But with the increase in the number of the garrison the flock of goats
dwindled like patches of snow when the spring had come, and after a
three days' grilling on the rock, and a calculation which showed that
there was food for the whole number of men for only three days more,
it was judged more prudent that, since the Turks showed no signs of
meditating another assault, half the garrison should cut their way
through the Turkish lines and go back to the Greek camp at Lerna and
return again with fresh supplies of food. The Turkish fleet, meantime,
had not appeared, and it seemed certain that the army would not hold
Argos much longer. Forage and food were getting daily scarcer and more
distant of gathering, and many men were stricken down with a virulent
dysentery and fever, arising, no doubt, from their constant expeditions
into the marshy ground and the unripe fruit which they plucked and ate
freely. And day by day the Greeks continued to collect on the mountains.
It was decided that the original occupiers should go, for many of
them were hardly fit for longer service after their ten days on that
gridiron rock; but a few Mainats--and among others Mitsos--sturdily
declared that they would not leave the place while there was a piece
of goat's-meat or a loaf of bread remaining. Hypsilantes also, whose
untrained body felt the heat and the coarseness of the scanty food most
severely, was, after many fruitless attempts at persuasion, induced
to be of the evacuating party. His object was already gained: he had
thrown in his lot with the people, turning his back on the idle and
cowardly senators; and it was important, until more food was obtained,
to have as few mouths as possible to feed, provided that those who
remained could hold the place in case of attack.
Fortune favored their escape, for before sunset on the night on which
this partial evacuation was fixed a wrack of storm-clouds, scudding out
of the sea from the south and spreading over the sky with a rapidity
that promised a hurricane, brought in their train a noisy night of
storm. By nine o'clock the rain had come on in torrents, with thunder
and lightning, and in the headlong pelt they marched silently out of
the gate, and crept down the hill-side towards the Turkish lines.
These had been now drawn round the rocks where the Mainats had entered
three nights before, and as they had to cut a way through the enemy
somewhere, it was best to choose a place where there should be quicker
going than down the goat-path. To the left of the rocks the hill ended
in a steep earth-covered slope, below which were the lines, and this
point most promised success. Under cover of the storm they approached
unheard, and then quickening up, they ran down the last slope, which,
under the tropical downpour, was no more than a mud-slide. Between the
alleys of tents were lanterns, somewhat sparsely placed, and by good
fortune the first Greeks who entered the lines came straight upon one
of these, round which were two or three sentries. The sentries were
neatly and silently knifed before any had time to raise the alarm or
fire, and still at the double, the Greeks passed the second line of
tents into another parallel passage. Here they were hardly less lucky.
A shot or two was fired, and the alarm was given; but under that
blinding and deafening uproar of the elements the Turks ran hither and
thither, over tent-ropes and into each other, and without loss of a
single man the Greeks gained the plain beyond.
Twice during the following week Petrobey attempted to force his way
by night through the Turkish lines, which now closely invested the
Larissa, for the taking in of fresh supplies to the troops there, but
both times without success. The Turks had drawn off a number of troops
from the town to strengthen those blockading the citadel, and they
were on the lookout for these expeditions. Yet still the fleet did
not appear, and it was becoming a question of hours, almost, how long
Dramali could remain in Argos, for the intense heat of the last days
had withered the scanty forage of the plains, and the men were in no
better plight. But meantime the main object of the citadel garrison had
been effected. Dramali had been delayed at Argos, not caring to leave
this for towns occupied by the Greeks in his rear, instead of pushing
on nearer to Nauplia. The Greeks had now collected in force in the
hills. But if Dramali was nigh provisionless, the garrison was even
more destitute; and on the morning after Petrobey's second attempt it
was found that the provisions were coming to an end and, almost worse
than that, the water supply was beginning to run short. They had hoped
that the tropical storm of a week ago would have replenished the wells,
but the sources lay deep, and the thirsty soil absorbed the rain before
it penetrated to the seat of the spring. The only difficulty was how to
get out.
That evening they had come to the end of the meat, there were only
a few loaves left, and the water that day had been muddy and evil
tasting; and Mitsos, as they sat round the remains of their scanty
meal, tried to persuade himself that Petrobey would have advised their
continuing to hold the place, for to propose that they should evacuate
was a bitter mouthful. But the more prudent, and so to him less savory,
council prevailed. The Mainats were sitting about, gloomy and rather
dispirited, and none felt equal to the courage of saying they had
better go. Mitsos had been selected by a sort of silent vote to the
command, and they waited for him to speak. During a long silence he had
been lying full length on the ground, but suddenly he sat up.
"Oh, cousins of mine!" he said; "it is not pleasant to say it, but it
shall be said. Assuredly, we cannot stop here any longer. There is no
more food, but little water, and that stale and full of the well dregs,
and the others have tried twice to get in, and failed. It remains for
us to get out."
The Mainats who were close and heard his words grunted, and those
farther off came to find out what was forward. Mitsos repeated his
words, and again they found a response of grunts. At that he lost his
patience a little.
"This is not pleasant for me," he said. "You seem to want to stay here,
and you make a coward of me for my thoughts. So be it; we stay. Much
good may it do any one."
Kostas raised himself on his elbow. His fine fat face was a little
thinner than it had been.
"Softly, little Mitsos," he said. "Give time. I am with you."
"Then why not have said so?" asked Mitsos, in a high, injured voice.
Yanni, sitting close, bubbled with laughter.
"Oh, dear fool," he said, "do you not know us yet? I, too, am with you.
So are we all, I believe."
"If it is so, good," said Mitsos, only half mollified; "and if it is
not so, very good also."
The clan suddenly recovered their spirits wonderfully. One man began
whistling; another sang a verse of the Klepht's song, which was taken
up by a chorus. Two or three men near Mitsos patted him on the back,
and got knocked about for their pains, and Yanni was neatly tripped
up and sat on. Mitsos also regained his equanimity by the use of his
hands, and turned to Kostas.
"Is there no word for 'yes' among you but grunts only?" he asked.
"Well, let it pass. We must go to-night. Every day the defences are
strengthened; and as for that sour bread, thank God, we have done with
it," and he picked up the few remaining loaves and hurled them over the
fortress wall.
"I am better," he said, "and we will grunt together, cousins."
Now at the back of the Larissa, some hundred yards from the rocks up
which the Mainats had climbed, there lay a steep ravine, funnel-shaped,
cut in the side of the hill from top to bottom. It ended at the
bottom in a gentler slope, and being a very accessible place, since
the night surprise it had been closely guarded. The sides of it were
sharp-pitched, and a stone dislodged from the top went down, gathering
length in its leaps till it reached the bottom of the hill. Kostas had
discovered this, for one morning, leaning over the battlements, he had
idly chucked a pebble over, and watching its course, saw it fall on the
top of a Turkish tent below and, being sharp, rip a hole in it, and
Kostas laughed to see that a man popped quickly out, thinking, perhaps,
that it was a bullet from above. At the head of this ravine, close to
the citadel walls, rose a tall pinnacle of loose, shaly rock. This,
too, Kostas had noticed.
His proposal was as follows: A mine should be laid in this rock, with
a long fuse. As soon as this was done they should all descend the hill
with silence and despatch, keeping on the two ridges that bounded this
ravine, and getting as close as possible to the Turkish lines, wait.
"Then," continued Kostas, with admirable simplicity, "will nature
and gunpowder work; for the rock will blow up with the gunpowder,
and nature will lead the large pieces very swiftly down the ravine.
One pebble brought a man from his tent; how many will be left when a
mountain falls? We shall be in safety, for stones do not climb steep
sides; and when the stones have passed, we will pass also."
Kostas looked round, and knowing the Mainats better than did Mitsos,
found encouragement in their grunts, and the grunts were followed by
grins.
"There will be broken heads," said Yanni, sententiously, "yet no man
will break them. What does the great Mitsos say?"
Mitsos reached out a large, throttling hand.
"There will be a broken head," he remarked, "and I will have broken it.
It is borne upon me that Uncle Kostas is the great one. When shall we
start?"
"Surely as soon as may be, since Mitsos, in his wisdom, threw the rest
of the bread away. We have first to bore a big hole in that rock;
five men can do that, while we collect all the powder there is left.
We shall need none, because we bolt hare-fashion, and there will not
be time for fighting. Also the portion of rock to fall must be very
great."
"Then let five men go out very silently now," said Mitsos, "and begin.
Let some one watch on the wall, and when we have finished open the gate
and come out very gently. Then we will set the fuse and go. Anastasi,
collect the powder from each man's horn, and bring it out when it is
collected. I go for the boring. Who is with me?"
Mitsos got up and went off with four other volunteers to drill the
rock. They chose a place behind it, and away from the ravine, so that
the loosened pieces might not fall and perhaps lead to extra vigilance
on the part of the Turks. The rock was soft and crumbly, and though
the night was a swelter of heat, a hole was drilled without very much
labor. By the time it was ready the powder had come, and was carefully
rammed in. Mitsos laid a long train of damp powder in sacking, making
a fuse of about ten minutes' law, and when all was ready he whistled
gently to the watcher on the wall. A moment afterwards the gate was
put softly ajar, and the men filed out. He waited till the last had
emerged, and then set a light to the train.
The night was not very dark, for although the moon was not yet risen,
the diffused light of the stars made a clear gray twilight. But the
two ridges of the ravine down which they climbed were rough with
upstanding bowlders, and by going very cautiously and quietly, it was
easily possible to approach the lines without being seen. Indeed, the
greater fear was from the hearing, for the dry stones clanged and rang
metallically under their feet, and as they began to get nearer the men
took off their mountain shoes, so that their tread might be the more
noiseless. Already the foremost were as far as they thought it safe to
go, and in silence the others closed up till the shadow of each bowlder
was a nest of expectant eyes. The air was still and windless; each man
heard only the coming and going of his breath; above them was not a
sound except that from time to time a bird piped with a flute-like note
among the rocks. The strain grew tenser and yet more tense; now and
then a murmur would come drowsily up from the Turkish lines, and the
bird piped on. Mitsos was only conscious of one perplexing doubt: would
the bird be killed or not?
Suddenly, with a roar and crash and windy buffet, that which they were
waiting for came. The crash grew into a roar, which gathered volume
and intolerable sound every moment, and in a great storm of dust the
shattered rocks passed down the ravine, the smaller pieces leaping like
spray from a torrent up the sides, the larger coiling and twisting
together like the ropes of water in a cataract. They passed with a rush
and roar down on to the Turkish lines below, and as the tumult went
on its way there mingled with it the noises of ripped canvas, broken
poles, and human cries. Close on the heels of this avalanche came the
Mainats; from the tents near men were fleeing in fear of another shower
of stone coming; the path of the rocks themselves lay through the lines
as if cut by some portentous knife. None thought of stopping them; the
lanes through the camp passed like blurs of light, and keeping to the
edge of the path cut by the rocks, they reached the plain without a
shot being fired at them. But they did not halt nor abate the pace.
Though they carried muskets they were without powder, and but for their
knives defenceless, and, without even waiting to fall into any sort of
formation, they struck out over the plain towards the lower hills at
the base of which the camp at Lerna stood.
The vigilance of the Greeks was of another sort to that of the Turks,
and knowing that they would run a most considerable risk, if they
approached the camp without giving warning, of being shot, they halted
some three hundred yards off, and Mitsos yelled aloud.
"From the citadel," he cried, "Greeks of Maina!"
A shout answered him; and now that they were beyond all reach of
pursuit, they went the more quietly. The sentries at the first outpost
had turned out in case of anything being wrong, but in a moment they
were recognized and passed.
Petrobey met them.
"So Benjamin has come home," he said, kissing Yanni. "And oh, Mitsos,
you have come to friends."
All that week the Turks in Argos and the Greeks at Lerna and on the
mountains waited, the one for the Ottoman fleet to appear, the other
for that which should certainly follow on its non-appearance. Already,
so it was rumored, some of the Turkish cavalry horses had been killed
to supply food for the men, and the Greeks heard it with a greedy
quickening of the breath. One morning two ships appeared suddenly
opposite Nauplia, and it was feared they were the first of the Turkish
ships, but Mitsos announced they were the _Revenge_ and the _Sophia_,
though why they had come he knew not. The hills round were a line of
Greek camps, waiting, like birds of prey, for the inevitable end. Down
at Lerna the men were growling discontentedly at the waiting; the hot,
foul air of the marshes smote them, but they swore they would smite in
return. And thus in silent and hungry expectation the first week of
August went by.
At length, on the morning of the 6th, the end came. When day broke
it was to show the long bright lines of Albanian mercenaries who
formed the advance-guard of Dramali's army, marching across the plain
northward towards the guarded hills. From Lerna, lying low, they were
only visible when they began to reach the foot-hills of the range
towards Corinth, and by that time the cavalry had begun to leave the
north gate of Argos. Instantly in the camp there was a sudden fierce
outburst of joy and certain vengeance. The hills were guarded, the
Turks in a trap; it only remained to go.
The hills between Argos and Corinth were rough and bowldersown.
The main pass over them, called the Dervenaki, lay due north from
Argos, and was that over which the Turks under Dramali had come.
This, however, had now been occupied five days before by a large
body of Greeks from the villages round--hardy men of the mountains,
as leaderless as a pack of wolves, and fiercer. They had taken up a
senseless position too near the plain and below the gorge through which
the road passed, and which was narrow and easily held. The Albanians,
therefore, the advance-guard of the force, seeing that the pass was
occupied, turned westward towards the village of Nemea by another
road, which joined the Dervenaki again, after a long détour, beyond
the gorge. Kolocotrones with his son Panos and some eight thousand
Greeks were in possession of Nemea, and news that the advance-guard,
consisting of about a thousand Albanians, was approaching was brought
him as he sat at breakfast in his brass helmet.
Now the Albanians were not Turks, but Greeks serving as mercenaries
under the Sultan. Many of them had relations and friends among the
Greeks, and a year ago, at the siege of Tripoli, a separate amnesty had
been concluded with them, and they had not been prevented from going
home. Moreover, they were excellent men of arms and poor. All these
things Kolocotrones considered as he debated what to do. While he was
still debating the first rank of them came in sight. He looked at them
for a moment, and then turned to the scouts who had brought the news.
"May hell receive you!" he snarled. "They are Greeks."
They were Greeks; every one knew that. They were allowed to pass
unmolested. They were also poor, and that Kolocotrones knew.
Besides the Dervenaki and the Nemean way to the west, two other
possible roads led over the pass, both to the east. Of these one lay
parallel with the Dervenaki, and only five or six hundred yards from
it, till nearly the top of the pass. The roads then joined and, after
running for some half-mile one on each side of a narrow, wedge-shaped
hill, became one. Farther away, again to the east, lying in a long
loop, was a third road. Both of these branched off from the Dervenaki
before coming to the spot where the irregular Greeks on that pass
were encamped. The road farthest away to the east was held by the
English-speaking Niketas. He had with him two thousand men, including
many Mainats.
The advance-guard of the Turks preceded the main army by some
half-hour. Dramali rode with the second body of cavalry, and when
he saw the Albanians take the western road, which he knew was held
by Kolocotrones, he burst into a torrent of Mussulman abuse. He had
been betrayed, sold, bartered; these Albanians were in league with
the Greeks. So he ordered an advance up the shortest and most direct
road--namely, the Dervenaki. His scouts soon returned saying it was
held by the Greeks, and Dramali turned eastward into the parallel
road, which appeared to be untenanted. A low ridge divided the two,
and as he crossed it he was seen by Niketas's outposts. He, without
a moment's hesitation, divided his band into two parts. With one he
crossed the road Dramali was taking, and took up a position near the
top of the pass on the steep, wedge-shaped hill that separated it from
the Dervenaki, and on the road itself, blocking it. To the others he
gave orders to hang on the right flank of the Turks as they advanced
northward. Of the Turks, now that the Albanians were separated from
them, the greater part of the cavalry came first as an advance-guard;
the most of the infantry followed. Between them marched an army of
luggage-mules, with tents and all the appurtenances of Turkish warfare,
mules and camels carrying embroidered clothes, gold-chased arms, money,
women, and behind, again, the lesser part of the cavalry and the
remainder of the infantry.
Meantime the men in camp at Lerna, more than half Mainats, had seen the
road the Turks had taken, and were in pursuit. Now that it was seen
that the Turks were in retreat, and had no thought of attempting the
relief of Nauplia, since the fleet had not arrived, there was nothing
to be gained by continuing to hold the Larissa; it was better to
concentrate all forces on the hills over which the Turks had to pass,
if so be that they passed. The cavalry they had seen had gone first. It
was no time to think of prudence and security, and they dashed through
Argos and its empty and silent streets and out to the right at the tail
of the Ottoman forces, risking an attack as they crossed the plain. But
Dramali had no longer any thought of attacking. Those doomed lines with
their trains of baggage-beasts moved but slowly, and Petrobey reached
the outlying foot-hills before the rear of the Turks had left the plain.
The pass on each side of which Niketas's troops were posted narrowed
gradually as it went, and near the top where they waited it was just a
road, flanked on the left side by the steep promontory of hill, on the
other by a stream riotous only in the melting of the snows, but now a
mere starved trickle of water. Beyond that was a corresponding hill,
covered sparsely with pines, which grew up big among big bowlders of
white limestone, lying like some petrified flock of gigantic sheep.
The day had broken with a pitiless and naked sky, and as the sun rose
higher it seemed that the world was a furnace eaten up with its own
heat. Niketas himself with some hundred men had already taken up his
position on the left side of the pass through which the Turks would
come on the steep turtle-backed ridge dividing it from the Dervenaki.
Another contingent was on the road itself, employed in heaping up a
rough wall of stones across it to shelter themselves and delay the
advance of the cavalry vanguard. On the right of the road were the
remainder of Niketas's troops, some five hundred in number, dispersed
among the pines and bowlders of the hill-side, which rose so sheerly
that each man could see the road, as it were a stage from the rising
tiers of theatre-seats, and shoot down on to it. Petrobey sent Yanni
forward to find Niketas and ask him where he would wish the fresh
troops from Lerna to be posted, and the answer came back that they were
most needed in the road to help the building of the barricade and stop
the first cavalry charges. Those already there were under Hypsilantes
and the priest Dikaios; would Petrobey take council with them? It was
possible also that a reinforcement would be needed on the right of the
road; if so, let the Mainats be divided. He himself had sufficient
men to hold the hill on the left, and it was all "damn fine." Finally
he wished Petrobey good appetite for the feast; Mainats he knew were
always hungry.
The Turks were still half an hour away, and Petrobey led his troops
down on to the road from off the uneven ground of the hill, so that
they should make more speed, and in ten minutes they reached the place
where the rest were building the barricade. Here all set themselves
to the work: some rolled down stones from the slopes into the valley,
others fetched them from the bed of the stream, while those on the
road carried them to the site of the growing wall and piled them
up. Now and then a warning shout would come from the hill-side, and
a rock would leap down, gathering speed, and rush across the road,
split sometimes into a hundred fragments and useless, but for the most
part--for the limestone was hard--a valuable building stone. Eight or
ten men, like busy-limbed ants at work, would seize it and roll it up
to the rising barricade, piling it on top if not too heavy, or using
it to form part of a buttress. But their time was short and the wall
was but an uneven ridge across the road and stream, four feet high or
so in places, elsewhere only a heap of stones, when it was shouted
from the outposts that the cavalry was approaching, and the men ceased
from their work and, gathering up their arms, retreated to behind the
improvised barricade and waited.
To the left of the road, and below the barricade, rose the wedge of
hill on which Niketas's contingent was stationed. They were drawn up in
five ranks of about two hundred men each, in open order, with a space
of some thirty paces between the last three ranks, so that, owing to
the steepness of the ground, each man commanded a view of the road and
each rank could fire over the heads of those in front. The ground,
however, was of a more gradual slope as it approached the road, and the
first rank lay, sheltering themselves as far as possible, among the
bowlders not twenty paces from the road itself; the second rank, five
paces behind it, knelt; and the third stood. On the right of the road
the hill was too rugged and uneven, being strewn with bowlders and sown
with shrubs and trees, to allow of any formation, and was in fact one
great ambuscade, the men being hidden by the trees and stones. Here and
there a gun-barrel glistened in the sun, but a casual passer-by might
have gone his way and never suspected the presence of men. A bend in
the road, some two hundred yards below, concealed the barricade and its
defenders from the Turks.
The vanguard of the Turks halted a moment, seeing that the hill to
the left of the road was occupied, and then set forward again at a
brisk trot, meaning perhaps to go under fire along the road commanded
by Niketas and then, wheeling at the top of the pass, attack him, and
thus enable the rest of the troops to march through the ravine while
they were engaging its defenders, and reach the open ground which
lay beyond. Just before the first ranks reached the bend in the road
Niketas opened fire on them, but they did not wait to return it, and
putting their horses into a canter swept round the bend.
At that the hill-side on their right flank blazed and bristled, and
every shrub and stone seemed to burst into a flame of fire. On each
side the Greeks, at short range, poured a storm of bullets into
them; at each step another and another fell. Suddenly from in front
the Mainats from between their barricades opened fire; retreat was
impossible, for the whole of the cavalry were now advancing from
behind; to stop meant one congestion of death, and they spurred
savagely on. In a moment they were at the wall. Some leaped the lower
parts of it, alighting, it seemed, in a hell of flame; others were
checked by the higher portion, and their horses reared and wheeled into
their own ranks; others passed through the stream-bed, or putting their
horses at the wall of defenders as at a fence, found themselves faced
by the rear rank of Mainats, who were waiting patiently higher up the
road till they should have penetrated into their range.
Meantime the check given to the first division of the cavalry at the
barricade had resulted in a congestion all down the advancing lines.
The second division had closed up with the first, the third with the
second, and on the heels of the cavalry came the infantry. Dramali,
who was stationed in the rear still, almost on the plain of Argos, had
ordered them to advance, at all costs, till they gained the top of
the pass, whence they could intrench themselves on the open ground,
and every moment added a crust to the congealment of destruction. The
masses of those moving on from behind pushed the first rank forward
and forward, all squeezed together, and pressing against the wall
of barricade, as a river in flood presses against the arches of a
bridge. At two or three points it had been entirely broken down, and
through these--now free for a moment, now choked again with the bodies
of horses and their riders--a few escaped through the first ranks of
Mainats and into the road beyond, raked indeed by the other ranks, who
held the pass higher up, but no longer exposed to the full threefold
short range fire from Niketas, the barrier, and those in ambush on the
left. Already the wall of dead and dying was heaped higher than the
barricade that the Mainats had raised, and the horses of the Turks
who forced their way through trampled on the bodies of the fallen.
But pass they must, for they were forced forward, as by some hideous,
slow-moving glacier, by a stream of dead and living. Here and there a
dead horse carrying a dead rider was borne on upright and unable to
fall because of those who pressed so closely on each side, the rider
bowed forward over the neck of his horse or sprawling sideways across
the knee of his fellow, the horse's head supported on the quarters of
the beast in front or wedged between it and the next. More terrible
even was some other brute, wounded and screaming, but unable to move
except as it was moved and carried along for some seconds perhaps, till
two or three of those in front forced their way through the breaches in
the barricade of horses and riders and gave it space, so that it fell
and was mercifully trampled out of pain and life.
For five deadly minutes they pressed on hopelessly and gallantly, while
the leaden hail hissed from either flank and from in front into the
congested horsemen; but at the end the Turks broke and fled in all
directions, some up the hill where Niketas's troops, still untouched
and unattacked, were stationed, others up the hill-side opposite, which
still spurted and blazed with muskets. There every bush was an armed
man, every stone a red flower of flame. But the rush could not be
stopped any more than a rush even of cattle or sheep can be withstood
by armed men. The Turks fled, scattering in all directions, northward
for the most part towards Corinth, where they would find safety, and
the Greeks troubled not to pursue, but shot as a man shoots at driven
deer. Almost simultaneously with the breaking of the troops, those
of the cavalry who had passed the first ranks of the Mainats who
guarded the wall, once of stones, but now a heap of men and horses,
succeeded, in spite of the steady fire of the rear ranks and with the
cool courage of desperation, in clearing some sort of passage round by
the stream-bed, which was now fuller than it had been, but red and with
a froth of blood, and through this some four hundred of the cavalry
passed. They drove the Mainats from the barricade with much slaughter,
forcing them up the two hill-sides which bounded the ravine, and
charging forward passed the other ranks without sustaining heavy loss,
and made their way into the open ground, reaching Corinth that night.
Dramali's cavalry had been divided into two parts, the larger of which
formed the vanguard. Of these four hundred had passed through that
valley of death, of the rest the red and fuller flowing stream gave
account. Behind them had followed the first division of the infantry,
some three thousand men, now scattered over the armed hillsides, and
behind again the baggage mules and camels. Dramali himself rode with
the second division of the cavalry, some three hundred yards behind,
and the rear was brought up by the remainder of his foot-soldiers.
He himself had been checked in the lower part of the pass by the
congestion in front, and waited in vain to move again. Aides-de-camp
were sent off to ascertain the cause of this contravention of his
orders, but before any came back, the sight of the hill-sides, covered
with flying men, brought him quicker and more eloquent message.
He paused a moment, then in nervous anger drove his spurs into his
horse, and checked it again, biting the ends of his long mustache.
"Why do they not go forward?" he said. And again, "Why are they
scattering?" Then, with a sudden spurt of anger, "Oh, the dogs!" he
cried; "dogs, to be chased by dogs!" But the fire in his words was only
ash.
He looked round on the calm, impassive faces of his staff, men for
the most part without the bowels of either mercy or fear, who would
meet death with as perfect an indifference as they would mete it out
to others. The absolute nonchalance of their expression, their total
disregard of what might happen to them, struck him into a childish kind
of frenzy, for he was of different make.
"If we push on, we all die," he said, in a sort of squeal; "and if we
turn back, what next?"
At that the officer near him turned his head aside, hiding a smile, but
before Dramali had time to notice it a fresh movement of the Greeks
from in front made up his mind for him. Those under Niketas, on the
left of the pass, were seen pouring down off the hill on to the road,
and almost before the Turks saw what was happening had cut his army
in two, drawing themselves up just behind the baggage animals, hardly
three hundred yards in front of the second division of the cavalry with
whom Dramali rode. That was enough for the Serashier. Dearly as he
loved his battery of silver saucepans, his embroidered armor, and all
the appliances of a pasha, he loved one thing better, and that at least
was left him; he was determined to save it as long as possible.
"Back to Argos!" he screamed. "Let the infantry open out; the cavalry
will go first." And putting his spurs to his horse he fairly forced
his way back, and not drawing bridle, rode through the scorched plains
which he had passed that morning, and by twelve o'clock was back at
Argos again.
On that afternoon and all the next day he remained there in a feverish
stupor of inaction, crying aloud at one time that Allah was dead, and
the world given over to the hands of the infidels, at another that the
ships were already at Nauplia, and that he would march there. Then it
would seem that the world only contained one thing of importance--and
that a certain narghile of his with a stem studded with turquoise and
moonstone--and that this had fallen into the hands of the Greeks. Let
them send quickly and say that he would give an oke of gold for it,
and two Greek slaves of his which had been taken at Kydonies: one was
sixteen, and the other only fourteen; they were worth their weight in
gold for their beauty only, and Constantine, the elder, made coffee
as it could only be made in paradise. Let Constantine come at once and
make him some coffee. Anyhow, Constantine and coffee were left him, and
nothing else mattered.
Two days later the remnant of the Turkish force again started for
Corinth. This time Dramali, who had abated a little his contempt for
the Greek dogs, making up the complement in fearful haste, took the
precaution to send forward an advance-guard during the night, who
should find out if any of the passes were unoccupied. The Greeks under
Niketas, who were in no hurry to engage the Turks again--for, since
their escape was impossible, they could afford to wait--were still
holding the pass which the Turks had attempted to cross two days
before, and the reconnoitring party of Dramali found the road farther
away to the east unoccupied. Niketas, when it was seen which way they
were going, hastened across to secure a repetition of what had gone
before, and making his way over the hills, again stopped the advance.
But the road here was wider, lying between hills less easy to occupy,
and the Turkish cavalry, by a brilliant charge, won their way through
and escaped to Corinth, abandoning the remainder of the infantry and
the rest of the baggage. On them the Greeks settled like a cloud of
stinging insects, and that evening Constantine, the coffee-maker of
paradise, exercised his functions in the house of his father, a refugee
from Kydonies, who had taken service with Niketas.
Thus the great scheme came to an end, a pricked bubble, a melting of
snow in summer. No ships had yet appeared off Nauplia, and Dramali's
invincible army, which waited for them, had come and gone. The eager,
hungry eyes of those besieged in Nauplia starved and watched in vain,
and to the hungry mouths the food was scantier. Slowly and inevitably
the cause of the people, in the hands no more of incompetent leaders,
was gaining ground against the intolerable burden of those heartless
and lustful masters, and link by link the chain of slavery was snapping
and falling as the husks burst and fall from corn already mature and
ripe.