THE ADVENTURE OF THE FIRE-SHIP
They started again early the next morning, having loaded the pony with
provisions, for Yanni preferred to suffer from his blister than from
hunger, and struck in a southeasterly direction across the plain,
leaving Sparta with its red roofs and olive-groves on the left, over
low hills of red earth, covered in this spring-time with cistus in full
flower, tall white heather, and myrtle in the freshness of its fragrant
leaf. About two hours' going brought them to the Eurotas, flowing clear
and bright over its shining pebble-bed, on which the sunlight drew a
diaper of light and shade, sliding on from pool to shallow, and shallow
to rapid, and ford to ford. Here Mitsos, who in his inland life pined
for the amphibious existence of Nauplia, came upon a deep pool, and
in a moment was stripped and swimming. From there another two hours
led them across the plain to the foot of the hills, where they halted
and ate their midday meal, looking across the green plain to where
Taygetus, rising in gray shoulder over shoulder, met the sky in a
spear-head of snow.
So for two more days they went on, sleeping sometimes during the middle
of the day under the shade of aromatic pines, or behind some bluff
of earth in a dry torrent-bed, and as they got nearer to Tripoli and
Argos, marching through the cool, still night over shoulders and
outstretched limbs of mountain range, or down through silent valleys
all aflush with spring, and spending the daylight hours in some
sheltered nook or cave, each keeping alternate watches while the other
slept. Thus came they down to Myloi, where they were to get the boat
which should take them across the bay, early one morning while it was
still dark. So once again in the sweetness of sunrise Mitsos saw the
blue mirror of the bay spread out smooth and clear at his feet, and the
first rays of morning sparkling on the town at the other side, turning
the damp roofs to sheets of gold, and on a white house at the head of
the bay, where his heart was.
They were home by nine o'clock, and from there they could see plainly
the great Turkish ship, as large as a church, lying close to the quay,
showing that they were in time. The attack, as Petrobey had told
Mitsos, must, of course, be at night, and through the café-keeper Lelas
they learned that she would sail the same evening at midnight, or
thereabouts. This was quite to their convenience, for had she sailed
during the day they would have had to follow her till the fall of night
gave cover to their approach, thus, perhaps, attracting suspicion, and
certainly finding themselves many miles from home out at sea when their
work was done. Lelas, the café-keeper, to whom they were referred,
showed them the caique which Nicholas had told him to keep for Mitsos,
and the boy, saying that he would go out a little way at once to see
how it sailed, got into it, leaving Yanni on the shore. The latter
winked at Mitsos as he got in, and remarking "I am sorry I cannot
go with you," for he knew precisely where Mitsos was going, though
his chance of seeing Suleima by day was absolutely nil, went back to
Constantine's house and waited patiently for his return.
Lelas, who was an arrant gossip-monger, had the news of the town:
the Turks were flying in all directions, some to Tripoli, some to
Constantinople, some to Athens, such was their consternation at the
taking of Kalamata. Many of those about Nauplia were going on board the
war-ship, which was bound for the Piræus, and to return with arms. "And
tell me," he said, "what is Mitsos going to do with the caique? I am
sure it is some plot against the Turk."
But Yanni, seeing Nicholas had not thought fit to tell him, denied any
knowledge of the purpose of the boat.
Meantime Mitsos had put out, and was sailing straight to the white
wall. The wind was blowing lightly from the east, and he ran straight
before it. The boat, slimly built and carrying more sail than his, was
certainly a faster goer than his own before the wind, and he suspected
would sail closer to it. Certainly it took the air like a bird, and,
though the breeze was but light, was a very sea-gull for moving. That,
no doubt, was why Nicholas, whose knowledge of boats was as of one
who had never set foot on dry land, had chosen it, and Mitsos glanced
towards the big ship moored off the quay at Nauplia, and mentally gave
it fifteen minutes' start in an hour's run. "And, oh, I love a blaze!"
thought he.
Twenty minutes' scudding brought him nearly up to the wall; there he
took in the sail and drifted. There was no one on the terrace; that was
unusual on a fine morning, when there were often two or three of the
servants about, or a woman from the harem. How quiet it looked! Yet,
though he did not see Suleima, it was something to know she was near,
sitting, it might be, at the back of the garden, or in-doors; perhaps
Zuleika had the toothache and she was unapproachable; perhaps the two
were talking together; perhaps they were talking of him, wondering when
he would come again....
In the farther of the two walls running back from the sea was a small
door, and Mitsos' boat had drifted till this appeared in view, and
looking up from his revery he saw that it was open. This was even more
unusual; never had he seen it open before, and he sat for a moment or
two frowning, wondering at it. Then suddenly the smile was struck dead
on his face; a possibility too horrible for thought, suggested by those
open doors at Mistra, had dawned on him, and regardless of imprudence
he took up an oar, put the boat to land, and tying it up went straight
to the open door. The garden was empty, the house-door was open, and,
more convincing than all, a hare ran across the path and hid itself in
the tangle of a flower-bed.
Then with a flash the horrible possibility became a certainty to his
mind. The house was empty and deserted; Abdul and the household had
fled; a ship was now at Nauplia to carry away the fugitives; that ship
he was going to destroy, consigning all on it to a death among flames
from which there was no escape. Abdul was surely there, and with Abdul
and his household....
Mitsos stood there a long minute with wide, unseeing eyes; for a moment
the horror of his position drowned his consciousness as a blow stuns
the brain. Then as his reason came back to him he realized that he
could not, that he was physically unable, to carry out his orders. The
fire-ship should not start--no, it must start, for there was Yanni with
him, who knew about it, and he cursed himself for having taken Yanni.
But so be it; it should start, but something should go wrong--he would
forget to take kindling for it, or, setting light to it, it should only
drift by the other and not harm her. For it was no question of choice;
he could not do this thing.
Thus thought poor Mitsos as he sailed home again. It seemed to him
that nothing in the world mattered except Suleima, and by the bitter
irony of fate the man in the world whom he most loved and respected had
told him to destroy with all on board the ship in which Suleima was.
On the one hand stood Nicholas, his father, Petrobey, Yanni, and the
whole clan of those dear, warm-hearted cousins who had treated him as a
brother, yet half divine; on the other, Suleima, and Suleima was more
to him than them all; Suleima was part of himself, dearer than his hand
or his eye, and besides--besides....
Yanni was having dinner when he entered the house, but there was that
in Mitsos' face which made him spring up.
"Mitsos," he said, "little Mitsos, what is the matter?"
Mitsos looked at him a moment in silence, but that craving of the human
spirit for sympathy in trouble, whether the sympathy is given by man or
beast, overpowered him. Though in his own mind he had settled that he
could not destroy this ship, the trouble of his struggle was sore upon
him.
"Yanni," he whispered, "there will be no fire-ship. Abdul has gone, has
fled with all the household, with Suleima among them. Where has he fled
but onto the ship we are to destroy? I cannot do it."
Yanni sank down again in his chair.
"Oh, Mitsos," he said, "poor Mitsos! God forgive us all."
Mitsos glanced at him, frowning.
"'Poor Mitsos!'" he cried; "why do you say 'poor Mitsos'? Do you think
I am going to do this?"
"You are not going to do it?"
"No!" shouted Mitsos. "It is not I who choose. There is no choice. I
cannot!"
"But the clan, the oath to obey--"
"There are bigger things than clans or oaths. To hell with my oath, to
hell with the clan," cried Mitsos.
Yanni sat silent, and Mitsos suddenly flared up again.
"How dare you sit there," he cried, "and let your silence blame me?
You, whom I rescued from the house of Mehemet; who but for me would
have been rotting in the ground, or worse than that; you, whom I saved
when a cross-legged Turk had you down on the ground--"
"Mitsos!" said Yanni, looking at him without fear or anger, but stung
intolerably.
For a moment or two Mitsos sat still, but then the blessed relief of
tears came.
"What have I said to you, Yanni?" he sobbed. "O God, forgive me, for
I know not what I said; yet--yet how can I do this? Oh, of course you
are right, and I--I--Yanni, is it not hard? What was it I said to
you? Something devilish, I know. Don't give me up, Yanni; there is
none--there will soon be none who loves me as you do."
Yanni's great black eyes grew soft with tears, and he put his arm round
Mitsos' neck as his head lay on the table.
"Oh, Mitsos! poor little Mitsos!" he said again. "What is to be done?
If only Nicholas or my father knew; and yet you could not and cannot
tell them. Perhaps she is not on the ship, you know."
"Perhaps, perhaps--oh, perhaps she is!" cried Mitsos.
The two sat there in silence for a time, stricken almost out of
consciousness by this appalling thing. At last Mitsos raised his head.
"There is nothing more to be said," he muttered. "I have no idea what
I shall do. Either to do the thing or not to do it is impossible, and
yet by to-morrow it will be done or left undone. But, Yanni, just tell
me you forgive me for what I said just now and make indulgence, for
this is a hard, weary day for me."
Yanni smiled.
"Forgiveness is no word from me to you, dear Mitsos," he said. "There
is nothing you could do or say to me for which you need ask that."
Mitsos looked up at him with dumb, dry eyes and a quivering mouth.
"Forget it, too, Yanni, and tell me it will make no change between us,
for, in truth, I do not know what I said."
"There, there," said Yanni, soothingly. "The thing is not, it never has
been."
The hours went on slowly and silently. Mitsos said nothing, but lay
in the veranda like some suffering animal that has crept away to die
alone of a mortal wound, and Yanni was wise enough to leave him quite
to himself, for his struggle was one that had to be wrestled out alone
without help or sympathy from others. But gradually and very slowly the
mist of irresolution passed away from Mitsos' brain, and he felt that
he would decide one way or the other. Meantime the sun had sunk to its
setting, and Yanni prepared food and took some with wine out to Mitsos.
"Eat, drink," he said. "You have not eaten since morning."
"I am not hungry," said Mitsos, listlessly.
For answer Yanni took up the glass of wine and held it to him.
"Drink it quickly, Mitsos; you are faint for something," he said, "and
then I will take it and fill it again."
Mitsos obeyed like a sick child, and Yanni took the glass and brought
it back full. This time he waited a moment, and then said:
"You must make up your mind, Mitsos. If you settle to do nothing, tell
me, and I must think for myself."
Mitsos nodded.
"I will come in in half an hour and tell you," he said. "That will be
time enough. Please leave me alone again, Yanni; it is better so."
Yanni went back into the house. His warm-hearted nature, and his
intense love for Mitsos, made him suffer to the complement of his
capacity of suffering. He would willingly have changed places with
Mitsos had it been possible, for he felt he could not suffer more, but
so the other would suffer less. Oh, poor Mitsos, whose strength and
habit of laughter availed him nothing!
It was less than half an hour later when Mitsos came in. His face was
drawn and white, and he felt deadly tired. He did not look at Yanni,
but merely stood in the doorway, his eyes cast down.
"Come, Yanni," he said, "it is time we should start. Where are the cans
of turpentine and the wood?"
"In the boat; I put them there."
Mitsos looked up at him sharply.
"So you meant to do it yourself if I did not?"
"I meant to try."
Men walk firmly to the scaffold when they are to die for a good cause,
and martyrs have seen their wives and children tortured or burned
before their eyes and wavered not, and it was this courage of absolute
conviction which nerved the poor lad now. With his whole heart he
believed in the right of this exterminating war against the Turk; he
had put himself unreservedly at the service of its leaders, and there
was an order laid on him. He had made of himself a part of a machine,
and should a jarring axle speak to the driver and say it would go no
farther, or bid him stop the whole gear? Thus it was that, with a firm
step and with no tenderness, but only despair and conviction clutching
at a cold heart, he walked down with Yanni to the beach, and, having
looked over all the apparatus and seen that nothing was wanting, pushed
off, and, helping him to set the sail, took his place at the helm.
The enterprise they were embarked upon was dangerous. The caique in
which they sat was piled with inflammable materials and a cargo of
brushwood, and carried four large cans of turpentine, with which they
would presently soak the sails. They were to run up to the Turkish
ship, tie their boat up to it, or entangle it in the rigging, set
fire to it, and jump into the small boat they towed behind them and
row off. The flames would spread like lightning over the boat, giving
them hardly a second to escape, and they might easily be seen and shot
at while they were lighting her before they could row off; and this
element of danger, perhaps, was a help to poor Mitsos.
The night at least was favorable to their adventure, being thickly
clouded and with a fine fresh breeze, thus enabling them to come up
quickly, and also under cover of darkness. Otherwise the moon, which
was nearly full, would have doubled their peril. The wind was from the
east of north, so that the ship would probably run straight before it
for a mile or so before turning south out of the gulf, and the time to
attack her would be just when she turned, for she would then be far
enough from the shore to render her destruction inevitable, and the
moment of slack speed as she put about would enable them to run into
her the more easily. At present they would approach within about a
quarter of a mile, and lie there waiting for her to put out.
There was still plenty of time, and when Mitsos let the boat run before
the wind instead of going straight to Nauplia, Yanni had no need to
ask him why, for he knew where he was going, and kept his eyes away,
for he could not bear to see Mitsos' agony. For a little while the
hardness and conviction had left him, and the hour of his agony was on
him again. And as they neared the white wall, which glimmered faintly
under the cloudy night, he thought his heart would break within him.
They passed it quickly under the ever-freshening breeze, and Mitsos
looked at it as a man looks on the dead form of his dearest, the house
which she had inhabited in life. To him Suleima was dead, a memory only
insufferably sweet, ineffably bitter, and when the wall faded again
into the blackness he felt as if he had buried her whom he had loved
and murdered. Then putting about, they ran past the island and saw the
lights of Nauplia grow nearer and larger.
In the foreground was the tall, black hull of the Turkish ship outlined
with lights. The deck was brilliantly lit, and they could hear sounds
of talking and laughing coming from it. The sailors were evidently
preparing to put to sea, for now and then little figures of men like
small insects would move up the lines of rigging, adjusting rope or
block with busy antennæ, and loud voices seemed to be shouting orders.
Then a bell rang on board, and a rope-end splashed into the water and
was pulled on deck.
They had drifted a little out to sea, and Mitsos tacked back again to
within three hundred yards of the ship, and finding shallow water, cast
anchor. Two long hours went by, but neither spoke; only the freshening
wind whistled in the rigging, the clouds promised a stormy night, and
on board the Turkish ship they made ready to go to sea. A row of open
port-holes showed a necklace of light, each light waking a column of
reflection from the waters of the bay. Then a lantern was hoisted up
onto the foremast, and another run out in the bows. Presently after
came the grating sound of the anchor being pulled home, and a small
sail was set, sufficient in this wind to take her slowly out of the
harbor. Now a light in the town was hidden behind her bows, and another
sprang up from behind the stern; she moved along the quay stately and
slow, and, clear of the buoy at the end, she put up another sail.
Mitsos watched her intently, and then, without a word, he pulled up
the anchor and ran up the sail, and silently they went in pursuit. But
their light boat went too fast with its sail full spread, and when they
had approached again to within two or three hundred yards he took in a
couple of reefs, which equalized their speed, or, if anything, allowed
the other to gain on them a little. And so they followed in the wake
of the great condemned ship out past the harbor lights, round the end
of the peninsula beyond the town, and into the black, foam-flecked
gulf outside. The lights grew small and far away, the land faded to
a dark shadow, which brooded on the horizon, and the two crafts, one
with its immense cargo of human creatures, the other with a couple of
beardless Greek lads--but with how strange a burden of anguish and
destruction!--were shut off from all sound and sight except the threats
of rising waves.
Then Mitsos rose, and pointing to the cans of turpentine:
"Empty one on the brushwood in the bows," he said to Yanni, "and give
me another."
He climbed up the mast, and, resting the tin on the yard, took out the
cork and let the contents dribble down over the sail. When the can
was empty he came quickly down again and flushed the whole deck with
another tinful, while Yanni poured the fourth onto the remainder of the
fuel.
Then, in a hard, dry voice:
"Let out the sail," he said, "and climb into the boat behind, but give
me the lantern first."
Yanni handed him the dark lantern first, which they had lit before
starting, and, pulling the boat in under the stern of the caique,
jumped on board. Under the full-spread sail they drew rapidly near
the doomed ship, and when they were within a hundred yards they heard
its rudder splash and stir like some great fish under water, and the
speed slackened as she turned south. Mitsos, who had never felt cooler
or more collected in his life, went straight on, so as to strike her
sideways below the huge, overhanging stern. He calculated to perfection
the speed they were going and the distance, and just as Yanni became
aware of a great black thing with a panel of light in it overhead, he
heard a crash, and broken glass fell over him. The mast of the caique
had gone right through one of the windows in the stern. Their boat gave
a great lurch, and Mitsos sprang off into the small boat astern, still
with the lantern in his hand.
"Quick, quick!" he said, "that I cannot do."
Yanni jumped up, and, crouching beneath the stern of the caique, thrust
the lantern open into a heap of brushwood impregnated with turpentine.
It caught and flared up in a moment, and while from the Turkish ship
came sudden confused sounds and runnings to and fro, the flame leaped
along the caique from stern to bow, ran like a flash of lightning up
the sail, and was driven by the wind with a roar right into the
broken panel. Next moment Mitsos, having cast loose their smaller boat,
pushed off backward into the darkness, and both the boys, seizing their
oars, rowed for life. But the blaze between them and the ship had made
it impossible for those on board to see them, and after five minutes or
so Yanni, blown and streaming with perspiration, saw Mitsos drop his
oar and sink down to the bottom of the boat and lie there as if dead.
[Illustration: "BOTH THE BOYS, SEIZING THEIR OARS, ROWED FOR LIFE"]
Round three-quarters of the horizon was dense darkness, inhabited only
by the rushing wind, but in front a column of fire rose up, crowned
with clouds of smoke. The flames leaped up over the stern of the ship,
the steersman fled for his life farther forward, and left to itself the
ship swung round into the wind, dragging its destroyer behind it, the
flames from which, driven straight before it, licked greedily round
the timbers of its victim. In a few moments the tar in the seams began
to melt and run, breaking into flame like burning sealing-wax, and the
planks of the upper decks were parted a fraction of an inch as it oozed
out. Then the timbers themselves began to fizzle and crack, giving
each moment new crevices and footholds for the fire, and the window
where the mast of the caique had penetrated showed red burning lips,
like a horrible square mouth. Volumes of smoke began to pour forward
between the decks, driving those who were throwing unavailing water
onto the flames to the upper deck, to make another hopeless attempt
from there. The women and children ran forward with shrill screams,
and could be seen standing like a flock of frightened sheep huddled
together. Then a boat was let down, but before it touched the water
a tongue of flame sprang out from one of the big, square port-holes
below it, driving upward so fiercely that those who were holding the
ropes let go and it fell splashing into the sea. Soon with a crash the
aft part of the deck, all charred and no longer able to support its
own weight, fell in a huge shower of embers and half-burned or blazing
pieces of timber, and again the flames leaped higher and moved forward
along the ship. The iron davits supporting the boat corresponding to
that which had fallen into the sea, still stood firm, and the boat
itself hung unburned for some ten minutes, till the fire reaching up
caught it, and set it blazing, hanging there, apart and separate from
the greater conflagration like a huge burning signal of distress. Soon,
however, the side of the ship which held the davits fell in, and the
boat dropped blazing into the water. The fire had now reached to the
main-mast, and in a moment caught the sail. Then after a few seconds,
in which the smoke redoubled itself, the great sheet of canvas caught
and flared up in a pillar of flame. Great burned pieces fell off and
strewed the deck; other lighter fragments were borne away like birds
in the wind and fled seaward, flapping and blazing. Then, with another
crash, a second portion of the deck fell in, and, mingled with the
noise the shrill chorus of despair from the women, rose higher and
higher. Some jumped overboard and found their death in what might have
been their safety; others ran up and down the deck, which grew ever
hotter and more blistered, and now scribbled over by lines of burning
pitch; some seized up water-cans and buckets, and tried even then to
stop the flames; and more than one man ran to where the flames were
fiercest, preferring to die at once. Then without warning came the end.
A frightful explosion tore the air; the ship parted in the middle, for
the flame had reached the powder-magazine, and in smoke and steam and
human cries she went down, and a minute afterwards there was silence
but for the wind and blackness.
The explosion roused Mitsos and he looked up.
"What was that?" he said to Yanni.
"It is all over," replied Yanni. "She exploded and went down."
"All over, thank God!" and he sank down again.
Yanni bent to the oars, for it was hard work against the wind, and in
an hour or so he saw the lights on the quay not more than a quarter
of a mile off. It was still crowded with people who had been watching
the fire, and he kept out in the darkness until he had passed it,
and then came in closer to the shore, so as to be shielded a little
from the wind by the land, and rowed steadily on till he came to the
landing-place opposite Mitsos' house. Then he touched the other on the
shoulder.
"Get up, dear Mitsos," he said, "we are here."
Mitsos raised himself and followed Yanni across the road to the house.
They went in, locking the door behind them, and Mitsos, still silent,
lay down on the window-seat, staring out dry-eyed into the darkness.
But in a few moments a knock came, and Yanni went to the door to see
who it was.
"It is I, Lelas," said a voice.
Yanni unwillingly undid the door, and the fat, urbane café-keeper came
in, smiling.
"Eh, but you two have lost a fine sight," he said. "A Turkish ship
blazing down to the water's-edge, and then bang she went; and there'll
not be a soul to tell the tale."
Mitsos, in his window-seat, shuddered and half sat up.
"I wish there had been more on board," continued Lelas. "Why, I'd have
given a week's wage if that old Abdul and his poultry-yard of women had
been there."
Next moment he was aware of two great hands half throttling him.
"Abdul who? Which Abdul?" said Mitsos, his face close to Lelas, and
hissing out the words. "Speak, you damned pig of the pit."
"Abdul--this Abdul here--let go--Abdul Achmet, of course. He and his
went to Tripoli yesterday. May you burn in hell for throttling me, you
young devil."
But Mitsos heard nothing after "Abdul Achmet." He dropped his hold on
Lelas and stood looking across at Yanni a minute, while new life ran in
spate through his veins. Then he flung his arm round the neck of the
astonished Lelas and kissed him on the cheek.
"Oh, fat man, but I love you for what you have said," he cried. "Yanni,
Yanni, we will make the fat man drunk with wine, for he has made me
drunk with joy. Oh, oh--"
And he flung out of the room with a great shout.
Lelas felt his neck tenderly.
"Is Mitsos quite mad, or only a little mad?" he asked, severely.
"Quite mad, I think," said Yanni. "Oh, little Mitsos--wait a minute."
He found him outside, but the dry-eyed anguish was turned to a joy
which brimmed his eyes. Yanni thrust his arm through his and they stood
there a moment in silence, and had no need of speech; nor indeed were
there words in which they could frame their joy of heart.