The sum of Greek energy, like that of Turkey, had now for many weeks
been entirely centred round Nauplia. The Sultan had seen months ago
that to command Nauplia and hold it an open port was an iron hand on
the Peloponnese, and by degrees the Greeks had learned so too. The
town had now been blockaded for four months; irregular but efficient
troops had guarded all the passes of communication between Nauplia and
Corinth; and now, when the Turkish navy turned back out of the gulf
after its abortive effort and disgraceful abandonment of the town,
Miaulis did not pursue, but took his fleet up the gulf, so that, should
the faint-hearted Turk return, he would find the entrance to Nauplia
shut and locked by the whole Greek squadron. There Kanaris joined the
Capsina again, and, as both she and Mitsos, as well as he, preferred
to cruise after the retiring fleet, in the hope of doing some wayside
damage to them, to remaining inactive at Nauplia, they obtained leave
to follow. The rest, however, supposing that the fall of the town was
inevitable, and justly desiring that they who had prevented the fleet
coming to its rescue should share in the spoil, remained in the gulf
out of shot of the Turkish guns in the fort, and waited for the end.
So once again the _Revenge_ and the _Sophia_ started on the Turkish
trail in the eastern sea. The Ottoman fleet had passed outside Hydra,
giving it a wide berth, for they feared another stinging nest of wasps,
and the day after the two Greek ships passed close under its lee, so
as to cut off a corner from the path taken by the enemy's fleet, for,
having left Hydra, their course was certainly to Constantinople. To the
Capsina the island seemed remote and distant from her life, external to
it. A lounging lad had come between her and it, and to her he loomed
gigantic and larger than life. Yet though he was all her nearer field
of vision, she knew him further than all, and when she thought of it an
incommunicable loneliness was the food of her heart.
The day after passing Hydra the Turkish fleet, huddled together like a
flock of sheep and guarded by its great clumsy men-of-war, which sailed
in a half circle, with brigs and schooners as vanguard, again came into
sight, advancing slowly northward, evidently heading, as they expected,
for Constantinople. Kanaris landed at his native island, Psara, and
there bought a couple of rickety and hardly seaworthy caiques. They
were good enough, however, for the purpose for which he wanted them,
and after spending half a day there purchasing the necessary oil and
fuel for a fire-ship they went northward again after the Turks, and
caught them up only when they were clear of the archipelago. The
two Greek brigs kept well out of range of the big Turkish guns, for
their own were but light in comparison, and they would have to come
perilously close to the big men-of-war to fire with effect.
Day after day the wind was so light a breath that it would have been
impossible to approach with the fire-ships, except very slowly,
whereas speed was almost an essential to success; moreover, in the
open seas, two caiques coming up from two rakish-looking brigs might
have attracted the attention even of the indolently minded. So they
waited, keeping out to the west of the Turks, till they should approach
the northern group of islands outside the Hellespont. There, with the
shelter of the land near, and the probability of squally winds from
the high ground of the Troad, a favorable opportunity might offer.
Mitsos and Kanaris were to sail the one; the other was intrusted to two
Psarian sailors, who professed to know their use.
That month of attendance-dancing on the Turks was strangely pleasant
to the Capsina. Since her interview with Suleima her self-control
had begun to be a habit with her, a sort of crust over the fire of
her passion, which, so to speak, would bear the weight of daily and
hourly sociability with Mitsos. For days she had fed herself on a diet
of wisdom, taking the dose, like a sick man, in pills and capsules;
tasteless it seemed, and useless, yet the course was operative. He,
now that the Capsina was a friend of the family, spoke often of his
wife to the girl, and by degrees such talk was less bitter to her in
the hearing. She had faced the inevitable, and in a manner accepted
it, and though the sight of the lad and the touch of him was no less
keenly dear, though all that he was held an incomparable charm for her,
she knew now that what was so much to her was nothing to him. He, for
his part, was in his customary exuberance of boyishness, and she, with
a control not less heroical, showed a lightness and naturalness which
could not but deceive him, so normal was the manner of her intercourse
with him.
By the 1st of November they were passing Lesbos on the east; on the
4th--for day by day went by without more than an hour or two of breeze
in its circle of windless hours--the island was still a blue cloud on
the southeast. Next day, however, they began to feel the backwater from
the current out of the Hellespont which moves up the coast, and Kanaris
knew that there was one chance more only before the ships reached the
mouth of the straits and were safe under the castles which guarded it.
That day he came on board the _Revenge_, which towed the two caiques,
with the Psarians who were to sail the second, and laid his plans
before the Capsina.
"All hangs," he said, "on whether they take the narrow channel between
Tenedos and the land or go outside the island. If they go outside, we
shall have to make an attempt in the open sea, and that I do not like
the littlest bit, for they cannot have failed to see the _Revenge_,
so that we must seem to approach from her; and indeed by now, when a
caique comes from a Greek brig, they know what that caique means."
"You mean you will have a long sail first," said the Capsina, "and a
long row afterwards."
"That, and not only that," said Kanaris, "the whole fleet will see us
in the open, so we must make the attempt by night, which is far less
sure a job."
"It happened in the gulf of Nauplia," remarked Mitsos.
"They were not acquainted with fire-ships then," said Kanaris, "whereas
now, between one thing and another, they are no longer strangers. But
if they pass between the island and the main-land, first, we have
better chance of a breeze; secondly, they cannot make the straits at
night, for they are narrow, and there is a current; therefore they
will anchor for the night, and we can approach very early in the
morning, and, in addition, the _Revenge_ can shelter unseen behind
the headlands, so that she will be near to us. Also the fleet will be
scattered; we can choose our ship, and run less risk from the rest."
Two days afterwards Tenedos rose from the north, but still no wind
sprang up, and the Turkish fleet sidled and lumbered along with sails
spread to catch the slightest breeze, but hanging all day idly. Next
morning, however, a brisker air sprang up from the west, and making
some five knots an hour, they drew rapidly closer. By three o'clock it
was already clear that the Turks meant to pass inside the island, and
the wind continuing, and showing signs of increasing towards nightfall,
the _Revenge_, which towed the caiques, stopped to pick up Kanaris
and the two Psarians, leaving the _Sophia_ hove to to wait for their
return. The wind had swept clear the sky, and the myriad stars made
a gray shimmering of brightness on the water, sufficient to sail by.
They carried no lights for an hour after sunset; the lanterns on the
Turks were visible, and, as Mitsos remarked, "where you can see lights,
thence can lights be seen."
Tenedos, comely in shape as a woman and tall, drew near, black against
the sky on their port bow. On the starboard bow were the lights of the
nearest Turkish ships, and, the wind still holding, they cast anchor
under shadow of the land, some mile away from where the Turks were
anchored. Like wolves they had followed the trail; here was the lair.
The night was very brisk and fresh, and the west wind sang through
the cool air. Under shelter of the land the water was smooth, and in
that mirror the stars shone and wheeled with scarcely less clearness
than overhead. A planet, low in the east, had risen above the hills of
the Troad, and traced across the water a silvery path, scarcely less
luminous than a young moon. Soon after midnight Kanaris and Mitsos cast
off in the one caique, the Psarians in the other, and, with the Capsina
waving them farewell and good luck, rowed out of the sheltered bay till
they should get the wind. But they had hardly gone a furlong from land
when the wind dropped again, and they were left becalmed. The current
of the backwater, however, drifted them gradually on, though diagonally
to the proper path, yet diminishing the distance between them and the
Turks. On the dropping of the wind a mist rose about mast high from
the surface of the water, and the lights from the Turkish ships showed
blurred and fogged. The ripples washed idly against the boat, rocking
it gently to and fro, otherwise they were in a vast silence.
Kanaris frowned and frowned; the man was a frown.
"It is the devil's work, Mitsos," he said. "There is nothing to be done
but to row in the darkness as near as we dare and wait for a wind.
If there is none an hour before dawn, we shall simply row up to the
nearest Turk and set light to the fire-ship. That will not please me."
"If there is no wind, where is the use?" asked Mitsos. "The flames will
rise straight; they will toast their bread in our fire and then spit at
it till it goes out."
"Also we cannot pick our vessel in the dark," said Kanaris. "Well, we
must do the best. Come, lad, row."
They rowed on cautiously and silently till the blurred lights began to
show clearer through the mist. The second caique was a little astern,
and soon joined the other. Kanaris told them what to do, and giving
Mitsos the first watch, he lay down, and sleep was on him as speedy and
calm as if he was in his own house at home.
Mitsos sat with an oar in his hand, by which he kept the same position
towards the light of the Turkish ships, whistled softly to himself,
and kept an eye on the Greek sailors' "beacon star," the dipping of
which was the signal for his waking Kanaris. Less phlegmatic than the
other, his heart beat full and fast at the risk and adventure of the
next day; he pictured to himself how they would run the ship in; he
contrasted with a shudder the pleasing excitement of this adventure
with the flaming horror of the other at Nauplia, and when the beacon
dipped he awoke Kanaris. The latter, wide awake at once, took the oar
from him and looked round.
"I dreamed there was a fine wind blowing," he said. "Good sleep to you,
little Mitsos."
It was in the aqueous light of that dim hour before dawn when Kanaris
awoke him. The air was tingling and cold, and the mist of the night was
drifting eastward. Between them and Tenedos to the west, a mile away,
the sea view was clear; in front a little mist still hung between them
and the nearest Turk; a furlong off farther to the east it was still
thick. Kanaris had a smile for him.
"Look," he said; "it is already clearing. Wet your finger, and you will
feel it cold from the west. Oh, Mitsos, my dream is true: the wind will
be here with the dawn. It and the dawn are waking together."
Mitsos sniffed with head thrown back.
"It is so," he said; "I smell it."
"There are two ships near us," said Kanaris, "both of the biggest kind.
The farther one you and I take, the nearer the Psarians. Pray God,
they are not utterly fools. With wind I would burn that ship with a
tobacco-pipe."
Mitsos smiled sleepily but hugely.
"A fine big tobacco-pipe is this caique," he said. "Are the sails
fastened?"
"I have done all while you slept," said Kanaris. "Look and see if it
satisfies you. The turpentine only remains. There are the cans; we will
do that now. After that no more tobacco."
"That is the drawback to fire-ships," said Mitsos.
Kanaris had nailed the sails to the mast so that they would stay there
burning till all the canvas was consumed, and fastened the yards with
chains so that they too would blaze until they were entirely burned,
and not drop. The brushwood he had piled in the bow, half-mast high,
and it only remained to pour the cans of turpentine over sails, deck,
and fuel. Even as they were thus employed the stars paled, and were
quenched, and with the first definite saffron light in the east a
sudden shiver shook the sails, and the boat lifted and moved a little.
After a moment another whisper came from the east; the sails flapped,
and then began to draw. Kanaris and Mitsos went to the stern, and then
Kanaris took the rudder, while Mitsos kindled an oil-lamp and soaked a
little dry moss with turpentine, wherewith to fire the ship. A sudden
rose flush leaped up to the zenith from the east; the boat rose to
a new-born ripple and came down with a cluck into the trough of it;
one star only, as if forgotten, hung unextinguished in the sky. The
wind had yet scarcely reached the Turkish ships, and they still hung
on their anchors, their stern swung round by the current, presenting
a starboard broadside to the wind, which now blew shrill and steady,
taking the caique along with hissing forefoot and strained canvas.
Already Kanaris and Mitsos had passed under the bows of the first
Turkish ship, and were not a hundred yards from the second when the
Psarian sailors set light too soon to their fire-ship, and, jumping
into the boat they towed behind, rowed away. Kanaris gave one grunt of
dissatisfaction, for he saw that they had miscalculated their time, and
that the fire-ship would only just catch in the bowsprit of the Turk,
and also that they had fired it too soon, giving the alarm perhaps to
the others. But the wind was brisk, and he had hardly turned his head
again, when Mitsos said quietly, "It is time."
Kanaris nodded, put the helm hard aport, and jumped into the boat
behind, as Mitsos thrust into the heap of brushwood at the bottom of
the mast the pile of burning moss he had kindled at the lantern. He had
calculated his distance to precision. The fire-ship struck as Mitsos
jumped, staggering with the shock, into the smaller boat, just abaft
the forechains, and was instantly glued to the side of the Turk by the
force of the wind. In a moment a pillar of flame leaped from the deck
to the top of her mast; an eddy of fire shot out like a sword-stroke
across the deck of the Turk. Next moment the brushwood in their bows
caught, and rose, a screaming curtain of fire, over the forepart of the
other. Nor was the fire-ship of the Psarians without use to them. It
had caught only in the bowsprit, and was even then drifting harmlessly
away to leeward; but at least it burned bravely and poured out dense
volumes of smoke, which, coming down the wind, hid them from their
victim. And half blinded and choked with it, yet grateful, they took up
their oars and rowed away south till they were a safe distance from the
anchored ships.
They did not stop till they were some half-mile from them, and then,
panting and exhausted, they paused and looked back. The flames were
well hold of the ship, and as they mounted and triumphed, they roared
with a great hollow uproar of bellowing.
Kanaris stroked his beard complacently.
"Will that be enough for them to toast their bread by, little Mitsos?"
he said. "I am thinking they will be toasting their souls in hell.
Satan will see to their fuel now, I am thinking."
But Mitsos, tender-hearted, felt a certain pity through his exultation.
"Poor devils!" he said.
And that was their requiem.
But the pity passed, and the exultation remained. The stories of Greek
fugitives, the monstrous sights he had himself seen at Elatina on
the roads, throughout the breadth and length of his land, had become
part of the lad's nature. Lust, rapacity, murder, crimes unspeakable
had here their answer in the swirling flame and stream of smoke which
stained the pearly beauty of that autumn morning. The wind had died
down again; for scarcely an hour, with divine fitness, had it blown,
and it seemed as if God had sent it just and solely for their deed. And
they watched their deed, a sign of fire. From other ships boats had put
off to try to rescue the doomed crew, yet as often as they got near the
fierce heat of the flames drove them back. A pillar of murky flames
swathed the masts, and even as they watched, one, eaten through at its
base by the fire, tottered and fell flickering overboard, carrying
with it a length of the charred bulwarks. Many leaped overboard, some
with their clothes on fire, but few reached the boats; planks started
from the deck, the bowsprit fell hissing into the sea, and before long
the boards opened great hissing cracks to the air. Then the destruction
reached the waterline. With a shrieking fizz the sea poured in, and in
smoke and steam, midway between fire and water, she began to sink, bows
first. The deck-beams jumped upward like children's jack-toys as the
compressed air forced them, guns broke loose and slid down the inclined
boards into the sea, and with a rending and bubbling she disappeared.
Kanaris watched in silence, with the air of an artist contemplating his
finished picture, and once again he fell on enthusiasm, which was rare
with him.
"Thus perish the enemies of Christ!" he cried. Then, half ashamed of
himself at this unwonted exhibition of feeling, "You and I did that,
little Mitsos," he said. "Shall we get back to the Capsina? For it is
finished."
Mitsos had been watching also in silence, with the thought that they
were of the race who had taken Suleima, had dishonored Nikola's wife,
burning like the ship he watched in his head, and as he took the first
stroke with his oar, "God give them their portion in hell!" he cried.
Kanaris laughed.
"Do not trouble yourself," he said; "it is certain."
By the time they were close in to the promontory behind which they
had left the Capsina, the stain of smoke had rolled away eastward,
and now hung over the Troad. The little breeze there was was from the
west, but hardly perceptible, and even if there had been any thought
of pursuit from the Turks, they could not have sailed after them. But
they must have been seen from the nearest ship, and while they were
still about a hundred yards from the promontory, a sudden spurt of fire
appeared at a port-hole of the ship which the Psarians had tried to
destroy, and before the report of the gun reached them, the shot, fired
horizontally, splashed like a great fish only two hundred yards from
them, and with a whistle and buffet of wind, ricochetted over their
heads and on to shore.
At that Kanaris laughed aloud, and Mitsos, standing up in the boat,
waved his cap with a cheer of derision. Then bending to their oars
again, they were soon behind the promontory.
They were received with shouts of triumph by the Capsina and the crew,
and the unsuccessful Psarians joined in their welcome to the full
extent of their heart and voice. Envy was dumb. Once had Mitsos, once
had Kanaris destroyed a man-of-war; now the two had destroyed another
together; and by the hands of the two not less than twenty-five hundred
Turks had perished. Kanaris came up on the deck first, and the Capsina
rushed at him with open arms, and kissed him hard on both cheeks. A
moment after Mitsos followed.
She ran to him, then stopped, and for a moment her eyes dropped.
She paused perceptibly; and he, flushed with triumph, joy and the music
of their welcome dancing in his eyes, stopped too. The color had been
struck suddenly from her face, and burned only in two bright spots on
her cheeks. But before he had time to wonder she recovered herself.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, little Mitsos!" she cried; and throwing her
arms round his neck, and drawing his head down, she kissed him as
she had kissed Kanaris. Her eyes were close to his; his short, crisp
mustache brushed the curve below her under-lip; his breath was warm on
her. And what it cost her to do that, and how cheap she held the cost,
God knows.
They waited behind cover of the land till dark drew on, and then, since
they were land-bound, they manned the boats and warped the _Revenge_
round the promontory. The Turkish ships, all but one which now lay
black and fish-haunted in the ooze of the channel, had weighed anchor
again, but were moving only very slowly northward. Once free of the
southern cape of Tenedos, the Greeks found a breeze in the open, and
making a southwesterly course, sailed quietly all night, and in the
morning found the _Sophia_ waiting for them. Here Kanaris and the
two Psarians left the _Revenge_ to join their own ship, and once more
Mitsos and the Capsina were alone.
That day it seemed that the sun and the elements joined in their
audacious success. Great white clouds, light and rainless, made a
splendid procession on the blue overhead, and their shadows, purple in
the sea, raced over the blue below. The _Revenge_ danced gayly like a
prancing horse, playing and coquetting with the waves, and they in turn
threw wreaths of laughing spray at her, which she dashed aside. Under
the light wind their full sails were easily carried, and once again an
irresistible lightness of heart, bred of success, and health, and sea,
as in the first days together, possessed the Capsina. That bad moment
in the morning had passed; and, with a woman's variable mood, she fell
into the other extreme. Nothing mattered; she loved Mitsos, and he did
not love her; here was the case stated. In any case he liked her; he
gave her shadow for substance; so she would play with the shadow as a
child plays.
After their midday dinner they sat on deck, and Mitsos again told over
the adventure of the day before.
"And it was odd," he said, "that when I saw the ship blazing, when,
in fact, I saw that that was accomplished for which I had come, I was
suddenly sorry. Now, Capsina, you are a woman, and understand things
men do not. Why did I feel sorry?"
"Because you are a very queer kind of a lad."
Mitsos reflected.
"No, I don't think I am," he said; "indeed, it seems to me that I am
just like others. As for Kanaris, he stroked his beard and said they
had gone to hell."
"So they had."
Mitsos smiled, and looked at Michael, who had flopped himself down on
deck, with his back to them.
"No doubt; but you are not telling me what I asked. Oh, great, wise
Michael, come here. May I pull him by the tail, Capsina?"
"Certainly, and he _may_ bite you."
"I think not. Oh, Michael, do not lick my face. You know Suleima washes
my face sometimes, Capsina. That is only when she has cut my hair, and
the little bits are everywhere, and the most part down my neck. But
though it is kind of her, I had sooner go to the barber's for it. What
can we do next when we get back to Nauplia?"
"You want another cruise?"
"Surely. Are there not more ships in the Gulf of Corinth? Indeed, I
think those were of the best weeks in my life."
"That is not a bad idea, little Mitsos," she responded. "Whether
there are Turkish ships in the gulf I do not know, but we might make
ourselves very useful there. There is Galaxidi, for instance; we ought
to have a naval station there."
"Galaxidi?" said Mitsos. "I know what is in your mind."
"What, then, is in my mind?"
"The baby Sophia you left there," said he. "Indeed, Capsina, you should
have been a mother. For Suleima said you had a way with babies."
"I should have married Christos," she asked, "and been a fish-wife of
Hydra? Indeed, little Mitsos, I knew not in how high esteem you held
me."
And she got up from where she sat, and made him a great flouncing mock
curtsey.
"Yet you are right," she continued, "I had the baby Sophia in my mind
among many other things"--and she thought to herself how it was there
she had learned of Suleima--"but for that reason I would not go. It
is of the ship-station I am thinking. Once we have a station there,
how foolish become the Turkish forts at Lepanto. Nor should it be long
before we take Lepanto itself. Yet, oh, Mitsos, sometimes even in the
heat and glory of it all, there is nothing I would love so well as to
go quietly home and live in peace again, for of late I have had no
peace; I have had no moments of my own."
"They could not be better spent," said Mitsos.
"If that is so, God will take account of them. But sometimes my heart
is a child; it cries out for toys and playfellows and silly games of
play, knowing that its house and its food are secure, or rather not
needing to know it, and wanting only to be amused. But I doubt the toys
are broken, and the playfellows are all grown up."
And she stopped abruptly.
"But that is not often," she continued after a moment. "There are other
things, are there not?--and I am grown up, too--glory; red vengeance;
the sharing in a great work. No, I would not sacrifice a minute of
these for all the games of play. Also I think that I and the silliest
boy in Greece played more in one week, that first week of our voyage,
than is given to most. See, it is nearly sunset; what of the evening?"
Mitsos got up and went forward. The _Sophia_ was bowling along a mile
to port, running, like them, straight before the wind and keeping the
pace. On the starboard bow Scyros had just risen low and dim above the
sea, but the horizon was sailless. The sun was near setting; and a
golden haze, curtain above curtain of thinnest gauze, stretched across
the western heaven. The sea seemed molten with light. High overhead
swung a slip of crescent moon, still ashy and colorless. Above the sun
stretched a thin line of crimson-carded fleeces of cloud; the wind was
soft and steady. He went back to the girl and sat down again.
"It will be very fair weather," he said, and she answered not, but
through her head his voice went ringing on and on persistently, like an
endless echo, saying the words again and again.
They stopped at Hydra a day, both to give the news and learn it.
Nauplia was still blockaded; not a shot had been fired on either side.
The Turkish garrison it was supposed were still not without hope that
help would come; the Greeks, equally confident it would not, made no
effort to storm the place, but waited till famine should do their work
for them, and indeed the end could not be far off. Kolocotrones was
not there; it was the earnest prayer of all the Greeks that he would
be absent when the town fell, for otherwise it would be but little
spoil that fell outside the brass helmet. And Christos Capsas, the once
betrothed of the Capsina, who, with others like him, stopped at home at
Hydra nominally to defend the place in case the Turks made a descent on
it, spat on the ground.
"He is a dirty, greedy ruffian," he said.
He and his wife, slovenly and shrill-voiced, wearing the Capsina's
wedding-gift, the heirloom girdle, and misbecoming it strangely, were
dining with the girl on her ship, and she, looking across at Mitsos,
saw his nose turned rather scornfully in the air.
"Yet he is a brave man, Christos," said she. "Do you not think so? He
runs risk cheerfully, anyhow."
"For the sake of fatness and riches," grumbled Christos.
The Capsina, who loathed Kolocotrones, suddenly found herself taking
his part when Christos called him to account. She laughed, not very
kindly.
"Yet you are not thin, Christos," she said, "and they say you are
getting rich. Ah, well, God makes some to stay at home, and others to
go abroad, and thus to each is his work allotted. Now of the island
what news?"
"The news of Father Nikola, Father no longer. You have heard?"
"No," said the Capsina. "He is like the lemon: the older and nearer to
ripeness it gets, the sourer it grows. He must be nearly ripe in my
poor thought."
"Well, then, he has become the orange," said Christos. "I love him not,
yet he is sour no longer."
And he told the story of the return of his wife.
The Capsina listened in silence.
"An old man like that," she said, "and she, you say, also old. Will
you love and be loved when you are gray-headed, Mitsos? And the two
old folks have gone off on the brig together! How absurd it is, and
how--how splendid!"
"They go hand-in-hand," said Christos, "and when the boys laugh, they
laugh too."
"Nikola laughing!" said the Capsina. "I did not think he knew how."
"Yes, with the open mouth," said Christos.
The Capsina leaned forward across the table.
"He loves this old woman, you say, as others love?" she asked. "His eye
glows for her? He is hot and cold?"
"That is what one does when one loves," put in the experienced Mitsos.
"How did you know, Capsina?"
She laughed.
"Have I sailed with you for weeks, and not seen the thought of Suleima
with you? May not I look at you now and then? And she loves him,
gray-headed, sour old Nikola? That is hardly less strange."
She looked across at the fat, white face of Christos's wife, at her
slovenly habit and uncleanly hands.
"Yet there are many strange things in the world," she said. "Make
Michael his dinner, will you, little Mitsos?"
Christos's wife stared with interest as Mitsos put gravy, bones, bread,
and, lastly, a piece of meat in Michael's wooden bowl.
"It is not right!" she cried, shrilly; "you must not feed a dog like a
Christian."
"I honor his name, cousin," said the Capsina, laughing.
"His name! That is as unsuited to a dog as his food."
"Therefore I honor him," said the Capsina; and the wife, making nothing
of this, thought it more prudent to be silent; and Christos, equally
puzzled, hushed her.
"You do not understand," he said, which was true enough.
Next day they set sail again for Nauplia; the blockading fleet was
stationed outside the harbor, and, having anchored, the Capsina, with
Kanaris and Mitsos, went off to the admiral's ship to make report. As
the news spread from crew to crew, the shouting rose and redoubled, and
Suleima, who had come down with the littlest one, on the news of their
arrival, to the quay, could scarce get at Mitsos for the press, and for
the time the two had to be content with letting their eyes seek and
find each other from afar, saying that it was well with them. But the
Capsina had gone back to her ship, and was alone.