Suleima and the Capsina were sitting in the veranda of the white house
a few days after this, and the adorable one was pulling Michael's tail
with gurglings of glee and apparent impunity. From inside came Mitsos's
voice, singing.
"So do not think thus," said Suleima, "for indeed I would have him
go. What should I think of a man who loafed his days in a house with
womenfolk? Such a man I should never have cared for, nor you either, so
I believe."
She laughed.
"It was that I cared about first in Mitsos," she went on, "at the time
I have told you of. I was pent in the perfumed house. It seemed better
to live as he lived, half in the sea and all in the air; the sea-gull,
Zuleika and I used to call him. So take him again. Indeed, I doubt if
he would stop even if I bade it, and I do not bid it. But bring him
back to me safe, Capsina; bring him yourself."
The girl sat silent, and Suleima, with a woman's tact, rose and spoke
of other things.
"It is a day taken from summer," she said, "and yet in a week it will
be Noël. By the New Year, or soon after, you will be back. Oh, littlest
one, Michael will surely open his mouth at you and take you down at one
gulp like a fig, if you are so bold with him. How would you like to
have a great man, as strong as you, pull your tail?"
She picked the baby up and brought it to the Capsina.
"Was ever such a fighter seen?" she said. "He fights all the creatures
of God. First he fought the frogs, and then the hens and chickens, then
the cat; now it is Michael. Soon he will be fighting the boys, and come
home with a blacker eye than he has already, and after that, pray God,
he will fight the Turks. If there are any left to fight, oh, pray God,
he will be a good fighter against the Turks."
"He will surely find none in Greece," said the Capsina. "Oh, the day is
not far when not one will be left. You will see it yourself, and if I
am not with you on that day, Suleima, think of me and account me happy."
Suleima looked at her out of the depths of her great eyes.
"I pray the Virgin every day," she said, "that you may be very happy,
happy in all that is best, and in all that the soul and the heart
desire; happy, dear friend, as you deserve. And, indeed, I think that
is not a little."
The girl sat with down-dropped eyes.
"Is the Virgin as generous as you, I wonder?" she said. "You know the
worst of me, Suleima; I think I have told you the worst; yet how can
you think I deserve happiness?"
"You have told me the worst," said Suleima. "Yet what if I find the
whole very good? Is that my fault? Not so; your own. Ah, dearest
friend, I have no tongue to tell you how fully--" and she broke off.
"It is best said in a word," she continued, "and that is that I love
you; and thus all is said. And the blessed Mother of God is more loving
than I. Let that suffice."
The child thrust out an aimless, fat-fingered hand and pawed the
Capsina's face.
"Cap-sin-a! Cap-sin-a!" it crowed in a voice of staccato rapture.
The girl put out her arms suddenly and lifted the baby to herself. "Yet
Capsina is a wicked girl," she whispered, bending over it, "and she
hates herself. But she will grow better in time, or so we hope. In time
even she may not be ashamed to look her friends in the face."
Suleima laid her hand on her knee.
"Ah, don't, don't!" she said. "Indeed you are talking nonsense."
The Capsina kissed the baby, and gave it back to its mother.
"You are right; I won't," she said, rising and giving herself a little
shake. "And now I must go. I have many things to arrange in Nauplia
to-night, for the _Revenge_ must set off to-morrow. Tell little Mitsos
we shall pass here and call for him by midday."
She held Suleima's two hands for a long moment in her own, gave her a
quick, trembling little kiss, and went off down the garden-path and
mounted her pony at the gate.
The Turkish fleet had gone back to Constantinople; not another ship
was in Greek waters, and it was certain that until spring there would
be no more work for the _Revenge_. Mitsos was too much disgusted with
the conduct of the siege of Nauplia to take any part in operations by
land. Indeed, the only commander he would have served under, Petrobey,
had gone back with his Mainats home, vowing that he would never again
co-operate with Kolocotrones. That chief was boasting far and wide
of his exploits. Already he called himself the conqueror of Dramali;
he had only to show himself at the walls of Nauplia, and the Turks
surrendered; it was Joshua and Jericho, and not a penny of the treasure
had he taken for himself. This last fact was true, and he ground his
teeth at it. But Galaxidi, the port in the Corinthian gulf where the
Capsina had begun to make a naval station, where also she had left the
baby saved from Elatina, gave a scope to their energies, and she was
going to start overland next day with Mitsos and most of the sailors
from the two brigs to spend a month there fortifying and arming the
place. Kanaris had gone home to Psara, and the brig _Sophia_ was laid
by for the winter, so, with the sailors from her and most of those on
the _Revenge_, she would march four hundred men. Enough sailors were
left on the _Revenge_ for the working of the ship, but no more, for
it was certain there were no Turkish vessels now in Greek waters. The
_Revenge_ meantime was to sail round, carrying on board some half-dozen
guns to be mounted in a battery at Galaxidi, and join them there. The
Turkish fort at Lepanto would be thinking that all the Greek fleet
was still at Nauplia, and the risk of passing the guns of the fort
could again be neutralized by co-operation with Germanos in Patras, to
whom the Capsina sent her compliments. For themselves they were to
march across the Isthmus of Corinth--a brush with the small Turkish
garrison there was possible--north along the east end of the gulf,
passing through Vilia, which they had defended from the raid of the
Turkish ships the winter before, and so westward to Galaxidi. It was an
informal, haphazard little excursion, after the heart of the Capsina,
with a great goal of usefulness for its end. Nominally the march was
to be on foot; any one who could do so might, however, provide a
beast--the term was left vague--for himself. The keep of the beast
would go to the charges of the expedition. Mitsos was in command of
the men during the march, and in case of any attack; for the work of
fortification at Galaxidi itself he might claim the right to be heard,
and no more.
It still wanted an hour to noon when the "Capsina's Own," as Kanaris
had christened them, appeared on the road from Nauplia, strangely
irregular in appearance, but certainly fighting fit. A convoy of
baggage-mules shambled along in front, carrying what baggage there was,
and that was little, and most of the "Capsina's Own" were mule-drivers
for the time being. Here a gay Turkish horse pranced along by the side
of the road, the very sailor-like seat of its rider provoking howls of
laughter and derision. Close beside it trotted a demure, mouse-colored
donkey, the rider of which, being long in the leg, could paddle with
his toes on each side of the animal. Other men, a minority, were on
foot, and for these there were stirrup-leathers and tails to hold
by. In the middle of the heterogeneous crowd came a great Bishareen
camel, once the property of Selim, with a howdah on its back, on the
curtains of which were embroidered the crescent and star; but, by way
of correction, a short flagstaff, bearing the blue-and-white ensign of
Greece, rose above the roof-beam and fluttered bravely in the wind. Out
of the curtains of the howdah peered the face of the Capsina, rather
anxious.
"Oh, lad!" she cried to Mitsos, as soon as they were within hearing,
"this is like being at sea again in a heavy roll, and I feel as if I
had sprung a leak somewhere. You will have to come up here and lend
a hand with the tiller. The tiller is one rope, as you see, and it
appears to me as if the brute's head were a long mile off. Here, furl
the main-sail, one of you! I mean, take hold of its head and knock it
down. I want to get off."
The camel sank down joint by joint, and the Capsina held on to the side
with fixed and panic-stricken eyes.
"There are six joints in each leg!" she screamed; "and each joint is
six miles long, and the joints are moved singly and in turn."
The "Capsina's Own" cheered wildly when the camel was brought to anchor
and she slid down out of the howdah.
"Oh, stop laughing!" she cried to Mitsos. "Indeed, you will not laugh
when you are up there. But I would have it; it looks so grand. Hark!
How it groans! Am I not like some barbarous queen?"
And she gave him a great poke in the ribs, and was half-way up the
garden-path to meet Suleima.
"And I have come with a light heart," she cried, "and a heavy
one--heavy to go and blithe to go. Where is the child? Let him say
'Capsina,' please, so. And it is good-bye."
The two turned and walked a few paces away.
"To-day I have a light heart," said the girl, "such as I have not had
for months. Indeed, I think you have laid a spell on me. I am not going
to be wicked any more; indeed I am not. Where is Mitsos? Come here,
lad; we will say good-bye together."
Mitsos came up the path to them, and the three stood hand-in-hand. In
the middle of them the child sat on the ground, chuckling and babbling
to itself.
"Pick it up, Mitsos, and lay it on your arm," said the girl. "So; it is
complete."
She stood there a moment smiling, but with dimmed eyes, fresh, vivid,
alert, looking first at Mitsos and the baby, then at the mother.
"So we part with a smile and with love," she said, "and there is no
parting." And she kissed the baby, and clung awhile round Suleima's
neck, and then, disengaging herself, stood looking at her a moment more.
"Bring him safe back, dear one," said Suleima; "bring him back
yourself."
The girl nodded without speaking, and went off down the path. Mitsos
handed the baby to Suleima, folded them both together in his huge arms,
said only, "Suleima, Suleima!" and followed.
About four of the afternoon the cavalcade reached the hills leading up
to the Dervenaki, and they encamped that night at the village of Nemea.
The juvenile portion of its population were inclined to think that they
were a circus, and seemed to take it as a personal matter that they
were not, yet hung about, hoping that the _fantasia_ might, after all,
take place. Dimitri supped with the Capsina and Mitsos, and again it
was like children playing. This time, at least, there was no spice of
danger to make anxious any parting; they would merely advance the work
at Galaxidi, returning before spring was ripe for hostile movements.
The camel particularly seemed an admirable comedy. His injured,
remonstrant face, his long, ungainly legs--"nigh as long as Mitsos's,"
quoth the Capsina--his unutterable groaning and complaints when they
mounted him, were all an excellent investment in merry spirits. The
men had lit their fires in a great circle in the market-place; jests,
songs, and wine went freely; and after supper the chiefs visited the
men of the "Capsina's Own" and made the night loud with laughter.
When the girl was alone she threw herself on to the rugs on which she
was to sleep, and lay awake wondering at herself.
"What does it mean?" she asked herself. "Is it that I am cured of my
suffering? Has the Virgin heard the prayer of Suleima? Yet he is no
less dear." And her thoughts grew vaguer with the approach of sleep,
and sleeping, she slept sound.
They passed Corinth about noon next day, openly and ostentatiously,
with the hope of drawing a Turkish contingent out of the citadel; but
the contingent came not, and they went by without opposition, a thing
which Mitsos put down to the fierce and warlike eye of the camel.
"Let us go to Constantinople," he said to the Capsina, "you and I and
the camel. Thus will the Sultan fall off his throne, and the Capsina
shall sit thereon, and I shall be her very good servant."
And the howdah creaked and rocked and swayed over the broken ground,
and presently after they put into port, so it seemed, for dinner. In
the afternoon they crossed the isthmus, and thereafter for four days
they marched an aromatic journey among the pine-woods which fringed the
gulf. And if in the open the camel was a comedy, among the trees he
was not less than a farce. When the older trees gave way to a garden
of saplings, the howdah moved as a ship on green water above the
feathery tops, and the camel grunted no more, but nipped off the young
plumes with great content, but when the trees were big the progress
was but slow, an endless series of collisions with and steerings round
the strong boughs. Once, forcing him along, the girth snapped, and
they were stranded, a preposterous bird's-nest, eight feet off the
ground. Indeed, the joke seemed to be of that superlative kind in which
repetition and variation of the same theme only add to the humor. Feet
went silently over the carpet of needles; sea, air, and pines made
an inimitable perfume; roe-deer and boar were plentiful, and it is
doubtful whether, in the whole history of strategy, there was ever so
cheerful an expedition.
It was still two days before the Noël when they reached Galaxidi.
From the hill-side above they had seen the roofs of the Capsina's
custom-houses on the quay, and descending farther, it was soon clear
that the men of the place had not been idle during the year. The harbor
lay looking south; on the east ran an artificial mole, continuing the
line of a narrow promontory; on the west the land itself ran in a
curve, making the other side of the harbor. The town itself lay to the
northern end of the harbor, and on the western promontory; the eastern
lay barren, for it was but narrow, and a gale from the east would
raise waves which would stop traffic. On the mole itself was only the
"custom-house," very business-like to the eye, and built strong enough
to weather a heavy-breaking sea. And the face of the girl flushed as
she looked.
"It will do," she said. "Mitsos, in a little it will do very well. Look
on the west, too; they are building another custom-house, as I said.
Surely the two will command the harbor so that no foreign goods shall
pass."
That day, being so close to their journey's end, they had no midday
halt, but pushed on, and reached the town about three. The men at once
began throwing up a camp on the promontory to the west of the harbor,
outside the town, and close to the building custom-house. On the march
they had cut numbers of poles and beams from the pine-trees, which
would form the skeletons of their huts, and over these they would make
thatching with pine-branches, canvas, or whatever came handy. The
Capsina found lodging with her cousin, the Mayor Elias. Mitsos went
with the men.
The camp was on ground sloping away to the harbor, and, like the town,
below the top ridge of the promontory which rose some fifty feet above
it. It lay in oblong shape; at the south end was the custom-house, and
the powder-magazine adjoining it; at the north the first houses of
the town began. Along the top ridge of the promontory, running down
as far as the sea and up towards the town, was a stout wall, banked
up with earth; when finished it would run the complete circuit behind
the town and join the sea again at the neck of the eastern promontory.
Thus, in case of a party landing from Turkish ships, the town was
easily defensible also on the land side. As yet it was finished only
from the sea on the west to about half-way between the custom-house
and the town; it had also been begun at the eastern end, and was being
pushed rapidly forward in both directions. Out of the three Turkish
ships which the Capsina had captured at Porto Germano they had taken
twelve guns, four from each. Of these, five were already mounted in
the custom-house on the mole, and the custom-house on the west of the
quay was to receive five more. The other two, both 32-pounders, were,
according to the plan of Elias, to be mounted farther back in the
harbor in case a ship got through.
Next morning the Capsina got up at the unearthly hour between day and
night, and stormed at the camp till Mitsos, a sort of Jonah to save the
rest, was thrown out to her, heavy with sleep. But the cold, pungent
air soon shook off the cobwebs from him, and he went with the girl on a
tour of inspection. The walls of the western custom-house had already
risen above the gun-holes, and they could see that their position and
direction was well chosen. The ports were wide, and the guns could be
trained to a range of about forty-five degrees, and commanded an area
some miles broad, through which ships attempting to come to Galaxidi
must pass. The five guns in the other custom-house, on the contrary,
commanded the immediate channel and entrance to the harbor, and could
hardly fail at that close range to make good shooting. This fort was
very low, and was protected outside by an earthwork and an angle of
masonry.
"It looks but little like a custom-house," remarked Mitsos. "If I
were a Turk I should not come near though the Sultan himself held the
Turkish flag on the roof."
"I wish he did," said the Capsina, savagely; "he should not hold it
long. But see, Mitsos, I have a plan in my head."
"I have sleep only."
"Well, you are awake enough to listen. There are two other guns not yet
mounted, 68-pounders. Now the harbor has guns enough, or, at any rate,
with the six the _Revenge_ brings, will have enough. So come a little
walk with me down to the water."
"The intention is kind," remarked Mitsos, guardedly, "but I will not be
pushed into the sea by accident so that I may be more awake."
"You shall not be, great sleepy one; only come."
They went out, and climbing the scaffolding of the rising wall,
dropped down on to the stony moorland outside. The sun was risen, and
a fragrant rooty smell of herbs and damp earth rose into the morning.
The Capsina sniffed it with a great contentment.
"How I know that smell," she said, "morning and the clean wind and the
hills of Hydra all mixed. I have thought of Hydra much lately, and of
the time when I was a toddling thing."
"A long-stepping toddler, I expect," said Mitsos, and they descended
the slope to the water.
On the edge of the sea lay a ribbon of bare limestone rock, with deep
fissures and ravines opening in it, and strewn about were fragments of
rock as high as a man, looking as if some gigantic creature had got
ready materials for his monstrous house and had stopped there. A little
bay, some fifty yards across, with two jutting headlands, formed the
extremest end of the promontory, and from here they got a wide sea-view
left and right. Behind, the hill down which they had come rose steeply,
crowned by its wall, but the custom-house, standing lower, and on the
opposite slope below the ridge, lay concealed.
"And this, too, is a very convenient place," remarked the Capsina.
"There is a wide sea-view; there are many large and suitable rocks.
In how many shots would you wager yourself to hit a crack between two
of these at a mile's distance and from a rolling ship's deck, little
Mitsos?"
"In as many shots as there are hairs on my head. Why?"
She looked at him, wagging her head in reproof.
"Must I go on?" she asked. "Then in how many shots from between one of
these cracks would you engage to hit a big ship at a mile's distance?
Was there ever so slow a lad!"
"God forbid!" said Mitsos. "In as many noses as there are on my face.
You see what I mean."
"I am not so slow as some," she said, glancing into his comely face,
and in answer Mitsos smiled with eyes and mouth. He had never seen her
so brilliant and good to look on. She had wound the brightly colored
shawl round her head, the shawl he remembered her wearing one gray
morning last year as they started from Galaxidi. But now the newly
risen sun, wintry and luminously sparkling, bathed her from head to
foot. She enchanted his eye, making captive of it, and he looked until
the smile blossomed into a laugh.
"Oh, Capsina, may there be many long years for you!" he cried.
"To-morrow is the Noël. What shall be my gift to you on the Noël?"
She paused a moment, uncertain of her answer. Then, "More of the gift
you have always given me, dear Mitsos," she said, "your own help and
comradeship, perhaps a little liking as well. Who knows?"
"God knows how much," said the lad.
The good moment finished. Her heart accused her of no disloyalty to
Suleima, for from the heart she had spoken only of that she knew that
Mitsos gave her, and flirted not with forbidden thoughts, and with that
they went back to the work in hand. Yet it had been a good moment, even
an excellent moment.