The _Sophia_ and the _Revenge_, as Mitsos had seen, had come to Nauplia
a week ago, but neither he nor yet the Capsina herself could have
fully explained why they remained there. Indeed, the girl seemed to be
wrestling with some strange seizure of indecision. She would determine
to go after the Turkish vessels which had sailed, for Patras; again,
she would say that she would remain blockading Nauplia till it was
taken. She had heard that Mitsos was with those who held the citadel of
Argos, and it seemed impossible to her to leave Nauplia until he was
out; then, when news came that the defenders had joined the camp at
Lerna, there was still another reason that detained her. She felt she
must see Suleima; why, it puzzled her to say, except that some fever of
jealous curiosity possessed her. Yet the days went by, and every day
saw her unable to do that most simple thing--namely, to walk up to the
white house which had been pointed out to her, a magnet to her eyes,
say she was the Capsina and the very good friend of Mitsos, and be
received with honor and affection, both for her own sake and for his.
Meantime no urgent call bade her leave Nauplia; the Turkish fleet would
soon be back from Patras, and it was as well to wait here as to go
cruising after them; only it was unlike her to prefer to wait when to
cruise after them would have done as well. They must certainly pass up
the Gulf of Nauplia, and those narrow waters were a model battle-field
for light-helmed ships like hers, and cramping to the heavy and
cumbrous Turkish vessels. Thus she told herself, as was true, that in
all probability, even if there had never been a lad called Mitsos, she
would have waited there. Then fate, pitying her indecision, took the
helm out of her hands and steered her straight for Suleima, and in
this wise.
It was the evening after Dramali's first evacuation of Argos. All
morning they had heard the sound of firing coming drowsily across the
water, and before noon had seen the body of Turks who, with Dramali,
had escaped back to Argos across the plain again, but as yet there was
no certain news of what had happened. But about five of the afternoon
more authentic tidings came: there had been a great slaughter; the
Turks had broken and fled, the most towards Corinth, but that some
hundreds of them, this being unknown to Niketas, had collected on the
hills, and despairing of getting through to Corinth, were marching
towards Nauplia, with the object, no doubt, of seeking safety--and
starvation had they known it--in the citadel.
Now, though this was a mad and impracticable scheme, yet there was
great disquietude in the news. The women and children of the Greeks who
were besieging Nauplia were largely gathered on the hill of Tiryns,
some two miles from the gate, and defenceless. Tiryns lay on the route
of the Turks, and three hundred yards farther up the road away from
Nauplia stood the white house.
The Capsina was on the quay when the news came, the impassive Kanaris
with her. She sent him off at once to the ships with orders to bring
both crews back armed, leaving only a few in charge. Already women and
children from Tiryns were beginning to pour, a panic-stricken crowd,
with all they could carry of their household gear, into the town, with
confirmation of the approach of the Turks. A shepherd lad feeding his
sheep on the lower hills had fled before them, leaving his flock behind
him; there were not less than three hundred of them.
The Capsina's men were the first to start; another contingent drawn off
from the besieging troops were to follow. They were to march straight
to Tiryns and guard the place through the night, and in the morning
they would be relieved. There still remained many Greek women and
children there, and the place was also a sort of hospital for sick men
from Argos and Corinth; and the Capsina's eye blazed.
"Women, children, and wounded men!" she cried, "a tit-bit for Turks!"
Kanaris had done his utmost to persuade her not to come with them. If
the news was true, and the Turks attacked Tiryns, there would be wild,
hazardous fighting in the dark, each man for himself, no work for a
woman. There were no sort of fortifications or even houses at the
place; the people lived in wry-set rows of pole booths, roofed in with
branches and maize-stalks. The Turks would enter where they pleased.
But the girl only laughed.
"It is as well to die one way as another," she said, "and this is one
of the better ways. Besides, I mean to sail the _Revenge_ many times
yet. Oh man, but I killed five Turks at Porto Germano; and had it not
been for Mitsos, the fifth would have killed me. I was happy that day.
If God is good, I will kill five more. One was as big as you, Kanaris,
and fatter by half."
The sky was already growing dusky red with sunset when they set
off. The land-breeze had set in shrill and steady, rattling the dry
maize-fields, whistling in the stubborn aloes and cactuses along the
road, and whispering in the poplars. Here and there they passed little
knots of women flying into Nauplia, all with the same tale. The Turks
were undoubtedly coming, and there were still many left in the town;
they had been seen not two miles off, and that ten minutes ago.
A gaunt set of apparitions awaited them at the place, men shaking with
fever, leaning on crutches, with bandaged arms and swathed heads.
Some few only had muskets, the most part short knives, but many only
stakes of wood, pointed and hardened in the fire. A crowd of women and
children, crying and bewailing themselves, hung about them, unable to
make up their minds to face the perils of the dark road into Nauplia,
and convinced that Turks were in ambush there. They clung to the men,
now beseeching them not to desert them, now begging them not to fight
but to surrender. What chance had they against three hundred armed men?
To these the sight of the Capsina and her sailors was like a draught of
wine.
"Praise the Virgin," cried one, "it is the Capsina!" And she fell on
the girl's neck, sobbing hysterically.
The Capsina disengaged herself.
"There is no time to lose," she said to Kanaris. "Take the women off,
and put them in the centre. The attack will be from the north; at least
they come from there. These men are useless. Man!" she cried, turning
to one, "if your arm shake so, you will as like cut off your own head
as the head of a Turk. Get you with the women. You too, and you!"
The second contingent from Nauplia had not yet arrived, and even while
the Capsina spoke a man from a farm near, half dressed and bleeding
from a wound in the hand, rushed in saying that the Turks had pillaged
his house. He had escaped from there with a sword-cut; they were not
two hundred yards off. The last of the women were pressing into the
centre of the town, and there was only one child left, a boy about
three years old, who was clinging, with howls, to his father, a gaunt,
fever-stricken man, but capable of using a knife. The Capsina spoke to
the child.
"Father will come to you if you will go with the others," she said. "Oh
laddie, let go of him. Take charge of the child," she said to the last
of the women. "Mind, I leave him with you."
She paused a moment, listening. Above the whistling of the wind could
be heard the tramp of feet along the road.
"The others are not here yet," she said. "These feet come from the
north. To your posts along the huts by the north, three men together!
There are no other orders except to kill; that only, and to save the
women."
The men filed off quickly, but without confusion, but before more than
half had gone there came a sudden rush from outside, and a band of
Turks poured up the narrow lane of booths. For a few moments the two
crowds surged together without fighting-room, then they broke up right
and left into the narrow alleys, fighting in groups. The Capsina found
herself wedged up in the crowd, a Turk between her and the door-post
of one of the huts, each staring wildly at the other, and neither able
to move. Then, as the pressure behind grew greater, the door-post gave
under the weight, and they both tumbled headlong in. The Capsina's
pistol went off wildly in the air, a musket-bullet whistled by her, and
the hut was suddenly full of smoke. She had fallen straight across the
man, but in a moment she struggled to her knees and stabbed fiercely at
something soft below her. The soft thing quivered and was still, and
something warm spurted onto her hand with a soft hot gush.
At that the madness of fresh blood took possession of her, and she
laughed softly, a gentle, cooing, cruel laugh, like in spirit to the
purring of a wild cat which has killed its evening meal and is pleased,
not only with the thought of the satisfaction of its hunger, but with
having killed. She stayed still a moment, the silent centre of the
shouting confusion outside, waiting to see if the man moved again.
Outside the fight had surged and wavered and moved away, and though she
was on her feet again in less than a minute from the time when she and
her prey had fallen together headlong into the hut, she looked out to
find the little alley, where the first rush had been made, empty except
for a few forms which lay on the ground, and a Turk who was leaning
against the post of a hut opposite, in the shadow of death. His side
had been laid open by a sword-cut, and he was trying, but very feebly,
because he was already a dead man, to stanch the flow of blood. Looking
up he saw the Capsina, his mouth gathered in a snarl, and with an
effort he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. But it had already
been fired, and he threw it from him with a grunt of disgust and took
no more notice of her. And she laughed again.
Listening, she heard the turmoil of the fight sweeping away round to
the east of the hill, and she was just about to dash off again to
rejoin the rest when up the lane by which the Turks had entered came a
woman with a baby in her arms. In the dim light of the stars and the
grayness before the rising of the moon the Capsina could not clearly
see her face, only she was tall. The baby was hidden under the shawl
in which her head was wrapped; she carried it on her left arm, and
in her right hand she held a pistol. Then catching sight of the Turk
opposite propped against the hut door, she paused a moment and pushed
noiselessly but with all her weight against the door of another hut,
seeking shelter.
The Capsina came out of the shadow and beckoned to her.
"Here, come in here," she said; "but why are you not with the other
women?"
The woman sank down in a corner of the hut, and then swiftly got up
again.
"What is it here?" she said. "There is some one here!"
The Capsina laughed again.
"Limbs and a body," she said. "A Turk. I killed him. Where are you
from?"
"From a house near," she said. "I left it in haste, and had to hide
in a ditch till the Turks passed. I saw the Greeks from Nauplia enter
here, and I thought I should be safer with them than on the road."
A question was on the Capsina's lips, but at that moment a Turk came
by within a yard of the door of the hut, and seeing a comrade lying
opposite, spoke to him. The Capsina had drawn Suleima into a corner,
but stood herself opposite the door. She saw the wounded Turk raise his
head feebly and point at the door of the hut where she was, and on the
instant the other put up his musket in act to fire. But the Capsina was
the quicker--had the man passed by, she would not have risked a shot,
for she and Suleima were alone there, but she guessed what that pointed
finger meant--and while yet the man's musket was but half way to his
shoulder, he fell, shot to the heart.
She handed back the pistol to Suleima, with her case of powder and
bullets, while the child crowed with delight at the flash of the fire.
"Give me your pistol," she said, "if it is loaded, and load mine again
if you know how. That child should be a soldier some day."
She stepped swiftly out of the hut, and without a quiver of a muscle
pointed the pistol at the wounded Turk's head.
"I should have shot you at once," she said, and then with the smoking
pistol in her hand stepped quickly back into the hut, leaving the thing
fallen forward like a broken toy, thinking only of her unasked question.
Still she could not frame her lips to it, and Suleima having loaded the
pistol handed it back to her.
"You have save my life and that of the littlest and dearest," she said.
"I kiss your hand for it, and thank you from my heart."
But the Capsina drew her hand quickly away.
"I could do no less," she said, shortly, "but I want to ask you--"
Suddenly the child broke out into a little wailing cry, and Suleima
turned to it.
"Oh littlest Mitsos," she said, "hush you, my little one. The father
never cried when he was such as you."
The Capsina stood quite still, and suddenly her throat felt dry and
burning.
"The child's name is Mitsos?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Surely, after the name of his father."
The two girls could not see each other in the darkness of the hut, but
for a moment Suleima thought she felt the other's hand touching the
baby lightly, and there was silence for a space.
"You did not seem frightened when you came in here," said the Capsina,
at length.
"I had no time or thought to spare for fright. I had the child with me."
A great burst of shouting broke out at the moment, and the Capsina rose
to her feet.
"It is the others from Nauplia," she said.
Then from no long distance her name was called out, and she went to the
door of the hut.
"Kanaris--is it Kanaris?" she cried. "I am here and safe."
Kanaris ran up, breathless and bloody, and more enthusiastic than his
wont.
"It is all over," he panted; "we have driven them out of the village,
and the rest from Nauplia are seeing to those who have escaped. Surely
you bear the good luck with you, Capsina."
"That is as God wills!" Then lowering her voice: "I am attending to a
woman in here, a Greek. Take command of the men, Kanaris, and leave me
here. We stop here till morning, and let a good watch be kept. Ay, man,
I have killed three Turks, one with the knife and two with the pistol."
Then she went back into the hut again and sat down by Suleima.
"Your name is Suleima, then," she said, in a cold and steady voice,
"and your husband's name Mitsos Codones?"
"Surely," said Suleima. "Oh littlest, hush you, and sleep."
"Give me the child," said the Capsina, suddenly, with a cruel choking
in her throat; "let me hold it. Children are good with me."
She almost snatched the baby out of Suleima's arms, and in the darkness
Suleima, wondering and silent, heard her kissing it again and again,
and heard that her breath sobbed as she drew it.
In truth the stress and tempest of the impossible battling with the
heart's desire had burst on the girl. At one moment she wondered that
her hand did not take up the loaded pistol that lay beside her and kill
Suleima as she sat there, and at another that she loved the woman who
was loved of Mitsos, and could have found it in her heart to kiss her
and cling to her as she had clung to the baby. So this was she whom
so strange a pathway had led to her, this Suleima, whom she had seen
so often in the visions painted by her imagination. She had pictured
herself a hundred times meeting Suleima, killing her, and passing
on with the road clear to Mitsos at the end of it. She had pictured
Suleima coming to her for safety from the Turks, she had heard herself
say: "You come to me for safety?" and laughing in her face at the
thought and turning her back to where some hell of death received
her. She had seen Suleima a dull hen-wife, fond of Mitsos, no doubt,
and clever at the making of jam. What she had not seen was a woman,
motherly like this, yet not afraid, a pistol in one hand, the little
one on the other arm. Here they were, sitting together in the deserted
hut, they two and the baby and the dead Turk, who sprawled on the
floor, and yet she fulfilled none of these visions. The knowledge that
Suleima had heard her name called by Kanaris, the suspicion that she
had betrayed herself, troubled her not at all; the child was Mitsos's,
and she devoured it with kisses.
Suleima sat silent, and by degrees the Capsina grew more quiet. Her
breath came evenly again, and only now and then a sudden sob caught in
her throat. Suleima had heard Kanaris call the other's name, and the
truth and solution of the situation were instantly flashed into her
mind. Her sweet and womanly nature, her utter trust in Mitsos, and the
enthusiastic honor in which she held the Capsina for her brave deeds,
struck out of her mind all possibility of jealousy, and she was only
sorry, deeply and largely sorry, for this wonderful girl with whose
name all mouths were full. At last, not being very clever and being
very honest, she laid her hand on the Capsina's knee.
"I am so sorry," she said. "Believe me, I am very sorry."
The Capsina sat perfectly still and rigid for a moment, and then with a
sudden spasm of ungovernable anger her hand leaped out and she struck
Suleima on the face.
"You lie!" she cried. "Take back the baby. You lie!"
Suleima took the baby and got up. The blow, delivered in the dark, had
nearly missed her, but her ear was tingling with the Capsina's fingers
as they flashed past. The other sat still.
"Capsina," she said, "you have saved my life. I am wholly yours to
command at any time. I can say no more. Good-night, and may the Holy
Virgin watch over you."
She moved a step towards the door of the hut and would have gone out,
when suddenly the gates of the Capsina's heart were flung wide.
"Ah, no, no!" she cried; "Suleima, wait. What can I do? I am sorry and
ashamed--I who have never been ashamed before. Wait; do not go. Sit
down. Where did I strike you? Indeed I did not mean it; my hand came
and went before I knew it. Sit down again--and first, you forgive me?"
Suleima came back, and knelt by the girl.
"Forgive you? That is easily done, and it is done. The thing was not,"
she said, "and the fault was mine. I should not have said that. See,
take the baby again. That will show, will it not, that there is nothing
between you and me?"
The Capsina took the baby again, and began to sob hopelessly and
helplessly. Suleima sat close to her and put her arm round her.
"It comes ill from me to say it, Capsina," she said, "but we both love
the lad; and is not that a bond of union between us? And he--you should
have heard him speak of you! If ever I could be jealous, it would be of
you I was jealous. There is none in the world to compare with you he
says."
"Ah, what does that matter?" sobbed the girl. "It is not that I want.
It is he. Strike back if you will. It is monstrous I should say that to
you. Oh, baby! littlest Mitsos! Mitsos! Mitsos!"
And she fell to kissing the child again.
"I have been a brute, a brute!" she wailed. "I would have taken
him from you if I could. I would have tempted him, only he was not
temptable. Often and often I would have killed you, often I have killed
you in my thoughts. How can you trust me? I am unclean. How can you let
me touch the child? I shall defile it. Take it back! No, let me hold it
a little longer. It does not know who I am. Do not teach it to curse
me."
Suleima laughed gently.
"It is an ignorant little one, and knows little," she said, "but he can
say 'father' and 'mother,' and one other word. How quiet the child is
with you, Capsina. Sometimes he fights me as if I was a Turk. Wake,
little Mitsos. Say 'Capsina.'"
From the darkness came a little treble staccato pipe:
"Cap-sin-a."
"Mitsos taught him that," continued Suleima. "When he was home from the
cruise with you, he would sit with the little one in his arms for an
hour at a time, saying 'Capsina, Capsina,' to it. Ay, but it is a great
baby I have for a husband!"
The girl rocked the child to and fro gently.
"Say it again, little one," she whispered, "say 'Capsina.' I know
not why that is so sweet to me," she continued to Suleima, when the
child had piped her name again, "but somehow it seems to put me more
intimately with him and you. Surely he would not have taught the child
my name if he was not my friend. So clearly can I see him doing it,
sitting there by the hour smoking, and lazier than a tortoise. Indeed,
he is a baby himself; we used to play child-games on the _Revenge_ when
we sailed from Hydra, and laughed instead of talked."
"He has told me," said Suleima--"he has told me often!"
After that they sat for a while in silence. Now and then one of the
women of the village would go by the illuminated square of the door,
or one of the Greek sentries would pass on his round, whistling softly
to himself. Otherwise the world was a stillness. The moon was risen,
and little bars and specks of light filtered in through the roof of
branch and bough. The body of the Turk, still lying where he had
fallen, sprawled in the other corner, but neither of the women seemed
to notice it. An extraordinary sense of effort over had possession of
the Capsina; she had betrayed herself, and that to the one woman in the
world to whom she would have thought it impossible to speak. Her pride,
her strong, self-sufficient reserve, her secret, which she thought she
would have died to keep, had been surrendered without conditions, and
the captor was very merciful. She was tired of struggling, she had laid
down her arms. And it was wonderfully sweet to hold Mitsos's child....
It was not easy for her to speak, but when a reserved nature breaks
down it breaks down altogether, and when she spoke again she held
nothing back.
"Even so," she said. "I loved him as soon as I saw him, and I love him
still. But in this last hour I do not know how a certain bitterness
has been withdrawn; perhaps the bitterness of hatred which was mixed
up with it, for I hated you, and you were part of Mitsos. That is your
doing--you would not let me hate you, and indeed it is not often that I
am compelled like that. And now, Suleima, get you home. I will send a
couple of men with you to see you safe; but the Turks are gone. There
is no danger."
"You will come with me, Capsina?" asked the other. "Will you not sleep
at the house to-night?"
"I must wait here with my men." She hesitated a moment. "But do you ask
me? Do you really ask me?"
"Ah, I hoped you would come," said Suleima, smiling. "You will come,
will you not? Did I not hear you tell Kanaris he was in charge this
night?"
"And may I still carry the little one?"
"Will you not find him heavy?"
"Heavy? And do you never carry the little one because he is too heavy?"
And she got up quickly and moved towards the door. There Suleima paused
a moment.
"Shall we not say a word for those whom you have killed?" she said.
"It is kinder, and they will offend us no more. So send peace to their
souls, thrice holy Mother of God!"
She crossed herself thrice, and followed the Capsina out. The moon had
already risen high towards the zenith, and shone with a very pure,
clear light. Like a caressing and loving hand, it touched the sun-dried
and bowlder-sown ground between them and the road; it was poured out
like a healing lotion over its roughness, and lay on it with a cooling
touch. The noises of the night joined in chorus to make up the one
great silence of the night. A bird fluted at intervals from the trees,
frogs croaked in the marshes below, an owl swept by with a whisper of
white wings and a long-drawn hoot. Below lay the bay, an unemblazoned
shield of silver, and on the left hand the fires of the Greeks round
Nauplia pierced red holes in the dark promontory. A falling star, ever
a good omen to the peasants, shot and faded in the western sky, and the
stream that ran through the vineyards towards the marsh spoke quietly
to itself, like one talking in sleep. And something of the spirit of
the stillness touched the Capsina's soul. The great impossible thing
was not less impossible nor less to be desired, but she had not known
till now how aggravating and chafing a thing it had been to feel this
wild, vague hatred against Suleima. That had gone. She could no more
hate this brave, beautiful girl, who had treated her with so large
and frank a courtesy, with such true and stingless sympathy, than she
could have hated Mitsos himself. Only an hour ago it would have seemed
to her that pity or sympathy from Suleima would be the crown of her
rank offence; now it was a thing that soothed and strengthened. Her
pride did not disdain it; it was too gracious and large-hearted to be
disdained. And the baby slept against her heart, that baby with its
three words--father, mother, Capsina.
The two passed through the garden and into the veranda. The house-door
was open, as Suleima had left it in her flight, and on the threshold
she paused for the Capsina to enter first.
"You are welcome," she said; and then, in the courteous phrase she had
heard in Abdul's house; "The house is yours."
Suleima would have made a bed for the Capsina in Father Andréa's room,
who was away in Nauplia, but the girl asked if she might sleep with
her, and instead they went together to Suleima's room. A big double
mattress on a wooden frame was the bed; a little cot for the baby stood
at the foot of it. Mitsos's great plank washtub stood in a corner, and
there was a press for clothes. The moon shone full in at the window,
making a great splash like a spill of milk on the floor, and there was
no need for other light.
[Illustration: "THE SPIRIT OF THE STILLNESS TOUCHED THE CAPSINA'S
SOUL"]
Suleima was tired and soon fell asleep, but the Capsina lay long with
eyes closed, but intensely awake. A mill-race of turbulent, unasked-for
thoughts whirled and dashed down the channels of her brain; she
clinched her hands and bit her lips to keep them away--to keep her even
from crying aloud. The blood and flesh of her, young, tingling, and
alert, was up in revolt, lashing itself against the hard, cruel bars of
circumstance. She ought never to have come here to sleep where he had
slept; she had done a stupid and sweet thing, and she was paying for it
heavily. At last she could stand it no longer, and rising very quietly
for fear of disturbing Suleima, she dressed again and let herself out
of the house.
The hour of her weakness was upon her, and she lived back into the
years of childhood, when one thing will make the world complete and
its absence is an inconsolable ache. Like a child, too, she abandoned
herself to the imperativeness of her need; nothing else would satisfy;
nothing else was ever so faintly desirable. Yet she could only stretch
out her hands to the night, every fibre of her tingling, and the silent
cry, "I want, I want!" went up beseechingly, hopelessly, into the
indifferent moonlight, a dumb, dry litany of supplication, not only to
Heaven, but to all the cool sleeping earth; to tree, bush, stream--all
that knew him. But after a while she saw and scorned herself. Where
were all the great schemes and deeds in which she shared? Was their
magnificence a whit impaired because she, an incomparably small atom,
was in want of one thing? And by degrees made sane, and weary with
struggle, she came to herself, and going back into the house, lay down
again by Suleima; and when morning came Suleima was loath to wake her,
for she slept so sound and peacefully, so evenly her bosom marked her
quiet breathing.
Waking brought an hour of sweet and bitter things to the girl; washing
and dressing the boy was almost wholly sweet, and never before had
that sunny child of love been so laughed over and kissed. The Capsina
showed what was to the experienced mother the strangest ignorance of
the infant toilet, and even the adorable creases in his own pink skin
and the ever-new wonder of his ten divisible and individual toes palled
in grave interest to the owner before these new and original methods.
Sweeter even than that was the unprompted staccato, "Cap-sin-a,
Cap-sin-a," "like a silly parrot," so said Suleima. Indeed, the girl
was truly a woman, though the profound judge, Mitsos, had given her a
sex all to herself, and the little household duties so lovingly done by
Suleima were a keen pleasure to her to watch and assist in. And after
they had breakfasted she still lingered.
"Let me wait a little longer," she said to Suleima; "but I will not
wait unless you promise to do all you would do if I was not here."
So Suleima, to whom the mending and patching of Mitsos's clothes was a
Danaid labor, went into the house, and came out again on to the veranda
with an armful of his invalid linen. There were holes to be patched in
trousers, tears to be sewn in shirts, and places worn thin to be pieced.
"This is what I do when I have nought else to do," she said. "Yet if
I had twenty hands, and no work for any of them, I believe I should
never get to the end. The great loon seems never to sit down except
as on a nail. Last month only he put his pipe, all alight, into his
coat-pocket. Right through the lining went the burn, and right through
his shirt, and he never knew it until the fire nipped him."
The Capsina laughed.
"How like him! Oh, how very like him!" she said. "May I help you? Yet,
indeed, I think I have forgotten how to sew."
Suleima gave her a shirt to mend, off the arm of which Mitsos had torn
a great piece--"as like as not to light the pipe that burned him," said
his wife--and a very poor job she made of it. She held it up to Suleima
in deprecating dismay when she had finished it, and Suleima laughed to
choking.
"No, you shall not better it," she said, as the Capsina prepared to rip
off the piece again. "Indeed, it shall stop as it is, and Mitsos shall
wear it like that. He shall know who did it, and then perhaps he will
think the higher of my fingers."
And she snatched it out of the Capsina's hands and ran with it into the
house, where she put it among the finished linen, where he should find
it, and stare in wonder at this preposterous housewifery.
The Capsina had not tried her hand at any further job when she
returned, and presently after she rose.
"I must get back," she said, "for at ten we must be on the road to
Nauplia. Oh, Suleima!" She paused, and the unshed tears stood in her
black eyes. "I have not skill at speaking," she said, "and when the
heart is full the words choke each other. But it is this: you have made
me different; you have made me better."
Suleima stood a moment with that brilliant, happy smile in her eyes,
her mouth serious and sweet. Then she threw her arms round the girl's
neck and kissed her.
"You will be happy," she said, with her face close to hers and looking
in her eyes. "Promise me you will be happy, for indeed that is among
the first things I desire."
The Capsina shook her head.
"I cannot promise that," she said, "and I do not know if it matters
much. But I will be brave, or try to be, and I will try to be good.
Luckily I have much to do."
"You will take Mitsos again?" asked Suleima.
"If he will come--if you will let him come."
"I let him come?" and she laughed. "I think I have not made myself
plain."
They stood there a moment longer, cheek to cheek, and then the Capsina
gently drew away.
"Good-bye," she said. "But I will come again before I leave Nauplia."
And she went quickly down the garden path, paused a moment at the gate,
looking back, then stepped out along the white sun-stricken road.