The town of Nauplia itself lies on the north side of a tortoise-shaped
promontory of land swimming splay-fashion out into the gulf. The upper
part of this, surrounded by walls of Venetian fortification, was held
by the Turks; the lower part, including the quay, by the insurgent
Greeks. Behind the town, away from the sea, rose the rock on which was
built Fortress Palamede, sharp, supreme, and jagged, like a flash of
lightning, also in Turkish hands. A flight of steep, break-neck steps,
blasted in many places out of the solid rock and lying in precipitous
zigzags, communicated by means of a well-defended but narrow passage,
battlemented and loopholed, with the citadel of the town proper. The
south side of this promontory needed but little watching, for no man
could find a way down crags which imminently threatened to topple over
into the sea. On the west a water-gate communicated with a narrow strip
of land giving into the shallow water of the bay, where no anchorage
was possible. On the north the lower town was in the hands of the
Greeks, whose lines of beleaguer stretched from the western end of the
quay to the base of Palamede. On the east the only outlet was a small
gate in the passage leading between Palamede and the citadel.
Now Nauplia was one of the strongest and, in the present state of
affairs, quite the most important fortress in the Peloponnese still in
the hands of the Turk. It communicated with the main arteries of war
in the country; the harbor was well sheltered, defended by the town,
and would give admirable anchorage to the the fleets of Europe, and the
Sultan Mahomed, with his quick, statesmanlike sagacity, had seen that
all his efforts must centre on its retention in Turkish hands. With
Nauplia securely his, he could at will continue to pour fresh troops
into the country, and there could be but one end to the war.
Had the Greeks acted with any singleness of purpose or the most
moderate promptitude after the fall of Tripolitza in the previous
October, Nauplia might have been taken without difficulty, but they
let slip this opportunity. Instead they distributed honors and titles,
and banners and tokens--a thing to make the more patriotic dead turn
in their graves--and the Turks were in possession of a well-watered
fortress, and had only to hold out till the fleet relieved them by sea
and the army, which, under the command of the Serashier Dramali, had
received orders to march straight to Nauplia, at the end of Rhamazan,
drove off the besiegers.
April in the plains was somewhat rainless, and May unseasonably hot;
and though the springs in the fortress did not run dry, yet the torrid
weather made itself felt in the garrison of the sun-scorched Palamede.
But the fleet, as was known, would set out in May, and Dramali would
leave Zeituni, where he was encamped, in the first week of July. By the
end of July, therefore, relief would be certain.
In the Greek lines much cheerfulness and nonchalant good-humor
prevailed. During April the Turks had made two sorties, which were
repulsed with but little loss to the besiegers and at a heavy price
to the besieged, and the latter now seemed inclined to wait for
relief, trusting to the admirable fortifications which defended them
and a certain growing slackness on the part of the besiegers, rather
than make another attempt. Hypsilantes, an excellent field-marshal
when there was nothing to do, treated the chiefs with a courtly
condescension, and frequently entertained them at dinner; while
Kolocotrones, with his new brass helmet and a hearty raucous voice,
went hither and thither, often leaving the camp for a week at a time
on some private raid, and swelled and strutted already with the
anticipation of a plentiful plunder. For the Greeks considered their
own ships as adequate to stop any fleet the Sultan might send from
Constantinople, and thought it impossible that the garrison would hold
out until the coming of the army.
Mitsos, the truant aide-de-camp, chiefly conspicuous hitherto by his
absence, reported himself the morning after his return to Prince
Hypsilantes, who, taking into consideration what he and the Capsina
had done, was pleased to accept his lack of excuses and poverty of
invention with graciousness, and further gave him furlough for a
week, on the granting of which the lad posted back to Suleima and the
silkworms. And that evening, when the child was gone to bed and Father
Andréa had charged himself to see that nothing caught fire, and that
no changeling fairy--a vague phantom terror dreaded and abhorred of
Suleima's soul--malignantly visited the cradle of the littlest, the two
went off for old sake's sake in the boat, Mitsos with the fishing spear
and resin, to visit the dark, dear places of the bay. The land-breeze
was steady, and the moon already swung high among the stars, and from
afar they could see the white wall that both knew. As they passed it,
Suleima clung the closer to Mitsos.
"How strange it all seems," she said, "to think that I was there year
after year, not knowing of any but old Abdul and the eunuch--oh, a pig
of the pit!--and Zuleika and the others. And now they are where?"
"In hell," said Mitsos, promptly, and with all the cheerfulness of
unutterable and welcome conviction. "Yanni sent Abdul there himself at
Tripoli. Oh, a fat man. His cheeks were of red jelly, you would say,
forever wobbling. I pray I may never be a jelly-man."
Suleima laughed.
"Yet there were good things even in Abdul, though not of his intention,
but his age rather," she said; "for instance, he was very calm and
lazy, and he let us do as we liked, and never troubled us. Indeed, I
think he hardly spoke to me six times. Yet had I been there a year
longer, who knows? For latterly he used to look at me with his mole's
eyes."
Mitsos frowned.
"Don't speak of it," he said, sharply; "he is in hell; even for me
that is enough, and for me enough is not a little."
They tacked out to sea again after passing the white wall, for they
were going across to the sandy bay where Mitsos used to fish. Nauplia,
with the fires of the besiegers and besieged, gleamed like a low
cluster of stars at the mouth of the bay, and the island, with its old
Venetian castle on it, stood up a black blot against the glittering
company. Towards Tripoli the hills were clear and black, and cut out
with the exquisite precision of a southern night. Now and then from the
town a sudden roar, soft and muffled with its travel over the water,
would rise and die away again, but for the most part only the whisper
of the severed water or the tap and gurgle of a wavelet crushed by the
bows broke the silence. Then putting to land, Mitsos, with his spear
and light, poked among the rocks for fish, while Suleima sat on the
warm, dry sand watching him. And it seemed to both that the romance of
the wooing was not yet over.
But to the beleaguered garrison of Nauplia scorching days and dewless,
unrefreshing nights went by in hot procession, and by the middle of
June, though the Greeks were not aware, the besieged knew that unless
relief came within a few days surrender was imminent. Remembering in
what fashion the Greeks had kept the treaty of Navarin, they had but
little confidence in the observation of the terms of any capitulations
they might make; but remembering, too, scenes of traffic, what Germanos
with bitter truth had called "the market of Tripoli," they hoped that
their lives might be spared, perhaps until the approach of the army,
if they stipulated that until the capitulation was finally signed they
should be supplied with food by the besiegers, though at famine prices.
Now Ali, the Governor of Aryos, being supreme in Argolis, was the
superior of Selim, the commander in Nauplia, but as there was no
possibility of his conferring with Ali through the Greek lines, the
proposed draft of the treaty of capitulation had to be drawn out by
him. He was a shrewd man, busy and cunning, and the terms he proposed
showed that he had not failed to intimately acquaint himself with the
character of the chiefs who besieged the place. Accordingly, one day
in the last week of June, Mitsos, who had returned to his duties as
aide-de-camp, came to Hypsilantes saying that a white flag was flying
over the northern gate, and that the Turkish commander wished to confer
with the head of the Greek army.
Now at that time Kolocotrones was absent from Nauplia with a large
band of his irregular troops, and in his absence, since nothing
whatever had previously occurred during the siege which demanded
strength in the hand or thought in the head, Hypsilantes had always
been given a supremacy of courtesy, in virtue of his original mission
from the Hetairia, and that this business should have occurred while
Kolocotrones was away--though without doubt if, when the latter came
back, he found fault with what Hypsilantes had done he would revoke
his acts--was honey to the prince, who still clutched at the show
of power. So calling together the other chiefs and members of the
national assembly, he intimated to them what had happened, in beautiful
language, and Mitsos was forthwith sent with a flag of truce in his
hand to conduct Selim to Hypsilantes.
Selim was a brisk, lively little person, who conducted conversation,
you would say, more by a series of birdlike, intelligible chirrupings
than by human talk, and, more abstemious in his ordinary life than his
countrymen, he had suffered less from the sparing rations they had
been on for the last fortnight. The gate was opened as soon as Mitsos
approached it, and Selim came trotting out, as pleased with his flag of
truce as a child with a new toy, and twittered away to Mitsos, as they
went back to Hypsilantes' quarters, with the utmost vivacity in rather
imperfect Greek.
"And it's pleasant indeed," he said, "just to take a walk down these
streets again, even if his highness and I can come to no terms and I am
sent back like a hen into that infernal cage, though indeed it's little
fattening we get there. And how old may you be, and how long have you
been a rebel to his majesty?"
He looked up sharp and quick in Mitsos's face like a canary, and the
lad smiled at him.
"Ever since the beginning of the war," said he; "and, indeed, you may
have seen a fine blaze my cousin and I made not so far from here?"
"What, the ship that was burned going out of the harbor?" asked Selim.
"You did that, Mishallah? If we meet again, not under the flag of
truce, there will be high blows."
And, as Mitsos laughed outright, "Do not be so merry," he said. "I
could reach up as far as that big chest of yours and send the sword
home."
"And what should I be doing the while?" asked Mitsos, "whistling a tune
and looking the other way?"
The little man frowned.
"Maybe you would have had a poke at me, too. No, I'm not denying it."
Hypsilantes and the other members of the assembly then at Nauplia were
awaiting their arrival. These consisted of two primates, both greedy
and mischievous men; Poniropoulos, who had been turned out of the
camp at Tripoli for intrigue with the besieged, but whom affinity of
interest had ingratiated with Kolocotrones. He had, like the others,
collected together a corps of savage, undisciplined men who were too
large a factor in the army to leave unrepresented in the assembly. In
addition, there were a couple of other captains no worse and no better
than he. Selim had known very well with whom he was to deal, and his
proposals were greeted by eyes which gleamed with the prospect of
speedy and ample gains. And here is his offer, how correctly calculated
those eyes bore witness:
1. That the Turks should surrender the fortress, their arms, and
two-thirds of their movable property.
2. That the Greeks should give them safe conduct out of the place, and
further, hire neutral vessels, which should convey them to Asia Minor.
3. That the Greeks should supply them with provisions till the vessels
were ready, upon which Clause 1 of the capitulation should be put into
effect.
4. That hostages should be given on both sides for the fulfilment of
the treaty.
And thus for the time the siege of Nauplia was at an end and the market
of Nauplia began.
Selim made his offer and withdrew, but there was little need of that,
for he was scarce out of the room when a whisper and a nod of perfect
comprehension went round the chiefs, and being immediately recalled, he
was told that his proposals were accepted.
"And I will see," said Hypsilantes, with a grand air, "that
arrangements for the ships to convey you away are put in hand at once.
Meantime--"
But Poniropoulos interrupted.
"May I have your highness's permission," he said, with a great hurry of
politeness, "to supply the citadel with bread?"
"Certainly," said Hypsilantes, not seeing the man's meaning, "and it
were well to put that too in hand at once."
But Selim was the sharper, and he leered at Poniropoulos, if a canary
can be said to leer, with a twinkle of perfect comprehension in his eye.
"I doubt," chirped he, very clearly and loud, "that bread is most
expensive in Nauplia."
And Poniropoulos scowled at him, for he had meant that it should be
very expensive indeed.
So the terms were accepted, and Hypsilantes parted in a dignified
manner from the Turk, and the latter went back to the citadel.
Poniropoulos, with hands itching for the touch of gold, took prompt
and characteristic measures. He went straight to the nearest baker's,
bought the whole of the bread he had in stock, staying only to haggle
over a few piasters in the total, and not caring even to go back to
his quarters for his own beast, hired a mule and hurried up the path
with plying stick to the citadel. The baker, Anastasi, Mitsos's friend,
stood for a moment wondering what was in the wind, when the solution
struck him; and being a man born with two eyes wide open, saw that
there was large profit to be made here, but no reason why the "Belly,"
as they called Poniropoulos, should be monopolist therein; and running
out, he conferred with other bakers in the town, and it was unanimously
and merrily agreed that all bread sold directly and indirectly to the
"Belly" should be at just three times the price of the bread sold to
others, and that if this did not satisfy him, why, he might make bread
himself, and be damned to him.
The news spread rapidly--it could hardly have failed to spread--for
before an hour was up the camp presented the dignified spectacle of
various captains and primates bargaining and arguing over wine and
olives with the shop folk, and literally racing each other to the
citadel, where they sold their produce at starvation rates, laughing to
themselves that Kolocotrones at any rate was out of it. Mitsos, who was
buying fish in the market for himself, was pointing out to the shopman
the impropriety of selling stale fish to a man with a nose, when the
primate Caralambes came in to buy all the fish, he could find. And
Mitsos, grinning evilly:
"This is a fish I would have bought," he said, "but it is not so fresh.
We make you a present of it. You will get five piasters for it above,
for the use of the church."
Kolocotrones returned after a few days, and entirely approved of the
terms. Hypsilantes was engaged in his usual finicking and dilatory
manner upon hiring ships for the embarkation of the Turks, according to
treaty, but Kolocotrones told him that he need trouble himself no more
about that, as he himself would see to it. But it was thus that he saw
to it: Three ships which had been already engaged he dismissed with a
certain compensation, saying that they would not be needed, and turned
from the hiring of ships to the more immediate and lucrative pursuit
of selling provisions to the half-starved garrison. The ships could be
hired afterwards, and then there was a penny to be turned in the matter
of passage-money.
The longer this traffic went on the better were both sides pleased. For
the Turks, every day brought the arrival of relief forces nearer, and
every day the captains reaped a golden harvest. There would be time,
so thought Kolocotrones, to see about getting the ships when the new
army drew nearer, and in any case the treaty of capitulation held, for
the Turks, when the ships were ready, were bound to deliver over the
fortress, their arms, and two-thirds of their movable property. And
again the captains licked their lips.
Meantime the end of Rhamazan had come, and Kanaris, who with the
Capsina had joined the Greek fleet in the eastern sea, had paid the
Turks a visit which should cause them always to remember Rhamazan,
1822. The Greek fleet under the Admiral Miaulis had encountered the
enemy off Chios, and the latter had retreated to the Gulf of Smyrna.
There they had engaged the Greek in a desultory and ineffectual
cannonade for a day or two, the Greeks not venturing in under the guns
of the fort which protected the fleet, and the Turks not caring to sail
out and give battle in earnest. Eventually the Greeks retreated to
Psara, and the Turks again anchored off Chios, some six miles from the
entrance to the Gulf of Smyrna.
All the last day of Rhamazan gala preparations went forward on board
the ships for the solemn celebration of Bairam, and before night fell
watchers were stationed on the main-tops of all the fleet to look for
the first appearance of the new moon, which was the beginning of the
feast. As the sun went down lines of bright-colored lanterns designed
with their light the rigging of all the ships, the more conspicuous
and the most bedecked being the eighty-gun ship of the captain, Pasha
Kara Ali, who entertained for the feast the chief officers of the
fleet. The deck was a house of Syrian tents and awnings, and troops
of dancing-girls were in waiting to amuse the guests. As a salute to
the end of the Rhamazan, ten minutes before sunset all the guns of the
fleet volleyed again and again, till the air was thick with the smoke
of the firing. Then, as the last echo died away, for a space there was
silence, while all waited for the word. Suddenly, from the mast-heads,
it was cried, "The moon, the moon of Bairam!" and the jubilant cry,
wailing and mournful to western ears, was taken up by every throat.
On board the flag-ship of Kara Ali all waited, standing at their
places at the tables till the word was cried, and at that they reclined
themselves, and the feast began.
Now many had noticed, but none had thought it noticeable, that all
day there had lain close to the entrance of the Gulf of Smyrna, as
if unable to get in, two small Greek ships. As soon as dusk fell and
their movements were obscured, they changed their course. They carried,
each of them, a cargo of brushwood soaked with turpentine, and their
sails were steeped with the same. Kanaris, a straw in his mouth, for he
could not with safety smoke on a fire-ship, commanded one, and Albanian
Hydiot the other. The wind held fair, and Kanaris went straight for
the ship of Kara Ali, and favored by the land-breeze blowing freshly
off the coast, towards which the bows of the ship were pointing, ran
his bowsprit straight through a port as near the bows as possible, set
light to his ship with his own hands, and jumped into a boat that was
towed behind. In a moment the flames leaped, licking from stem to stern
of his caique, and driven by the wind, mounted like a flicked whiplash
up the sails and in at the open ports. The awning on the quarter-deck
caught fire, and being dry from the exposure to the hot sun all day,
burned like timber. And Kanaris, having exchanged the straw for a pipe,
rowed back to a safe distance, and watched the destruction of the ship
with his habitual calm.
"It will burn nicely now," he said.
He saw a few boats launched, but into them poured so hurried and panic
a flight of men and women that they were overloaded and sank. Other
escape there was none, for the flames, driving inward and with a
roaring as of bulls in spring, rendered it impossible to reach the seat
of the fire. From overhead the blocks were falling from the rigging,
and when boats began to arrive from other ships of the fleet, the heat
of the flames and the fierce licking tongues which shot out at them
rendered it impossible to approach; and the ship, with all on board,
excepting only a few who jumped overboard and were picked up, perished.
Kara Ali, as he was putting off in a small boat, was struck on the
head by a falling spar. He died before they reached the shore.
Now the Sultan's orders had been curt. He had himself sent for Kara
Ali before the fleet set out, and removing his jewelled mouth-piece a
moment from his lips, said: "To Nauplia. Kosreff succeeds you if there
is disaster. You have my leave to go." And he put the mouth-piece back
into his mouth again, and turned his back on Kara Ali. Now Kosreff
was at Patras, having been in charge of the western fleet the autumn
before, and the captains of the other vessels had but little choice
left them. They were bound to Nauplia, but there was no admiral. It
was clearly their part to pick up the admiral at Patras, and then go
back to Nauplia. There was always a little uncertainty, in acting under
Sultan Mahomed, as to what was the right thing to do; but if a man did
the wrong thing, it was not at all uncertain what the consequences
would be, and no one felt at all inclined to take on himself the
responsibility of handling the fleet when the Sultan had signified that
Kosreff was to do so. And next day the fleet weighed anchor and set off
for Patras, leaving Nauplia to take care of itself till their return.
Now the Serashier Dramali, the commander of the land army, was in
receipt of orders just as peremptory. He was to wait at Zeituni till
the end of Rhamazan, and then, as soon as the horses, according to
the immemorial custom, had eaten the green barley of the fresh crops,
was to go straight to Nauplia, where he would overwhelm and defeat
the Greek force besieging it by land. There, too, he would meet the
Sultan's fleet, which would drive off the Greek ships and throw
provisions into the town. Such an attack, if delivered according to
orders, said the Sultan, with a somewhat sinister stress on the word
"if," could not conceivably fail of success.
Now the executive government of Greece was so busy mismanaging a
hundred unimportant affairs that it had left the one thing needful
quite undone, and the landforce of Dramali passed without opposition
right through Eastern Greece, and reached, on the 17th of July,
the isthmus of Corinth. Here the Acro-Corinth was in the hands of
the Greeks, and defended only by a small guard; for the place was
impregnable on all sides but one, and well supplied with provisions
and water. But the commander, named Theodrides, no sooner saw the long
lines of brilliant Turkish cavalry beginning to deploy on the plateau
below the fortress, and marked the infantry mounting the steep ascent
to the gate, than a sort of panic fear, unjustified though he knew
indeed nothing of military matters, seized him. He gave orders that
all the Turkish prisoners in the town should be murdered, and himself
led the way out of the fortress by an almost impracticable path to the
east, and with his gallant band made for the mountains, spreading the
news that the Turks were in numbers as the sand-fly in August. Then,
without a blow, Acro-Corinth fell into Dramali's hands.
He had long held the valor of the Greeks in unmerited contempt, but
since he started from Zeituni it seemed that his contempt was not so
ill-deserved. As he marched through the narrow gorge of Locris and
Doris not a hand had been raised to stop him. On the hills north of
Corinth the guards had fled at his approach. Here, at Corinth, at the
sight of his troops a fortress nigh impregnable had been given up, as
if by a tenant whose lease had expired to the incomer. The fleet, he
supposed, would meet him at Nauplia, and without delay he decided to
push on with his whole army there, leaving only a small garrison in
Corinth.
He pointed contemptuously to the murdered prisoners. "Look," he said,
"that is all these dogs do; they have the madness, and they shall be
done by as they have done!"
And indeed it seemed that his contempt was very well merited.
The main road from Corinth to Nauplia, through Argos, lies up a long
hill-side, passing at length into a barren and mountainous region set
with gray bowlders and only peopled with lizards. Thence, gaining the
top of a considerable ridge, it lies for the space of five miles or so
in a narrow, downward ravine, called the Dervenaki, before it emerges
into the plain of Argos. A riotous water passed down this, and the
road crosses and recrosses by a hundred bridges--sometimes lying close
to the torrent, at others climbing hazardously up the flanks of the
ravine. On either hand the hill-side rises bowldersown and steep, too
near the precipitous to let large trees get a grip of the soil; and
between the gray stones grew only the aromatic herbs of the mountains.
Even the hawks and eagles, looking from aloft for prey with eye that
would spy even a mouse in a crevice, cut not their swinging circle in
the sky above it, for no living thing, except the quick lizards, find
food there. Three other roads besides, but less direct, crossed these
hills between Corinth and Argos--two to the east, and westward one.
Through this Dervenaki Dramali marched rapidly. He found it altogether
unguarded, and his scouts, who made casts to the east and west,
reported that the other roads were clear also. At that Dramali's
contempt began to breed want of caution, and instead of occupying Nemea
and Aghionores, villages which commanded two of the other roads, and
leaving troops to keep the pass and his communication with Corinth
open, he went straight on with his whole army through the hills and on
into the plain of Argos.
Meantime, at Nauplia and Argos, the supreme government had continued to
display the imbecility usual with it. Ali, of Argos, had been allowed
to enter the fortress of Nauplia, though without provision or arms, and
he had at once arrested the Greek secretaries who were registering the
property of the Turks. The Greeks had taken no steps to secure ships
for the embarkation of the Turks, and had, consequently, failed to do
their part of the treaty. The Greeks' hostages he retained as pledges
for the Turkish hostages in the hands of the Greeks; for the rest, he
supposed that the Turkish fleet would arrive from day to day. Dramali,
he knew, had reached Corinth, and would push on at once.
The members of the central government of Greece were at the time
at Argos, where they were chiefly employed in promoting each other
unanimously to various lucrative appointments, and causing what they
called the national archives to be written--a record of the valor of
some of them, and the judicious statesmanship of others, the remainder.
Among such business they had just appointed Prince Hypsilantes to
be president of the legislative board, which made a quantity of
regulations about the prevention of punishment of crime in the new
Greek republic, and enjoyed handsome salaries. Hypsilantes, who had
wit sufficient to see that their only object was to deprive him of his
military command, was still debating what course to take, sitting about
the time of sunset in the veranda of his house, which looked towards
the Dervenaki, when he observed a quantity of little bright specks
issuing therefrom. This being not a natural phenomenon he looked again,
and the specks redoubled. At that he got up with a smile.
"I fancy the legislative measures will wait," he said to himself, and
went across to the council chamber, where the ministers were already
assembling for the purpose of mutual appointments. He went to his
place, bowed, and pointed out of the windows. "I would draw your
attention to this, gentlemen," he said.
For a moment there was silence, and then a babel of confused and
incoherent cries went up from the terror-stricken lips of the
legislative and executive boards. Metaxas, a consummate lawyer, was
the first to run from the room; Koletres, unequalled in the knowledge
of conveyancing, called lamentably on the Virgin and followed. At a
stroke, on the scent of danger, the red-tape rule, and the grabbing
greed which called itself patriotism, banished itself and fled.
Ministers, senators, lawyers, and what not, ran incontinently to take
refuge on the few Greek vessels which lay opposite Argos; the alarm
spread like the east wind in March through the town, and women and
children, some with bundles of their property snatched hastily up,
rushed out in all directions to find safety, some with the blockading
Greeks at Nauplia, some in the neighboring villages, others in the
mountains. Many fugitives from towns on the coast which the Turks had
sacked were in the place, and these, remembering the red horrors from
which they had but lately escaped with bare life, left behind them
the scanty remains of their property and, like rabbits remorselessly
ferreted from one burrow to another, fled in the wildest confusion.
Encamped in the square, crowding the poorer quarters, were hordes of
camp-followers who had been drawn here by the prospect of the fall
of Nauplia--wild men of the mountains, attended by great sheep-dogs,
almost less savage than themselves. These being of able body and for
the most part unencumbered by families or property, but very willing
to become encumbered with the latter, spent a fruitful hour while the
Turkish troops were still creeping from the entrance of the Dervenaki
across the plain in plundering the houses of the wealthier citizens
who had abandoned them, preferring to make sure their escape than to
risk it for the sake of their goods. Among others, the secretary of
state, Theodore Negris, a bibliophile, gave no thought to the small
library of valuable books he had brought with him to Argos, supposing
that the seat of government would be there, if not permanently, yet for
a considerable time; and a Laconian camp-follower, entering his house
after his flight, and unwilling to leave behind what might be of value,
packed the most of the books in a sack and slung them over a stolen
horse. But the horse fell lame, and the man wishing to push on to the
hills, thought himself lucky to sell it, books, lameness, and all, for
two dollars to a Greek officer who was in need of an animal to carry
water for the troops at Lerna.
Night fell on a scene of panic and confusion. The last of the sunset
had shown the van of the Turks no more than four miles off, with arms
glistening red in the fire of the evening sky, moving steadily, though
without hurry. The advance-guard of cavalry was already clear of the
pass, and after an interval the main part of the army had been seen
defiling out of it. They would enter the town in not more than two
hours. Any one with a horse to sell, and a pistol to protect himself
and it, could sell the beast for its value told a hundred times. Mules,
oxen even, and calves were laden with valuables and kicked and goaded
along the roads, away from the quarter from which the Turks were
advancing. Had the executive council possessed the slightest authority
or power of organization, much of this wild struggle for escape could
have been avoided, but the executive council were hurrying like scared
hares down to where a couple of Greek ships lay in the bay. There, too,
were disgraceful things to see: more than one boat sent to convey the
fugitives on to the ships was swamped by the stampeding crowds; others,
private speculators, refused to take the panic-stricken folk on board,
except at the payment of thirty piasters per head, and in one case only
was the revolting greed properly punished, for a couple of men having
agreed to pay the stipulated sum, were taken on board and straightway
tipped the owner over his own gunwale into the water, and, heedless of
his bubbling remonstrances, filled the boat with fugitives, denying
him a place in it, and spent the next two hours in plying to and fro
between the ship and the land.
But, meantime, the Greek garrison at Argos, consisting mainly of
Albanians, had behaved with the utmost quietness and decency, and
waited for orders. Hypsilantes, it was known, had been summoned by the
terror-stricken council to join them in his new capacity of legislator
on the ships, and he had returned answer that he would do no such
thing; his place was where he could be useful, and as soon as the alarm
was given, he, with Mitsos in attendance, Kolocotrones, Niketas, and
a few others, met, and deliberated hastily what to do. It was quickly
decided to destroy all the grain and forage in the town--as it was
impossible to stand a siege--fill up the wells, and retire to Lerna,
a heavy and small Greek camp, some two miles off on the sea-coast,
defended on one side by the mountains, on one by the sea, on another by
a large belt of swampy ground, which cavalry could not well pass. The
Turks would hardly go on to Nauplia leaving them unattacked in their
rear; if, on the other hand, they attacked, Lerna was well defended,
and the dreaded Turkish cavalry at least were useless.
Above Argos, just outside the town, stands the Larissa, an old Greek
fortress, subsequently built up by the Venetians. The hill it crowns
is very steep and difficult of access, and it is well supplied with
water. It was a matter of the first importance that this should not be
let to fall, as had happened at Corinth, into the hands of the Turks,
and a small body of volunteers, among whom was Mitsos, threw themselves
into this, determining to hold it as long as possible. What artillery
the Turks had they did not know, but unless they had heavy field-guns,
there was a reasonable hope that for a time, at any rate, they could
defend it successfully, and be another deterrent to the Turkish advance
on Nauplia.
Meantime, while they were busy taking up as much provision as they
could lay hands on, the rest set to with destroying forage, and
generally making the place untenable; until a picket stationed at the
Corinth gate gave the alarm that the Turks were near, at which all but
those who were to keep the Larissa set off through the now deserted and
silent streets for the new camp at Lerna.
* * * * *
All through the hot hours of the summer night the seemingly endless
procession of Turks continued to enter Argos. One by one their watch
and cooking fires were kindled until the town, empty an hour before,
twinkled with lights. Dramali's troops numbered not less than ten
thousand men, nearly the half of whom were cavalry. And at present
he intended to keep this formidable force at Argos, until the fleet
appeared which should bring provisions and supplies to Nauplia by sea.
He could then make a simultaneous assault by land, as the Sultan had
so curtly intimated, and establish his headquarters there. But until
the fleet arrived he could do nothing which might help Nauplia, for
he had to forage for his own supplies, and could throw none into the
beleaguered fortress. And the fleet, it will be remembered, had already
passed Nauplia going to Patras to fetch the new captain, Pasha Kosreff,
in place of the victim of Kanaris's fire-ship. But of this Dramali knew
nothing, and waited for its appearance to deliver the _grand-coup_
in the manner prescribed to him at Constantinople. News of the taking
of Argos by the Turks had blazed like stubble-fed fire through the
Peloponnese. The incompetent and useless administration had gathered
their skirts and fled, and the war once more was in the hands of the
people, commanded, it might be, by many avaricious and greedy men, but
by no cowards.
And as a thunder-cloud collects on some grilling afternoon on the
hills, so from all sides did sullen bands, full of potential fire and
tumult, gather and grow on the mountains round. To attack the Turks,
with their great force of cavalry, on the plain was no sane scheme,
and the lesson had been taught at Tripoli, and taught thoroughly.
But, though no attack was made on the Turks, it was soon found that
Dramali, with Heaven-sent stupidity, had neglected to hold the range
of hills over which he had come, and gradually the Greeks amassed a
force high on the four roads which crossed from Corinth. Niketas, with
not less than two thousand men, was intrenched in the easternmost
road, and murmured softly to himself the words he had learned from an
English sailor, "This is dam fine!" and Kolocotrones, finding Lerna
inconveniently crowded, removed to the mountains to the west of Argos.
And all waited--wild beasts, hungry.
For the time all party and personal jealousy ceased. Petrobey, with
a thousand Mainats, came from the south and joined the Greek force
assembled in the main camp, and the scornful clan, it was noticed,
were very silent, as their habit was when there was work to the fore.
He had a long conference with Hypsilantes, and to their council came
Krevatas, a primate from the country of Sparta, a man made of blood,
courage, and hatred, who would go about among the soldiers, seeing
visions by day and night, and exclaiming, "The Lord is a man of war!"
He had but little other conversation, and cried thus very frequently.
Like Hypsilantes, Petrobey saw that there was no object to be served
in attacking the Turks in Argos. Supposing the fleet came, and Dramali
moved to the capture of Nauplia, they would have to attack then. If,
on the other hand, something, as was now possible, had delayed the
fleet, it was certain that Dramali's supplies could not last him very
many days, for the Turks were foraging far and wide both for corn and
provender for their horses, and when he retreated to Corinth, as he
must needs do, the fleet not coming, there were the hills he had left
unguarded to be passed, and Petrobey's blue eye danced, like the sun on
water, and Krevali's exclamation was fit commentary.
Twice in the first day of his occupation Dramali directed an attack on
the small band of some five hundred men in the Larissa, but finding
that it was no easy matter to storm it, and thinking perhaps that the
place was ill-watered and the defenders would surrender, shrugged his
shoulders, and left it, as the Greeks had left Nauplia, to the slower
but not less sure process of starvation. But Petrobey saw the immense
strategical advantage of the place. Dramali could hardly advance to
Nauplia, leaving a well-fortified citadel in his rear, into which the
Greeks would pour as soon as he left Argos, and he insisted that the
garrison should be increased.
"They may be as fierce as hawks and as swift," said he, "but their
numbers are too small. Also, if we can throw men into it, we can also
throw provisions. The lad Mitsos will be glad of that: he would eat a
roe-deer as I eat an egg--at one gulp."
Yanni, who was with his father, looked up.
"Oh, if it is possible, let me go among them," he said, "for my place
is with Mitsos."
Petrobey, another of whose sons had been killed that year in a
skirmish, looked at the boy.
"Benjamin, too," he said, half smiling, half with entreaty. "Yet did he
not come back safe to his father? So be it, Yanni. Now, let us talk how
it is to be done. We will go on dear Nikolas's plan, and say all the
impossible things, and so take what is left."
"Daylight," said Yanni, promptly.
"A great noise," remarked Hypsilantes, with the air of a man who says a
good thing.
Petrobey laughed.
"So much is certain," he said. "But then comes a difficulty. If by
night, as like as not the lads will think it is an attack from the
Turk. Thus will Benjamin come home, shot through the head by his very
dear friend Mitsos."
"Cannot we call to them as we approach?" said Yanni. "Or wait. Oh,
father, cannot we signal during the day from the hills behind?"
Petrobey nodded.
"Not so bad," he said, "but of the men there, who knows the signal
tongue?"
"Mitsos and I did signalling work at Tripoli."
"So you did. It is worth trying. Now the attention of the Turks on the
night you enter, if the signalling goes well and enter you do, must
be elsewhere. Perhaps your highness would conduct a skirmishing party
with much noise and bush-firing and swift running away in the opposite
quarter."
"I?" asked the prince, and a sudden glow of courage exalted the man. "I
should sooner be of those who attempt to enter the Larissa."
Petrobey looked at him approvingly.
"It is an honorable service," he said, "and the Larissa is a steep
hill. I then will see to the other. Now Yanni, off with you, and a
nice, warm walk you will have. Get you to the hill behind the Larissa
and signal till you attract their attention, or until your arms drop
off like figs over-ripe. It is yet early, so say that a relief party
will make the attempt to enter the citadel to-night, an hour before
moonrise. They will climb the back of the hill, or wherever they find
it unguarded. Those inside will know best the disposition of the
Turkish troops."
The hours went on through the suffocating calm of mid-day, when
no breeze stirs the still and stifling air, and the Greek camp at
Lerna, lying against the mountain-side, was a bakehouse of heat. In
the low, marshy ground below, among the vineyards and melon-patches
which stretched down to the bay, they could see companies of Turkish
soldiers, guarded by their cavalry, picking the grape-leaves as fodder
for their horses, while the men gathered the only half-ripe fruit
for themselves. Once a band of some fifty approached to within five
hundred yards of the outworks which had been thrown up round the mills
where the Greeks lay, and the Mainats on guard snarled and grumbled
like caged lions who long to smite and crack the heads of those who
look through their prison-bars. But the cavalry were too close to
risk an attack, which must have ended in trampled flight and knifing,
and they could only store up their hate for future use. On the other
hand, the Greeks were equally secure, for the broken ground near the
camp, intersected by channels and banks for irrigation, and further
defended by the steep water-eaten banks of the torrent-bed of the
Erastinus, now summer-dry, rendered the approach of the Turkish cavalry
impossible, and a combined attack of Dramali's infantry would have been
necessary to drive them out of their secure position. Such an attack
Dramali could not afford to make: the object of his expedition was
the relief of Nauplia, and until that was effected he dared not risk
defeat. Several small skirmishes had indeed taken place, but Petrobey,
pursuing his policy of keeping his men out of the reach of cavalry,
had always forbade them to follow retreating Turks into open ground.
Furthermore, the two Greek vessels moored not far off covered the open
space which was near the bay across which the Turks must advance, and,
in case of any massed attack, were ready to open fire on them. Meantime
Petrobey, though burning to be at work, found a certain shrewd comfort
in watching the Turks eating the unripe melons. "They are cool for the
mouth," he said, "but burning fire in the bowels." And, indeed, before
many days a sort of dysentery broke out among the Turkish troops, which
added to the difficulties and hazards in which, as Dramali was soon to
find, he had placed his army.
Kolocotrones had left Lerna to take up his position on the hills
before Petrobey, with his Mainats, arrived, and it was to below an
outlying post of his camp that Yanni climbed to signal to those in the
Larissa. The day was extraordinarily hot, and his way lay over long,
palpitating flanks of gray bowlder-covered hills. There all vegetation
had long ago been shrivelled into brown, ashy wisps of stuff, though up
higher, near the point to which he was making, a spring which gushed
from the mountain-side still flushed an acre or two of cup-shaped
hollow below it with living vegetation. The great green lizards alone
seemed not to have been turned brown by the drought, and slipped
pattering over the bowlders into cracks and crevices as Yanni passed.
Overhead the sky was a brazen wilderness, deserted of birds, and the
air over the hot mountain trembled and throbbed in an ague of heat.
But Yanni went fast and very cheerfully. He carried no arms, for the
Turks never went beyond the plain, and it was a healthier heat to walk
just in linen trousers and shirt, open from neck to waist, than to lie
sweltering in guard and under arms in the camp at the hills of Lerna.
An hour's climb gave him elevation sufficient to be able to see over
the outer circuit of walls on the Larissa, and show him the sun-browned
tops of the hill peopled with the tiny, living, moving specks of the
garrison who held it. Below the base of the hill the lines of Turkish
tents formed a circuit nearly complete, but at the back, where the
rocks rose almost precipitously, there was a break in them. Whether the
hill was accessible or not at that point he did not know--evidently
the Turks seemed to think not--but if he succeeded in attracting the
attention of the Greeks in the citadel, he could learn from them where
was the best place to make the attempt. He had brought with him a strip
of linen for the signalling, but finding the distance was greater than
he anticipated, he saw that it would be too insignificant an object to
be noticed, and, stripping off his shirt, he made wild waving with it,
signalling again and again, "Mitsos! Mitsos Codones!"
For five minutes he stood there, with the sun scorching his uncovered
shoulders like a hot iron, without attracting any attention; but before
very much longer he saw a little white speck from the top of the
citadel, also waving, it would seem, with purpose.
"Oh, Mitsos, is it you?" he said, aloud, and then repeated "Mitsos" as
his signal, and waited.
The little speck answered him. "Yes, I am Mitsos," it said. "Who are
you?"
Yanni laughed with delight.
"Yanni," he waved, "your cousin Yanni."
"Have the clan come."
"Many okes of them, under father. We are going to send a party to
support you in the citadel to-night, an hour before moonrise. Be
ready." There was a pause, and Yanni, forgetting that he was rather
over a mile off, shouted out, "Do you see, little Mitsos?" and then
laughed at himself. Soon the waving began again.
"We can hold the place, I think, but we are short of food."
And Yanni answered:
"Oh, fat cousin, we bring much food. Where shall we make the attempt?"
"From the back, between where you are standing and me. It is steep,
but quite possible for those not old and fat. It is where you see no
Turkish tents. Who is in command?"
"Hypsilantes."
"I am laughing," waved Mitsos, "for I see his big sword tripping him
up. Go very silently. If the alarm is given, and the Turks attack you,
we will help from above. Good-bye, Yanni; it is dinner-time, and the
littlest dinner you ever saw."
Yanni put on his shirt again, and, seeing that Kolocotrones' outpost
was not more than two hundred feet above him, though concealed from
where he stood by a spur of rock, he bethought himself to go up there
and get a drink of wine before he began his downward journey--for his
throat was as dust and ashes--and also give notice of the intended
relief. He found that Kolocotrones was there himself, and was taken to
him.
That brave and avaricious man was short of stature, but of very strong
make, and gnarled and knotted like an oak trunk; his face was burned
to a shrivelled being by the sun, and he wore his fine brass helmet.
Unlike Petrobey, who was scrupulously fastidious in the matter of
clothes, cleanliness, and food, he cared not at all for the things of
the body, and was holding a mutton-bone in the manner of a flute to
his mouth, gnawing pieces off it, when Yanni entered. The old chief
remembered him at Tripoli, and though he was on the most distant terms
with the clan, who regarded him with embarrassing frankness as a
successful brigand, he nodded kindly to the boy.
"Eat and drink," he said; "talk will come afterwards," and he would
have torn him a shred of meat off the flute.
"Surely I will drink," said Yanni, seating himself, "for indeed it is
thirsty work to stand in the sun. No, nothing to eat, thank you."
Kolocotrones poured him out wine into rather a dirty glass and when the
boy had drank, "What is forward?" he asked. "Are you of Maina come?"
"A thousand of us. To-night we are sending a relief force to those in
the citadel. I have been signalling to Mitsos with my shirt from the
hill-side."
Now when money was not in the question, Kolocotrones was the most
enthusiastic of patriots. There was certainly nothing to be got from
the citadel, and he dropped his mutton flute and struck the table a
great blow with his hand.
"That is very good," he said. "My compliments to the clan, and to
Petrobey. Lad, but I have these Turks in the hollow of my hand. The
fleet still comes not, and without the fleet how shall they relieve
Nauplia, where already the besieged purchase food from the besiegers;
they cannot hold Argos more than a week now, for here, too, their food
is failing. Then they will try to get back to Corinth. All the hills
are guarded, and I shall be there for them. Oh, I shall be there! and
where would all of you be without old Kolocotrones to think for you,
ay, and act for you when the time comes?"
Yanni was half amused, half offended, at the arrogance of the old
chief, and took another great draught of wine, some bitter stuff; but,
as Petrobey said, "That fellow cares nothing for what he eats, save
that it should be meat; and nothing for what he drinks, save that it
should be wet. Then answer me. Why did God give us a palate?"
Kolocotrones took another chew at his mutton-bone and tilted back his
helmet a little, showing a bald forehead.
"Panos--my son Panos will be with me," he continued, "and the lad and I
will chase them like sheep and kill them like chickens. Also there will
be much gold."
And his eyes grew small and bright like a bird's.
Yanni's scornful young nose was in the air by this time, but his
manners forbade his saying just what he thought of Panos, and he rose
to go.
"I am cooler," he said, "and less dusty in the throat. I will be going
back. Indeed, I think I would have paid weight for weight in gold for
that wine."
"I wish you had," chuckled Kolocotrones, whose humor was of the most
direct. "But it is a free gift, lad, and I do not grudge it you."
Yanni saluted and retired. Once out of the camp he executed a sort of
war-dance of scorn down the mountainside.
"A free gift!" he muttered. "A free gift, indeed! What else should a
draught of sour wine be? Thank God, I am of Maina, and not of that
stock. I would sooner keep a khan than be that general or his pasty
son."
And Yanni, bursting with indignation, went scrambling down the
mountain-side, thinking how fine it was to be a Mavromichales.
The arrangements for the relief party were not long in making.
Petrobey, as soon as night fell, was to lead a band of Mainats towards
the southeast of Argos--an uneven tract of ground, full of bushes and
marsh, and much intersected by dikes--where the cavalry could not be
utilized against them. They were to advance as close as they safely
might to the gate of the town, fire, and run away, come back and fire,
and generally give color to the idea that a noisy and badly planned
attack was being delivered from that quarter. The effect of this would
be to make the enemy alert and watchful of movements in that direction;
in any case, their eyes and ears would not be too keen on the
Larissa, which was quite on the opposite side of the town. Orders were
given that if they were pursued in any number, they should run away,
scattering as they went, but return again and keep up the disturbance
till the moon rose. By the rising of the moon the relief party would
already have made good their entrance into the fortress, unless they
had been repulsed, and there was no longer any necessity for the others
to dance about like will-o'-the-wisps in the marshes. It would be dark
by nine, and the moon did not rise till midnight, so that the others
would have ample time to cross the two miles of plain which lay between
them and the Larissa in the cover of the dark, and do their best. The
relief party, consisting of between four and five hundred Mainats, were
nominally under the command of Hypsilantes, but Yanni alone, having
seen from the mountain the lay of the ground on the far side of the
Larissa, and alone knowing the disposition of the Turkish blockading
lines there, was to act as guide. The object of the expedition being
in the main to get supplies into the fortress, they took with them a
flock of goats, all carefully muzzled so that they should not bleat to
each other, and on the back of each goat was a hamper of loaves. "Quite
like little men on a journey," said Yanni. Round the beasts the men
marched in a sort of hollow oblong, thus forming a pen for them. When
they came near the lines of the Turks a small reconnoitring party was
to be sent on to see if the steep rocks were practicable and unguarded.
If so, they should make a dash for these, dragging two or three goats
with them, which, once past the Turkish lines, they would unmuzzle, so
that the others, hearing them bleat, might follow. It was impossible
to take sheep, for the way up the rocks, though practicable for men
and, therefore, for goats, might not be so for the less nimble animals.
The whole expedition, its striking irregularities, its hazards, its
remoteness from anything commonplace, was after the hearts of the clan,
and they grinned to each other as the goats, with their luggage strung
on their backs, were driven into their living pen and the door formed
up between them.
They had to go slowly, for the leading and retention of the beasts
was not very easy, and before they had marched half a mile they heard
shouts begin from the opposite quarter of the town and knew that
Petrobey's party had got to their dancing. Soon the black, gigantic
walls loomed nearer, sharp cut against the blue-black of the star-sown
sky, and they halted behind a bluff of upstanding rock, while Yanni
and some others moved forward to examine the ground. A hundred yards
farther on they got a good view of the Turkish camp-fires, so that
they could tell, roughly, the disposition of the troops, and here they
halted in council.
"It is even as Mitsos said," whispered Yanni. "There is a great gap in
its lines, and that is, no doubt, where the steep rocks came into the
plain. He said a man could climb there, and I told him the Prince was
coming, at which he laughed, thinking he would trip up. Shall we do
this?"
Kostas Mavromichales, the brother of Petrobey, shook with suppressed
laughter.
"The assault of the goats," he said. "Oh, a very fine plan! I thought
of it."
They were about four hundred yards from the Turkish lines, but the
ground, evilly for their purpose, was level and without cover, and
the more speedily this was passed the better. The gap in the lines
was about three hundred yards in width; immediately above them the
rocks began. Once there, every one must find his own path, the leaders
dragging forward an unmuzzled goat or two to encourage the others. It
was agreed that Kostas and Yanni should take one between them, Athanasi
and Dimitri a second, and two other Mainats a third.
These whispered arrangements made, they hurried back to the others and
gave them what they had seen. The six goat-draggers were to be in the
first line, who, as soon as they reached the rocks, would take off the
muzzles, and then climb and scramble on as fast as might be. If they
were seen or heard before they got close up to the lines, it was very
unlikely they would be able to get in at all, for it passed the wit
of man to fight and drive goats simultaneously; and it was worse than
useless to get in without the goats, for thus there would be the more
mouths to feed, and nought to feed them with. So "with the goats or not
at all" was the order.
The ground was hard with the long heat, and they moved forward as
silently as possible, but accompanied as they went by the sharp, swift
pattering of the goats' feet drumming like a distant tattoo. To the
right and left of them twinkled the rows of fires, but straight ahead
where the rocks went up there was sheer untenanted blackness. They
marched quickly, and every man besides looking to his own steps had
to give an eye to the goats nearest him; but carrying their muskets
horizontally and at the full length of their arms, these formed a
useful though rough barrier. Already they were between the lines of
camp-fires, and the black rock was close ahead, when the report of a
musket sounded from the left, a bullet from a one-sighted gun sang
above their heads, and a voice shouted a Turkish something. At that
Yanni paused, and with his knife cut the string muzzle of one of the
goats.
"Catch hold of the other horn, Uncle Kostas," he whispered, "and run.
Pinch the devil and make him talk. Holy Virgin, if it is a dumb goat!
Pinch him, oh, pinch him!"
Yanni gave a great tweak to the goat's ear as he ran forward dragging
him, and the beast bleated lamentably and loud. Meantime the other two
goats had been served in like manner and made shrill remonstrances, and
the herd passed on through the opening made in the front ranks, after
the sufferers.
"Oh, it is done," panted Yanni; "here are the rocks. Good God, they are
steep! By the hind leg, uncle, lift it. So. We have got a prize goat,
I think. There is another shot. But we shall be up before the sentries
have given the alarm."
The other men opened out a little, still forming a barrier to the right
and left of the herd, to prevent them straying till they gained the
rocks, and then went up hand over hand on the face of the cliff. The
face of the hill, though steep, was firm and reliable, with good hold
for hands and feet, and in a few minutes the Mainats were scattered
over the ascent, the men black and almost invisible against the dark
cliff, and the dappling of the trotting goats only showing vaguely and
uncertainly. Below in the Turkish lines they could see men stirring,
and a few shots were fired at the hindmost of them; but so swift had
been their passage, and so scattered their climbing of the rocks that
they were already in the higher bluff before the Turks realized what
had happened. From above, ahead, came heart-broken bleatings, and that
was all.
Mitsos since the sun went down had been peering into the darkness over
the citadel wall, and hearing the shots supposed that the relief party
was passing the Turkish lines and that the alarm was given. Immediately
he heard the bleatings of the goats, and, like the Turks, saw only a
moving company of gray specks. A party was ready to make a sortie, but
as there were but a few shots he waited.
"It is undoubtedly they," he remarked; "but in what fashion are they
coming?"
And he went down to the gate, and looking through the window of the
chamber saw the specks coming nearer. Before long the foremost were
close, and he shouted "Yanni."
And from the darkness Yanni found just enough breath to shout: "Yes,
yes, open the gate! Come on, brute."
Mitsos grinned, thinking that the words were to him.
"Surely little Yanni will be sore to-night," he said to himself, and
with two others unbarred the gate. Next moment Yanni and Kostas rushed
through struggling and panting, each with a horn of the mishandled
goat, and the frightened, pattering herd poured after them. The other
men had kept behind the beasts, and to right and left were shepherding
them; and as soon as the last had passed in the gates were closed again.
Yanni flung himself on the ground, utterly blown, and too exhausted to
notice Mitsos.
"Never again! oh, never," he panted, "will I drag a goat up the
Larissa. So--don't ask me. Oh, I shall burst."
Mitsos had broken into a roar of hopeless laughter, which was taken up
by the hungry garrison, and while Yanni was recovering he and the rest
herded the goats together again, and rations of bread were given out,
and a few goats killed.
Then having secured a great chunk of bread himself, he came back to
Yanni, who was sitting up, still rather breathless. Kostas, with his
fat red face, had not yet reached convalescence, but lay large and
palpitating on the ground.
"Yanni, oh, little Yanni!" said Mitsos, "but I am one joy to see you.
The goats too. It was a miracle of a plan. Yanni, when did you come?
You will sleep with me to-night. Oh, there is the Prince."
And Mitsos stood up, and saluted the Prince with a twinkling eye,
for he himself was a deserter; and the Prince's face was in patches
of red and white, comical to the irreverent, and his breath whistled
untunefully in his throat as he drew it. Mitsos fetched him a piece of
sacking to sit on, and stood respectfully by him as he paused to get
his breath.
"My aide-de-camp," said the Prince at last, smiling, "I had to come to
you as you persisted in going away from me."
This was undeniably the statement of the case, and Mitsos waited a
little sheepishly, and the Prince continued.
"But we will look it over," said he, getting up, "even a second time.
For, indeed, little Mitsos, they would have made a legislator of me,
for which I have no call, neither abilities therefor, or inclination,
and I would rather be with the people. Show me, please, where I can
sleep, and give me first some water, for I am tired and as thirsty
as sand with climbing those rocks. Eh, but I have done a finer work
to-night than I ever did in the councils of the senate!"
Mitsos soon found quarters for Hypsilantes, of the roughest, to be
sure, and it was curious to him to see how the Prince took a sort of
childlike pleasure in having to sleep in a shed, on a heap of sacking,
with a crust of bread, a little very tough goat's-flesh, and a draught
of water for his supper. His face quite lighted up at the thought that
he was playing the soldier in earnest.
"This is better than swords and medals, Mitsos," he said, as the latter
brought him the food. "There shall be no more honors and decorations
for me or from me, for, indeed, there is no help in those things. I
should have done better by scrambling up rocks and dragging goats with
the others from the first. Listen at the lads singing! I would sing,
too, for the lightness of my heart, had God given me a note of music in
my throat."
Mitsos left him and went out to find Yanni, whom he had not seen since
the taking of Tripoli. The Mainats had fraternized most warmly with
the other part of the garrison, and they were lounging and leaning
together on the wall, looking towards Argos, when Mitsos came out. The
moon had not yet risen, and the party under Petrobey were still out on
the far side of the town. But the sky had brightened with the approach
of moonrise, and though the plain lay still sombre and featureless,
except where the flash of muskets drew a line of fire across the dark
like a match scratched but not lit, the bay had caught the gathering
grayness of the sky, and lay like a sheet of dull silver. Across the
water the lights of Nauplia looked like some huge constellation of
stars growing red to their setting, and in the town below they could
see that the Turks were on the alert, and little patches of men as
small and slow as insects now and then crossed the streets which lay
stretched out below them, hurrying towards the southeastern gate. The
goats, relieved of their burdens, stood penned near, visible in the
firelight which the men had lit to cook the flesh, adapting themselves
with the nonchalance of their race to their new conditions, some
still sniffing inquisitively at the ground, two or three fighting and
sparring together, others lying down half asleep already with ears
just twitching. Yanni was among the other men, and when he saw Mitsos
coming, left the group, went towards him, and taking his hand, walked
off with him to the other side of the citadel.
"Oh, Mitsos," he said, "what need of words? As soon as I knew you were
here the devils of the pit could not have held me back. And you--tell
me that Suleima has not made you forget me."
Mitsos put his arm round the other's neck.
"Not even Suleima," he said, "nor yet the littlest one, your godson,
whom you have never seen, nor yet the Capsina, with whom I have spent
more days of late than with Suleima. Did I not swear the oath of the
clan to you, and that very willingly, and not a thing to be sworn
lightly? And do we not love each other?"
Yanni gave a happy little sigh.
"So that is well," he said. "So now, tell me of all that concerns you.
What of the Capsina, for I heard of the deeds in the gulf?"
"Indeed it is difficult to tell you of the Capsina," said Mitsos, "for
never have I seen any one to compare with her. The soul of a man,
I think, must have been given her; also she is as beautiful as--as
Suleima, at least so another would say. Do you remember the journey
we went together, Yanni? Well, my cruise with her was like that. Of
all women I have ever seen I love one only, and yet I think I love the
Capsina in the way I love you."
"And she?" asked Yanni.
"Oh, she likes me," said Mitsos. "I am sure she likes me, else we
could not have got on so well together. We used to play and laugh like
children, and everything was a joke--that was when we first started,
and before she knew of Suleima."
"Why did you not tell her of Suleima?"
"Oh, that was some dear nonsense of Suleima's own. Then one day I did
tell her, because she asked me straight who were they at home."
"What did she say?"
"I forget. Nothing, I think. Oh yes, she asked why I had treated her
like a stranger, and not told her. I remember now; it puzzled me that
she said that. Christos and I were playing draughts at the time, and I
remember she went out soon after, though it was most wet and stormy."
Yanni whistled low and thoughtfully to himself, and Mitsos continued:
"I expect she will be soon at Nauplia when the fleet comes. Oh, she is
splendid. You shall see."
He pointed down the hill where the relief party had come up.
"Do you see there?" he cried. "There are lights moving at the bottom of
the hill, and men. They are drawing their lines more closely where you
came up. There will be no passing them next time."
Yanni spat contemptuously over the wall.
"Who cares for the cross-legged Turk?" he said. "I saw Kolocotrones
to-day. He says they are in the hollow of his hand. His hand, Mitsos! A
dirty hand it is. He gnaws a mutton-bone, holding it in greasy fingers,
and licking them afterwards, and drinks sour wine. Why should a man
live like a pig when there is no need?"
"Because he has a pig's soul, even as the Capsina has a man's soul,"
said Mitsos. "Yanni, we must go Turk-sticking on the mountains when we
get out of this. There will be plenty of Turks to stick."
"When will that be?"
"When the Turks have no more to eat, or when the fleet arrives,
whichever happens first. You see, it is like this: The fleet still
comes not, and without the fleet how shall they relieve Nauplia, not
having sufficient food themselves. If the fleet does not soon come,
they will have to make their way back to Corinth. Meantime, on the
mountains, between here and there, every day fresh Greeks collect. How
many men has Kolocotrones with him?"
"Ten thousand, he says," said Yanni, "but he always says ten thousand."
"May his saints have made him speak truth at last!" said Mitsos. "Then
there are Mainats. How many?"
"A thousand," said Yanni, "and Niketas is already encamped on the hills
with two thousand. Oh, Mitsos, it is a nice little trap we have ready
for the devils!"
Mitsos suddenly felt in his pouch.
"Tobacco--oh, tobacco!" he cried. "Yanni, not a whiff has been in my
mouth for three days, when the tobacco was finished. I will sell you my
soul for tobacco. Surely you have some."
Yanni pulled out a roll of it.
"Halves," he said. "Cut it, Mitsos, and remember the saints are
watching you!"
Mitsos ran across to the still glowing fire and fetched a light.
"The Capsina said I thought about nothing but tobacco," he remarked,
"and indeed I do think about it a good deal. What was it we were
saying? Oh yes, we stop here till there is no more food, and then we
cut our way out, somehow. There will be broken heads that day. I pray
mine shall not be one of them. But if the Turks move first we garrison
the place and leave men here sufficient to hold it, and follow the
Turks to Nauplia, if this fleet comes, or up into the mountains towards
Corinth."
"You will join the Mainats again when we move?" asked Yanni.
"Surely." He paused a moment, frowning. "Yanni, it is absurd of me,
but again I am disquiet about Suleima. I ought to have learned by now
that God watches her very carefully. But supposing the Turks go towards
Nauplia, the house is on the way."
Yanni laughed.
"And Father Andréa, maybe, will run away, leaving Suleima there. Oh, it
is very likely," said he. "It is time to go to bed, Mitsos. Where do
you sleep?"
"I will show you. There is room for two. Oh, I am a guard for the last
two hours of the night, and you will have the bed to yourself. But
surely at sunrise I will come back, very full of sleep, and I shall
fall on you. Thus you will be flat."
A long barrack-room stretched from near the gate up the north side of
the citadel, already nearly full of men stretched, some on the ground,
others on sacking, asleep. The night was very hot, and the atmosphere
inside was stifling. Mitsos sniffed disgustedly.
"This will not do," he said. "We will fetch the sacks and lie outside.
Tell the guard, Yanni, that when my watch comes I shall be asleep by
the gate, so that they may wake me."
Other men had come to the same conclusion as Mitsos, and on their way
to the gate they passed many stretched out still and sleeping on the
dry, withered grass. The moon had long since risen, and the plain was
flooded with white light. The fire near the gate had died down, and
only now and then a breath of wind passing over the fluffy ashes made
them glow again for a moment. A little farther they passed the goat-pen
against the wall, and two or three goats looked up inquisitively as
they walked by out of long, shallow eyes. The sentry was opposite the
gate as they came up, and Mitsos showed him where he would be in a deep
embrasure of the wall, where a projecting angle stood out, leaving a
dark corner sheltered from the glare of the moonlight. They threw down
the sacking here and arranged it lengthwise, making a bed broad enough
for two. Mitsos had brought his thick peasant's cloak with him, and
this formed an admirable pillow, for the night was too hot to need it
as a covering. He kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt, so as
to let the cool night air on to his skin, and as his pipe was not yet
finished, he sat and talked to Yanni, who lay down.
"But it is hot beyond endurance to-night," he said, "and you will see
towards mid-day to-morrow, when there is no shelter for a fly, how fine
a grilling-pan is this Larissa. The land is no place for a man to live;
he should be on the sea year in and year out."
He beat out the ashes of his pipe.
"Yet it is good to be together again, Yanni," he said, lying down. "And
now it is sleeping time. I wish the devil would fly away with sentry
duty at night."
Three hours later the sentry came to wake Mitsos, and Yanni, who was
not asleep, got up gently.
"I will take Mitsos's duty," he said. "Yes, I am Yanni Mavromichales,
who came in to-night."
The man grunted sleepily and turned in, wondering whether, for any
consideration in the world, he would take a night watch out of turn.