The prize was divided equally between the two ships, as it had been
agreed that all taken on this cruise, by whichever ship captured,
should be shared in common, after one-half had been appropriated to
the fund for the war, out of which the wages of the crew were paid.
Evidently the spoils from Elatina had been carried on this ship,
for they found many embroidered Greek dresses, several vestments,
presumably from the desecrated church, and a considerable sum of money,
packed in hampers. The _Revenge_ had hardly suffered at all in the
encounter, but a hole had been stove high in the bows of the _Sophia_,
some five yards of bulwark had been knocked into match-wood, and the
round-house was a sieve. They had also lost eight men killed, and
from both ships some thirty wounded. Under these circumstances it was
best to put in at Galaxidi for repairs, and, as the crew would not
now be sufficient for the handling of the ship in case of a further
engagement, for the raising of a few recruits. Kanaris himself had a
graze on the wrist from a musket-shot as they were getting to close
quarters, but the hours had been sweet to him, and his cold gray eyes
were as of some wild beast hungry for more.
The Capsina examined the gear and sailing of the prize with scornful
wonder. "A good hole for rats to die in," was all her comment. But
there were half a dozen serviceable guns and a quantity of ammunition,
the latter of which they divided between the two brigs. She would have
liked to remove the guns also, for, apart from their use, she felt it
would be a pleasant and bitter thing to make them turn traitors to
their former owners, but there was no tackling apparatus fit for such
weights, and they had to be left. But as she had no notion of letting
them again fall into the hands of the Turks, she set fire to the ship
before leaving it, and saw it drift away southeastward, a sign of fire,
with its crew of death, its captain still dangling from the foremast
and swinging out from right to left beyond the bulwarks as the ship
rolled. There was a gun loose in the deck battery, and they could hear
it crashing and charging from side to side as the unruddered vessel
dipped and staggered to the waves, with flames ever mounting higher.
Then another squall of impenetrable rain swept across the sea, and they
saw her no more.
The Capsina had intended to escort Kanaris as far as Galaxidi, on the
chance of other Turkish ships being about, but when they came near and
saw that the coast was clear, she turned off into the bay where they
had fought that morning to see if there was anything left of either of
the other two ships worth picking up. But she found that both had sunk,
one in deep water, the other in not more than fifteen fathoms, and
through the singular clear water they could see her lying on her side,
black and dead, while the quick fishes played and poised above and
round her. The sight had a curious fascination for the girl, and, after
putting about, she lay to for an hour under shelter of the land, while
she rowed out again to the spot and leaned over the side of the boat,
feeding ravenously on the sight, angry if a flaw of wind disturbed the
clearness of it. But to Mitsos, though his heart could be savage, the
poor ship seemed a pitiful thing, and he wondered at the fierceness of
the girl.
They reached Galaxidi before the evening and the land-breeze fell,
and the Capsina, who had cousins there, went ashore with the baby,
intending to leave it there, for, indeed, on the brig they had but
little time or fit temper for a child that should have been still lying
at its mother's breast. She heard from her friends of a young mother
who would perhaps take charge of it, for her own child, a baby of three
days old, had suddenly died, and the Capsina herself took it there,
nursing it with a singular tenderness, and jealous of all hands that
touched it.
"See," she said to the mother, "I have brought you this to care for.
I am told that your own baby has died. It seems like a gift of God to
you, does it not? Yet it is no gift," she added, suddenly; "the child
is to be mine. But I will pay you well."
The young woman, no more, indeed, than a girl, came forward from where
she had been sitting, and looked at the baby for a moment with dull,
lustreless eyes.
Then suddenly the mother's love, widowed of its young, leaped into her
face.
"Ah, give it to me," she cried, quickly. "Give it me," and a moment
afterwards the baby was at her breast.
The Capsina stared for a little space in wonder and amazement, then her
face softened and she sat down by the girl.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Catherine Vlastos," and her voice caught in her throat; "but
Constantine Vlastos, my husband, is dead, and the little one is dead."
Again the Capsina waited without words.
"Tell me," she said, at length, "what is it you feel? How is it that
you want the child? It is nothing to you."
"Nothing?" and the girl laughed from pure happiness. "It is nothing
less than life."
"You will take it for me?"
"Take it for you!" Then, as the baby stirred and laid a fat little
objectless hand on her breast: "You are the Capsina," she said, "and a
great lady. They tell me you have taken three Turkish ships. Oh, that
is a fine thing, but I would not change places with you."
Sophia rose from her seat, and walked up and down the room.
"You loved your husband?" she said, at length. "Was that why you loved
your baby, and why you love this baby?"
"I don't know. How should I know?"
Sophia stopped in her walk.
"And I love the baby, too," she said, "and I know not how or why.
Perhaps only because it was so little and helpless, for, indeed, I
do not like children. I don't want to leave it here. Yet I must, I
suppose. Will you promise to keep it very safe for me? Call it Sophia,
that is my name; and, indeed, it has a wise little face. I must go.
Perhaps I shall call here again in a few weeks. Let me kiss it. So--I
leave money with you, and will arrange for you to be supplied with
more."
She turned to the door, but before she was well out of the house she
came back again and looked at the baby once more.
"Yes, it is very curious," she said, "that I should care for it at all.
Well, good-bye."
Mitsos, meantime, had gone across to Kanaris's ship, where they were
busy with repairs. The squalls had blown themselves out, and sky and
sea were a sheet of stars and stars reflected. The work was to go on
all night, and he had to pick his way carefully between planks and
hurrying workmen, doing the jobs by the light of resin flares. The
resin flares brought the fishing into his mind--the fishing those dear
nights on the bay, and the moonlight wooing and winning of Suleima.
How strange that Suleima should be of the same sex as this fine,
magnificent Capsina--Suleima with all her bravery and heroism at the
fall of Tripoli, woman to her backbone, and the Capsina, admirable
and lovable as she was, no more capable of being loved by him than
would have been a tigress. Yet she had sobbed over the little crying
child--that was more difficult still to understand. And Mitsos, being
unlearned in the unprofitable art of analysis, frowned over the
problem, and thought not at all that she was of a complicated nature,
and then felt that this was the key to the whole situation, but said to
himself that she was very hard to understand.
He found Kanaris dressing the wounds of the lad who had been crucified.
Healing and wholesome blood ran in his veins, for though they had been
dressed roughly, only with oil and bandages, they showed no sign of
fester or poisoning. The lad was still weak and suffering, but when he
saw Mitsos coming in at the cabin door his face flushed and he sat up
in bed with a livelier movement than he had yet shown, and looked up
at him with the eyes of a dog.
"I would rise if I could," he said, "and kiss your hands or your feet,
for indeed I owe you what I can never repay."
Mitsos smiled.
"Then we will not talk of that," he said, and sat himself down by the
bed. "How goes it? Why, you look alive again now. In a few days, if you
will, you will be going Turk-shooting with the rest of us. Ah, but the
devils, the devils!" he cried, as he saw the cruel wounds in the hands;
"but before God, lad, we have done something already to revenge you and
Him they blasphemed, and we will do more. How do they call you?"
The boy was sitting with teeth tight clinched to prevent his crying
out at the painful dressing of the wounds, but at this he looked up
suddenly, seeming to forget the hurt.
"Christos is my name," he said. "That is why they crucified me. Oh,
Mitsos, do you know what they said? They looked at me--you know how
Turks can look when they play with flesh and blood--when I told them my
name, and one said, 'Then we will see if you can die patiently as that
God of yours did.'"
The lad laughed suddenly, and his eyes blazed.
"And though I wince," he said, "and could cry like a woman at this
little pain, yet, before God, I could have laughed then when they
nailed me to the cross, and set me up above the altar. I cannot tell
you what strange joy was in my heart. Was it not curious? Those infidel
men crucified me because my name was Christos. Surely they could have
had no better reason."
Kanaris had finished the dressing of the wounds, and the boy thanked
him, and went on:
"So I did not struggle nor cry at all; indeed, I did not want to.
Then soon after, it was not long I think, hanging as I did, the blood
seemed to sing and grow heavy in my ears, and my head dropped; once or
twice I raised it, to take breath, but before long I grew unconscious,
supposing at the end that I was dying, and glorying in it, for I knew
that the Greeks would come again and find me there, and the thought
that I should be found thus, with head drooped like the wooden Christ,
was sweet to me. And they came--you came--" and the lad broke off,
smiling at the two.
Mitsos's throat seemed to him small and burning, and he choked in
trying to speak. So for answer he rose and kissed the boy on the
forehead, and was silent till again he had possession of his voice.
"Christos," he said, and involuntarily, with a curious confusion of
thought, he crossed himself--"Christos, it is even as you say. For it
seems to me that somehow that was a great honor, that which they did to
you, though to them only a blasphemous cruelty."
Mitsos paused a moment, and all the dimly understood superstitious
beliefs of his upbringing and his people surged into his mind. The
half-pagan teaching which suspected spirits in the wind, and saw gods
and fairies in the forest, strangely blended with a child-like faith
which had never conceived it possible to doubt the truths of his creed,
combined to turn this boy into something more than human, to endow him
with the attributes of a type. He knelt down by the bed, strangely
moved.
"It is I," he said, "who should kiss your hands, for have you not
suffered, died almost on the cross, where wicked men nailed you for
being called by His name?"
Mitsos was trembling with some mysterious excitement; and his words
were so unlike anything that Kanaris had suspected could come from him,
that the latter was startled. His own emotions had been far more deeply
stirred than he either liked or would have confessed, and to see Mitsos
possessed by the same hysterical affection frightened him. He laid his
hand on his shoulder.
"Get up, little Mitsos," he said; "you don't know what you are saying.
See, the Capsina has gone on shore; you will have supper with us. We
will have it all together here, as I have finished the doctoring. You
feel you can eat to-night?" he said, turning to the boy.
Christos smiled.
"Surely, but you and Mitsos must feed me," and he looked with comic
contempt at his bandaged hands.
"That is good," said Kanaris, and, clapping his hands, he told the
cabin-boy to bring in supper for the three.
Mitsos's serene sense soon came back to him, and he wondered
half-shamedly at himself, and thought of his previous excursion into
the kingdom of hysterics, which he had made after the fight at the
mill. Certainly Christos was human enough at supper, and they put
victuals into his mouth, and in the vain attempt to ply him with wine
simultaneously, brought him to the verge of choking.
Mitsos found the Capsina waiting up for him on the _Revenge_ when he
got back. She was sitting idle, a thing unusual, and she looked as if
she had been crying. But she smiled at him, though rather tremulously,
as he entered, and pointed to a seat, and all Mitsos's amazed horror at
the hanging was struck from his mind.
"Oh, Capsina," he said, "you do not know how sorry I feel for you.
Surely you were no more than just to those on the Turkish ships, and
indeed this is no time for gentleness. You have been thinking of those
that--that were in Elatina?"
The Capsina nodded.
"Of them, and, oddly enough, of the baby, which I have left here. How
is the lad they crucified? You have seen him?"
"Yes." Then in a whisper, "Is it not strange?" he said; "his name is
Christos."
"Oh, Mitsos! Was that why they did thus to him?"
"Yes. They said they would see if he could die as patiently."
The Capsina flushed, and her eyes were fire.
"Then may Christ never forgive me if I do not revenge this thing by
blood and blood and blood! Here and by this I vow," and she laid her
hand on the little shrine at the end of the cabin, "that if ever I
stay my hand or spare one of those accursed enemies of Him, that that
day shall be the last day of my life, for indeed I shall not be worthy
to live and breathe pure air of His making. So I swear. And may all
the saints of heaven, and may the blessed Christ, and the thrice-holy
mother of Christ, help me to keep my vow!"
She knelt a moment before the shrine, crossing herself, and then turned
to Mitsos.
"We will take the lad with us, if he will come," she said, "for I think
that the blessing of God cannot fail to rest on the ship that carries
him. I will go and see him in the morning. And now, little Mitsos, let
us go to bed, for it has not been a very quiet day for us; and for me,
I could sleep like a child tired with play. Good-night, lad. I thank
God every day for that meeting of ours."
She held his hand in hers for a moment, with a gentle pressure, looking
at him with great shining eyes and smiling mouth.
"Good-night," he said; "and oh, Capsina, I bless God for that meeting,
too, and as far as there is strength in me I will help you to keep your
vow. It is even so; they are the enemies of the Christ, and He has
graciously made to us for Him. Yet--yet, do not hang a man again. For
somehow it seems to me poor manners to add insults to death, and to
insult is what Turks do."
Sophia looked at him, silent, then laughed, passing her hand wearily
over her eyes.
"And as you are of the Mainats, and I of the clan of Capsas, you think
we should have fine manners. Oh, little Mitsos, you are a boy of the
very oddest thoughts. Well, be it as you say. I was angry when I did
that, and indeed we have no time for anger, for the sword does not feel
angry when it strikes. It only strikes, and strikes true. So."