A PORT OF REFUGE.
“That was a narrow squeak this morning,” said Armitage to Maurice,
as they stood watching for the first sight of the heights of
Hagiamavra in the evening.
“Why particularly? That fellow had no authority to turn us back, as
there isn’t a blockade, and we could probably have dodged him in the
night if he had tried it.”
“It’s not that. It’s what we have on board. If he had insisted on
searching us!”
“Why, are you gun-running?” asked Maurice in surprise.
Armitage was surprised too. “Well, rifles and cartridges and a couple
of machine-guns are rather an unusual cargo for a yacht, aren’t they?”
Maurice understood. “Ah, another of my wife’s little speculations?” he
said, trying to keep out of his voice the bitterness he felt.
“Yes, and that’s given us an idea for getting them on shore. I’ve been
talking it over with Waters, who’s an awfully knowing chap, and he
told me the same thing had been puzzling him. You see, the risk is not
all over when we have them and ourselves landed at Skandalo. Your
precious subjects-that-are-to-be are quite capable of annexing the
arms and kicking you out. What you want is to secure a defensive
position in the middle of them before they realise what you’ve got.
Wylie quite agrees with me.”
“The prospect is certainly a pleasant one,” said Maurice
indifferently. Few people realised--his wife least of all--the disgust
with which he was filled by the necessity of constantly putting
himself forward, of forcing his claims upon an unwilling, or at best
uninterested, people.
“The place for you is the Hagiamavra Monastery,” went on Armitage
eagerly,--“in the heart of the insurgents’ position, defensible
against any unsupported rush. It’s a good way from the sea, that’s the
worst of it, and the paths through the hills are simply beastly; but
once up there, there you are. If you stayed down at Skandalo, you’d
always be exposed to attack from the sea, either a bombardment or a
Roumi landing. At the monastery--well, I suppose the _Dreadnought’s_
guns could touch you, but nothing else that floats, and no Roumi force
is likely to be able to force its way up in the face of opposition.”
“And what about provisions?”
“I can leave you a fair store, and then I’ll go off and forage. I
think I can do better for you in that way than if I landed with part
of the crew to help in the fighting. They were not engaged for
war-service, you see, but anything like running a blockade will
delight them.”
“I see.” Maurice saw more than Armitage intended, and guessed why he
had given up his former plan of attaching himself through thick and
thin to the party that included Zoe, but he did not say so. “I suppose
you realise that you’re more than likely to lose the yacht?” he asked.
“Meaning that the Powers will sink her? Let ’em. She may as well leave
her bones here as at the North Pole, though I hope she won’t do it
till you’re well supplied. But about these guns and things. Waters has
hit on an awfully neat dodge, and made use of it to keep the men from
getting rusty while he was hanging about off Pentikosti. He has had
canvas covers made for all the cases, with red braid on them--like the
things you see old ladies with on their travels, you know--and
initials stencilled on the tops,--most swagger luggage you ever saw.
He’ll pad them up a little with waste, to disguise the shape and the
sharp corners, and we’ll get them landed and up to the monastery as
the ladies’ boxes.”
“Awfully neat!” said Maurice, laughing in spite of himself. “But what
about the weight? And the case of a machine-gun must be a fair size, I
should imagine.”
“Oh, don’t you know those things as big as a house, that some women
lug about their ball-dresses in--all standing, so to speak? It can’t
be bigger than that. And as to the weight--oh, we’ll stuff the
insurgents about Byzantine robes, stiff with gold and jewels, and all
that sort of thing, you know. They’ll take it as an awful compliment
that the Princesses should have come prepared to hold a court.”
Maurice was hardly convinced, but Armitage was so fully persuaded of
the feasibility of his plan that he offered no further objection. The
yacht anchored off Skandalo that night, jealously scrutinised by
fishing-boats, which drifted out of the darkness into the circle of
her lights, asked a question or two, and faded into nothingness again,
and with earliest daylight Armitage and Captain Waters went on shore
to make judicious inquiries, lest the Roumis might, with unwonted
energy, have occupied the little town. When they came off again, they
brought with them one of the insurgent leaders, no other than Dr
Afanasi Terminoff, who was exercising authority at Skandalo in the
name of the Emathian Revolutionary Committee, the Roumi inhabitants
having wisely effaced themselves on the invasion of the peninsula by a
mixed multitude of patriots and refugees from Therma. It appeared that
Professor Panagiotis had, as Armitage said, played up nobly. He had
not been informed of the flight from Bashi Konak save by a note left
to be delivered to him on the following morning, but on receiving it
he had promptly waited upon the Prince of Dardania to inform him that
Prince Theophanis and all his party had been laid low in the night
with influenza, and would be unable to leave their rooms for some
days. At the same time he had communicated with the insurgent
headquarters,--by the historic method of fire-signals, Zoe suggested,
but more probably by mere prosaic messages carried overland by
returning delegates. The really ardent among these men had been
stealing away from Bashi Konak one by one since the first news of the
massacres at Therma, more anxious to take part in any fighting there
might be than to consume additional time in theoretical negotiations,
and their news travelled before them in some mysterious way.
The arrival of Prince Theophanis was expected, and Dr Terminoff had
had time to prepare information and advice, with both of which he was
overflowing. The state of things was not altogether propitious. The
Hagiamavra peninsula was now affording standing-ground--accommodation
it could hardly be called--for quite three times its ordinary
population, even allowing for the expatriated Moslems. A certain
proportion of the newcomers consisted of stalwart members of
revolutionary bands from all parts of Emathia, who had obeyed the
summons to concentrate for a great struggle, but the rest were a
heterogeneous mob from Therma, among them a large number of men whose
enthusiasm for freedom was of a wildly anarchistic character. These
refugees were not amenable even to such limited authority as was
possessed by the captains of bands over their followers, and led by
any plausible talker among themselves who could gain their ear, they
raided the houses and farms of the inhabitants in search of
provisions, establishing a worse than Roumi tyranny in the peninsula.
Some central authority, with sufficient power at its command to
enforce its orders, was urgently needed, and it was equally necessary
to devise some means of feeding not only the fighting men, but the
troops of helpless women and children who had sought safety with them.
Maurice and Wylie, as they listened, perceived that the task before
them was much larger than they had anticipated, since it had not
occurred to their minds that they would be called upon to combine the
functions of a relief agency with those of a military dictatorship. To
do this from a precarious foothold on the coast was obviously
impossible, but Dr Terminoff was as anxious as Armitage to establish
the whole party safely at the monastery. Besides the predatory hordes
from Therma, who were spread over the lower hills immediately behind
the town, there were the insurgent bands, hardly less truculent though
better disciplined, occupying the heights in the interior, and only
too likely to welcome an opportunity of returning to their wonted
avocation of brigandage. Moreover, since the delegates who had
accepted Maurice’s leadership at Bashi Konak had not had time to
explain their action to their supporters, a strong republican spirit
was prevalent, and might manifest itself in disagreeable ways.
In the face of a complicated emergency of this kind, Maurice was at
his best. Prompt action was urgently necessary, not only in order to
circumvent possible objectors, but that the yacht might unload her
cargo and depart before the news of her presence could be carried to
any of the European warships in these waters. Dr Terminoff was sent on
shore again to requisition every available mule for the transport of
the party and their “luggage,” and summon as many members of his own
band as could be readily assembled to act as escort. Wylie accompanied
him, with the idea of gaining an insight into the conditions
prevailing on shore; while the important cases were being got up from
the hold and enclosed in their innocent-seeming wrappers, and Armitage
and his stewards despoiled the cabins of mattresses, cushions,
carpets, and whatever else could add to the comfort of the ladies.
Captain Waters proved himself a tower of strength when it came to
improvising means of getting the cases transferred from the deck along
the ruined stone pier which showed that Skandalo had once known more
prosperous days, and Wylie, as transport officer without subordinates,
exhibited a knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the Hagiamavran mule,
and the best way of combating them, which was clearly the fruit of
long and bitter experience in like circumstances. By the captain’s
advice, the load was reduced by breaking open one case of rifles and
one of cartridges, and distributing the contents among fifteen men of
the yacht’s crew, who were to act as an additional escort under
command of Armitage. By dint of herculean efforts, all the packs were
adjusted by noon, Zoe and Eirene were mounted on improvised saddles on
the quietest mules, Wylie appointed the bodyguard their stations, and
the long line trickled through the narrow streets of the little town
and up the hills behind.
A curious throng watched them from roofs and alleys, with much
speculation, but with a notable and natural absence of enthusiasm. The
inhabitants of the peninsula could hardly be expected to welcome the
choice of their neighbourhood as the theatre of great events, however
proud they might be in the distant future that it had been the scene
of the freeing of Emathia. These newcomers looked as if they might be
more profitable guests than the Therma refugees, but the fact that
they were seeking quarters at once in the mountains, instead of
demanding the best accommodation the town could produce, showed that
there was something not quite right about them, and the haggard man
with the blue eyes who regulated their march looked capable of making
himself very unpleasant to honest people who only wished to lead a
quiet life and decorate the caps of their daughters with as fine a
show of piastres as possible.
The many-coloured crowd and the white houses once left behind, the
track led up the hillside, covered with short grass, where the
sweet-scented shrubs which should have clothed it had been rooted up
for fuel. At the top of the ridge Zoe turned to take a last look at
the yacht, the one remaining link with civilisation, but she was
speedily taught that this was no moment for the indulgence of
sentiment. In the hollow below the ridge a number of the Therma
refugees were encamped, in holes grubbed out of the hillside or in
wretched shelters made with blankets, and when the strangers came in
sight there was a rush of ragged, half-starved creatures clamouring
with piteous voices and outstretched hands. Mothers held up their
wizened babies, old men exhibited roughly bandaged wounds, but even
more terrible was the sight of those who had lost either the desire or
the power to beg, and sat stolid in the apathy of helplessness. Eirene
and Zoe emptied their purses and the lunch-basket, and entreated that
the provisions which were being carried up to the monastery might be
distributed here instead, but Wylie was adamant. The able-bodied men
belonging to this party of refugees had been set to work improving the
pier by Dr Terminoff, and would earn enough to keep their dependants
for a day or two. After that he hoped it would be possible to make
organised arrangements for relief, but it would be mere foolishness to
sacrifice, on an impulse of pity, what might be of inestimable value
to the Emathian cause in the future. Zoe relieved her feelings by
abusing his hardness to Eirene as she rode on, but Eirene did not
answer. Holding her boy closely to her, she was haunted, as with a
foreboding of evil, by the thought that this misery was, in part at
least, due to her ambition for him.
The uplands beyond the hollow were almost solitary, save for an
occasional goatherd. Once Wylie left the rest to examine a deserted
village, which had been inhabited hitherto, it seemed, by the vanished
Moslems. Now the houses were roofless, the gardens destroyed, and the
fruit-trees cut down, so that the hope he had entertained of settling
some of the refugees there could not be fulfilled at present. He and
Maurice were continually in converse on the many questions pressing
for immediate solution, calling up now Armitage and now Dr Terminoff
for consultation, and leaving to Prince Romanos the duty of attending
on the ladies, which he performed with a very good grace.
“I am no student of social problems, I confess it,” he said airily. “I
came here to fight, and fight I will as long as I can hold a sword,
but place me face to face with that crowd of miserable objects back
there, and what can I do but empty my purse and hurry away, covering
ears and eyes?”
“But if you were responsible for them as their prince?” suggested Zoe.
He shrugged his shoulders. “My heart would perhaps grow harder,
Princess. Certainly my purse would soon be exhausted. I fear I should
take refuge in the philosophy of our Roumi friends, and find comfort
in repeating that all was Kismet.”
“That would be very consoling to your poor people,” said Zoe.
He accepted the rebuke with surprising meekness. “Indeed, Princess, in
my view the ideal government for Emathia would be a triumvirate
composed of your brother, Colonel Wylie, and myself; but how could I
say so publicly without seeming to undervalue my rights?”
“You to do the ornamental part, Maurice the practical, and Colonel
Wylie the military and police?” said Zoe cruelly. “It would save
Maurice a good deal of trouble--but then, you see, we don’t allow that
you have any rights at all.”
“Naturally, Princess,” was all he could be induced to say, with his
usual shrug.
The character of the scenery was now changing, the grassy downs being
left behind for wilder and loftier hills. Sometimes a glimpse could be
caught of the monastery itself, far above and beyond, like the
Celestial City in old illustrations to the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ its
tiled roofs clinging to the sides of a great rift in the rock, and
then again it would be hidden by the intervening crags. This broken
country was the chosen haunt of the bands from the mainland, whom it
reminded of their own hills, and challenges rang from the rocky
heights, to be answered with anxious explanations by Dr Terminoff, who
did all he could to magnify the importance of the new recruits to the
cause without revealing either their identity or the nature of the
contribution they brought for the war-chest. His guarded answers
excited much interest, and a gradually increasing crowd of insurgents
attached itself to the travellers, betraying an unconcealed desire to
know the contents of the luggage, which seemed so much heavier than it
looked. This was the moment Wylie had feared, and the sailors and Dr
Terminoff’s men were placed as a screen at the head and tail of the
cavalcade. The sides could not be protected, nor was it indeed
necessary, since the path was only wide enough for a mule and its
driver. “It’s a blessing they haven’t had time to arrange an ambuscade
with stones, or they would have cut the column in two,” said Wylie;
“but I think we have taken them by surprise.”
As the long procession approached the monastery, an obvious excitement
began to make itself felt among the hangers-on, a certain number of
whom detached themselves and ran on to the gate, where they demanded
entrance with much banging and many shouts. No response, however, came
from within, and the self-appointed couriers rushed back with fervid
zeal to complain that the never-to-be-sufficiently-execrated
Patriarchist monks refused admission to the noble English visitors.
With generous indignation the surrounding mob demanded that Wylie
should lead them to force an entrance, and it was clear that between
the monks and the mainlanders there existed a grudge as old as the
latter’s first encampment on the hills ten days ago, when they had
been excluded, as schismatics, from the sacred precincts. Such a
revival of the feud between the Greek and Slav elements of Emathian
society promised badly for the success of Maurice’s mission of unity,
and he and Armitage went forward to call a parley, while Wylie
prepared for action if necessary. For some time the frowning front of
the monastery appeared utterly unresponsive to all the knocking and
shouting that besieged it, but at length a high black cap and a
venerable beard appeared on the top of the gateway, and a conversation
ensued. Presently Maurice came back and summoned Wylie.
“They won’t let us in, because the Roumi Government has always treated
them fairly well, and they are afraid what may happen when we come to
smash,” he said.
“They must let us in,” said Wylie. “Otherwise we shall come to smash
in less than ten minutes. We must break the gate down.”
“Then our Emathian friends will simply swarm in and loot the place. We
shall be as badly off for accommodation as ever, and have to bear the
everlasting stigma of having plundered an Orthodox monastery.”
“Oh, we must fake it somehow. Tell your venerable friend that we will
save his face by technically forcing an entrance. Fifteen sailors with
rifles which half of them can’t use look imposing enough to justify
any man of peace in opening his door to them if they threaten to fire.
Of course you will add that if this is not inducement enough we will
let the Emathians loose on them, and then they need have no further
anxiety about the Roumis.”
“All right. Get the mules as close up to the gate as possible, and let
the sailors be ready to turn their rifles against the Emathians once
it’s opened.”
“Your brother’s welcome from his subjects is even embarrassing in its
warmth,” remarked Prince Romanos to Zoe, with a fine air of
detachment.
“Oh, the monastery has seen many leaders of revolts,” replied Zoe
airily. “How should the poor old monks know that Maurice is the leader
of a revolution?”
“Ladies nearest the gate,” said Wylie’s voice. “Cartridges and
machine-guns next, then the rifles. Terminoff, are your men to be
trusted if one or two of them get inside?”
“If your sailors are there too,” was the not very encouraging reply.
Maurice turned and waved his hand. The sailors, instructed by Wylie in
a stage whisper how to hold their rifles, were summoned to the front,
and produced an awe-inspiring click at the word of command. Very
slowly and heavily one of the gates creaked open, leaving just room
for the passage of one mule at a time. At a word from Wylie, Prince
Romanos took the bridle of Eirene’s mule and led it in, and Zoe’s
followed, while the sailors turned to face the crowd instead of the
gate. One by one the mules were dragged in, Maurice and Prince Romanos
opening the second leaf of the door by main force to allow of the
entrance of the cases, while Armitage and Wylie, last of all, facing
outwards, kept back the mob that surged behind. The last and most
obstreperous mule disappeared with a final flourish of heels, the
double row of sailors on either side of the gate drew together and
vanished two by two, and Wylie and Armitage retreated slowly
backwards, each with a hand in his pocket, the crowd pressing round,
but leaving a clear space in front of them. Armitage tripped over the
threshold, but was dragged in, head first, by Maurice, and the sailors
closed half the door while Wylie stood on guard. Then he also slipped
within, and the remaining leaf was slammed and barred, while a howl of
disappointment went up from the mob outside. Wylie smiled ironically.
“Before I do anything else,” he said, “I’ll put those machine-guns
together, and mount one on the top of the gate, and the other just
here to command it. They seem needed to save us from our friends.”