the
little one shall make haste to grow! You will stop here to-night? No?
Not even to-night? Come, then, I must look out your clothes for you
at once, for you must have your very best, and be a credit to the
housewife."
She held Mitsos's hands for a moment, and put up her face to his to be
kissed.
"Blessed be the day when first I saw you!" she whispered.
"And blessed has been every day since," said Mitsos.
"Even so, dearest," and she clung to him a moment longer. Then, "Come,"
she said, "we must make much haste if you are to go to-night, and
indeed you shall leave behind that shirt you are wearing, to find it
clean and fresh and mended when you come back. I will not have you
going ragged and untidy, and oh, Mitsos, but your hair is a mop. Who
has had the cutting of it? Sit you down and make no more words, and be
trimmed."
Suleima got a pair of scissors, and clapping Mitsos in a chair, put the
light close, and trimmed and combed out his tangled hair, with little
words of reproof to him.
"Eh, but she will think you a wild man of the woods, fit only to
frighten the birds from the crops. Sure, Mitsos, you will have been
rubbing your head in the sand, and it was only yesterday you were
scrubbing and soaping all afternoon. Well, what must be, must. Shut
your eyes now and sit still," and clip went her scissors along the hair
above the forehead.
"It is like cutting the pony's mane," she went on. "Such horse-hair I
never saw yet. Well, the stuffing is half out of the sofa-cushion, and
this will all do fine to fill it again. Now, stop laughing, lad, or an
oke of hair will fall down that throat of yours, and so you will laugh
never more. There, you are a little less of a scare-man. Get up and
shake, and then change that shirt and trousers."
In an hour Mitsos was ready, and with a big rug on his shoulder in
which his clothes were wrapped, he and Suleima set off to the little
harbor below the house. The boy was going with him in order to take the
boat back again, but Mitsos had sent him on ahead, and he and Suleima
walked slowly down to the edge of the bay beneath a sky thick sown with
stars.
"Mitsos," she said, "it will be with a heavy heart and yet a very light
one that I shall say good-bye; heavy because we love one another, and
yet for that reason very light. And, however far you are from me, yet
you are here always in my heart, and the child is daily more like you.
And, indeed, how should I love one who sat at home and went not out on
these great quests? Where should I have been now, think you, oh foolish
one, if you had not gone catching fish and then Turks? so do not
contradict me. And oh, Mitsos, I am going to say a very foolish thing
for the last. You are so dear to me that I can scarcely speak of you to
others, for so I seem to share you with them; and it would please me
if I thought that you too would be very sparing of my name, for so I
shall feel that, as on those beautiful nights together on the bay, we
enjoyed each other in secret, and none knew. And now we are come to the
boat--look!--and the boy has made ready. It is very bravely that I say
good-bye to you, for with my whole heart I would have you to go. Oh,
most beloved!"
For a minute, or perhaps two, they stood there silent, and though the
smile on Suleima's mouth was a little tremulous and her eyes were
over-brimmed, it was for very love that the tears stood there. And
Mitsos kissed her on the eyes and on the mouth, and yet again; and
though his voice was betwixt a whisper and a choke, his heart was light
even as hers, and full of love.
The news of his coming was brought to the Capsina as they sat in the
cabin by Michael's furious barking at the boat, which he heard drawn up
alongside.
The Capsina got up when she heard that, and again her face so glowed
that Kanaris wondered.
"That will be the little Mitsos," she said, "for a thousand pounds. He
will want supper it may be," and she went on to the main deck to let a
ladder down to him, for most of the crew were on shore still.
"Ahoy! ahoy!" shouted Mitsos from his boat. "Oh, Michael, be still! Am
I a robber?" and he shouted again.
"Yes, I am coming," cried the Capsina, in answer. "It is you, is it
not, Mitsos? Wait a moment, and I will let down a ladder to you."
Mitsos climbed up with his bundle on his shoulder, and bade the lad put
back for home again. "So I am here," he said to the Capsina.
"And you are welcome--doubly welcome," said the Capsina, with a
sparkling eye. "Oh, Mitsos, take care of your head. Are you not a size
too large for my boat? I never thought of that. Come down to the cabin
and have your supper; Kanaris and I have eaten, but we will sit with
you."
She blew on her whistle, and gave Mitsos's bundle in charge to be taken
to his cabin, and led the way.
"You know Kanaris? No?" she asked. "Ah, I remember you saying you did
not. He is of the best of my friends. This way, little Mitsos. Here we
are."
Though Kanaris had been disposed to think with jealousy of his
successor, it was not in the nature of man to resist Mitsos. For he
had all the ardor of a boy, as befitted his years, and with that an
experience beyond them; and the modesty that comes from having done
great deeds mixed with none of the conceit of the imagination that sees
oneself acting greatly, should the chance come, and neither man nor
woman could look in his face, as frank and cheerful as the eyes of a
dog, and feel no impulse of friendliness. And Kanaris was not a man who
from habitual reserve would distrust a friendly impulse when it came,
and so it was that in half an hour they were all chatting together,
like children, of ships and fish and winds and waves and the hundred
healthy things that made the environment of the life of all of them.
As the evening wore on they heard the crew coming merrily back from
Nauplia, but they sat talking late, like friends who have met again.
Their three cabins were close together, and the Capsina, after showing
Mitsos his, went to her own and sat there in the dark, too happy to
think or sleep. She heard Michael's nails tapping along the wooden
floor outside, and then with a soft thump he curled himself up outside
her door, according to his custom. From Mitsos's cabin she heard
the rattle of shoes, and soon after the partition wall between them
creaked as he curled himself up in his berth against it. Then there
was silence, and still she sat in the darkness of her cabin, looking
out from the port-hole towards the quay of Nauplia, black beneath the
stars, and seeing the lights from the town cast in long unwavering
reflection over the calm water, and filled with a rapturous uncontent.
She was on deck next day, while yet night was mixed with morning,
fresh as a flower, though having slept but little, and before six
she gave the order to hoist sail, for a fair wind was blowing, and
they could clear the harbor without need of boat or tow-rope. Day was
coming infinitely clear and sweet; overhead there still burned a big
star or two, which got paler and paler every moment till they seemed
white and unluminous, like candles in the sunshine, and by degrees
the pale primrose strip of sky in the east flushed with color before
the upvaulting of the sun. The flush spread to the zenith, and was
answered by the surface of the bay, and before they cleared the point
of Palanede the sunrise was on them. She turned just as the first rays
struck the ship, and saw Mitsos just coming on to the deck a few yards
away; and the sun shining on her face, and Mitsos gladdening her eye,
gave a radiance to her beauty that drew his eyes to her in a long gaze.
And in pain and rapture together she looked at him, and her heart
exulted in its noble and self-rendered slavery.
For a moment neither spoke; then, and with an effort:
"So you have slept well, little Mitsos? And you do not repent our
sudden bargain? There is time yet to put you ashore."
"I have slept all night and I repent nothing."
The Capsina did not answer at once, but looked out to sea, and wetting
her finger, held it up into the wind and glanced at the compass.
"The wind is due north," she said, "and only light. The channel of
Spetzas, through which we pass, is east-southeast. The distance you
should know. Give the order, little Mitsos."
Mitsos smiled and scratched his head.
"Eh, but I do not know the ship," he said.
"Look at it, then."
Mitsos looked at the lines of the vessel, then at the canvas she was
carrying.
"First hoist jib and halyards," he said. "We can carry more sail than
this."
"And then?"
"Oh, Capsina," he cried, "but you want to find me ignorant! However,
I should say, go right across to within a mile of Astra, squaring the
sails ever so little, and then make the channel in one run. And now,
God defend me from having said a very foolish thing."
"I think your prayer is heard," said the Capsina. "Therefore, it is
time to have breakfast," and she called Mitsos's orders.
"Come down," she said; "the ship is running free and fine, and it will
be an hour yet before we put on the second tack. Ah, here is Michael.
He knows you, does he not? That always seems to me a thing of good
omen, for indeed I trust Michael more than I trust myself. He welcomed
Kanaris so, and I never had a better friend. Is Kanaris not up yet? He
knows he is only a passenger now, and will have his lie in bed. Well,
we will breakfast all the same."
When they had breakfasted, Sophia took Mitsos a tour of the ship. She
was a brig of three hundred and fifty tons, very long for her beam,
and deep-keeled. On her upper deck she carried six nine-inch guns--two
forward under the forecastle, two amidships, and two astern. Both
forward and stern guns were mounted on a carriage, which revolved
nearly half a circle and looked from a very wide port, so that the
stern guns could be trained on a point due astern, or be used for a
broadside, or could fire forty-five degrees ahead, and the bow guns
in the same way could fire straight ahead, or in any direction up to
forty-five degrees behind them. The main-deck was armed in a similar
manner with six guns, placed not directly below the upper-deck guns,
but some ten yards horizontally from them, so that the smoke from the
lower should not rise directly and interfere with the sighting of the
upper. Mitsos, to the Capsina's great delight, saw and commended this
arrangement, which was new to him. On the main-deck the forward and
stern guns--four-inch, not six-inch--could not fire right astern or
right ahead, but they had a wide broadside range. Below the deck the
battery consisted of twelve guns, six on each side; the four guns in
the centre of each side being of the same weight as those on the upper
deck, but those in the bows and stern being four-inch guns. Thus in all
she carried twenty-four guns--sixteen six-inch and eight four-inch--and
it was a sight that made Mitsos lick his lips with blood-thirstiness.
"You would say she was a fortress," he said.
The two chattered like children over a new toy all their own, and
Kanaris, who soon joined them, seemed to each to be like an elder who
had outgrown enthusiasm; yet even to him the toy seemed flawless. The
Turkish men-of-war and cruisers alike were contemptibly inferior in
point of speed, and the men-of-war, which were armed with much heavier
guns, carried all their strength in the broadside, while the Capsina's
ship had two guns which could shoot straight ahead or astern, and six
which could fire on either diagonal.
Meantime the ship was nearing Astra, and the wisdom or foolishness of
Mitsos's tactics would soon be patent. But while they were still three
miles off he turned to the Capsina.
"I have made a mistake," he said. "If we go about at once we shall
still make the channel. For indeed she could go as an arrow goes."
The Capsina smiled with a thrill of pleasure in her ship.
"I won a pound over you yesterday," she said; "and if Kanaris will bet
again, I will stand to win another. Give your orders, little Mitsos."
Kanaris looked incredulous.
"Kranidi is a very fine place," he said; "but I take it we want to sail
between Spetzas and the land."
"Will you bet?" asked the Capsina.
Kanaris paused a moment, and heard Mitsos giving the order in a voice
extraordinarily confident.
"I think I will not bet," he said.
After that there was the sailing-gear of the ship to be gone through.
To Mitsos, used as he was to the big schooner sail, these square
canvases seemed a thought unwieldable, but the foresails, the jib, and
halyards had taken his fancy at once.
"It is a rein to a horse," he said; "it must go as you will."
"And it is according to your will that it shall go," said Sophia.
The hours of the golden day went by; they had made eight knots in the
first hour, and nine in the second; and about ten in the morning,
Kranidi, a grain of sparkling salt in the gray stretch of hill,
appeared small and very distant. And at that Mitsos frowned.
"Again I was wrong," he said; "we might have put about a mile sooner.
But, indeed, how was I to know?"
They were through the channel of Spetzas before noon; but presently,
after the wind dropped altogether, and for a couple of hours, they lay
becalmed on a windless sea, but swept slowly northward by the current
running up the coast. The Capsina chafed at the delay, for though she
would have waited two days or three at Nauplia, as she had said, for
Mitsos, the loss of a few hours now seemed wholly disproportionate,
for she was very eager to get off again on the fresh cruise. Kanaris
remembered the morning he had spent with Nikolas on the Gulf of
Corinth, and said to the Capsina:
"I was with Nikolas Vidalis in just such a position as this, and he
said what seemed to me a very wise thing, Capsina: 'I am never in a
hurry,' says he, 'when I am going as fast as I can.'"
"Ah, he was a man," said the Capsina; "but when did you ever know a
woman who thought that? Why, it is only when we are going as fast as we
can that we are in a hurry; if we are not going our quickest, we are
not in a hurry."
Mitsos was lying on the deck, with his cap pushed over his eyes, and
his back against the mast.
"That is not what Uncle Nikolas meant," he remarked.
The Capsina laughed.
"Wisest little Mitsos, explain to me, then."
"He meant--he meant--Oh, surely you see what he meant," said Mitsos,
feeling too sleepy to express himself.
"Well, anyhow, his nephew is not in a hurry," said Sophia, looking at
his lazy length.
"His nephew is completely comfortable," said Mitsos. "It is very good
to be on this ship, and my bones are sweet to me."
Sophia felt a trifle irritated with him. It had been extraordinarily
pleasant to her to see him make himself so readily at home the
evening before, but just now she felt a little ill-used at his entire
contentment with the brig and her and himself. She would have preferred
a little feeling of some sort to any amount of pure content. But a
moment afterwards he looked up quickly.
"There is a breeze coming," and he got up. "Yes, there it comes," he
said, pointing southward. "We shall have to square sails till we get
round again. Shall I give the order, Capsina?"
"Please." Then when he joined her again: "How did you know the breeze
was coming, little Mitsos?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I smelt it. Really, now you ask me, I find I
can't tell you."
"That is curious," said the Capsina. "I had heard there were men who
could do that, but I put it down to folks' tales. Michael, I think,
knows sometimes, and now I look at you I notice your nostrils grow big
and small like a dog's."
"They are as God made them," said Mitsos, piously.
The Capsina laughed. "Oh, inimitable boy!" she cried. "Come, let us
look round the ship again. Yes, it is good to be at sea, is it not?
Here comes the breeze indeed. There! Did you see her shake herself as
if she woke up suddenly, this beautiful shining ship, all ours! See how
quickly she gathers way! We shall be at Hydra by five if this holds. Of
course you will live with me there till we start, but I expect we shall
be on the ship more than off. You might well have smelt the breeze,
Mitsos, for surely it smells very good, and there is more to come, or I
am the more mistaken."
It was still an hour before the sunset when they cast anchor in the
harbor of Hydra, for the wind had got up and promised a stormy night.
The clan welcomed the Capsina's new importation with fervor when they
heard who it was; and certain of the primates wondered whether she
would demand another seat in the assembly. But in truth the Capsina had
other things to think of; for the Hydriot fleet was not going to cruise
again till the spring, while she was going to make all speed to be off,
with Kanaris on the _Sophia_, and she and Mitsos on the _Revenge_, for
so had the new ship been named. And in these things there was much food
for many thoughts.