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The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson · English · Gutenberg #49533 · 679,415 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Capsina: An Historical Novel

Author: E. F. Benson

Illustrator: G. P. Jacomb Hood


        
Release date: July 27, 2015 [eBook #49533]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAPSINA: AN HISTORICAL NOVEL ***
THE CAPSINA

_An Historical Novel._

By

E. F. Benson

_Author of_

_"The Vintage" "Limitations" "Dodo"_

_"The Judgment Books" etc._

_With Illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood_



HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1899



[Frontispiece: "HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"]



    ILLUSTRATIONS

    "HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"
    "UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"
    "THE SPIRIT OF THE STILLNESS TOUCHED THE CAPSINA'S SOUL"
    "HALF A DOZEN MEN BURST INTO THE CUSTOM-HOUSE"





CHAPTER I


The little town of Hydra, white-walled and trailing its skirts in the
Ægean, climbs steeply up the northeastern side of the island from
which it is named, and looks towards the hills of Argolis on the
mainland and the setting of the sun. Its harbor sheltered from the
northern and southern winds, and only open towards the west, where
the sea is too narrow ever to be lashed into fury by gales of that
quarter, was defended in the year 1819 by a very creditable pier and a
good deal of swift and rakish shipping. The inhabitants lived a life
somewhat sequestered from their oppressed and down-trodden countrymen,
supporting themselves by enterprises of fishing and the humble sort
of commerce, and the hand of the Turk, then as now lustful, cruel,
and intolerable, lay but lightly on them, for the chief products of
the island itself were only stones and cold water, untaxable goods.
But something of the spirit of stones and cold water, something of
the spirit, too, of that quickly roused sea, soon made furious, soon
appeased, but always alive, had gone to the making of the men of Hydra;
and they were people frugal and hardy, resourceful and industrious, men
of the wave and the mountain. Of its various clans--and its regime was
highly feudal--that of Capsas was the wealthiest and most influential;
but just now, a tragic prologue to this tale, a blow so direful had
fallen on those much-esteemed men, and in particular on Christos
Capsas, a youth of about two and twenty, that the clan generally, and
Christos in particular, were in a state of paralyzed inaction strange
to such busy folk. It had happened thus:

The head of the clan, Nicholas Capsas, had died some nine months
before, leaving an only daughter, Sophia, henceforth officially called
the Capsina, just nineteen years of age. The clan all remembered that
they had warned each other that trouble would come on account of the
Capsina, and they found to their unspeakable dismay, and without a
grain of pleasure in the fulfilment of their prophecy, that their
gloomy forebodings were completely accomplished. Sophia was a girl of
much greater force of will than it was at all usual to look for in a
woman, for the most refractory women, so the clan believed, chattered
and scolded, but obeyed. The Capsina had struck out a new and eminently
disconcerting line in following her own desires in silence, deaf to
remonstrance. The beginning of trouble had been a very stormy scene
between her and her father when, following the invariable law of
clan etiquette, she had been betrothed on her eighteenth birthday to
her cousin Christos, on whom now so paralyzing a consternation had
fallen. She had submitted to the ordeal of formal betrothal only on
condition that she should marry Christos when she thought fit, and
at no other time. Such an irregularity was wholly unprecedented, but
Sophia declared herself not only ready, but even wishful to throw
the betrothal wreaths into the fire sooner than marry Christos at
any time not fixed by herself, and the ceremony took place only on
this understanding. Three months later her father had died suddenly,
and when Christos on this morning, one tremble of timorousness, but
conscious of the support of the entire clan, went to the Capsina,
offering his hand and heart, to be taken by her with the greatest
expedition that mourning allowed, she looked him over slowly from head
to heel and back again, and said, very distinctly, "Look in the glass."
This her betrothed had rightly interpreted as a sign of dismissal.

Sophia, after hurling this defiance at her family, gave Christos
time to retreat, and then went about her daily business. Her mother
had died some years before, and since her father's death she had
had sole management of the house and of all his business, which was
ship-building. But she had been accustomed from the time she could walk
to be in and out of the building-yards with him, and the outraged clan,
even in the unequalled bitterness of this moment, would have confessed
that she was quite capable of managing anything. She was tall and
finely made, and the sun had joined hands with the winds of the sea to
mould her face with the lines of beauty and serene health. Her eyes and
hair were of the South, her brow and nose of her untainted race, her
mouth firm and fine. She watched Christos out of the gate with all the
complete indifference her great black eyes could hold, and then set off
down to the ship-yard where a new brig was to be launched that day.

There she stood all morning among the workmen, bareheaded to the sun
and wind, directing, and often helping with her own strong hands, and
though it would have seemed that she had her eyes and all her mind at
the work, she yet found time to glance through the open gate on to the
pier, where she could see a talking knot of her clan gathered round the
rejected Christos; and, in fact, her mind was more given over to the
difficult question of what step she should next take with regard to the
question of marriage than to the work on hand. For, indeed, she had no
intention of marrying Christos at all. Since her father's death her
work and position had become more and more absorbingly dear, and she
did not propose to resign her place to a somewhat slow-minded cousin,
whom, as she had candidly declared on her betrothal, she loved only
as much as is usual among cousins. The question was how to make this
indubitably evident.

The ship was to be launched about mid-day, and, as the time drew near,
Sophia began to wonder to herself, not without a spice of amusement,
whether the clan would think it consistent with the correct attitude
of disapproval to attend the launching to which they were as a matter
of course invited. After the barrel of wine, in which the success
of the new ship would be drunk, had been hoisted on deck, she even
delayed the event a few minutes to give them time if they wished still
to come. But it was evident that she had offended beyond forgiveness,
and she stood alone on the ship when she hissed stern foremost, true
to an inch, into the frothed water. Sophia, ever candid, was not at
heart ill-pleased at the absence of the clan, for as she was godmother
so also she was peculiarly mother to the new ship, departing therein
from certain formulated rules as to the line of the bows and the depth
of the keel, which, so she thought, if made deeper would enable her to
sail closer to the wind, and she loved her great child more than she
loved her betrothed. She had even, which was unusual with her, spent
several intent and sleepless hours in bed at night when the ship was
yet on the stocks, her mind busy at the innovations. Surely the ships
that others built were too high in the water, especially forward; a
sudden squall always made them sheer off into the wind, losing way
without need. A less surface in the bows was possible. Again, a longer
depth of keel would give more grip on the water and greater stability,
and it was with much tremulous hope and frequent misgivings lest this
new departure should involve some vital and unforeseen error that she
had laid down the lines of the ship in a manner perfectly new to the
shipwrights of the island.

And as the building progressed and the timbers of the hull rose to
their swifter shape, her hopes triumphed over misgiving, and she felt
that this new ship was peculiarly hers--hers by the irresistible right
of creation, not shared with any.

She stayed on board till a late hour that evening, seeing to the
hoisting of the tackle by which the masts should be raised the next
day, absorbed in the work, and dwelling with a loving care on the
further details, and it was nearly dark, and the workmen had gone
ashore an hour already when she rowed herself back to the yard. Not
till then did her mind return to the less enticing topic of Christos,
which she had left undetermined, and she walked home slowly, revolving
the possibilities. Her great, stately watch-dog, a terror to
strangers, and not more than doubtfully neutral to friends, received
her with the silent greeting of a wet nose pushed into her hand, and
when she had eaten her supper, the two went out on to the veranda.
That was the companionship she liked best, silent, unobtrusive, but
sensitive, and she took the great brute's fore-paws and laid them on
her lap, and talked to him as a child talks to its doll.

"Oh, Michael," she said--the adoption of a saint's name to an animal
so profane had greatly shocked the clan, but the Capsina remarked that
he was a better Christian than some she knew--"oh, Michael, it is an
impossible thing they would have me do. Am I to cook the dinner for
Christos, and every evening see his face grow all red and shiny with
wine, while he bids me fetch more? Am I to talk with the other women
as sparrows twitter together in a bush? Am I to say I love him? Oh,
Michael, I would sooner stroke your hair than his. Then what of the
cousins? They will call me an old maid, for many cousins younger than
I are married. But this I promise you, great dog, that unless I love I
will not marry, and what love is, God knows, for I do not. And if ever
I love, Michael--yes, they say I am fierce, and of no maiden mind. So
be it; we will sail together in the brig _Sophia_, for so will I name
her--you and I and she. And if some one, I know not who, comes from
the sea, all sea and sun, some one not familiar, but strange to me and
stronger than I, you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I
shall be his, all of us, all of us; and we all, he and I and you and
the ship, will go straight up to heaven."

She laughed softly at herself, and buried her face in the dog's shaggy
ruff. "Oh, Michael," she whispered, "the cousins are all saying how
queer a girl I am. So perhaps am I, but not as they think. I should be
the queerer if I married Christos, and yet to their minds my queerness
is that I do not. Why did you not bite him when he came here this
morning? for so he would have run away, and this thinking would have
been saved. Yet you were right, he is a familiar thing, and we do not
bite what is familiar. Perhaps, when the strange man comes, I shall
hate him, although I do nothing else but love him. Yet, oh, I am proud,
for we are prouder, as the proverb says, than the Mavromichales of
Maina. But, Christos, he is slower than a tortoise, and less amusing
than a mule; oh, well enough no doubt for some, but not for me. Perhaps
I shall marry none; that is very likely, for the men I see here, for
instance, are not fit things to marry, and so, I make no doubt, they
think me. And there is always the ship-building. Oh, we will get very
wise, Michael, and sail our ship ourselves, and see strange countries
and over-sea people. There must be some one in this big world as well
as I, and yet I have not seen him, but we will do nothing without
thinking, Michael, unless it so happens that some day we no longer want
or are able to think. Perhaps that--there, get down, you are heavy."

She pushed the dog's paws off her lap, and, rising from her chair, went
to the end of the veranda to look out upon the night. The full moon
swung high and white among the company of stars, and the sea was all a
shimmer of pearly light. A swell was rolling in soft and huge from the
south, and the end of the pier was now and again outlined with broken
foam. Beneath the moonlight the massive seas looked only a succession
of waving light and shadow, and the rattle of the pebbles on the
shingly beach outside the pier in the drag of the swell came rhythmical
and muffled. The Capsina, in the unrest and ferment of her thoughts,
was unwittingly drawn towards that vastness of eternal and majestic
movement, and slipping her embroidered Rhodian hood over her head, she
whistled softly to Michael, and went down through the strip of garden
towards the shore.

She passed along the quay and out beyond the harbor; all the wandering
scents of a night in early summer were in the air, and the rough strip
of untrained moorland which lay beyond the town was covered with
flowering thyme and aromatic herbs, rooty and fragrant to the nostrils.
She walked quickly across this and came down to the shingly beach which
fringed the promontory. All along its edge the swell was breaking in
crash and flying foam, for the south wind of the day before had raised
a storm out to sea, and several ships had that day put in for shelter.
Far out she could see a pillar of spray rise high and disappear again
over a reef of rock, gleaming for a moment with incredible whiteness
in the moonlight. Michael snuffed about in rapturous pursuit of
interesting smells among the edge of rough herbs that fringed the
beach, making sudden excursions and flank movements inland, and
grubbing ecstatically among the tussocks of cistus and white heath
after wholly imaginary hares. By degrees Sophia walked more slowly,
and, coming to the end of the promontory, stopped for a moment before
she began to retrace her steps. No, she could not marry Christos; she
could not cut herself off from the thrill that her large independence
gave her, from working for herself, from the headship of the clan. For
her she thought was a wider life than that of the women of her race.
How could she limit herself, with her young, strong body, and the will
which moved it, to the distaff and the spinning-wheel? Christos! He was
afraid of Michael, he was afraid of the sea, he was afraid of her. But
how to make this clear to demonstration to the clan was beyond her.
Moreover--and the thought was like a stinging insect--there lay at home
the deed of her betrothal to her cousin.

She whistled to Michael and turned back into the town. Several groups
of men were scattered along the length of the quay, and the Capsina,
walking swiftly by, saw that Christos was among them. She hung on her
step a moment, and then, with a sudden idea, turned round and called to
him.

"Christos Capsas," she said, "I would speak to you a moment. Yes, it is
I, Sophia."

Christos disengaged himself from the group a little reluctantly and
followed her. He was a somewhat handsome-looking fellow, but rather
heavily made, and slow and slouching in his movements. The Capsina,
seeming by his side doubly alert, walked on with him in silence for a
space, and then stopped again.

"See, Christos," she said, "I have no wish to offend you or any. If
what I said this morning was an offence to you, please know that to me
now my words were an offence. Yet I will not marry you," and on the
word she suddenly flared out--"oh! be very sure of that! And I have
something to say to the clan. Be good enough to tell them that I expect
all the men to dinner with me to-morrow, when I will speak to them. You
will come yourself. Yes? Let me know how many will be there to-morrow
early. Good-night, my cousin. Michael, be quiet, and come with me."

The clan signified their intention of accepting the Capsina's
invitation in large numbers, for they too felt that their family
affairs must come to a crisis, and that something explicit was needed.
The Capsina, they were sure, would supply this need. As the day was
warm, she gave orders that the dinner should be served in the veranda,
and that the barrel of wine which had been put on board the brig should
be brought back, for it was her best. All morning she attended to the
things for their entertainment, first going to the market to buy the
best of the freshly caught mullet and a lump of caviare, wrapped up in
vine leaves, and choosing with care a lamb to be roasted whole over
the great open fireplace; then, returning to see that the _pilaff_ of
chicken was properly seasoned, that the olives were dried and put in
fresh oil, and herself mixing the salad, flavoring it with mint and
a sprinkling of cheese and garlic. After that the rose-leaf jam had
to be whipped up with cream and raw eggs for the sweets, and another
pot to be opened to be offered to the guests, with glasses of cognac
as an appetizer; cheese had to be fetched from the cellar, and dried
figs and oranges from the store cupboard. Then Michael, to whom the
hot smells were a tremulous joy, must be chained up, and in the midst
of these things there arrived a notary from the town, who, at Sophia's
dictation, for she had but little skill at writing herself, drew up a
deed and explained to her where the witnesses should sign or make their
mark. By this time it was within an hour of dinner, and she went to her
room to dress, and think over what she was going to say.

Sophia had an inbred instinct for completeness, and she determined
on this occasion to make herself magnificent. She took from their
paper-wrappings her three _fête_ dresses, one of which had never been
worn, and looked them over carefully before deciding between them.
Eventually she fixed on the new one. This consisted of three garments,
a body, a skirt, and a long sleeveless jacket reaching to the knees.
The body was made of fine home-spun wool buttoning down the side, but
the whole of the front was a piece of silk Rhodian embroidery in red,
green, and gold, and a narrow strip of the same went round the wrists.
The skirt was of the same material, but there was stitched over it
a covering of thin Greek silk, creamy-white in color, and round the
bottom of the skirt ran a trimming of the same Rhodian stuff. Before
putting the jacket on she opened a box that stood by her bed, and
took from it four necklaces of Venetian gold sequins, one short and
coming round the neck like a collar, and the other three of increasing
size, the largest hanging down almost as far as her waist. Then she
put on the jacket, which, like the other garments, was bordered with
embroidery, and draping her hair in an orange-colored scarf of Greek
silk, she fastened it with another band of Venetian gold coins, which
passed twice round her head. Then, hesitating a moment, she went back
to the box where her gold ornaments were kept, and drew out the great
heirloom of her clan, and held it in her hand a moment. It was a belt
of antique gold chain, more than an inch in width, each link being
set with two pearls. The clasp was of two gold circles, with a hook
behind, and on each of them was chased the lion of Venice. Scroll-work
of leaves and branches, on which sat curious archaic eagles, ran round
it, and eight large emeralds were set in each rim. Sophia looked at it
doubtfully for a moment or two, and then fastened it round her waist,
inside her jacket, so as to hide the joining of the body and skirt.

Her guests soon began to arrive, the first of them being Christos,
the father of her betrothed, with his son. The old man had determined
to be exceedingly dignified and cold to Sophia, and as a mark of his
disapproval had not put on his _festa_ clothes. But the sight of that
glorious figure, all color, walking out from the shade of the veranda
into the brilliant sunlight to meet them, took, as he said afterwards,
"all the pith" out of him.

Sophia received him with a sort of regal dignity as befitted the head
of the clan: "You are most welcome, Uncle Christos," she said, "and you
also, cousin. I was sorry that your business prevented your being able
to come to the launching of the new boat, but perhaps you will like to
see her after dinner."

Uncle Christos shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"I had no idea you would be so grand, Sophia," he said, "and I have
come in my old clothes. Christos, too, you slovenly fellow, your shirt
is no fresh thing."

The younger Christos's _fustanella_ was as a matter of fact quite
clean, but he smoothed it down as if ashamed of it.

"But, Sophia," went on the old man, "they will not be all here yet. I
will run to my house and be back in a moment," and he fairly bolted out
of the garden.

Christos and Sophia were thus left alone, but Sophia was quite equal
to the occasion, and spoke resolutely of indifferent things until the
others arrived. By degrees they all came, the elder Christos the last,
but in the magnificence of all his best clothes, and they sat down to
dinner. And when they had finished eating and the pipes were produced,
Sophia rose from her place at the head of the table and spoke to them
that which she had in her mind.

"It is not my wish," she said, "to hurt the feelings of any one, but I
will not violate my own. As you perhaps have heard"--and the slightest
shadow of a smile passed over her face, for she knew that nothing else
had been spoken of for the last four-and-twenty hours--"my cousin
Christos has asked me to fulfil my betrothal to him, and I wish to make
my answer known to you all. You understand me, then: I will not marry
my cousin, either now or at any other time. I have here"--and she took
up from the table the deed of the betrothal--"I have here that which
is witness of my betrothal to Christos Capsas. With the approval of
my family and clan I will tear it up and burn it. If there is any one
here who objects to this, let him say so, and I will tell you what I
shall then do. Without his approval, and without the approval of any
one else, I shall send to the town for the notary, procure witnesses,
and sign my name to this other deed. I am no hand with the pen, but so
much I can write. In it I bequeath all my property, to which I am sole
heiress--for my father, as you know, died without a will, suddenly--not
to my clan, nor to any one of my clan, but to the priests."

A subdued murmur of consternation ran round the table, and the elder
Christos called gently on the names of five or six saints, for the clan
were not on good terms with the church, and the Capsina herself had
threatened to loose Michael on the first priest who set foot uninvited
in her house. A paralyzed silence succeeded, and Sophia continued her
speech.

"See," she said, "I am perfectly in earnest. We are prouder, as our
proverb says, than they of Maina, and, being proud, I for one do not
threaten things which I am unable or unwilling to perform. Perhaps
marriage seems to me a different thing from what it seems to you. But
that is no reason that I am wrong or that you are right. My betrothed I
believe to be an admirable man, but I am so made that I do not choose
to marry him, nor, at present, any other man. And now the choice is
with you. I destroy in your presence and with your consent both these
papers, or I will sign in your presence and without your consent that
which only needs my signature. I will leave you here for half an
hour, and when I return, Christos Capsas, the father of Christos, my
betrothed, will tell me what you have decided. Uncle Christos, you will
please take my place here and tell the servants to bring you more wine
when you want it. You will find the white wine also very good, I think."

And with these paralyzing words the Capsina dropped her eyes, bowed
with a wonderful dignity and grace to the clan, who rose to their feet
despite themselves at the beauty of the girl, and marched into the
house.

At the end of half an hour she returned, and standing a moment in her
place turned to the elder Christos.

"You have decided," she said, and taking up the two deeds in answer to
a nod from her uncle, she tore them across and across. Then she gave
the pieces to a servant.

"Burn them," she said, "there, out in the garden, where we can all see."

Certainly the Capsina had a sense for the dramatic moment, for she
stood quite still where she was in dead silence until a puff of wind
dispersed the feathers of the ash. Then she turned briskly and filled
her glass.

"I drink prosperity to him who was betrothed to me," she said, "and
wish him with all my heart a better wife than I should ever have made
him. And here," she cried, unbuckling the great gold belt, "take your
wife to-morrow, if you will, or when you will, and here is my gift to
the bride."

And she handed the gorgeous thing across to her cousin, clinked glasses
with him, and, draining her own, flung it to the ground, so that none
other should drink from it.

Then sitting down again:

"This is a fortunate day for you, Christos, if only you knew it, and
for you all. For here am I, a free woman, who knows her trade, and will
give all her time and energy to it, and indeed I am not lazy, and so
double the riches of the house, instead of sitting at the distaff and
picking up the olives. For, in truth, I do not think that I am of the
stuff that wives are made of. You have often told me, uncle, that I
should have been a man, and, before God, I think you were right. And
you, dear Christos, some day I should have tried your patience beyond
all bearing, and you would have raised your hand to strike me, and
then, perhaps, you would have felt my fists rattling about your face,
or maybe, if I really was angry, for I do not think I could take a blow
from any man, I should have set Michael at you. And then, if you were
wise, you would have run away, for I think Michael would kill whomever
I told him to kill, for he is greatly obedient, and a fine thing it
would have been for the folk to see the head of the clan running
from a four-legged dog, while his wife hished the beast on from the
threshold."

A roar of laughter greeted this, and Sophia looked up, smiling herself.
"So we are friends again, are we not?" she said; "and we will never
again give others cause to say that they of the clan are of two minds
among themselves. And now, cousins, if you have smoked and drunk what
you will, let us go down and see the new brig, for indeed I think she
will have no luck unless you all come. To-morrow the masts are hoisted;
this morning I have had no time to attend to my business."

The brig was duly inspected, and though some of the elder men shook
their heads over this new-fangled keel, and the somewhat egoish name of
_Sophia_ for the Capsina's ship, the general verdict was satisfactory.
To celebrate this day of her emancipation she let all the workmen
go home, giving them half a day off work, and returned alone to her
house towards evening. She went at once to loose Michael from his
unaccustomed confinement, and stood for a moment with her hand on the
dog's neck.

"Michael," she whispered, "does it not seem to you that Christos
desired the money more than he desired me? Yet, perhaps, it was the
others who urged him, for, in truth, he looked a little downcast. But
that a man should consent to that! Well, I am too happy to-day to find
fault with any one."

For that year and the next Sophia worked with unintermittent energy in
her ship-yard. Sometimes it seemed to herself that a kind of frenzy
for ships and the sea had possession of her, and, busy with open-air
thought, she never even noticed the glances which men cast on her.
Her fame, the stories of her wonderful knowledge of ships, her fiery
beauty, her utter unconsciousness of men, had passed beyond the island,
and sailors who had put in at Hydra would wait about on the quay to
catch a glimpse of her, or speak to her, for she would always have a
word for sailors. She was not content to know that her ships were truly
built and seaworthy, but she cruised about, mastering the individuality
of each; for, as she said, a ship, like a horse, would obey one master
when it would not obey another, and her own brig, the _Sophia_, turned
out a miracle of speed, and could sail, it seemed as by magic, into
the teeth of a gale. She commanded it herself, directing its course
with an apparent recklessness, really the result of knowledge, through
the narrow channels and swirling currents of the close-sown islands,
through passages where rocks were ranged like a shark's teeth, row on
hungry row, and the green water poured over them with the speed of an
autumn gale, or beating about, close-hauled, past the reef of wolves
which lie waiting off Methana. Sometimes she would charter herself to
a merchant, and carry trading produce as far as the Asiatic coast, or
to Alexandria; but for the most part she seemed possessed merely by
the desire for the sea, an instinct of her race, but coming to flavor
in her, for the fierce battling of skill calculated against the brute
force of the incalculable elements, for the hundred tactics which
nothing but practical intimacy can teach. To her clan she became a sort
of cult, the more so as she had left all her property, if she died
unmarried, to Christos, who, in point of fact, took to himself a wife
within six months of the final rejection.

In 1821, when she was now near the end of her twenty-first year--alert
for adventure--came the stinging news of the outbreak of the revolution.

To Hydra, that small and frugal island, tales of Turkish cruelty,
greed, and lust, and the inchoate schemes of vengeance, had come only
as echoes vague and remote, and the news of the outbreak was like the
bolt out of the clear sky. For the Turks had formed a sufficiently
accurate conception of the character of those dour islanders, and while
there were women, and to spare, in the other places, and it seemed
that on the mainland, peopled, so they considered, with richer and
softer folk, taxation might be indefinitely increased, it was not for
a fattened pasha to procure with trouble and fighting what an indolent
order given over his pipe could bring him. Sophia, on the eve of her
return from a prolonged and prosperous cruise, interviewed the captain
of a caique who had put in with the news of the taking of Kalamata,
and heard a tale to make the blood bubble and boil--how the rising had
run like fire through summer-dry stubble from north to south and east
to west, how that Greece was to be free, and pull no longer under an
infidel yoke. Tale followed tale; the man had seen with his own eyes
free-born Greeks, man, woman, and child, treated as an unmerciful
master will not treat his beast; he had tales of torture, followed at
the last by death, lingering and painful, but welcome as the end of
pain--of things unnatural and bestial beyond word or belief. There
had been a cousin of his living near Nauplia. He had come back from
the fields one day to find his wife dead and abominably mutilated on
the threshold; his two daughters had been carried off--with them his
two younger sons; the elder lay stifled by his mother. They had--And
Kanaris stopped, for the thing could not be told. It was on the quay,
within half an hour of her landing, that the Capsina heard the first
news, and in her brusque way she whisked the man up to her house and
gave him wine and tobacco, and listened while he talked. Others of
the clan were there to welcome her, and stayed to hear, old Christos
among them, and the tales were stopped and pointed with exclamations
of fierce horror and curses on the Turk. Sophia sat in dead silence,
but her eyes were black flames, and more than once her lip trembled at
some story of hideous outrage on women and children. She only asked one
question--"They are Greeks, to whom the devils do such things?" And on
the answer, "And we too are Greeks," she said, and her hand clinched.

Her foreman had been waiting for orders as to the unloading of the
brig, and when the tales were over, she sent for him.

"Begin the unloading now, at once," she said, "and let the work go on
all night. Oh, man, are you a stuffed bird, that you stare so at me?
Do you not understand the tongue of your fathers, or shall I speak
Turkish? I will be down there in an hour. Unload at once." Then turning
to the captain of the caique, "You will sup with me," she said, "and
you too, Christos. By-the-way, what is your name?"

"Constantine Kanaris."

"That is a good sea-name. Do you hate the Turk, and can you handle a
boat?"

"The one as thoroughly as the other."

"I offer you a birth in the _Sophia_, directly under me. I command my
own ship."

"And I, too," said Kanaris, "as my father and grandfather have done
before me."

"You accept the post?"

Kanaris looked rather bewildered.

"Capsina," he said, "you are one of few words, and so am I when work is
to be done. I have told you of Nicholas Vidalis, who is among the first
movers of this revolution. Him I have promised to serve, in the cause
of the war. I cannot go back from that."

The Capsina frowned, and struck the table impatiently.

"Do you not understand?" she said--"that his work is my work? Oh,
Uncle Christos! what is the matter with you? Has the sky fallen, or do
you hear the trumpet of the archangel? God in heaven! for the present
there is no more trading for me. Do you not see that there must be a
fleet, or these devils will keep on sending more arms and armies into
the country? Are you a Greek, man--are you anything but a fiend from
the pit, that you can wonder at me, when you hear how they treat other
clans, free-born and scornful as ourselves, like slaves and beasts? That
I should be busy like a mule carrying silk stuff, when such things are
going on! There must be a fleet, I tell you, and the _Sophia_ is the
first ship of that fleet. By God! but I have found my work at last! It
was not for nothing that I have built ships, and learned how to sail
them, and take them where the devil himself would be afraid to trust
to his luck. Now quick," she said to Kanaris--"do you take this berth
or not? I want a man something like you, who hates and works and is
silent. You will suit me, I think."

"Our purpose is war on the Turk and no other purpose?" asked Kanaris.

"That is better," said the Capsina--"we are getting to business. Yes,
only war on the Turk. War? Extermination, rather, for that is the only
business of Christians with regard to them. And you shall be no loser,
if we prosper; and if we do not prosper, I pay you still the wage of
the captain of a brig."

Kanaris flushed.

"Why do you say that?" he asked. "Is it for that that Nicholas--God be
thanked for him!--and those like him serve?"

"I was wrong," said Sophia, "but you were a stranger to me till this
moment, but you are no stranger now. You will come?"

"I will come," he said.

With that they fell to supper, and when supper was over Sophia and
Kanaris went down to the harbor. The brig was lying close in unlading,
and returning boats were passing to and fro from it to the shore. Two
great resin flares on the deck showed them a crowd of men working at
the crane by which the freight was conveyed from the hold and swung
over the side to the barges that received it. The cargo was of silk
from the Syrian coast and was for Athens and Salonica; but the foreman,
in blind obedience to Sophia's instructions, was unloading it and
storing it in her shed on the quay. They found him there when they got
down, and she nodded approvingly when she saw what progress the work
had made.

"Have we another ship in?" she asked.

"Yes, the _Hydra_, but she is due to sail to-morrow to Syria," said he.

The Capsina stood for a moment thinking.

"May the Virgin look to Syria!" she said. Then, "What is your caique
doing?" she asked Kanaris.

"Picking up chance jobs."

"Here is one then, and Syria is all right. Will you undertake to
deliver the silk to Athens and Salonica?"

"Before what date?"

"This day three weeks. My men shall do the freighting for you, and
you can sail to-morrow night. You will carry it easily; it is only a
quarter of the _Sophia's_ cargo, for we have discharged at Crete and
Melos. Also it is the season of south winds."

The matter was soon arranged, and the two went on board the _Sophia_,
that Kanaris might see the ship. To him, as to the Hydriots, the build
of the vessel was new, but she had acquitted herself too well on her
previous cruises to allow of any doubt as to the success of what had
been an experiment, and Kanaris, who had more than once been on board
English and French cruisers and men-of-war, talked with Sophia as to
the guns she should carry. They could obtain these, he told her, at
Spetzas, where the revolutionists had formed a secret arsenal. It would
be better, he suggested, to delay any alteration in the bulwarks and
disposition of the ship till they saw what guns were to be got.

At the end of an hour or so they went on shore again, Kanaris to his
caique, Sophia back to her house. The night was still and windless, and
from her room she could see the flares on the _Sophia_ burning upright
and steady in the calm air, and the rattle of the gear of the crane was
audible. She felt as if her life had suddenly burst into blossom, and
the blossom thereof was red.




Chapter II


Next day came news that Spetzas had openly joined the insurrection,
and two proselytizing brigs put into Hydra, to try to raise, if not
more ships, at any rate recruits. They both carried the new Greek
ensign, white and blue, and bearing the cross of Greece risen above the
crescent of Turkey. The tidings that the Capsina was going to join the
revolutionists with her ship had already spread through the town, and
when next morning she went down to the quay to speak with the captains
of the Spetziot vessels, she was like the queen bee to the swarm, and
the people followed her, cheering wildly. Their voices were music and
wine to her, and the thrill of exultation which belongs to acts of
leadership was hers.

Fierce and fine too was the news from Spetzas: the people had risen,
and after an immense meeting held on the quay had chosen a commander,
and broken open the treasury in which was kept the annual tribute
to the Ottoman government. The taxes had just been got in, and the
treasury was full. With this money eight brigs were being armed and
manned, and would set sail to Melos, at which island, as they knew,
were several Ottoman vessels making their annual cruise of conscription
for raising sailors. In such manner was the vintage of the sea to begin.

Round the Capsina and the Spetziot captains the crowd surged thickest.
One of these, Kostas Myrrides, had a certain loud and straight-hitting
gift of oratory, and the crowd gathered and swayed, and hung on his
words. There had been erected for him a sort of rude dais made of a
board placed upon two barrels, and from there he spoke to the people.

"The wine is drawn!" he cried; "to the feast then! Yet indeed there is
no choice. Greece is up in arms, and before long the armies and fleets
of the infidels will be on us. What will it profit you to stay still
and watch? Do you think that the Turks will sit in justice and examine
whether this man is an insurgent and the other is not? Is that their
way of dealing? The justice of the Turk! You have heard the proverb
and know what that means. The fire of war leaps from cape to cape and
mountain to mountain. Kindle it here. Already has one of you, and that
a woman whose name will not be forgotten, thrown in her lot with a
glorious cause--Greece, the freedom of Greece!"

The shout rose and broke in waves of sound, only to swell and tower
afresh when the speaker unfurled the new-blazoned flag, and waved it
above them. Truly, if the Turkish ship of conscription had come in
sight, there would have been short shrift for those on board.

The government of Hydra was in the hands of twelve primates, who
were responsible to the Ottoman government for the annual tribute in
specie (in itself but small), and also for the equipment and wages
of two hundred and fifty able-bodied seamen yearly to the Ottoman
fleet. To raise this more considerable sum a tax of five per cent. was
levied on the income of every man in the island. Now the ship-owners
were more than the bulk of the tax-payers, and it was clearer than
a summer noonday that if they joined the revolutionists, unless the
island revolution became general, or their ships met with immediate
success, the Ottoman fleet would descend on the Hydra, and the Shadow
of God would have a word for the primates, and a rope. Thus it came
about that while the uproar was still growing and fermenting on the
quay, the primates met together, and found grave faces. The Capsina,
they considered, was primarily responsible for this consternating
stroke, but to try to guide the Capsina back into the paths of peace,
they feared, was like attempting to lead the moon with a string,
and to quarrel with her was to quarrel with the clan, to whom she
was as a god, eccentric, perhaps, but certainly unquestionable. The
responsibility of debate, however, was not granted them, for before
they could devise any check on the Capsina, a new and tremendous burst
of cheering caused the president, Father Jakomaki Tombazes, to rise and
go to the window. Three vessels were leaving the port, two being the
Spetziot vessels, with the Greek flag blazoning its splendor to heaven,
and as for the other, there was no mistaking the build of the _Sophia_.
Tombazes gasped, then returned to the others.

"The Capsina has gone," he said. "And, by the Virgin," cried he, rising
to the heroical level of the event, and striking the table with his
fist, "she is a brave lass, and Hydra should be proud of her!"

This straightforward statement of the duty of Hydriots was not less
abhorrent to the assembled primates. The Capsina had gone, the clan
were shouting themselves hoarse on the beach, and, where an action of
the Capsina was concerned, it was not less idle to argue with the clan
than to employ rhetoric to a mad bull. The only courses open were to
fly for safety to the mainland, join the revolutionists, or employ
coercive measures with the rest, whereby they should not do so. Now the
tax-collectors were necessarily of their party, for the necks of all
the officials under the Turkish rule were, so to speak, in one noose,
and there were also a number of old, sedately minded or retired men who
would distinctly prefer to live out their lives in inglorious peace,
unless matters were already in the fire, than to burn squibs, for in
so small regard did the primates hold the revolution, under the very
nose of the Shadow of God. But, look at it as they might, they were
bound to confess that a sorrier party had never been got together.
Even Tombazes, by his remark about the duty of Hydra, showed he was of
no reliable stuff, and the primates seemed depressed. For the rest,
the island was capering in exultant frenzy on the beach, at what the
Capsina had done, and what they would do.

Tombazes, who as their president should have shown himself a pillar
of prudence, alone of them all sat with a glistening eye, and smiled,
showing his teeth in his black and scarcely gray-streaked beard. Then
throwing his head back, he burst out into a great crack of laughter.

"The Capsina is finer than we all," he said. "What a girl! She is the
only man among us, for all our long beards. Who knows she may not sail
straight for Constantinople, force her way into the Sultan's presence,
and set Michael at him. I can almost see her doing it, and indeed I
should dearly like to. 'Hi, Michael, at his throat, boy!' she would
cry. Yet I see her walking out again safe and leaving him lying dead
like a broken doll, for I cannot imagine three armies of Turks stopping
her. She would call them dogs and devils, and, the chidden dogs, they
would tuck their tails away and only snarl. Yes, my brothers, this is
not in order; I am but a fond dreamer. But let us come to the point.
The Capsina beats us. Oh, she beats us! We need not waste time in
making faces at that. But what next? Of course we must do our best to
stop this rising, but, though I would not have it said by others, my
heart is not wholly on our side, though my head shall be. Is not the
Capsina stupendous?"

He rose again from his place, and hurried to the open window for
another glance.

"They are all crowding on sail," he said, "but the Capsina's ship
is first--first by half a mile, I should say. She is always first.
Pre-eminently has she been first this morning. Yes, yes, I know, let us
come to the point. Perhaps Brother Nikolas will give us his views," and
the great burly man bent down his head to hide the inextinguishable joy
of his face.

Brother Nikolas's views were short, sour, eminently depressing, and as
follows:

The Turkish ships which were cruising for the conscription would be
at Hydra before the end of April--that is to say, in considerably
less than a month. Instead of two hundred and fifty able-bodied
recruits they would find twelve, or perhaps eleven, primates--here
his eyes looked lemon-juice at Tombazes--a quantity of unemployed
tax-collectors, some elderly gentlemen, some women, and some children.
This would probably be thought an unsatisfactory substitute. They
could fill in the probable course of subsequent events for themselves,
for one Turkish raid was very like another. He would suggest guarding
the treasury at the risk of their lives, to show that they, at any
rate, had no hand in the matter.

Others spoke in the same melancholy vein, and at the end Tombazes.

"The point, so I take it, is this," he said. "Unless we stop this
movement, or, if we are unable to stop it, unless we run away for
refuge to the insurgent armies in Greece or in other islands, we
are certainly dead men. Brother Nikolas has suggested that we have
a certain duty to the Turk; well, that is as it may be, but in any
case we are at present the vassals of the Sultan, and for the sake of
our own necks, this meeting, I am sure, would wish to repudiate the
movement. It will be no manner of good, but we must let that be known.
With your consent, I will send for the mayor, and make an official
inquiry as to what the tumult is about, and where and why the Capsina
has gone. Meantime, and with the utmost haste, I suggest that we stow
the island revenues in the church. It may be difficult, but I think it
will be possible if we do it quietly. The money will certainly be safer
there."

The primates dispersed: some to mingle with the crowd, and try to allay
this illicit enthusiasm, whereby certain men got infected with it;
some to make arrangements for the funds of the national treasury being
moved to the church; Tombazes alone, though burning to go down among
the people, waiting in the room where they had met for his conference
with the mayor, Christos Capsas. Indeed, he was in most unprelatical
vein, and the meeting of the two was very cordial; you would have said
they took the same side. Christos dwelt with extreme complacency on the
expedition of the Capsina--it was like the clan, he said, to take the
lead in adventure--and Tombazes, though officially he had bound himself
to deprecate it, gave a halting lip-service only to the cause of the
primates.

"And the men of the island, you say," says he, with a dancing eye, "are
resolved to follow this--this most imprudent and ill-advised example
set them by the Capsina? Man, do they realize what it means? Do they
not know that the Turks will descend on those they leave behind--their
women and their children?"

"Yet the women would have them go," said Christos.

"The more senseless they. Yet women are ever so. For what will happen
to them? Are the Turks so chivalrous? And will Turks make kind parents
to the children who will be fatherless?"

"Yet the children are sailing sticks and branches in the harbor, and
throwing stones at them. 'This,' they say to one another, 'we will do
to the Turks.'"

"By the Virgin, they are true Greeks, then!" shouted Tombazes, lustily,
forgetting himself for a moment but his voice ringing true. Then with
impatience: "What does it matter what the children do?" he asked. "It
is a new thing to take counsel of the children before we act."

"Yet you asked me of the children," said Christos, smiling, "and, as
you said, father, they are true Greeks."

Tombazes sat down, and motioned Christos to take a seat.

"You, then, are on the side of the women and the children," he said,
"or rather, if you look at it aright, against them; for sure is it
that you give them over to the Turks to treat--to treat as Turks treat
women and children. Your son Christos a servant in the harem--have you
thought of that?"

"I am on the side of the Capsina," said Christos.

Tombazes looked furtively round, as if to see that none other was
there, walked slowly to the window, and came back again with quicker
step. Twice he began to speak, twice stopped, but at the last he could
contain himself no longer.

"And so, by all the saints, am I!" he cried. "See, Christos, I trust
you, and this must not be known nor guessed. For sure I would, if
I followed my desire, sail after that splendid girl--yes, swim to
wherever she may go--with the Greek flag over me. Man, but my heart
burned when I saw that. The cross above the crescent, and soon no
crescent at all. Thus shall it be. But I and the others, and you, too,
are put over these people, and we must make them consider what will
follow. Nothing must be done wildly; because we are aflame with this
wonderful, prophetic flag, tinder to that spark, we must not act as
if the thing was done, as if the moment we take up arms, down go the
Turks like the walls of Jericho; and in this, Christos, I am speaking
with all the sincerity God gave me. No enthusiasm, no sudden rising
will do the work; the fight will be long and bitter, and if a new and
glorious thing is to spring up, it will be watered with tears and
with blood--with tears of the fatherless and widow, and blood of the
fathers. Tell me yourself, you are the father of a family, with a stake
in peace; what are you meaning to do?"

"The Capsina has lent me the _Hydra_, which was to have sailed to Syria
to-day with stuff for the Turkish governor. The stuff she has thrown
overboard, and I sail to-morrow for Nauplia, where I shall get orders."

"She threw the Turk's stuff overboard? I would it had been Turks! Great
is the Capsina!" and the primate capered barbarously up the room and
down again. "And now I will go down to the people," said he. "You and I
have a secret, Christos; but I wonder how long the devil will give me
strength to keep it."

Down on the quay matters had fared more briskly than among the
primates. A member and delegate of the Revolutionist Club, by name
Economos, had landed with the ships from Spetzas, and had been
preaching revolt and revenge to willing ears. Even before the departure
of the Capsina, whose sails were now a gull on the horizon, he had
begun enlisting volunteers, and before Tombazes reached the harbor,
he was already at the head of an armed band, including several
ship-captains, and was rapidly earning a cheap popularity by addressing
the mob as "citizens of Greece."

Tombazes, who, for his ruddy face and burly heartiness, was popular
with the people, made his way through to where the crowd was thickest,
and instantly interrupted the man's speeches.

"Now what is this all about?" he cried, good-humoredly, pushing his
way in. "What is all this disturbance? It is all most irregular. Ha,
Dimitri, you should be driving out the sheep instead of wasting time
on the quay, for all the world like a quacking goose that can't lay
an egg! You, too, Anastasi, now you are a less idiot than some, tell
me what this is about, and who is that holding a flag which I do not
remember to have seen before?"

He made his way through the people up to Economos.

"Now, my good fellow," he said, "just stop preaching for a moment.
We primates have a good deal of preaching to do, and so we have much
sympathy for those who listen. Who are you, where do you come from,
what's your business, and what's your name, and what are you talking
about? Oh, you silly folk!" he cried, aloud, as a discontented murmur
rose up. "You are all going to have fair play--that is why I am here.
But just let me learn what it is all about. Melesinas, don't brandish
your knife in that foolish way, or you will be cutting your own oaf's
hand off!"

Economos paused, and realizing that there was nothing to be gained by
insolence, seeing that this man was a friend evidently of the people,
stepped down from the table on which he was standing.

"My name is Antonios Economos," he said. "I am an emissary from the
Club of Patriots in Greece, and I am here to raise the revolt in Hydra
against the Turk."

"That is all very well," said Tombazes. "You want ships and support,
and for ships you want men, and for men money. Has the Club of Patriots
supplied you with that?"

"The treasury--the national treasury!" shouted several voices.

Tombazes looked up quickly, and, springing forward with an agility
which in a man of his bulk bordered on the miraculous, seized hold of
a big fellow whom he had seen shouting and shook him till his teeth
rattled in his head.

"Another word," he cried, "and I pop you into the harbor. You too,
George, I saw you shouting too. If I tell your wife it will be but
little supper you get. I am ready for you all, five under one arm
and six under the other. Oh, I will teach you to interrupt when I am
talking to another. Get back with you from the table, all of you, all
of you. And you there, Yanni, bring me wine and two glasses, this
gentleman and I have to talk together, and chairs--two chairs; and the
sooner the rest of you silly quacking folk clear away, the fewer there
will be for me to put into the sea, and that will save trouble for us
all: for me, in getting hot on so warm a day, for there are fat lubbers
among you; and for you, in having to change your clothes."

The crowd edged a little back, more good-humored than resentful, for
they were accustomed to be treated like children by Tombazes, and the
island knew him familiarly as "The Nurse." He was their doctor, a
practitioner of heroic simples, sun and sea being the staple of his
prescriptions, their spiritual consoler, herein also employing the
less morbid remedies. He could sail a boat against the best of their
seamen, and he had again and again, as they all knew, taken the side of
the people against the greedy and grabbing primates. The wine and the
chairs were brought, and he and Economos sat down, clinked glasses, and
settled down to talk.

"You will have found dry work in all that talking," said Tombazes,
"unless you are very fond of your own voice. Good wine is the gift of
God, and this is not bad. Now I heard what that man shouted, and so
did you. Now tell me straight, for this it will save trouble. Was it
you who suggested that they should get the money from the treasury, or
they?"

Economos, who had been playing the noisy demagogue all morning, and
was quite prepared to play it again, if advisable, determined for the
present to talk soberly.

"They suggested it," he said, dryly. "I'm willing also to tell you that
it struck me as an admirable notion."

"Did it so?" said Tombazes, musingly. "Then you are more easily pleased
than most men, for your idea of the admirable seems to me the silliest
thing I have ever heard tell of. And as I am older than you, and a
man of experience, it is likely I have run against many silly things
in this world. Now, man, sit down; this is my way of speaking; no man
in this island takes offence at what I say, for he knows that would
not help what he has his hand to--aye, and he would be like to get his
nose pulled, which is of the more immediate consequence. Now tell me
how many ships do you mean to victual and put into commission with your
admirable notions?"

"Four, to begin with," said Economos.

"Four, to begin with, says he!" exclaimed Tombazes, in a lamentable
treble voice. "And how many to end with, and with what will you be
paying the crews? Man, do you think you will find enough to keep them
in pipes and tobacco with what is in the treasury? Four, to begin
with!--save us all!"

"The crews will average sixty men each," continued Economos, "and that
will make two hundred and forty. Every year the treasury pays the wage
of two hundred and fifty men. I deal with facts, you see."

"Come, then, let's have facts," cried Tombazes, "and surely I will help
you. It's facts the man will be wanting. Why, you must have a fever or
an ague in your blood! You want bleeding, man, I see it in your eye. Do
you think we collect the taxes for a whole year together?"

"I suppose what there is in the treasury will last us a month."

"Well, say it lasts a month," said Tombazes. "What then? You will
return here for more money. Much will you find when you have taken from
the island just those men who pay the bulk of the taxes. I'm thinking
that your admirable notion is even sillier, if we look into it, than it
appeared on the surface. And even the look of it on the surface made me
think you had been better for blood-letting."

"See, father, listen to me," said Economos, with sudden earnestness.
"Have you heard what has happened? Surely you have not, or you would
not speak thus. Do you know that Kalamata has been taken by the Greeks,
that the beacons of liberty have flashed from one end of the country
to another? A free people have stood in the meadows round Kalamata and
sung the 'Te Deum' for that great and wonderful victory. Is that not a
thing to make the blood tingle? In the north, Germanos, archbishop and
primate, has raised the revolt. The monks of Megaspelaion are up in
arms; Petrobey and they of Maina have come forth like a herd of hungry
wolves."

Tombazes' eye flashed.

"It is fit that you should tell me all you have to say for their mad
scheme. Go on, man, go on. Tell me all you know. I--I can judge better
so."

Economos suspected the truth, that the primate was all tinder to the
flame, and, with a certain acumen, did not let him see this, nor did
he at present tax him with it. Instead, he spoke of the plans of the
revolutionists--how that the Turks were flocking into Tripolitza, from
which, when the time came, there would be no escape; how essential it
was to the success of the war that Greece should be cut off from the
headquarters of the Ottoman forces. This could not be done till the
coasts were in the hands of the insurgents, and their ships prevented
fresh arms and men being sent into the country. That was the part of
the Greek ports and islands. Spetzas had already joined; in Psara soon
would the standard of revolution be raised; was Hydra, the largest and
best-manned, she who should be both arms and sinews of naval Greece, to
stand neutral? Indeed, neutral she could not be. If she was not with
the insurgents the Turks would soon make her into an advanced point
from which they could the more easily reach the mainland. She would
be garrisoned; her harbor would be a cluster of Turkish ships--would
that be a pleasant thing for the Hydriots? Their only safety was in
fighting. Greece was in arms--what matter to the Turks if Hydra had
joined the insurgents or not? Would the mob of soldiers and sailors
spare them? Would they leave the Hydriots their houses while they
camped on the hillside? Would their women be spared because they were
loyal? And the danger to Greece was thus doubled. The Turks would be
holding an eyrie from which to swoop in the midst of the patriots.
"Indeed," concluded Economos, returning from his somewhat rhetorical
language to colloquialism, "we will have no wasps' nests in the seat of
our trousers, if you please."

This was too much for Tombazes, and motioning back the crowd, who had
begun to encroach again, he spoke low to the other.

"I shall surely burst unless I speak," he said. "Do you not see how
I am with you? Man, you are blinder than the worms if you do not see
that. But if you drop a word of that till I give you leave, I swear by
the lance of St. George and the coffee-pot which he made whole, that I
will kick you till my foot is sore and you are less like a man than a
jelly-fish! That treasury notion of yours is absurd. That I stick to,
and for the reasons I gave you. Give it up, I ask you, for the present.
Mark you, and listen to me. I am a traitor in my camp for a good cause,
and I can help you. If the primates and others are assured you are not
going to touch the national treasury--for its safety, they think, means
their safety from the Turk--half the opposition will be withdrawn. You
must raise money another way. Moreover, you want five times as much as
there is in the treasury. And what is the use of four ships? Eh, that
was what I meant when I said your notion seemed to me the silliest
thing I have ever heard. Did you not see that? Ah, well, God made the
blind men also! There are at least thirty in the harbor, which are all
capable of carrying guns and of outsailing those lubberly Turkish tubs.
You must have them all. And you must not leave the women and children
here defenceless. You must organize a body of men who will guard the
harbor and the town. Luckily there is no landing except this side the
island. Afterwards, of course, you will add the money in the treasury
to what must be collected by levying a tax. Milk the treasury dry, man.
The money will be stored in the Church of St. George, and I shall have
the key. Now mark the result of our conversation. I have persuaded
you, so I shall tell the primates, and you the people, not to touch
the treasury--that alone will quiet my party considerably. Propose to
the people to levy a tax on all the capital in the island, and submit
that to the primates as the only condition on which the treasury will
be untouched. The people will give willingly, the primates unwillingly,
but the money will be the same. Fill your glass; shake hands with me,
and I will go to my party. I drink to the freedom of Greece, and to
you. Viva!"

For the next two or three days negotiations went on between the
primates and the people, and often Tombazes had occasion to wear a
mighty grave face, whereby he should cloak the merriness of his heart.
The part he was playing, as he assured himself, was the only way of
fighting for the good cause, for had he openly joined the revolutionist
party, the confidence which the other primates felt in him would be
gone, and they would be the more eager to oppose tooth and nail to any
proposals. But what they regarded as his diplomatic victory with regard
to the national treasure, gave him a position of extraordinary security
among them, and Economos, perhaps partly for his own ends, and the
spurious credit which the people would give him of having successfully
fought down the opposition of the primates, was equally anxious to
conceal Tombazes' part in the affair.

At length a sum adequate to meet all immediate expenses was raised; the
crews were all paid one month's wages in advance, with the prospect of
prize-money won from the Turks, and the people seized on the national
treasury. Tombazes' ill-suppressed delight at this step, which was
conveyed to the primates in conclave, put him for the moment within an
ace of exposure.

Fresh intrigues began; the primates, to make the best of a bad job,
appealed to those sailors and captains who had formerly been in their
employment, offering fresh berths in their own service; for many of
them owned ships, and as the island was now pledged to the national
cause, they, too, proposed to have a finger in the prize-money.
Economos, on the other hand, failing to see how it was just that those
who had opposed the scheme should take a share in it now, organized
a revolutionary committee in whose hands should be the sole conduct
of the war, and naturally enough did not appoint any primate on it.
Eventually--for both sides were somewhat afraid of each other, and
wished to avoid open collision--a compromise was arrived at. Those
captains and men who had already definitely engaged themselves in the
service of the revolutionists during the opposition of the primates,
were forbidden to serve on the primates' ships. On the other hand, the
ships of the primates were to be admitted to the fleet, and should be
treated in the matter of prize-money with the others. Finally--and had
the primates known the cause of this, there would have been angry men
in Hydra--the command of the entire fleet was given to Tombazes.

On the morning of the 29th of April a solemn service was held in the
church, and Tombazes read out the declaration of the independence of
Hydra as part of the free state of Greece.

"It is determined by us," so ran the proclamation, "the primates and
governors of this island of Hydra, to serve no longer nor obey the
infidels who are the enemies of God and of His Christ, and of the
blessed mother of Christ, and from this day we declare that we will
make ourselves a free people of the realm of Greece. In the support of
this resolve it will be our duty to fight for our wives, our children,
our country, and we will fight till the death without counting the
cost, and giving whatever we possess--our goods, our obedience, and our
lives--to our country's cause. May He who is the Giver of Victory and
has already given us the will to fight, strengthen our arms and deliver
His foes and ours into our hands."

By the first week in May, such was the frenzy of expedition among the
men, the Hydriot contingent, numbering twenty sail, was ready to go to
sea. The eight brigs from Spetzas which had sailed to Melos to capture
the Turkish conscription ships had put in at Hydra, uniting themselves
with Tombazes' fleet, and reported complete success. The credit of the
capture however belonged, as they acknowledged, to a strange ship that
sailed as if by magic, and which no one knew. For as they were nearing
Melos, intending to get inside the harbor where they knew the Turks
were, and capture them before the Melian contingent got on board, and
while they were still a couple of miles out to sea, the wind, which
so far had been favorable, dropped, and the airs became so light and
variable that they lay for two days like painted ships, taken back
rather than making ground.

At this point, Tombazes, to whom the Spetziot captain was telling his
tale, got up from his chair and waved his arms wildly.

"It was she--I know it was she! Thank God it was she," he cried. "Go
on, man."

Captain Yassos looked at him a moment in surprised wonder.

"It certainly was a she," he said. "How did you know?"

"The spirit of prophecy was upon me!" cried Tombazes. "Finish your
tale."

"It was our desire to take the ships, you will understand," he said,
"before the Melian folk got aboard, while if we failed, they ran risk
of being murdered by the Turks, for fear of their helping us. But it
would seem God willed it otherwise, for He sent us no wind except as
it were the breath of a man cooling his broth. A little mist, too, was
rising seaward and spreading towards us, and when we who knew the sea
saw that, we thought it impossible we could get ten miles in time, for
the mist means a calm and windlessness."

"Oh, am I a boy who would be a sailor, that you tell me the alphabet of
things?" exclaimed Tombazes.

"You will see it all makes the thing more marvellous," said the other,
smiling, "so be patient with me. Well, we were cursing at the calm when
suddenly, on our starboard quarter--my ship being to starboard of all
the others--there came it seemed the shadow of a ship, white and huge,
with all sails spread and coming towards us. Dimitri, my son, who was
with me, said, 'Look, father, look!' and crossed himself, and I did the
same. Now I am no left-handed man at ship sailing, but when I saw that
ship moving slowly but steadily towards us while we lay like logs, I
thought it no canny thing. She passed half a cable's length from us,
and I saw her guns looking through the open ports, new so they seemed
to me; and on her topmast, and I blessed the Virgin when I saw that,
was the flag of Greece. One man stood at the tiller whose face seemed
familiar to me, and by him stood a woman, tall, and like the morning,
somehow, to look upon. In that still air I heard her say to him, 'A
point more to starboard,' so it seemed that she was the captain, and as
she passed us she waved her hand, and cried, 'Do you not wish a share
in this, or am I to go alone? Come, comrades, follow, follow. I bring
you the wind.'

"On her word the wind awoke, the slack ropes began to run through the
blocks, and in a few seconds the sail was full. Up went our helm, and
we followed. But it was like following a hare on the mountains to
follow that great white ship. She swam from us as a fish swims from
a man in the water, and before we had turned the cape behind which
lies the harbor we heard her guns. Twice before we came up she had
sailed round the largest of the three ships, pouring in broadside
after broadside, the other replying clumsily and hardly touching her,
and just as I, who was ahead of the rest, fired at one of the others,
the ship she was battering struck its colors, and anchoring, she
let down the boats, and with two boat-loads of her crew she put off
to board them. Then those treacherous devils of hell under the flag
of truce, you mind, again opened fire on her. But it seems she had
calculated on that, and on the instant her ship blazed again, firing
over their heads and raking the deck where the Turks were. This time,
as I could see, they fired red-hot ball, and one, I suppose, struck
the powder-magazine, for it was as if the end of the world came, and
a moment after the Turk sank. The boarding party was not far from the
ship, and the explosion showered boards and wreckage round them, but
thereat they turned and rowed back again, their work being done for
them. For me, I had my own affairs ready, and for ten minutes we blazed
and banged at each other, but before it was over I looked round once,
and saw already at the harbor's mouth the ship which had come out of
the mist beating out to sea again. Now, father, you seem to know who
that woman was; who was it?"

"Glory be to God!" said Tombazes. Then, "But, man, you are an ignorant
fool. Who could it be but the Capsina of Hydra? But where has she gone?
Why is she not with you?"

"I know not: she was gone before we had finished with the others."

With the combined squadron from Spetzas and Hydra had joined nine ships
from Psara. There was half a day's trouble with them, for they refused
at first to recognize the command of Tombazes, and said it was fitter
that the three islands should cast lots, and let the choice of the
admiral go with the winner. They had, they said, a most wary man of the
sea among them, who had worked with the Russians and knew the use of
the fire-ship. But the Spetziots had accepted Tombazes as commander of
the two islands, and the Psariots were told that they might do the same
or leave the squadron, and they chose the former, though ill-content.

They cruised northward, for knowing that news of the revolution had
reached Constantinople and that the Sultan Mahmud was preparing to send
a fleet to the refractory islands, they hoped to intercept this, and
thus prevent punishment reaching their homes or fresh supplies putting
into ports on the mainland. Several times they sighted Turkish ships,
and thus two or three small prizes were taken. For ten days they met
none but single ships, which, without exception, surrendered, often
without the exchange of a shot; the crews were taken and sent back to
Hydra or Spetzas, where they were prisoners; but these vessels being
for the most part trading brigs of the poorer class, there was little
booty to be divided among the captors.

The tenth day of the cruise saw the squadron off Cape Sunium, at the
extreme south end of Attica. The day before they had run before a
strong south wind, hoping to clear the promontory before night and get
through the dangerous straits to the north of it by daylight. Until
evening the heavens had been clear, but the night came on cloudy,
starless, and calm, and fearing to pass the straits in so uncertain
a light, for they were full of reefs, orders had been given to lie
to and wait for day. But the currents of that shifting sea rendered
it impossible to maintain position. The greater part of the squadron
was caught by the racing flow of water that runs up northwest towards
Peiraeus, and drifted safely but swiftly up the gulf. Of the remainder,
all but two weathered Sunium and lay for shelter under Zea, where they
remained till morning. But these two, finding themselves dangerously
near the rocky south headland of Sunium, beat out to sea again before
the breeze dropped, and by morning lay far out to the east of the
others.

Day broke windless and calm, with an oily sea, big, but not broken,
coming in from the south. The ships in the gulf had to wait for the
land breeze to spring up: those off Zea who had passed Sunium lay to
till the others joined them, but the two to the east, Hydriot ships,
out of shelter of the land, had a moderate breeze from the north.

For two hours after daybreak they waited, but the others, out of reach
of their wind, made no sign, and about nine o'clock they were aware of
a Turkish ship coming from the north, and sailing, as they supposed,
to the islands or to some Peloponnesian port. The two Greek ships
were lying close together, it may be a cable's distance apart, and
it was immediately clear to each that the Turk must be stopped, for
the purpose of their squadron was none other than this. The admiral's
ship, far away to the west, it was impossible to signal, and even if
possible, ineffectual, for nought but a miracle would have brought up a
land breeze at nine in the morning. So as in duty bound the two brigs,
like sea swallows, put about, and hoisting the Greek flag went in
pursuit of the Turk.

As they neared her it was evident that a day's work was before them,
and Sachturi, the captain of one of the brigs, signalled to Pinotzi:
"Ship of war," and Pinotzi signalled back: "So are we." Yanni Sachturi,
the captain's son, a lusty, laughing boy of about eighteen, danced
with delight as he read the signal to his father, and heard the order
to clear for action. The ports had been closed, for a heavy sea had
been running during the night, but in a few minutes the guns were run
out, the men at their posts, and the pokers heating in the galley fire.
Sachturi's vessel carried ten guns, four on each broadside and two in
the bows; Pinotzi's only six, but of these two were thirty-two-pounders
and heavier than any of Sachturi's.

The Turk was running due south, and Sachturi from the bridge, seeing
that if they went straight for her, she would pass them, ordered
that his ship should he laid two points nearer the wind, and Pinotzi
followed his lead. In ten minutes it was clear that they were rapidly
overhauling her, and in another half-hour they were but a short mile
off. For a moment the Turk seemed to hesitate, and then, putting about,
went off on an easterly tack. But here the Greek gained more speedily,
and she, perceiving this, went off straight down wind again. This
manoeuvre lost her more ground, and Sachturi and she were now broadside
to each other when the Turk opened fire. Her aim was too low, and the
halls struck the water some two hundred yards from the Greek ship. In
spite of her imposing appearance Sachturi noticed that only five guns
were fired, the balls from three of which ricochetted off the sea, and
flew, two of them, just beyond the Greek's bows, the other clearing
the deck without touching her. Sachturi's guns replied, but apparently
without effect, and changing his course he made an easterly tack to
pass behind her, for all her guns seemed to be forward. Pinotzi, who
had heavier ordnance, ran up broadside, and he and the Turk exchanged
a volley or two, but, owing to the heavy rolling of the ships and the
inexperience of the Greek gunners at least, without doing or receiving
damage.

Sachturi's guess had been correct, though why a ship-of-war had put to
sea only half-armed he did not pause to consider, and, coming up within
range, he let her have the starboard guns. But he had thus to lie
broadside on to the sea, which made accurate aim difficult; and again
putting her head to the sea, he ran on, meaning to use the two guns in
his bows at close quarters.

For an hour or more it was the battle of the hawk and the raven. The
two Greek ships skimmed and tacked about on the light breeze, sometimes
getting in a broadside as they closed in, sometimes passing behind her
stern, where she seemed to be unarmed. Twice Sachturi sailed round
her, giving broadside for broadside, and at last a lucky shot cut the
main-mast of the Turk in half, bringing down to the deck a pile of
wreckage and canvas. They could see the men hauling away to clear the
deck, when another shot from Pinotzi brought down the second mast,
leaving her rolling helplessly, with only the mizzen standing. Sachturi
had just rounded her stern, and had given another broadside, when
the Turk fired, and a ball crashing through the bulwarks killed two
sailors, and with them Yanni, who was just taking an order from his
father to close with her and throw on the grappling-irons.

Sachturi did not move; but he set his teeth for a moment, and looked at
Yanni. He was lying on his back, half his chest shot away, staring up
into the sky. His face was untouched, and his mouth seemed to smile. He
was his father's only son, and Sachturi loved him as his own soul.

In another ten minutes the grappling-irons were cast on to the Turk;
twice they were thrown off, but the third time two anchored themselves
in the ropes and blocks of the wrecked main-mast, and, though the Turks
sought furiously to free themselves, in another minute the Greeks from
Sachturi's ship were pouring over the side. Since Yanni had been killed
he had only said three words, twice when the grappling-irons were
thrown off, and he ordered them to be cast again, once as they boarded,
"Spare none!" he had cried.

The order was obeyed. The Turks had exhausted their ammunition, and
fought with knives only, charging down with undaunted bravery on the
muskets of the Greeks, and when the deck was cleared the boarders went
below. In a cabin they found an old man, dressed in the long white
robe of a Mussulman patriarch, with the green turban of the sons of
the Prophet on his head, playing draughts with a woman. And here, too,
Sachturi's order was obeyed.

The booty taken was immense, for on board were presents from the Sultan
to the Pasha of Egypt, and when the Turkish ship was no more than a
shambles they brought it all on board Sachturi's vessel for division.
They found him sitting on the deck, with Yanni's head on his knee. He
was quite silent and dry-eyed; he rested his weight on one hand, with
the other he was stroking the dead lad's hair.




CHAPTER III


The next fortnight's cruising was well rewarded by the prizes they
took, but already symptoms of a dual control in the fleet, and thus of
no control at all, had unhappily begun to make appearance. The primates
were by no means disposed to forgive the slight which Economos had
put upon them, and before long they devised a cunning and unpatriotic
scheme of paying in public money, so to speak, their private debt to
him. To a certain extent the immediate adoption of his naval plans
among the sailors had been due to the hopes he put forward to the
islanders of winning large prizes, and the primates, by making a
main issue of this secondary desire among them, began to reinstate
themselves in power. Much of the booty taken was to be divided on the
return of the squadron to Hydra, and Economos, at the suggestion of
Tombazes, proposed that one-half of the gains of the cruise should be
appropriated to the prosecution of the war. This was an equitable and
patriotic suggestion, but coming as it did from Economos the primates
opposed it tooth and nail. Equally, too, did it fail to satisfy the
more greedy and selfish of his supporters, who cared for nothing but
their own aggrandizement.

Economos's proposal had been put forward one afternoon some three
days after their return to Hydra, at the sitting of the revolutionary
committee, which had been reorganized and included all the primates.
Tombazes alone of his class supported Economos, but the matter was
still in debate when they rose for the day.

The afternoon had been hot and windless, but an hour before sundown a
southerly breeze began to stir, and before long word was brought by a
shepherd who had been grazing his flocks on the hill above the town
that he had seen a ship under full sail off the southwest, making
straight for Hydra. It was known that a Turkish ship had escaped the
fate of its consort at Kalamata, but the fleet, though they had kept
a lookout for it, had seen nothing of it. Her fate they were to learn
later. Tombazes hesitated what to do; the ship might be part of the
Turkish squadron which had been cruising off the west coast of Greece;
again, it might be the single ship from Kalamata. In the former case
they had better look to the defence of their harbor, in the latter it
might be possible to man a couple of brigs and give chase.

He determined, however, to wait a little yet; for no other ship had
been sighted, and as long as there was but one it would be time to give
chase when she declared herself more manifestly. So going down to the
quay, where he would meet Economos and other commanders, he mingled
with the crowd. Even in so short space the ship had come incredibly
nearer, and even as he looked a livelier gust shook out the folds of
her flag, and at his elbow some one shouted, "The Capsina; it is the
Capsina! It is the Capsina back again!" The flag she carried was blue
and on it was the cross of Greece, no crescent anywhere.

On she came, black against the crimson sky, crumpling the water beneath
her forefoot. On the quay the crowd thickened and thickened, and soon
there came to them across the water a cheer from the ship. At that all
throats were opened, and shout after shout went up. For the moment all
the jealousies and quarrelling were forgotten, the primates mingled
their enthusiasm with the rest, feeling that but for the example so
memorably set by the Capsina their pockets would be lighter by all the
prize-money they had won; and even Father Nikolas, perhaps the sourest
man God ever made, found himself excitedly shaking hands with Economos.
After passing the southern point of the harbor the _Sophia_ hauled down
her mainsail, and three minutes afterwards she had swung round and her
anchor chains were screaming out. Before she had well come into harbor
fifty boats were racing out to meet her, then one of her own boats was
let down, and they saw that tall girlish figure, preceded by Michael
and followed by Kanaris, step in.

The elder Christos, with his son and daughter-in-law and grandchild,
were the first on the steps when she came ashore. She kissed them
affectionately, asking first after one and then the other.

"And what has been doing since I went?" she asked. "I have only heard
that certain ships from Hydra have been stinging the Turks very
shrewdly, but no more. For me I have not been idle, and two Turkish
ships lie on the ooze of the deep sea, and one more I have taken to
Nauplia; it will do penance for having served the Turk in now fighting
for us. Ah, father," and she held out her hand to Tombazes, "or admiral
shall I call you? Here is the truant home again."

But before the evening was out, though the enthusiasm of the people
grew higher and higher as the Capsina's deeds went from mouth to mouth,
the primates cooled, and Father Nikolas from being positively genial
passed through all the stages of subacidity and became more superacid
than one would have thought it possible for so small a man to be. For
it appeared that Tombazes had dined with her and that she had wished
to hand him over at once no less than eight hundred Turkish pounds for
the "war fund." Tombazes had told her that at present there was no war
fund, and that on this very day a proposal had been made for one, which
would without doubt be vetoed on the morrow. At this it seemed that
the Capsina stared at him in undisguised amazement, and then said, "We
shall see!" Soon after a boy from her house came running into one of
the cafés on the quay, which Economos frequented, and said that the
Capsina wished to see him immediately.

Economos seemed disposed to finish his game of draughts, but his
opponent, no other than the rejected Christos, who was getting the
worst of it, rose at once, and swept the men back into their box.

"When the Capsina calls for us we go," he remarked, laconically.

"And when she sends you away you go also, but elsewhere," remarked
Economos, who had heard of Christos's dismissal, and with this Parthian
shot left the café in a roar.

The elder Christos was also with the Capsina, and when Economos entered
she rose.

"You are doing what is right," she said, shaking hands, "and I am with
you. So," and she looked severely at her uncle--"so will Christos
Capsas be. Sit down. There is wine for you."

Then turning to Tombazes:

"It is quite out of the question not to have a war fund," she said. "On
the mainland half of all that is taken goes to it, and the other half,
remember, is divided among far more men in proportion to the prizes
than we have here. Good God, man!" and she turned to Christos, "how is
it possible that you did not see this? And you tell me you were going
to vote with the primates. How is the war to be carried on thus? Is
the war an affair of a day or two, to last no longer than an autumn's
vintage? Already, you tell me, the national treasury is empty. Have you
finished the war? for if so, indeed I have not heard the result; or how
will you pay the men for the next cruise? How do the numbers go on the
question? There are four of us here who will of course vote for the
fund."

Tombazes appeared somewhat timorous.

"Capsina," he said, "it is not my fault, you know; but you must
remember that you are not on the committee."

The Capsina laughed.

"That is not a matter that need trouble you," she said. "We will see
to that to-morrow. The meetings are public, you say. Well, I shall be
there--I mean to be on the committee, and of course I shall be. By
the Virgin! it would be a strange thing if the head of our clan had
no voice in affairs that so concern the island. It is fit also that
Kanaris should be of the committee, for though he is a Psarian yet he
serves on a Hydriot ship, and it is likely that I shall give him the
command of another when I cruise next."

Even the blind faith with which Tombazes regarded the doings of the
Capsina was disposed to question this, and Christos moved uneasily in
his chair.

"Is it not a little irregular," he asked, "that one of another island
should have a voice in the government of Hydra?"

"The war, too, is a little irregular," said the Capsina, "and only
in the matters of this war do I propose he should have a vote. Now,
father," she went on, "here is this man, one of a thousand, as I know
him to be. He and I will fight any two of your ships, and knock them
into faggots for the fire quicker than a man could cut them from a
tree. He is of Psara, it is true, but he serves Hydra. And he shall
have a voice in the matter of the fleet to which he now belongs."

With the admission of the Capsina and Kanaris into the committee, the
conclusion would not be so foregone, so thought Tombazes, as it first
appeared to him. For their admission he pledged himself to vote, and
for the rest he trusted the Capsina.

Long after the others had gone Sophia sat where she was, lost in a
sort of eager contentment. The home-coming, the enthusiastic pride and
affection of her people, stirred in her a chord she had thought and
almost hoped was forever dumb. The wild and splendid adventures of the
last weeks, her ardent championship of her race, the fierce and ever
growing hatred of their detestable masters, had of late made the sum
of her conscious desires. But to-night something of the thrill of home
was on her, more than once she had looked half enviously at the small
ragged girls who stared at her as she passed, who were most likely
never to know anything of the sweet sting of stirring action, but live
inactive lives, with affection for ardor, and the care of the children
for the cause of a nation. Michael lay at her feet, and she wondered
vaguely if it were better to be as she was, or to sit at the feet of a
master and be able to call nothing one's own, but only part of another.
But to think barren thoughts was never the Capsina's habit, and her
mind went forward to the meeting next day.

The meetings were held always on the quay. A table was set, round
which sat the four-and-twenty members of the committee, and the people
were allowed to stand round and listen to the official utterances.
But after the pleasant freshness of hearing Father Nikolas say bitter
things to Tombazes, and Tombazes reply with genial contempt or giggle
only, had worn off, they were not usually very generally attended. But
this morning, an hour before the appointed time, the end of the quay,
where the meetings were held, began to fill, chairs and benches were
in requisition, and Sachturi's father, the miser of Hydra, by report
the richest man of the place, had given two piasters for a seat, which
in itself constituted an epoch in the history of finance. By degrees
the members of the committee took their places, Tombazes looked round
with ill-concealed dismay at the absence of the Capsina, and called for
silence. The silence was interrupted by a clear voice.

"Michael, Michael," it said, "come, boy, we are very late." And from
the end of the quay came the Capsina, attended by Michael and Kanaris.
She walked quickly up through the crowd, which made way for her right
and left, stopping now and then to speak to some friend she had not yet
seen, and still round the table the silence continued.

Father Nikolas broke it.

"The meeting has been summoned," he said, bitterly. "Am I to suppose it
has been summoned for any purpose?"

But Tombazes had his eyes fixed on the Capsina.

"Is the meeting adjourned?" asked Father Nikolas, and the chairman
smiled.

The Capsina by this time had made her way up to the table and looked
round.

"A chair," she said. "Two chairs. Kanaris, sit by me, please."

She had chosen her place between old Christos and Sachturi, and the two
parted, making room for the chairs. Kanaris sat down in obedience to a
gesture from her, but she remained standing.

"I have a word to say," she began, abruptly. "Since the clan of Capsas
has been in this island, the head of the clan has always had a voice in
all national affairs. I have been prevented from attending the former
meetings of this particular assembly, because I was perhaps better
employed in chasing and capturing Turkish ships. And as head of the
clan I take my seat here."

For another moment there was dead silence, and Father Nikolas, in
answer, it would appear, to hints from his neighbors, stood up.

"This matter is one on which the vote of the committee is required," he
said; "for, as I understand, by its original constitution it possessed
the power of adding to its numbers. For myself--"

But Sophia interrupted him.

"Does any one here, besides Father Nikolas," she said, "oppose my
election?"

"I did not say--" began Father Nikolas.

"No, father, because I made bold to interrupt you," remarked the
Capsina, with dangerous suavity. Then, turning in her place, "This
committee, I am told, was elected by the people of Hydra. There is a
candidate for election. The chairman shall give you the name."

"The Capsina is a candidate for election," said Tombazes.

Among the primates there was a faint show of opposition. Father Nikolas
passed a whispered consultation to his colleagues, and after some delay
eight of them, amid derisive yells from the people, voted against her,
but her election was thus carried by sixteen to eight. But there was
greater bitterness in store for Father Nikolas.

The Capsina again rose, and the shouts died down.

"I have first," she said, "to make a report to the admiral of the
Hydriot fleet, to which I belong, as to the doings of my crew and
myself. We sailed, as you know, perhaps a little independently, but
what we have done we have done for this island. On the second day
of my expedition we sank a Turkish vessel, which was cruising for
conscription in the harbor at Melos, with all on board. Perhaps some
were picked up, but I do not know. On the eighth day we captured a
cruiser off Astra, and Kanaris took her into Nauplia, where she will
now enter the service of the Greek fleet. On the twelfth day we sank
a corvette off the southern cape. There was a heavy sea running, and
she went to pieces on the rocks. We have also taken a certain amount of
prize-money, the disposition of which I will speak of later. But first
there is another matter. Kanaris is by birth a Psarian, but he serves
on my ship, and he is willing to continue to serve in the Hydriot
squadron. It is right that he should have a voice in the affairs of
our expeditions, for I tell you plainly if any man could sail a ship
between the two Wolf rocks of Hydra, he is that man. He has been taken
into the most intimate councils of the central revolutionary committee,
and it is not fit that he should be without a voice here. Also before
long he will be in command of the _Sophia_, when a new ship I am
building is ready. Father Nikolas will now be good enough to tell us
his reasons for his opposing my candidate."

Father Nikolas started as if he had been stung, but then recovering
himself, "The Capsina has already stated them," he said. "This man--I
did not catch his name--"

"If you reflect," said the Capsina, sternly, "I think you will remember
that you did."

Father Nikolas looked round with a wild eye.

"This man," he continued, "is a Psarian. Is that not sufficient reason
why he should find no place in a Hydriot assembly?"

"Surely not, father," said the Capsina, "for you, if I mistake not, are
by birth a Spetziot; yet who, on that ground, would seek to exclude you
from the assembly?"

"The cases are not similar," said Nikolas. "Thirty years ago my father
settled here, while it is but yesterday that this Kanaris--"

"I was waiting for that," remarked the Capsina, absently.

A sound came from the chairman almost exactly as if somebody sitting
in his place had giggled, and then tried unsuccessfully to convert the
noise into a cough, and Father Nikolas peered at him with wrinkled,
puckered eyes.

"I will continue," he said, after a pause in which he had eyed
Tombazes, who sat shaking with inward laughter, yet not venturing to
meet his eye for fear of an explosion. "For ten years I have sat in the
assembly of primates, and any dissatisfaction with my seat there should
have been expressed thirty years ago, some years, in fact, before she
who is now expressing it was born."

The Capsina smiled.

"I think I said that no one would think of expressing, or even
perhaps--well, of expressing dissatisfaction," she replied, "and I must
object to your putting into my mouth the exact opposite of what you
really heard from me."

"Your words implied what I have said," retorted Nikolas, getting white
and angry.

"Such is not the case," said the Capsina. "If I were you, I should be
less ready to find malignant meanings in words which bear none."

Here Tombazes interfered.

"Father Nikolas," he said, "we are here to discuss matters of national
import, and I do not see that you are contributing to them. Kanaris,
let me remind you, is a candidate for election."

Kanaris himself all this time was sitting quietly between the Capsina
and Sachturi, listening without the least evidence of discomposure to
all that was being said. He smiled when Nikolas suddenly blurted out
the name of which he was ignorant, but otherwise seemed like a man who
supports the hearing of a twice-told tale with extreme politeness. He
was rather tall, strongly built, with great square shoulders, and his
dress was studiously neat and well cared for. His hair, falling, after
the custom of the day, on to his shoulders, was neatly trimmed, and his
chin very smoothly shaven. In his hand he held a string of amber beads,
which he passed to and fro like a man seated at a café.

Now, however popular the election of the Capsina had been with the
people, it was soon clear to her that there was no such unanimity about
Kanaris. The islanders were conservative and isolated folk, and they
viewed with jealousy and resentment anything like interference on the
part of others in their affairs. But for the adoring affection in
which they held the girl, without doubt Nikolas's party would have won
the day, and, quick as thought, the Capsina determined to make use of
the people's championship of herself to gain her ends. She was of a
quick tongue, and for the next ten minutes she concentrated the acidity
of Nikolas on herself, provoking him by a hundred little stinging
sayings, and drawing his attack off from the debate on to herself. At
length he turned on her full.

"Already we see the effect of having a woman in our councils," he said.
"An hour has passed, and instead of settling affairs of moment our
debate is concerned with the management of the monastery rain-water
and the color of my hair. This may be useful; I hope it is. But in
no way do I see how it bears upon the conduct of the fleet. And it
is intolerable that I should be thus exposed in the sight of you all
to the wanton insults of this girl." His anger suddenly flashed out.
"By the Virgin," he cried, "it is not to be stood! It was an ill day
for the clan, let me tell them, when the headship passed into hands
like that. I will not submit to this. A Hydriot is she, and where is
the husband to whom she was betrothed? I tell you she cares nothing
for Hydra, nor for the war, nor for any of you, but only for her own
foolhardy, headstrong will."

"Is the Father Nikolas proposing that I should now marry Christos
Capsas?" asked Sophia. "That is a fine thing for a primate to say, or
is it not since he came to Hydra that my cousin Christos chose a wife
for himself?"

Father Nikolas's face expressed an incredible deal of hatred and
malice. "This must be stopped," he said; "this woman or I leave the
assembly."

"The remedy lies with Father Nikolas," said the Capsina.

Nikolas paused for a moment: his mouth was dry with anger.

"It is not so long ago," he said, "that I heard Hydra proclaimed an
independent state, and subject to none. Show me anything more farcical
than that! Free, are we? Then who is this who forces herself and her
creatures into our assembly? Are we to be the slaves of a woman, or
her clan? I, for my part, will be dictated to and insulted by no man,
or woman either. The clan of Capsas--who are the clan of Capsas? They
are leagued together for their own self-seeking ends."

This was just what Sophia was waiting for. She sprang to her feet, and,
turning to the people, "Clan of Capsas!" she cried. "You of the clan!"

In an instant at the clan cry there was a scene of wildest confusion.
Old Christos jumped up; Anastasi overturned his chair and stood on the
other side of Sophia; Michael raged furiously about in the ecstasy of
excitement, and from the crowd that stood round men sprang forward,
taking their places in rows behind the Capsina till their ranks
stretched half-way down the quay.

Then the Capsina called: "The clan of Capsas is with me?"

And a great shout went up. "It is with you."

She turned to Father Nikolas.

"If you or any other have any quarrel with the clan, name it," she said.

Father Nikolas looked round, but found blank faces only.

"I have no quarrel with the clan," he said, and his voice was the
pattern of ill-grace.

"Then," said Sophia, "again I propose Kanaris as a member of this
committee."

The appeal to the clan had exactly the effect Sophia intended. It
divided the committee up into those for the clan and those against
it, and that strong and cheerful phalanx seemed to be terrorizing to
waverers. Amid dead silence the votes were given in and counted, and
Tombazes announced that Kanaris was elected by sixteen votes to nine.

The business of the war-fund then came before them, and this Sophia
opened by handing over to Tombazes eight hundred Turkish pounds,
that being half of the prizes of her cruise. Economos, who had been
instructed by the Capsina, laid before Tombazes a similar proportion of
his takings, and Sachturi and Pinotzi followed the lead.

Some amusement was then caused by Anastasi Capsas, who had been
unlucky in the late cruise, gravely presenting to Tombazes the sum of
twenty-five piasters, for all that he had taken was a small Turkish
rowing-boat which he found drifting after Sachturi's capture of the
Turkish ship, and which he had subsequently sold for fifty. Father
Nikolas, it was noticed, did not join in the laugh. But a moment
afterwards he rose.

"Perhaps the Capsina or the chairman will explain what is meant by the
war-fund," he said. "At present I know of no such fund."

The Capsina rose.

"I hear that yesterday there was debate on this matter," she said, "and
that Economos proposed that part of the booty taken should be given to
a war-fund. Now it is true that nothing was said about this before the
last cruise, but I understand that the money raised has been exhausted,
and unless you consider that the war is over, I would wish to know
how you intend to equip the ships for the next cruise. Or has Hydra
tired of the war? Some of our ships have been lucky: Father Nikolas, I
believe, took a valuable prize. It is easy, then, for him to defray the
expenses of his ship for the next voyage. But with Anastasi Capsas, how
will it be? For, indeed, fifty piasters will not go far as the wages of
sixty men."

She paused a moment, and went on with growing earnestness.

"Let us be sensible," she said, "and look things between the eyes, as
a man looks before he strikes, and not pretend there are no obstacles
in the path. We have decided, God be thanked, to be free. This freedom
can only be bought dearly, at the cost of lives and money, and by the
output of all our strength. We are not fighting to enrich ourselves.
Only the short-sighted can fail to see this, and the short-sighted
do not make good counsellors. Can any one tell me how we are to man
ships for the next cruise, how get powder, how make repairs to our
ships? On the mainland they are contributing one-half of all that is
taken to the service of the war. Would it become us to ask for funds
from them--for, indeed, they are sore pressed for money, and many
of them serve without pay or reward. What has Nikolas Vidalis got
for his ten years' work, journeying, scheming, risking his all every
day? This, as he himself said, the right to serve his country! Is he
not wise to count that more worth having than many piasters? Have you
heard what happened to the second ship from Kalamata, which put into
Nauplia on its way to Constantinople, to bring back men and arms? Two
boys followed it out into the bay at Nauplia, ran their caique into
the stern, set fire to it, and saved themselves in their small boat.
One was a son of Petrobey, the other was Mitsos Codones, the nephew of
Nikolas; him I have never seen, but there is a song about the boys'
deed which the folk sing. There is their reward, and where should they
look for a better? Are we mercenaries? Do we serve another country, not
our own? Is the freedom of our country to be weighed against money? But
this I would propose--that after our next cruise, should anything of
what we give now be left over when the men are paid and the ships fit
for use again, let that, if you will, be divided. Only let there never
be a ship which cannot go to sea, or is ill-equipped for want of money,
which might have been ready had not we taken it for ourselves. Now, if
there is aught to say against this, let us hear it. For me, I vote for
the war-fund to be made up of half the takings of each ship."

The Capsina's speech won the day, and even a few of the primates went
over to her side, leaving, however, a more malignant minority. At the
end of the meeting the money was collected, and the Capsina was fairly
satisfied with her morning's work.

It was two days after this that word was brought to Hydra by a vessel
of Chios, that Germanos, Archbishop of Patros, had need of Economos.
The latter had friends and relations in Misolonghi, and as there was a
strong garrison of Turks there, it seemed wiser to get the soundings
of the place, so said the archbishop, from a man who would move about
unsuspected. Therefore, if his work in Hydra was over, let him come.
Late that afternoon he had gone to see the Capsina, in order to find
out whether any of her vessels were by chance going to Nauplia or some
mainland port, and could put him on his way.

"For my work here is finished, or so I think," he said. "Only this
morning, indeed, I met Father Nikolas, who alone has been more
detrimental to the cause than even the Turks; but he seemed most
friendly to me, and regretted that I was going."

The Capsina was combing out Michael's ruff after his bath, and was
not attending very closely. But at these words she left the comb in
Michael's hair and looked up.

"What is that?" she said.

"I met Father Nikolas an hour ago," said Economos; "he thanked me for
all I had done here, and said that he had hoped I was stopping longer.
In fact, I think he has quite withdrawn all his opposition."

Now the Capsina had excellently sure reason for knowing that the
primate still harbored the bitterest grudge against Economos for having
first proposed and eventually carrying the institution of the war-fund,
and her next question seemed at first strangely irrelevant.

"Do you walk armed?" she asked.

"Not in Hydra."

She drew the comb out of Michael's ruff, and clapped her hands. The
servant came in at the summons.

"I want to see Kanaris," she said. "Send for him at once."

She stood silent a moment or two, until the servant had left the room,
and then turned to Economos.

"I don't really know what to say to you," she remarked, "or how to
account for my own feelings. But it is borne in upon me that you are
in danger. Nikolas friendly and genial to you! It is not in the man.
He is genial to none. That he should be genial to you of all men is
impossible. Afterwards I will tell you why. Come, what did he say to
you?"

"He asked me to sup with him this evening," said Economos, "and I told
him that for aught I knew I might be gone before."

"He asked you to sup with him?" said the Capsina, frowning. "God send
us understanding and charity! But really--" and she broke off, still
frowning. Then after a pause:

"Look you," she said, "I do not know much of Father Nikolas, but this
I know, that you can have no enemy more bitter. He took, so you tell
me, a valuable prize in this last cruise. It is you, so he thinks, who
has deprived him of half of it, and certainly it is you and I between
us who have done so. Now the man has good things in him. I am trying,
you understand, to put together these good things, his certain hatred
of you, and his asking you to supper. Did you notice how he winced when
at the meeting the other day I said: 'You are a Spetziot, but _for that
reason_ we would not turn you out of our assembly,' I think he knew
what I meant, though my words can have meant nothing but what they
seemed to say, except to him, Kanaris, and to me. It is this: He is a
primate, but he is married, and fifteen years ago the Turks carried off
his wife, who is a cousin of Kanaris, from Spetzas. Now I believe that
the one aim of his life is to bring her back. She is in Athens, and
he knows where. Man, you have taken half the ransom out of his closed
pocket, I may say. Does he love you much? And if a Spetziot does not
love he hates, and when he hates he kills. Why, then, did he ask you to
supper?"

"You mean, he intended to kill me?"

"Yes, I mean that," said the Capsina.

"The treacherous villain--"

"No doubt, but think what you have done. Now, without unreasonable risk
to you, I want to be certain about this, for Nikolas, I know, will give
trouble. I am going to send you off to-night in the _Sophia_, to be
landed at Kranidi. But I want you to leave this house alone, and walk
down to the quay alone. There is not much danger; your way lies through
the streets, and, at worst, if my guess about Nikolas is right, he will
try to have you knifed. He dare not have you shot in the town, but a
man's throat can be cut quietly. Man, what are you afraid of? Indeed,
I wish I was you. But here is Kanaris. Kanaris, did you see or speak
to any one on your way up here?"

"Yes, to Dimitri, the servant of Nikolas. He was coming out of a shop."

"What shop?"

"Vasto's shop."

"They sell knives in Vasto's shop," remarked the Capsina. "Well, what
did he say to you?"

"He asked if Economos was with you. And I said that I thought so."

"That is, then, very pretty. Kanaris, you are to take Economos over to
Kranidi to-night. He will leave this house in an hour exactly. You will
wait for him in that dark corner by Christos's house, and keep your
eyes open. Why? Because Dimitri will not be far off, and he will try
to knife him. Dimitri, I am afraid, must be shot. Economos will do the
shooting, but he must not shoot towards the dark corner of Christos's
house, or there may be a Kanaris the less. Mind that, Economos. If he
shoots not straight, Dimitri will probably run down towards the quay,
where he will mix with the crowd. It shall then be Kanaris's business
to stop him. Or he may run up here. It shall then be my business."

Presently after Kanaris went down to the harbor to get the _Sophia_
ready for sea. With a fair wind it was only two hours to Kranidi. The
navigation was simple: a dozen men could work the ship, and they would
be back before morning.

The Capsina took down two pistols, and proceeded to tell Economos what
he was to do. He must walk straight to the quay and quickly. He must
stop to speak to no man, and not fire unless attacked. She would be in
the shadow of her own gate, Kanaris at the lower end of the street,
where it opened on to the quay, so that should any attempt be made on
his life the assassin would be hemmed in on both sides.

"Yet, yet," she said, hesitating, "ought I to warn Nikolas that I know?
It seems a Turkish thing to do, to set a trap for a man. Really, I am
afraid I should do the same to you if I were he, only I think I should
have the grace to kill you myself, for I cannot think I would have my
dirty work done for me, and I should not be such a fool as to ask you
to supper. I don't want this wretched Dimitri to be killed--I wonder
what Nikolas has paid him? Yes, it shall be so; one who attacks in the
dark for no quarrel of his own will be ever a coward. So shoot in the
air, only to show you are armed, and leave Dimitri to me."

At the end of the hour Economos rose to go. The Capsina went with him
to the gate, and from the shadow looked cautiously out down the road.
The far end of it, a hundred and fifty yards off, opened on to the
brightly lighted quay, and against the glare she saw the figure of a
man silhouetted by the long creeper-covered wall to the right of the
road.

"Yes, that is Dimitri," she whispered. "Begone, and God-speed. Don't
shoot, except to save your own life. Run rather."

She stepped back under cover of her gate, and looked after Economos.
He had not gone more than twenty yards when she heard a quick but
shuffling step coming down towards her from above, and, looking up,
saw Father Nikolas. Standing as she did, in a shadowed embrasure, he
passed her by unnoticed, and went swiftly and silently across the
road, and waited in the shadow of the opposite wall. He had passed so
close to her that she could almost have touched him. Then for a moment
there was silence, save only for the sounds of life on the quay and
the rapid step of Economos, getting fainter every second. Then came a
sudden scuffle, a shot, and the steps of a running man getting louder
every moment. She was just about to step out and stop him, when Father
Nikolas advanced from opposite. The man gave a little sobbing cry of
fright, till he saw who it was.

"You have failed," said Nikolas, in a low voice.

"Yes, and may the curses of all the saints be upon you!" cried Dimitri.
"You told me he went unarmed. You told me--Ah, God! who is that?"

The Capsina stepped out of the shadow.

"Yes, he has failed," she said. "And you, too, have failed. This is a
fine thing for the Church of Hydra. Man, stop where you are. Not a step
nearer. I, too, am armed. By God," she exclaimed, suddenly, rising an
octave of passion and contempt, and throwing her pistol over the gate
into her garden, "come a step nearer if you dare, you or your hired
assassin--I am unarmed. You dare not, you dare not commit your murders
yourself, you low, sneaking blackguard, who would kill men under the
guise of friendship. You asked Economos to supper to-night, regretting
he was going so soon: that would have been the surest way! Instead, you
send another to cut his throat in the dark. You have failed," and she
laughed loud, but without merriment. "A fine, noble priest are you!
Hydra is proud of you, the clan delights in you! In the name of the
clan I pay you my homage and my reverence."

Not a word said Father Nikolas.

"So you have no reply ready," she went on. "Indeed, I do not wonder.
And for you, Dimitri, is it not shame that you would do the bidding of
a man like this? Now, tell me at once, what did he give you for this?"

"If you dare tell--" whispered Nikolas.

"Oho! So there is perhaps something even more splendid and noble to
come! If you dare _not_ tell, rather," said Sophia. "Quick, man, tell
me quickly."

The man fell on his knees.

"Capsina, I dare not tell you all," he said. "But I have a disgraceful
secret, and Father Nikolas knew it. He threatened me with exposure."

The Capsina turned to Nikolas.

"So--this grows dirtier and more ugly, and even more foolish than I
thought, for I did you too much justice. Devil I knew you were, but I
gave you the credit for being cunning. It is not very safe for a man
like you to threaten exposure, is it?"

And she turned and went a step nearer to him.

Father Nikolas, in a sudden frenzy, ran a couple of steps towards her,
as if he would have seized her. For answer she struck him in the face.

"That for you," she said, suddenly flaming again into passion--"that
for you; go and tell the primates that I have struck a priest. It is
sacrilege, I believe, and never was I more satisfied with a deed. Run,
tell them how I have struck you, and get me punished. Sacrilege? Is it
not sacrilege when a man like you shows the people the blessed body
and blood? You are afraid of man, it seems--for you dared not touch
Economos yourself--but it seems you hold God in contempt. You living
lie, you beast! Stand still and listen."

And she told Dimitri the story of Nikolas's marriage. Then, turning
again: "So that is quits," said she, "between you."

Then to Nikolas: "Now go," she said, "and remember you are in the
hollow of my hand. Will you come at night and try to kill me? I think
not."

Nikolas turned and went without a word.

The Capsina saw him disappear, and then spoke to Dimitri.

"You poor, wretched creature!" she said. "You have had a lesson
to-night, I am thinking. Go down on your knees--not to me, but to the
blessed Jesus. I forgive you? That is no word from one man to another.
Go to the church, man, or to your home, or even here, and be sorry."

"Capsina! oh Capsina!" sobbed the man.

Sophia felt strangely moved, and she looked at him with glistening eyes.

"You poor devil! oh, you poor devil!" she said. "Just go by yourself
alone somewhere and think how great a brute you are. Indeed, you are
not a fine man, and I say this with no anger, but with very much pity.
You had no grudge against Economos. Yet because you were afraid you
would do this thing. Thank God that your fear saved you, your miserable
fear of an ounce of lead. What stuff are you made of, man? What can
matter less than whether you live or die? Yet it matters very much how
you live and how you die. There, shake hands and go."




CHAPTER IV


The fleet put to sea again in the last week of May, cruising in the
Archipelago, eager for the spring coming of the Ottoman ships. They
took a northeasterly course, and on the 5th of June sighted a single
Turkish man-of-war to the north of Chios. But it put about, before
they were in range to attack, and ran before them to the mainland,
anchoring in the harbor of Erissos, beneath the walls of the Turkish
fort. To attack it there at close quarters meant exposure to the fire
from the fort as well; moreover, the harbor was nearly landlocked,
and thoroughly unsuited to that rapidity of manoeuvre by which alone
these little hawks could dare attack the ravens of the Turkish fleet,
for, except when the sea-breeze blew, it lay nigh windless. Tombazes
could scarce leave it to sail south, but his plan of action was
determined by the appearance, on the morning of the 6th of June, of
more Ottoman ships from the north--a man-of-war, three frigates, and
three sloops--and before noon news arrived from a Greek town called
Aivali, farther up the Asiatic coast, that the garrison of Turks had
been suddenly increased in the town.

Here, then, was work sufficient: the single Turk must not sail south,
the fresh convoy of ships must be stopped, and help must be sent to
Aivali. What this increase of garrison might mean, Tombazes could not
conjecture, but he told off fifteen vessels to follow the Turkish
ships, while the rest waited at Erissos to destroy the blockaded vessel
at all costs and with all speed, and then sail on to Aivali. A meeting
of the captains was held on the admiral's ship, and it was resolved to
attempt the destruction of the Turk by fire. A Psarian in the fleet
was said to know the use and handling of fire-ships, and one was
prepared, but badly managed, and the only result was that two of its
crew were first nearly roasted and then completely drowned. However,
on the following day another Psarian volunteered to launch one, which
was managed with more conspicuous success. The boat was loaded with
brushwood, and brushwood and sails were soaked in turpentine. It set
off from the fleet while it was yet dark, and, conveniently for the
purpose, a white mist lay over the harbor. The air was windless, and it
had to be rowed swiftly and silently up to the anchorage of the Turk.
They had approached to within a cable's length when they were sighted
from on board the enemy, but the captain of the fire-ship, Pappanikolo,
knowing that a few moments more would see the work done, urged the men
on, and drove his boat right into the bows of the Turk, contriving to
entangle his mast in the bowsprit ropes. Then, bidding his men jump
into the boat they towed behind, he set fire to the ship and rowed
rapidly off. A few muskets only were fired at them, and they escaped
unhurt. Not so their victim. In a moment the fire-ship blazed from stem
to stern, pouring such vast clouds of smoke up from the brushwood,
which was not quite dry, that it was impossible for those on board or
from the fort to reach the seat of the flames. Many of the sailors
jumped overboard and swam to land, but the ship itself burned on till
the fire reached the powder-magazine and exploded it.

This being done, the remainder of the Greek fleet weighed anchor and
went north again. While rounding Lesbos they met the ships which had
pursued the rest of the Ottoman fleet returning. They, too, had shunned
the Greeks, but with the south wind had escaped into the Dardanelles,
where the Greeks had not ventured to follow. Most of the pursuing
vessels had been of the primates, and the Capsina expressed her scorn
in forcible language.

Aivali was a wealthy commercial town in the pashalik of Brusa and on
the coast of Asia Minor. Since the outbreak of the war several similar
Greek towns had been plundered by irregular bands of Turks, and the
pasha, seeing that his revenues were largely derived from Aivali, for
it was the home of many wealthy Greeks, was personally very anxious to
save it. Thus the troops which, as Tombazes had been truly informed,
had been sent there, were designed not for its destruction but its
preservation. But the news of the destruction of the ship at Erissos
had raised the excitement of the Turkish population at Aivali and
desire for revenge to riot point, and already several Greeks had been
murdered in the streets. Such was the state of things when Tombazes'
fleet dropped anchor outside the harbor.

That night, under cover of the darkness, came a deputation to the
admiral. Unless he helped them their state was foregone. Their
protectors would no doubt guarantee them their lives, but at the
sacrifice of all their property; but, as seemed certain if the Turkish
population rose against them (for they had heard that irregular bands
of soldiers were marching on the town), the luckier of them would be
murdered, the fairer and less fortunate sold as slaves. They appealed
to Tombazes to rescue them, and take them off on the fleet, and this he
guaranteed his best efforts to do.

Aivali was built on a steep hill-side running up from the sea. The
lower ground was occupied with wharves and shipping-houses, then higher
up came the manufacturing quarter, consisting mainly of oil-mills, and
on the crest of the hill the houses of the wealthier inhabitants. It
was these which would be the first prey to the mob.

Early next morning Tombazes landed a company of soldiers to protect the
families who embarked. The troops of the pasha, who wished to prevent
any one leaving the town, replied by occupying a row of shops near the
quay, and keeping up a heavy musket fire on the troops and the ships.
Meantime the news that the Greek fleet would take off the inhabitants
was over the town, and a stream of civilians had begun to pour down.
The soldiers returned the fire of the Turks, while these were embarked
in small boats and taken out to the ships; but the odds were against
them, for their assailants were firing from shelter. But suddenly a
shout went up from the fleet as the _Sophia_ weighed anchor, and,
hoisting her sails, came close in, shouldering and crashing through a
line of fishing-boats, risking the chance of grounding. Then, turning
her broadside to the town, she opened on the houses occupied by the
Turks, firing over the heads of the soldiers and embarking population.
The first broadside knocked one shop to pieces, and in a couple of
minutes the Turks, most of the regular troops, were swarming out of
houses like ants when their hill is disturbed, and flying to some
position less exposed to the deadly and close fire of the _Sophia_.

Simultaneously the Greeks of the town, fearing that this occupation
of the houses lower down by the regular troops should cut off their
escape, in turn occupied some houses in the rear, and kept up another
fire on them. Between the _Sophia_ and them the troops were fairly
outclassed, and the line of retreat for the population was clear again.

But this engagement of the regular troops with the Greeks gave the
rabble of the Turkish population the opportunity they desired. They
rushed to the bazaar and rifled the shops, spoiling and destroying what
they did not take; and, after leaving the quarter gutted and trampled,
made up the hill to the houses of the wealthiest merchants, from which
the Greeks were even now fleeing, and captured not only goods, but
women and children. Unless some speedy move was made by the troops, it
was clear that the bulk of the population would escape or fall into
the murderous hands of the rabble; and unable, under the guns of the
_Sophia_, to make another attempt to hold the quay against the Greeks,
they set fire to various houses in a line with the shore, that a
barrier of flames might cut off the lower town from the upper. Meantime
they collected again at the square which lay to the left of the town,
with the purpose of making another formed attack on the troops on the
beach. The Greek soldiers seeing this, as it was now hopeless to try
to save the town from burning, themselves set fire to another row of
houses at right angles to the beach in order to cut them off from
the line of embarkation, and between the quay and the new position
taken up by the Turkish troops. In a short time both fires, under the
ever-freshening sea-breeze took hold in earnest.

Meantime boat-load after boat-load of the sailors had put to land;
among the first, when the guns of the _Sophia_ were no longer needed,
being the Capsina and Kanaris, with some two dozen of the crew. They
went up the town to help in protecting the line of retreat, and the
fires being then only just begun, passed the oil-mills, and reached
the wealthier quarter. The Turkish population, seeing they were armed,
ran from them, and in an hour, having satisfied themselves that the
upper quarter of the town was empty, turned back again towards the sea.
But suddenly from some quarter of a mile in front of them rose a huge
pillar of smoke and fire, and with it a deep roaring sound as if all
the winds of heaven had met together. Kanaris first saw what it was.

"Quick, quick," he said, "it is an oil-mill caught! There is a whole
row of them below us!"

They hurried on, but before they had gone many yards they saw at the
end of the street down which they were to pass another vast volume of
flame break out, sweeping across to the opposite houses in long tongues
of fire. From inside the mill came a crash, and next moment a river
of flaming oil flowed out and down the street. To pass that way was
impossible, and they turned back to make a détour to the other side of
the town, away from the quarter where the troops were assembled. But
before ten minutes had passed a dozen more mills had taken fire, and
when at length they had passed the extremity of the line of fire, and
came out on the quay, it was to find the beach empty, and the boats no
longer at the shore. The torrent of flaming oil had poured down the
steep and narrow streets, and thence across the quay over on to the
water, where it floated, still blazing, and a belt of fire some thirty
feet broad lined the water along the bay. The charred posts on the edge
of the harbor-wall were hissing and spluttering, sending out every now
and then little lilac-colored bouquets of flame, and it was somehow
across that burning canal that their retreat lay.

The Capsina stood still a moment and then broke out into a laugh.

"We shall get through tighter places together, Kanaris," she said.
"See, the oil has already ceased flowing, but we cannot stop here. The
troops may be down again. Look you, there is only one way. A run, a
good long breath, a dive; if we catch fire, next moment the water will
put it out--and up again when we are past the flames. It is not more
than thirty feet."

Meantime the Turkish troops hearing that one party, at any rate, of
the Greeks was still in the town, and thinking that all retreat by the
beach was now cut off, had stationed themselves away to the left beyond
the flames. The Capsina waved her hand to them.

"No, no, we don't go that way, gentlemen!" she cried, and next moment
she had run the dozen scorching and choking yards across the quay and
plunged into the flames. Kanaris followed, and after him the others
with a shout. The Turks, seeing this, discharged their muskets at them,
but ineffectually. A moment later a boat had put off from the _Sophia_,
and, as they rose safe beyond the flames they were dragged on board
dripping, yet strangely exhilarated and thrilled with adventure.

The deck of the _Sophia_ was packed with men, women, and children
rescued from the sacked and burning town, and strange and pathetic were
their stories. Many did not know whether their families had been saved
or not, for in the panic and confusion of their flight the children
perhaps had been carried off in the boat from one ship, the parents in
another. Some had come on board with nothing but the clothes they were
in, others had dragged with them bags of money and valuables, but all
were in a distraught amazement at the suddenness of the hour which had
left them homeless. The sun was already sinking when the Capsina got
back to her ship, but the glow of the sunset paled before that red and
lurid conflagration in the town, and after dark, when the land breeze
set in, the breath of it was as if from some open-mouthed furnace,
and the air was thick with ashes and half-consumed sparks, making the
eyes and throat grow raw and tingling with smoke. So, weighing anchor,
they sailed out to the mouth of the harbor, some miles away from the
burning town, where the heat was a little assuaged and the air had some
breath of untainted coolness in it.

By next day the fire had died down, a smouldering of charred beams
and eddying white ashes had taken the place of blazing houses and
impenetrable streets, and once more the town was searched for any
Greeks that remained. Some few were found, but in no large numbers;
and that afternoon the fleet turned south again to give the homeless a
refuge on one or other of the revolted islands. Many of the able-bodied
at once enlisted themselves in the service of the revolutionists,
others seemed apathetic and stunned into listlessness, and a few, and
these chiefly among the older men and women, would have slunk back
again, like cats, preferring a ruined and wrecked home to new and
unfamiliar places.

Throughout August and September the fleet made no combined cruise; some
ships assisted at the blockade of Monemvasia, others made themselves
red in the bloody and shameful work at Navarin. Then for a time all
eyes and breathless lips were centred on the struggle going on at
Tripoli; the armies and ships alike paused, watching the development of
that inevitable end.

Autumn and early winter saw the Capsina at Hydra, busily engaged in
building another ship on the lines of the _Sophia_, but with her
characteristic points even more developed. She was going to appoint
Kanaris to command the old _Sophia_, and to sail the new one herself.
December saw her launched, and about the middle of January the Capsina
took her a trial-trip up as far as Nauplia.

It was one of those Southern winter days which are beautiful beyond all
capacity of comprehension. There was a sparkle as if of frost in the
air, but the sun was a miracle of brightness, and the wind from the
southeast kindly and temperate. The sea was awake, and its brood of
fresh young waves, laced here and there with a foam so white that one
could scarcely believe it was of the same stuff as those blue waters,
headed merrily up the gulf, and the beautiful new boat, still smelling
aromatically of fresh-chiselled pine wood, seemed part of that
laughing crowd, so lightly did it slip on its way, and with a motion
so fresh and springing. From the time she left the harbor of Hydra
till she rounded the point of Nauplia, her white sails were full and
brimming with the following wind, and it was little past noon when they
swung round to the anchorage.

All that afternoon the Capsina was busy, for there were many friends
to see, and she spent some time on the Turkish ship which she had
captured in the spring and which was being made ready for sea again;
and all the time her heart was full, she knew not why, of a wonderful
great happiness and expectancy. The busy, smiling people on the
quay, the sparkle of the gulf, the great pine-clad hills rising up
towards the fallen Tripoli, her own new ship lying at anchor in the
foreground--these were all sweet to her, with a curious intimacy of
sweetness. Her life tasted good; it all savored of hopes and aims, or
fine memories of success, and she felt a childlike happiness all day
that did not reason, but only enjoyed.

She was to sleep on board that night, returning to Hydra next day, and
about the time of sunset she was sitting with Kanaris on the quay,
talking to him and a Naupliot friend. The sky was already lit with
the fires of the west sun, and the surface of the bay, still alive
with little waves, was turning molten under the reflection. A small
fishing-boat, looking curiously black against that ineffable blaze, was
beating up to the harbor, and it gave the Capsina the keen pleasure
of one who knows to see how well it was being handled. These small
craft, as she was aware, were not made to sail close to the wind, but
it seemed to her that a master who understood it well was coaxing it
along, as a man with a fine hand will make a nervous horse go as he
chooses. She turned to Kanaris.

"See how well that boat is handled," she said. "She will make the pier
on this tack."

Kanaris looked up and judged the distance with a half-closed eye.

"I think not," he said. "It cannot be brought up in one tack."

The Capsina felt strangely interested in it.

"I wager you a Turkish pound it can and will," she cried. "Oh, Kanaris!
you and I have something to learn from him who sails it."

The Capsina won her pound, to her great delight, and the boat drew up
below them at the steps. It was quite close under the wall, so that
they could only see the upper part of its masts, but from it there came
a voice singing very pleasantly, with an echo, it seemed, of the sea in
it, and it sang a verse of the song of the vine-diggers.

Up the steps came the singer, from the sea and the sun. His stature
was so tall as to make by-standers seem puny. His black hair was all
tousled and wet. He was quite young, for his chin and cheek were
smooth, and the line of mustache on his upper lip was yet but faintly
pencilled. Over his shoulder he carried a great basket of fish,
supporting it freshly, you would say, and without effort, and the
lad stood straight under a burden for two men. His shirt was open at
the neck, showing a skin browned with the wind and the glare of the
water, and the muscles stood out like a breastplate over the bone. His
feet were bare and his linen trousers tucked up to his knees. And it
was good also to look at his face, for the eyes smiled and the mouth
smiled--you would have said his face was a smile.

The Capsina drew a long, deep breath. All the wonderful happiness of
the day gathered itself to a point and was crowned.

"Who is that?" she asked the Naupliot, who was sitting with her.

"That? Do you not know? Who but the little Mitsos? Hi lad, what luck?"

Mitsos looked round a moment, but did not stop.

"My luck," he said. "But I must go first to Dimitri. I am late, and he
wants his fish. For to-day I am not a free man, but a hireling. But I
will be back presently, Anastasi, and remember me by this."

And with one hand he picked out a small mullet from his basket, threw
it with a swift and certain aim at Anastasi's face, and ran laughing
off.

So Mitsos ran laughing off, and a moment afterwards Anastasi got up too.

"We had better go," he said to Kanaris, "or the market will be closed,
and you want provisions you say."

"Ah, yes," said the Capsina, "it is good that I have you to think for
me, Kanaris, for I declare the thing had gone from my mind. Let them be
on board to-night, so that we can sail with day."

The two went off together towards the town, and Sophia was alone.

"Some one from the sun and the sea"--her own words to Michael came back
to her--"and you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I shall
be his." The dog was lying at her feet, and she touched him gently with
her toe.

"And will you be his, Michael? Will you be Mitsos's?" she said. "And
what of me?"

Surely this was the one from the sun and the sea, of whom she had not
dreamed, but of whom she could imagine she had dreamed, he who had gone
at night and burned that great ship from Kalamata, returning, perhaps,
as he had returned this evening, laughing with a jest for a friend and
a ready aim, of whose deed the people sang. She had wondered a hundred
times what Mitsos was like, but never had she connected him with the
one of whom she spoke to Michael.

She rose from her seat and went to lean over the quay wall. She was
convinced not in thought--for just now she did not think, but only
feel beyond the shadow of doubt--that Mitsos was ... was, not he whom
she looked for, her feeling lacked that definiteness, but he for whom
she would wait all her life. He was satisfying, wholly, utterly; the
stir and rapture of glorious adventure had seized him as it had seized
her; the aims of their lives were one, and was not that already a bond
between them? He was a man of his arm, and his arm was strong; a man of
his people, and a man not of houses but of the out-of-doors. She had
taken him in at one glance, and knew him from head to heel: black
hair, black eyes, a face one smile, but which could surely be stern and
fiery; for any face so wholly frank as that would mirror the soul as
still water mirrors the sky, the long line of arm bare to the shoulder,
trousers all stained, as was meet, with salt and sailing gear, the
long, swelling line of calf down to feet which were firm and fit to
run--surely this was he for whom she had been designed and built, and
she was one, she knew, at whom men looked more than once. And her heart
broke into song, soaring....

[Illustration: "UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"]


She stood up, a tall, stately figure, yet girlish, still looking out to
sea. He had left his boat below the wall; he had said he would be back
soon, and she meant to wait his coming. The wind was strong, and a coil
of her glorious hair came unfastened, and she raised her hands to pin
it up again; her skirt was blown tight and clinging against the long,
slim lines of her figure, her jacket doubled back against itself by the
wind, and like Mitsos, perhaps with thinking of him, her face was one
smile.

The sun had quite set, but over the sky eastward came the afterglow
of the day, turning the thin skeins of cloud to fiery fleeces, and
flooding the infinite depth of the sky with luminous red. Behind her
the town flushed and glowed, and the white houses were turned to a
living gold. After a while she faced round again, for she heard steps
coming, and seemed to know that it was Mitsos back again.

"Oh, Anastasi!" cried a voice, "but is there not a fool waiting behind
that corner with a good fish to throw and waste? Take it home to your
supper, man, and thank God for a dinner you have not earned except in
that you have a large face easy to hit. Eh, do you think I cannot see
you? You'll be thought a fine hand at hiding, will you?"

Mitsos advanced cautiously, for he was meaning to go to his boat, where
he had left his coat and shoes, and the boat lay behind a corner most
convenient for a hiding man. The Capsina was standing close by, and
Michael bared his teeth as Mitsos came up.

"Fool, Michael!" said the Capsina; "is it not he?"

Then as Mitsos got within speaking distance--

"Anastasi has gone," she said; "you were over quick, were you not, at
seeing him?"

Mitsos laughed, but paused a moment as Michael made the circuit of him,
sniffing suspiciously.

"This is what I never entirely enjoy," he said, standing still. "Now
no man can go sniffing round my bones and have a sound head on his
shoulders. But there is less sport, so I take it, in fighting a dog.
Ah, he is satisfied, is he? That is for the good. But where is fishy
Anastasi?"

"He went to the market with Constantine Kanaris to buy provisions."

"Is Constantine Kanaris here?" asked the boy. "No, I know him not; but
Nikolas Vidalis, the best man God ever made, and my uncle, knew him for
a fine man. But why, if Kanaris is here she is here, for he serves with
her."

"She! Who?"

"Who but the Capsina? I would give gold money to see her. Why--" Mitsos
stopped short, and Sophia laughed.

"Thus there is double pleasure," she said, "for I, too, have often
wished to see the boy of whom the people sing. Yes, I am the Capsina;
why not?"

Mitsos's big eyes grew round and wide.

"What must you have thought of me?" he said. "But indeed I did not
know--" and he bent down from his great height and would have kissed
the hand she held out to him.

"Not so!" she cried, laughing; "they of Maina and we are equal."

"That is true," said Mitsos, standing upright a moment; "but where is
her equal who took three Turkish ships?" and bending again he kissed it.

"Yet a lad I have heard of burned a ship of war," said she.

Mitsos flushed a little under his brown skin.

"That was nothing," he said, "and, indeed, but for my cousin Yanni
there would have been no burning." Then changing the subject quickly:
"You came to-day only, Capsina? Surely you will not go again
to-morrow." Then, "Ah," he cried, "but I, too, am going to sea, so I
may say, with you, for I am to be of the crew of the Turk you brought
in here. But you will have a fleet soon!"

"I cannot have too many brave men to work with," said Sophia. "But you
under me! Lad, you could sail a double course while I sailed single.
Though I have known you perhaps ten minutes, yet you have made me the
richer," and she held out the Turkish pound she had won from Kanaris,
telling him how she had gained it.

Mitsos grinned with pleasure.

"Well, I think I do know this bay," he said, "for indeed I must have
been more hours on it than in the house. But, oh, Capsina, when will
that Turkish ship you took be ready for sea, for indeed it eats my
heart to go catching fish when I should be catching Turks."

"They tell me in six weeks," she said, "but they seem a little slow
about it all. They want more speediness. See you, Mitsos," she said,
then stopped.

Mitsos looked up.

"See you," she said again. "Kanaris after this takes command of the
old _Sophia_. I want some one who knows the sea, and who is better at
home on a ship than on his own feet, to be under me: or it is hardly
that--to be with me, as Kanaris will tell you. Come. I sail from here
to-morrow, or I will even wait for two days or three: or if that is not
time sufficient for you--yet what do you want, for your hands and feet
you carry with you?--you can join me as soon as maybe at Hydra. So. It
is an offer."

"Then to none other shall it now be offered," said Mitsos. "And what
shall I want with two days or three? See, I will sail home now on the
instant across the bay, to say good-bye to those at home, and they I
know will be blithe to let me go, or rather would think scorn of me if
I stopped and went not; and what does a man want with two days or three
days to sigh or be sighed over? For my life I could never see that. Oh,
Capsina, may God send us great winds and many Turks! I am off now; I am
a fool with words, and how gratefully I thank you I cannot tell you.
And Dimitri has never paid me my day's wage. May he grow even fatter on
it!"

The Capsina laughed with pleasure.

"You go quick enough to please me," she said, "and that is very quick.
And I hope, too, I may be found satisfactory, for indeed you do not
stop to think what sort of a woman I may be to get on with."

"You are the Capsina," said Mitsos, with sturdy faith.

"You find that good guarantee? So do I that you are Mitsos; little
Mitsos, they call you, do they not? That will be the name you'll hear
from me, for indeed you are very big."

"And growing yet," said Mitsos, going down the steps to his boat.
"Well, this is a fortunate day for me. I will be at your ship again in
three hours, or four, if this wind does not hold. My homage, Capsina."

"And mine, little Mitsos."

He shoved his boat out from the wall, and she stood with sails flapping
and shivering till he pulled her out from under shelter. Then with a
heel over and a gathering whisper of water she shot out into the bay,
and faded, still followed by the Capsina's gaze, into the dim starlit
dusk.

So he was coming--he. Surely there could be no mistake about it all. A
stranger, she had seen a stranger at sunset on the quay, and her heart
had embraced him as its betrothed. Only an hour, less than an hour, had
passed, and as if to confirm the certainty, all arrangements had been
made, and this very night he would be on her ship. Day after day they
would range the great seas together with one aim and purpose.

How could it fail that that welding should leave them one? Had not
her soul leaped out to him? How strange such a meeting was, yet not
strange, for it was the inevitable thing of her life. How impossible
that they should not have met, and met, too, at this very time, she in
the height of her freedom and success--yet, oh, how ready to be free
no longer!--he, just when he hungered to be up and throwing himself
against the Turk. Michael, too, surely Michael knew, for when Mitsos
was going off again, he had walked down to the bottom step above the
water and watched him set off, wagging his tail in acceptance of him.
She would have wagered herself and the brig and Michael that they were
all going up to heaven.

Presently after came Kanaris from the market, and he whistled across to
the ship that it should send a boat to take them off. He was surprised
to find the Capsina still on shore, supposing she would have gone
back to supper on the ship, or would be with some friend in Nauplia.
Indeed, a friend had gone seeking her on her ship, bidding her to sup
with him, but she, wishing still to be alone, had said she was just
going home. This was half an hour ago, and she lingered yet on the quay
with Michael for guard. As they sat watching for the boat, hearing the
rhythmical and unseen plash of oars getting nearer, this struck Kanaris.

"You have supped, Capsina?" he asked.

She looked up.

"Supped?" she said. "I don't think I have. Indeed, I am sure I have
not. I am hungry. I got to looking at the sky and the water, Kanaris,
as one does on certain days, when there is no wind at sea, and it is
certain I forgot about supper. Surely I have not supped. We will sup on
the ship when we get back, and, as we sup, we will talk. Yes, I have
been thinking a big cargo of thought. I will tell you of it."

They were rowed back across the plain of polished harbor water, and
went on board in silence. Supper was soon ready--a dish of eggs, a
piece of the broiled shoulder of a roe-deer, which the Mayor Dimitri
had sent to the Capsina with a present of wine and cakes made of honey.
And when they had eaten, Sophia spoke of her plans.

"Kanaris," she said, "I have found him who will take, your place when
you have command of the old _Sophia_, as you will on this next cruise.
Oh, be tender with her, man, and remember, as I have always said,
that she must be humored. She will sail to a head wind if you do not
overburden her, but too much sail, though no more than others carry,
would ever keep her back. Ah, well, you know her as well as I do. What
was I saying? Oh yes, Mitsos Codones, the little Mitsos, you know, will
join me here; he who gained me a pound this afternoon. He sails with me
in place of the Captain Kanaris."

Now the offer of the presidency of Greece would have been less to the
taste of Kanaris than the command of the _Sophia_, and his gratitude,
though not eloquent, was sincere. But presently after the Capsina,
looking up, saw doubt in his eye.

"Well?" she said.

"It is this," said Kanaris, "though indeed it is no business of mine.
Mitsos is but a lad, and, Capsina, what do you know of him? Surely this
afternoon he was a stranger to you."

Sophia smiled, and with a wonderful frank kindness in her black eyes.

"And you, Kanaris," she said. "Did not a strange sea-captain come to
Hydra one evening? Did he not talk with me--how long--ten minutes? And
was not a bargain struck on his words? Was that so imprudent a job? By
all the saints, I think I never did a better!"

"But he is so young, this Mitsos," said Kanaris.

"Am I so old? We shall both get over it."

Kanaris filled his glass, frowning.

"But it is different: you are the Capsina."

"And he is of the Mainats. That is as good a stock as ours, though our
island proverb says we are the prouder. And, indeed, I am not sure we
are the better for that, for I would sooner have Mitsos here than, than
Christos."

The Capsina, it must be acknowledged, found an intimate pleasure in
putting into plain words what Kanaris could not let himself conjecture
in thought.

"Christos?" he said. "Well, certainly. And if, he being a cousin of
yours, I may speak without offence, it would be a very bold or a very
foolish man who would wish to have Christos only to depend on in the
sailing of a war brig."

"And the sailing of my brig will be the work of Mitsos," said Sophia.
"Oh, Kanaris, you have lost a pound, and how bitter you are made."

Kanaris laughed.

"Well, God knows he can sail a boat," he said. "My pocket knows it."

"Then why look farther for another and a worse?" said the Capsina.

Kanaris was silent; the Capsina had hinted before that she meant him
to command the _Sophia_ in the next cruise, but he had yet had no
certain word from her. And, indeed, his ambition soared no higher,
and to no other quarter--to command the finest brig but one in the
island fleet was no mean thing; but it is a human failing common to
man to view slightingly any one who takes one's own place, even when
it is vacant only through personal promotion. Kanaris's case, however,
was a little more complicated, for the Capsina was to him what he
had thought no woman could have been. His habit of mind was far too
methodical to allow him the luxury of doing anything so unaccounted for
as abandoning himself to another; but there were certainly three things
in his soul which took a distanced precedence of all others. Ships were
one, destruction of Turks another, and the Capsina was the third. In
his more spiritual moments he would have found it hard to draw up a
reliable table of precedence for the three.

And certainly he was in one of his more spiritual moments just now,
for there were no Turks about, his ambition to command a fine ship
was satisfied, and the Capsina seated opposite to him had never so
compelled his admiration. To-night there was something triumphant and
irresistible in her beauty, her draught of sparkling happiness had
given a splendid animation to her face, and that flush which as yet
he had only associated in her with anger or excitement showed like
a beacon for men's eyes in her cheek. But in her face to-night the
heightened color and sparkling eye had some intangible softness about
them; hitherto, when it had been excitement that had kindled her, she
looked more like some extraordinarily handsome boy than a girl, but
to-night her face was altogether girlish, and the terms of comradeship
on which Kanaris had lived with her, uncomplicated by question or
suggestions of sex, were suddenly and softly covered over, it seemed to
his mind, by a great wave of tenderness and affection. The Capsina, the
captain of the boat, the inimitable handler of a brig, were replaced
by a girl. He had been blind, so he thought; all these weeks he had
seen in her an able captain, a hater of Turks--a handsome boy, if you
will--and he was suddenly smitten into sight, and saw for the first
time this glorious thing. But Kanaris was wrong; he had not been blind,
the change was in the other.

But here, coincident with the very moment of his discovery, was the
moment of his departure, and he left her with another, a provokingly
good-looking lad, the hero of an adventure just after the Capsina's
heart, and the subject for the songs of the folk. Was not Mitsos just
such as might seem godlike to this girl? In truth he was.

She filled his glass again, and he sat and drank in her beauty. She
seemed different in kind to what she had ever looked before--her eyes
beat upon his heart, and the smile on her beautiful mouth was wine to
him. He looked, weighing his courage with his chance, opened his mouth
to speak, and stopped again. Truly such perturbation in the methodical
Kanaris touched the portentous.

The Capsina had paused after her question, but after a moment repeated
it.

"So why look farther for another and a worse?" she said again.

"Don't look farther," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
twisting the sense of her question to his own use; "look nearer rather.
Look nearer," he repeated; "and, oh, Capsina--"

The smile faded from her mouth but not from her eyes, for it was too
deeply set therein to be disturbed by Kanaris.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"It is that I love you," said he.

But she sprang up, laughing.

"Ah, spare yourself," she said. "You ought to know I am already
betrothed."

"You betrothed?"

"Yes, betrothed to the brig. No, old friend, I am not laughing at you.
You honor me too much. Let us talk of something else."

Mitsos meantime was on his way back to the Capsina's betrothed. He had
sailed rapidly across the bay, and made the anchorage close to the
house in no longer than half an hour. His father, Constantine, had
died two months ago, and since then he and Suleima had lived alone.
Just now, however, Father Andréa was with them, staying a few days on
his way to Corinth, where he was summoned by the revolutionists, and
Mitsos, going through the garden to the house, saw him walking up and
down by the fountain, smoking his chibouk.

"Ah, father," he said, "I am late, am I not? But I must be off again.
I met the Capsina to-day in Nauplia, and she has offered me a place on
her brig--the place Kanaris held under her, or rather with her, she
says. She sails to-morrow morning. Suleima is in the house?"

"Yes, with the child, to whom the teething gives trouble. This is very
sudden; but, lad, I would not stop you, nor, I think, will Suleima. Go
to her, then."

Suleima had heard voices, but she was trying to persuade the baby
to go to sleep, while the baby, it seemed, preferred screaming and
struggling. She was walking up and down the room with it, crooning
softly to it, and rocking it gently in her arms. She looked up smiling
at her husband as he entered.

"I heard your voice," she said, "and I would have come out, but I could
not leave the adorable one. Poor manikin, he is troubled with this
teething!"

"Give me the child," said Mitsos; and the baby, interested in his own
transference from one to the other, stopped crying a moment, and Mitsos
bent over it.

"Oh, great one," he said; "is heaven falling, or are the angels dead,
that you cry so? How will you be able to eat good meat and grow like
the ash-tree, unless there are teeth to you? And how should there be
teeth unless they cut through the gums--unless, like an old man, you
would have us buy them for you?"

The baby ceased crying at the deep, soothing voice, and in a moment or
two it was asleep.

"It is wonderful," said Suleima, taking it back from Mitsos, and laying
it in the cot; "but, as you know, I have always said you were often
more a woman than all the women I have ever seen."

Mitsos laughed.

"A fine big skirt should I want and a double pair of shoes," he said.
"And, oh, Suleima, but it were better for the Turks I had been just a
chattering woman."

"Eh, but what a husband have I got," said she, pinching his arm. "He
thinks himself the grandest man of all the world. But what is there you
have to tell me?--for I read you like father reads a book--there is
something forward, little Mitsos."

"Yes, and indeed there is," said Mitsos, "but what with you and the
child, and all this silly, daffing talk, it had gone from my mind.
But this it is, most dear one, that the Capsina is here, and she has
offered me the post just under her on the new ship she has built, that
one you and I saw put in this morning. Eh, but it is grand for me! She
will sail to-morrow."

"To-morrow! Oh, Mitsos!" Then, checking herself. "Dearest one, but
your luck is still with you. She is a fine, brave lass they say, and
handsome, too, and, so Dimitri told me, her ship is the fastest and
best in Greece. So go, and God speed you, and I will wait, and the
little one shall make haste to grow! You will stop here to-night? No?
Not even to-night? Come, then, I must look out your clothes for you
at once, for you must have your very best, and be a credit to the
housewife."

She held Mitsos's hands for a moment, and put up her face to his to be
kissed.

"Blessed be the day when first I saw you!" she whispered.

"And blessed has been every day since," said Mitsos.

"Even so, dearest," and she clung to him a moment longer. Then, "Come,"
she said, "we must make much haste if you are to go to-night, and
indeed you shall leave behind that shirt you are wearing, to find it
clean and fresh and mended when you come back. I will not have you
going ragged and untidy, and oh, Mitsos, but your hair is a mop. Who
has had the cutting of it? Sit you down and make no more words, and be
trimmed."

Suleima got a pair of scissors, and clapping Mitsos in a chair, put the
light close, and trimmed and combed out his tangled hair, with little
words of reproof to him.

"Eh, but she will think you a wild man of the woods, fit only to
frighten the birds from the crops. Sure, Mitsos, you will have been
rubbing your head in the sand, and it was only yesterday you were
scrubbing and soaping all afternoon. Well, what must be, must. Shut
your eyes now and sit still," and clip went her scissors along the hair
above the forehead.

"It is like cutting the pony's mane," she went on. "Such horse-hair I
never saw yet. Well, the stuffing is half out of the sofa-cushion, and
this will all do fine to fill it again. Now, stop laughing, lad, or an
oke of hair will fall down that throat of yours, and so you will laugh
never more. There, you are a little less of a scare-man. Get up and
shake, and then change that shirt and trousers."

In an hour Mitsos was ready, and with a big rug on his shoulder in
which his clothes were wrapped, he and Suleima set off to the little
harbor below the house. The boy was going with him in order to take the
boat back again, but Mitsos had sent him on ahead, and he and Suleima
walked slowly down to the edge of the bay beneath a sky thick sown with
stars.

"Mitsos," she said, "it will be with a heavy heart and yet a very light
one that I shall say good-bye; heavy because we love one another, and
yet for that reason very light. And, however far you are from me, yet
you are here always in my heart, and the child is daily more like you.
And, indeed, how should I love one who sat at home and went not out on
these great quests? Where should I have been now, think you, oh foolish
one, if you had not gone catching fish and then Turks? so do not
contradict me. And oh, Mitsos, I am going to say a very foolish thing
for the last. You are so dear to me that I can scarcely speak of you to
others, for so I seem to share you with them; and it would please me
if I thought that you too would be very sparing of my name, for so I
shall feel that, as on those beautiful nights together on the bay, we
enjoyed each other in secret, and none knew. And now we are come to the
boat--look!--and the boy has made ready. It is very bravely that I say
good-bye to you, for with my whole heart I would have you to go. Oh,
most beloved!"

For a minute, or perhaps two, they stood there silent, and though the
smile on Suleima's mouth was a little tremulous and her eyes were
over-brimmed, it was for very love that the tears stood there. And
Mitsos kissed her on the eyes and on the mouth, and yet again; and
though his voice was betwixt a whisper and a choke, his heart was light
even as hers, and full of love.

The news of his coming was brought to the Capsina as they sat in the
cabin by Michael's furious barking at the boat, which he heard drawn up
alongside.

The Capsina got up when she heard that, and again her face so glowed
that Kanaris wondered.

"That will be the little Mitsos," she said, "for a thousand pounds. He
will want supper it may be," and she went on to the main deck to let a
ladder down to him, for most of the crew were on shore still.

"Ahoy! ahoy!" shouted Mitsos from his boat. "Oh, Michael, be still! Am
I a robber?" and he shouted again.

"Yes, I am coming," cried the Capsina, in answer. "It is you, is it
not, Mitsos? Wait a moment, and I will let down a ladder to you."

Mitsos climbed up with his bundle on his shoulder, and bade the lad put
back for home again. "So I am here," he said to the Capsina.

"And you are welcome--doubly welcome," said the Capsina, with a
sparkling eye. "Oh, Mitsos, take care of your head. Are you not a size
too large for my boat? I never thought of that. Come down to the cabin
and have your supper; Kanaris and I have eaten, but we will sit with
you."

She blew on her whistle, and gave Mitsos's bundle in charge to be taken
to his cabin, and led the way.

"You know Kanaris? No?" she asked. "Ah, I remember you saying you did
not. He is of the best of my friends. This way, little Mitsos. Here we
are."

Though Kanaris had been disposed to think with jealousy of his
successor, it was not in the nature of man to resist Mitsos. For he
had all the ardor of a boy, as befitted his years, and with that an
experience beyond them; and the modesty that comes from having done
great deeds mixed with none of the conceit of the imagination that sees
oneself acting greatly, should the chance come, and neither man nor
woman could look in his face, as frank and cheerful as the eyes of a
dog, and feel no impulse of friendliness. And Kanaris was not a man who
from habitual reserve would distrust a friendly impulse when it came,
and so it was that in half an hour they were all chatting together,
like children, of ships and fish and winds and waves and the hundred
healthy things that made the environment of the life of all of them.
As the evening wore on they heard the crew coming merrily back from
Nauplia, but they sat talking late, like friends who have met again.

Their three cabins were close together, and the Capsina, after showing
Mitsos his, went to her own and sat there in the dark, too happy to
think or sleep. She heard Michael's nails tapping along the wooden
floor outside, and then with a soft thump he curled himself up outside
her door, according to his custom. From Mitsos's cabin she heard
the rattle of shoes, and soon after the partition wall between them
creaked as he curled himself up in his berth against it. Then there
was silence, and still she sat in the darkness of her cabin, looking
out from the port-hole towards the quay of Nauplia, black beneath the
stars, and seeing the lights from the town cast in long unwavering
reflection over the calm water, and filled with a rapturous uncontent.

She was on deck next day, while yet night was mixed with morning,
fresh as a flower, though having slept but little, and before six
she gave the order to hoist sail, for a fair wind was blowing, and
they could clear the harbor without need of boat or tow-rope. Day was
coming infinitely clear and sweet; overhead there still burned a big
star or two, which got paler and paler every moment till they seemed
white and unluminous, like candles in the sunshine, and by degrees
the pale primrose strip of sky in the east flushed with color before
the upvaulting of the sun. The flush spread to the zenith, and was
answered by the surface of the bay, and before they cleared the point
of Palanede the sunrise was on them. She turned just as the first rays
struck the ship, and saw Mitsos just coming on to the deck a few yards
away; and the sun shining on her face, and Mitsos gladdening her eye,
gave a radiance to her beauty that drew his eyes to her in a long gaze.

And in pain and rapture together she looked at him, and her heart
exulted in its noble and self-rendered slavery.

For a moment neither spoke; then, and with an effort:

"So you have slept well, little Mitsos? And you do not repent our
sudden bargain? There is time yet to put you ashore."

"I have slept all night and I repent nothing."

The Capsina did not answer at once, but looked out to sea, and wetting
her finger, held it up into the wind and glanced at the compass.

"The wind is due north," she said, "and only light. The channel of
Spetzas, through which we pass, is east-southeast. The distance you
should know. Give the order, little Mitsos."

Mitsos smiled and scratched his head.

"Eh, but I do not know the ship," he said.

"Look at it, then."

Mitsos looked at the lines of the vessel, then at the canvas she was
carrying.

"First hoist jib and halyards," he said. "We can carry more sail than
this."

"And then?"

"Oh, Capsina," he cried, "but you want to find me ignorant! However,
I should say, go right across to within a mile of Astra, squaring the
sails ever so little, and then make the channel in one run. And now,
God defend me from having said a very foolish thing."

"I think your prayer is heard," said the Capsina. "Therefore, it is
time to have breakfast," and she called Mitsos's orders.

"Come down," she said; "the ship is running free and fine, and it will
be an hour yet before we put on the second tack. Ah, here is Michael.
He knows you, does he not? That always seems to me a thing of good
omen, for indeed I trust Michael more than I trust myself. He welcomed
Kanaris so, and I never had a better friend. Is Kanaris not up yet? He
knows he is only a passenger now, and will have his lie in bed. Well,
we will breakfast all the same."

When they had breakfasted, Sophia took Mitsos a tour of the ship. She
was a brig of three hundred and fifty tons, very long for her beam,
and deep-keeled. On her upper deck she carried six nine-inch guns--two
forward under the forecastle, two amidships, and two astern. Both
forward and stern guns were mounted on a carriage, which revolved
nearly half a circle and looked from a very wide port, so that the
stern guns could be trained on a point due astern, or be used for a
broadside, or could fire forty-five degrees ahead, and the bow guns
in the same way could fire straight ahead, or in any direction up to
forty-five degrees behind them. The main-deck was armed in a similar
manner with six guns, placed not directly below the upper-deck guns,
but some ten yards horizontally from them, so that the smoke from the
lower should not rise directly and interfere with the sighting of the
upper. Mitsos, to the Capsina's great delight, saw and commended this
arrangement, which was new to him. On the main-deck the forward and
stern guns--four-inch, not six-inch--could not fire right astern or
right ahead, but they had a wide broadside range. Below the deck the
battery consisted of twelve guns, six on each side; the four guns in
the centre of each side being of the same weight as those on the upper
deck, but those in the bows and stern being four-inch guns. Thus in all
she carried twenty-four guns--sixteen six-inch and eight four-inch--and
it was a sight that made Mitsos lick his lips with blood-thirstiness.

"You would say she was a fortress," he said.

The two chattered like children over a new toy all their own, and
Kanaris, who soon joined them, seemed to each to be like an elder who
had outgrown enthusiasm; yet even to him the toy seemed flawless. The
Turkish men-of-war and cruisers alike were contemptibly inferior in
point of speed, and the men-of-war, which were armed with much heavier
guns, carried all their strength in the broadside, while the Capsina's
ship had two guns which could shoot straight ahead or astern, and six
which could fire on either diagonal.

Meantime the ship was nearing Astra, and the wisdom or foolishness of
Mitsos's tactics would soon be patent. But while they were still three
miles off he turned to the Capsina.

"I have made a mistake," he said. "If we go about at once we shall
still make the channel. For indeed she could go as an arrow goes."

The Capsina smiled with a thrill of pleasure in her ship.

"I won a pound over you yesterday," she said; "and if Kanaris will bet
again, I will stand to win another. Give your orders, little Mitsos."

Kanaris looked incredulous.

"Kranidi is a very fine place," he said; "but I take it we want to sail
between Spetzas and the land."

"Will you bet?" asked the Capsina.

Kanaris paused a moment, and heard Mitsos giving the order in a voice
extraordinarily confident.

"I think I will not bet," he said.

After that there was the sailing-gear of the ship to be gone through.
To Mitsos, used as he was to the big schooner sail, these square
canvases seemed a thought unwieldable, but the foresails, the jib, and
halyards had taken his fancy at once.

"It is a rein to a horse," he said; "it must go as you will."

"And it is according to your will that it shall go," said Sophia.

The hours of the golden day went by; they had made eight knots in the
first hour, and nine in the second; and about ten in the morning,
Kranidi, a grain of sparkling salt in the gray stretch of hill,
appeared small and very distant. And at that Mitsos frowned.

"Again I was wrong," he said; "we might have put about a mile sooner.
But, indeed, how was I to know?"

They were through the channel of Spetzas before noon; but presently,
after the wind dropped altogether, and for a couple of hours, they lay
becalmed on a windless sea, but swept slowly northward by the current
running up the coast. The Capsina chafed at the delay, for though she
would have waited two days or three at Nauplia, as she had said, for
Mitsos, the loss of a few hours now seemed wholly disproportionate,
for she was very eager to get off again on the fresh cruise. Kanaris
remembered the morning he had spent with Nikolas on the Gulf of
Corinth, and said to the Capsina:

"I was with Nikolas Vidalis in just such a position as this, and he
said what seemed to me a very wise thing, Capsina: 'I am never in a
hurry,' says he, 'when I am going as fast as I can.'"

"Ah, he was a man," said the Capsina; "but when did you ever know a
woman who thought that? Why, it is only when we are going as fast as we
can that we are in a hurry; if we are not going our quickest, we are
not in a hurry."

Mitsos was lying on the deck, with his cap pushed over his eyes, and
his back against the mast.

"That is not what Uncle Nikolas meant," he remarked.

The Capsina laughed.

"Wisest little Mitsos, explain to me, then."

"He meant--he meant--Oh, surely you see what he meant," said Mitsos,
feeling too sleepy to express himself.

"Well, anyhow, his nephew is not in a hurry," said Sophia, looking at
his lazy length.

"His nephew is completely comfortable," said Mitsos. "It is very good
to be on this ship, and my bones are sweet to me."

Sophia felt a trifle irritated with him. It had been extraordinarily
pleasant to her to see him make himself so readily at home the
evening before, but just now she felt a little ill-used at his entire
contentment with the brig and her and himself. She would have preferred
a little feeling of some sort to any amount of pure content. But a
moment afterwards he looked up quickly.

"There is a breeze coming," and he got up. "Yes, there it comes," he
said, pointing southward. "We shall have to square sails till we get
round again. Shall I give the order, Capsina?"

"Please." Then when he joined her again: "How did you know the breeze
was coming, little Mitsos?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I smelt it. Really, now you ask me, I find I
can't tell you."

"That is curious," said the Capsina. "I had heard there were men who
could do that, but I put it down to folks' tales. Michael, I think,
knows sometimes, and now I look at you I notice your nostrils grow big
and small like a dog's."

"They are as God made them," said Mitsos, piously.

The Capsina laughed. "Oh, inimitable boy!" she cried. "Come, let us
look round the ship again. Yes, it is good to be at sea, is it not?
Here comes the breeze indeed. There! Did you see her shake herself as
if she woke up suddenly, this beautiful shining ship, all ours! See how
quickly she gathers way! We shall be at Hydra by five if this holds. Of
course you will live with me there till we start, but I expect we shall
be on the ship more than off. You might well have smelt the breeze,
Mitsos, for surely it smells very good, and there is more to come, or I
am the more mistaken."

It was still an hour before the sunset when they cast anchor in the
harbor of Hydra, for the wind had got up and promised a stormy night.
The clan welcomed the Capsina's new importation with fervor when they
heard who it was; and certain of the primates wondered whether she
would demand another seat in the assembly. But in truth the Capsina had
other things to think of; for the Hydriot fleet was not going to cruise
again till the spring, while she was going to make all speed to be off,
with Kanaris on the _Sophia_, and she and Mitsos on the _Revenge_, for
so had the new ship been named. And in these things there was much food
for many thoughts.




CHAPTER V


The _Revenge_ and the _Sophia_ were ready for sea by early in February.
Even the clan, who were accustomed to the habitual fever of the
Capsina's energy, found themselves wondering whether she was a woman
or a whirlwind. No job was too big for her, no detail too small, and
she would be superintending the storage of the powder in the _Sophia_
one moment, and the next would be half-way across to the anchorage
of the _Revenge_, to see whether they had planed away the edge of
her cabin door, which would not shut properly, and had sent from the
wicker-makers the cages for the fowls. There seemed, indeed, to be only
one person on the island, for the population were just tools in the
hands of the Capsina--machines for lifting weights or stowing shot. She
reduced her foreman to a mere wreck, for the unfortunate man had to
stay up three consecutive nights doing the Capsina's business, and was
roundly abused when she found him asleep after dinner the fourth day.
Kanaris fared little better, and Mitsos alone seemed capable of dealing
with the girl. She would find him sitting at a café after dinner
smoking a pipe and playing draughts; and when she asked him whether he
had done this or seen to that, he would say:

"I have worked ten hours to-day, Capsina, and I have not smoked ten
minutes."

"Smoke, smoke!" cried the Capsina; "smoking and drinking is all that
men are fit for!"

And Mitsos, with a face conspicuously grave, raised his voice and
called for a pipe and a glass of wine for the Capsina, and an awed
silence fell for the moment on those round, for this seemed little
short of blasphemy; but the Capsina only glanced at Mitsos's demure
face, burst out laughing herself, and was off again.

Kanaris and Mitsos lodged in her house, but until the last evening,
when all was ready, and there was positively nothing left for her to
do, she was never there except occasionally for supper and for sleep.
Even on the last evening of all, as soon as supper was over, she
started up.

"We are ready," she said; "why not sail to-night? What is the use of
wasting time here?"

Mitsos, who had not finished, slowly laid down the mouthful he was
raising to his lips.

"Oh, Capsina!" he said; "be it known to you that for my part I will not
go till to-morrow. Yes, this is mutiny, is it not? Very well, put me in
irons; but for the sake of all the saints in heaven, let me finish my
supper!"

The Capsina looked at him a moment.

"Little Mitsos," she said, "you are a gross feeder."

And with that she sat down again, and filled both their glasses and her
own.

"To the little Mitsos's good digestion!" she cried, and clinked her
glass with his.

Mitsos smiled, but drank to his own digestion.

"And there is yet another toast," he said. "It is to the tranquil
Capsina. Hurrah!"

They were going south round the capes, then north again, up the west
coast of Greece, to cruise in the Corinthian Gulf, for there, as they
knew, were Turkish vessels, which sailed from village to village along
the coast, massacring and burning and destroying the Greek maritime
population. The events of the last summer and autumn had made it clear
even to that indolently minded enemy that if once Greece got command of
the sea the war would be over, for on land the cause of the Revolution
daily gained fresh recruits, and, if once the ports and harbors were
in the hands of the insurgents, it would no longer be possible to
send in fresh men and arms, except by the long and dangerous march
through the disaffected mountains of north Greece. There, as the Turks
had found to their cost, it was impossible to bring on a pitched
engagement, for true to the policy of Petrobey, the villagers pursued
a most harassing, baffling policy of guerilla warfare. The invaders
could burn a village, already empty before their approach, but next day
as they marched, suddenly the bare and rocky hill-sides would blaze,
large bowlders would stream down the ravines and upset the commissariat
mules, and during the livelong night dropping shots would be kept up,
and a sentry, firing back at the uncertain aim of the momentary flash
of a musket, would be bowled over from the other direction. But as
long as the sea remained in the hands of the Turks they had little to
fear; regiment after regiment could be poured into the country, and
the end would be sure. With this object, several Turkish vessels were
cruising among the clustering villages on the gulf, burning ships and
depopulating the men of the sea. But it was an ill day for them when
the news of their doings came to Hydra. It had been arranged that some
fifteen brigs should follow the Capsina in the spring, and part would
close the mouth of the gulf while the others joined her. Tombazes had
in vain urged her to wait, for no Turkish fleet would be sent out from
Constantinople till spring; the Greeks would have the start of them
leaving Hydra, and no sane man would think of cruising in the winter.
But all remonstrance was useless, for the Capsina only said:

"Then I suppose Kanaris, Mitsos, and I are mad. That is a sore
affliction, father. Besides, you would not have us stop; Turkish ships,
you know, are in the gulf."

For more than a week after they started they were the butt of violent
and contrary winds, but the Capsina was impatient of delay no longer.
Indeed, on the surface she was "the tranquil Capsina" to whom Mitsos
had drunk, and he at any rate had no cause to know of the unrest that
stormed below her tranquillity. They had set out from Hydra about
eleven of the morning, and almost immediately after leaving the harbor
they had taken a somewhat different course to the _Sophia_. She made
a wider tack to port, while the _Revenge_ sailed closer to the wind,
and after they had turned the southern end of the island, and there
was open sea, with the main-land lying like a cloud to the west,
Sophia and Mitsos left the bridge. Just as they went down she looked
round: Kanaris was far away to the offing, Hydra was sinking down to
the north, there was only sea and Mitsos. And with an uncontrollable
impulse she held out her hands to him.

"At last!" she cried, and before the pause was perceptible--"at last we
are off!"

She loved these fierce winds and heavy seas which kept them back; it
was a fierce and intimate joy to her to wake at night and know that
Mitsos was there, to wake in the morning for another day of that
comradeship, which was in itself already the main fibre of her life.
The huge gray seas from the south hissed and surged by them, with
dazzling, hungry heads of lashed foam, now and again falling solid
on the bows with a shower of spray, and streaming off through the
scuppers back into the sea. The wind shrilled and screamed through
the rigging; the buffeted ship staggered and stood straight again,
then plunged head-foremost with a liquid cluck and crunch into the
next water-valley; the bowsprit dipped in the sea, then raised itself
scornfully with a whiff of spray twenty feet above the crest of the
wave; and every wave that beat them, every squall that whistled aloft,
every flash of raking sunlight that fled frightened across the deck was
for the two of them; they stood side by side, wrapped in tarpaulins,
and watched the beautiful labor of the ship; they sat in the swaying,
rolling cabin, and it was like a game to pluck at the food as it bowed
and coquetted away from their hands; like a game, too, the scramble and
rush across the deck, laid precipitously towards the seas rushing by,
or the house-roof climb up it as it rose staggering to the next billow,
or the watching Michael as he toiled or slipped after them, sometimes
sliding gravely down on his haunches, sometimes doing tread-mill work
up the wet incline; but for one of them at least the game was one at
which the stake was serious. They would amuse themselves with the most
childish sports, watching themselves to see who could stand the longest
on one foot when the ship was pushing and shouldering its way along
through the cross sea, the one finding pleasure in such things because
he was just a boy with a double portion of animal spirits, the other
because anything that was shared with him was passionately well worth
doing. Often and often Mitsos wondered that this was the same girl who
had nigh driven the Hydriots to death, doing more than any of them, yet
indefatigable; and she that this was the Mitsos who had brought hot
death to that Turkish ship in the harbor at Nauplia.

For three days the southwest wind blew half a gale, and the sky was
one driven rack of scudding rain-clouds. Sometimes a squall would
sweep across the sea, the torrent hissing audibly into the water, and
more loudly than the scream of the wind as it approached. The windward
sea would become a seething caldron; the broken wave-tops were scarce
distinguishable from the churning of the rain--all was furious foam.
Then the squall would charge slanting across the deck, pass, and
perhaps for half an hour the wind would seem to moderate, but again
the humming of the rigging would change to a moan, and the moan to a
shriek; and so another night they would sail, scarce making any way,
but, tacking wide out to sea, return again, having won but a dozen
miles in half a dozen hours. All the time the _Sophia_ kept a wider and
more seaward course, now and then getting close to them at the end of
her starboard tack, and then standing out again.

But on the fourth morning they woke to a sky washed clean by the rain,
and of an incredibly soft blue. The gray, angry waves became a merry
company of live beings which sparred in jovial play with the ship. The
wind was still fresh, but it had veered round to the north, and mid-day
saw the two ships close together, rattling along close-hauled in the
channel between Cerigo and Cape Malea. To the south the island lay
green and gray and fringed with white, and, to the north, promontory
after promontory, each grayer and bluer than the last, melted into
the bay of Gythium. It was a morning on which those in whose veins
the joy of life is flowing are conscious from toe to finger-tip, from
finger-tip to the end of the hair, of the indubitable goodness of life,
and the smallest thing was a jest to them, and the largest a jest
also. Michael, in particular, caused many mouthfuls of laughter; for
his dinner was thrown out of its bowl by a sudden lurch of the ship,
and he ran after the various bones as they rolled away, growling and
ill-pleased, till he too was laid on his back, and picked himself up
with the air of not being hungry and having fallen down on purpose.
And the perception of the shallowness of this seeming, combined with a
half-swallowed piece of orange, reduced Mitsos to a choking condition,
and the Capsina thumped him on the back.

"Thank you, yes, I am altogether recovered," says he; "but, oh,
Capsina, you have a very strong arm."

"Little Mitsos, it was for your good," said the Capsina, a thought
sententiously, setting her white teeth in the peel of her orange.

"I suppose so; things that are good for one, I have noticed, make one a
little sore."

"What do you know about things that are good for you?" asked she.

"That only; that they make one sore. For indeed I do not think that
things that are good for one _are_ good for one. You understand?" he
added, hopefully.

"Perfectly," said the Capsina, and they laughed again, causelessly.

The evening brought calmer weather, and to them somewhat calmer
spirits, and that night after supper they talked quite soberly.

"Oh, but it is a strange world," said the Capsina; "to think that a
week ago I had never set eyes on you, and now--well, there is no one in
the world I know better. I have taken you as I found you, and you me;
we have asked no questions of father or mother, and here we are. Oh, it
is a strange world!" she said again.

Now there was perhaps no subject in the world to which Mitsos had
dedicated less thought than the strangeness of the world. So he waited
in silence.

"Is it not so?" went on Sophia. "What could have been less likely than
the chance that put your boat in to Nauplia that night, and on the one
tack. For, indeed, if you had taken two tacks, and so I had lost my
pound to Kanaris, I should not have stopped there."

"Then should I at this hour have been catching the little fish in the
bay," said Mitsos, "and that is only worth the doing when there is
nothing forward. Yet I like the bay," he added, thinking of Suleima,
"for I have had many good hours there. See, there is Taygetus, all
snow! You would say she was a bride," he added, with an altogether
unusual employment of metaphor.

He got up and leaned over the bulwarks looking out to the north, where
the top of Taygetus appeared above a bank of low-lying cloud, itself
bright in the evening sunshine. The sea had gone down considerably in
the last hour, and they moved with a steady swing over the waves, no
longer torn and broken. In the lessening wind they had been able to
put on all sail, and the ship, with its towers of fresh snowy canvas,
seemed like some great white seabird, now skimming, now dipping in
the waves. From where she sat, Sophia could see the sky reddening to
sunset under the arched foot of the main-sail, and when the bows rose
to a wave Taygetus would appear as in a frame between the ship and
the sail. Mitsos was leaning on the side, in front of the main-mast,
bareheaded and blown by the wind, his face turned seaward, so that she
saw only the strong clear line of brow and cheek. And the sight of
him, listless, contented, and unconscious of her, filled the girl with
a sudden spasm of anger and envy. The last week, which had so welded
itself into the essentials of her life, seemed no more to him than the
sound of the wind which had buffeted them, or the hiss of some spent
wave which had struck them yesterday; she had been mad, so she thought,
to have so let herself go, abandoning herself like that to the childish
pleasure of the hour. It seemed the one moment incredible that he had
not guessed that this child's-play was something far different to her,
at the next impossible that it should have seemed to the boy to be
anything else. They had played, laughed, chattered together, and to him
the play had been play, the laughter and the chattering mirth only. Yet
she counted the cost and regretted nothing, and waited with an eager
patience for the fierce deeds in which their hands would be joined, and
therein surely draw closer to each other. The affection and delighted
comradeship of the boy was hers; hers too, so she promised herself,
should be the keener, inevitable need for her when they did a man's
work together.

That evening they passed round Cape Malea, keeping close in to the
land, and Mitsos, as they turned northward, watched with all the
pleasure of recognition the near passing of the coast where he and
Yanni had made their journey with the messages for the mills. Sophia
listened eagerly to the story, making Mitsos tell over again of the
fight in the mill, and she sat silent awhile after he had finished.

"That explains you," she said at length; "for these last days you have
been just a child, but I suspect that when there is work forward you
are made a man; and there will soon be work forward for you and me,
little Mitsos," she added to herself.

Two days after this they were nearing Patras and the entrance to the
Corinthian Gulf, and being no longer in the open and empty seas, it was
necessary to use some circumspection in their advance. They lay to some
eight miles outside Patras, and Kanaris came on board to consult. The
fortress of Patras was in the hands of the Turks; but they would give
this a very wide berth, so Kanaris suggested, and pass Lepanto, another
Turkish fortress in the narrows of the gulf, at night. It was there the
greater risk awaited them. Lepanto was a heavily armed place, the gulf
was less than three miles broad, shoal water lay broad on the side away
from the fortress, and the channel close below its walls. Further, it
was ludicrously improbable that either the _Sophia_ or the _Revenge_
would be allowed a passing unchallenged, for indeed the resemblance
of either to peaceful trading brigs was of the smallest. But Sophia,
with the support of Mitsos, demurred: it were better to seek a weed
in a growing cornfield than to go into the gulf without some guidance
as to the position the Turkish cruisers were in, but beyond doubt
Germanos or some other of the revolutionists at Patras could give them
information.

"For, indeed," said the Capsina, with asperity, "I have not come a
pleasure sail in a little rowboat with a concertina to sing to."

"But do you mean to put in to Patras," asked Kanaris, "and say to the
Turks who hold the fort, 'Tell me where is Germanos, for I wish to know
where the Turkish cruisers are'? Will they not guess your business when
they see the ship?"

"No, I shall not do that," said the Capsina, "nor shall I put out a
great notice in Greek and Turkish that all may read, saying I am the
Capsina and carry four-and-twenty guns. Oh, speak," she said, turning
to Mitsos, "and do not sit as round-eyed as an owl at noonday!"

Mitsos grinned.

"Never mind the compliments," he said, "and give me time, Capsina, for
it is my way to think slow."

"If they know that you are at Patras," continued Kanaris, "word will go
to the Lepanto, and we shall see nought of the gulf but the bottom of
it."

"And so will the little Mitsos be among his little fish again," said
the Capsina.

"The devil take the little fishes!" said Mitsos. "Why will you not let
me be, to think slow, and tell you some very wise thing in the end? I
shall go think by myself." And he went forward.

"How can you be so imprudent, Capsina?" said Kanaris. "Yes, I am at
your orders completely: I need not remind you of that, and where you go
I go. But you have ever told me to say my mind."

"You are quite right," said the Capsina, "but we will wait to hear what
this slow thinker says."

In ten minutes or so Mitsos returned, still owl-like, but, so said the
Capsina, with a blush of intelligence on his face.

"I am thinking I shall have to be a peasant lad again, with a mule and
a basket of oranges. For I take it that both you and Kanaris are in the
right, Capsina."

"The oranges will help us very much," remarked the Capsina, but the owl
still sat in Mitsos's eyes.

"For thus," he continued, "even as in the days of the mill fight, I
will go into Patras and find Germanos and speak with him."

"But how are you to get to Patras?" asked Kanaris.

"I have in my mind that there is a place called Limnaki, three miles
this side Patras, and the foulest spot God ever made, being one
pestilent marsh. Now my thought is that our brig could sail close in
there, while the other waited about on the alert. That shall be this
afternoon, and before it is dark I can be with Germanos. Then he will
tell me where these Turks are in the gulf, and before morning I shall
be at Limnaki again. So far I am with the Capsina, but then let us do
as Kanaris says, and pass the guns of Lepanto at night."

"Hoot, hoot! so the owl speaks!" said Sophia; "and I think the owl is
right. You know Germanos, do you not, little Mitsos?"

"Surely. I was at Tripoli."

It was so arranged, and Kanaris returned to his ship, while the
_Revenge_ put about, and in an hour's time had got close in to the
shore opposite Limnaki. It was a starved little village, feverish and
unhealthy, and the chance of Turks being there was too small to reckon
with. Mitsos got into peasant's dress, and as time was short, omitted
the oranges and the mule, and after being landed quietly, set off an
hour before sunset over the hill towards Patras. Barefooted, and with
a colored handkerchief for a cap, he passed without remark through the
gate of the town, and mingled with the loiterers in the market-place.

The citadel of Patras was still in the hands of the Turks, and the
Turkish garrison there, and the Greek revolutionists who held the
monastery hill both lived in a state of semi-siege, while meantime the
rest of the Greeks and Turks in the town continued to pursue the usual
trade, finishing up six days out of the seven with a little mutual
massacring in the streets; and Mitsos's object was to get to the Greek
camp without involving himself in any street row. The monastery was
but a quarter of an hour's walk from the square, and he reached the
outposts of the Greek lines in safety, and demanded to be taken at once
to Germanos. He gave his name, and stated that he was on the business
of the Capsina.

Germanos received him immediately with kindness and courtesy, though
the little Mitsos, remembering the affairs at Tripoli, was as stiff as
the soul of a ramrod. But, to Germanos's credit be it said, his manner
suffered no abatement of geniality, and when he had heard Mitsos out,
he spoke:

"There are nine Turkish vessels in the gulf," he said. "Three are
coming along the north coast, and left Lepanto only two days ago. They
attacked a village called Sergule yesterday, and, I should think, would
move on again to-day or to-morrow. Three more were at Corinth two days
ago, and, I have just heard, were going northward; the other three are
somewhere along the south coast, but I do not know where. But how are
you going to get in, little Mitsos?"

"We are going to sail in," said Mitsos, curtly.

Germanos looked at him a moment in silence. Then, "That is not very
courteously said, little Mitsos," he answered. "Yes, I know you think
that has passed which passes forgiveness. Yet Nikolas forgave me, did
he not, and do you not know that I was sorry and ashamed, and did I
not say so publicly? That was not very easy to do. But I do not wish
to interfere; if you desire to know more that I can tell you, you are
welcome to my knowledge, and, if you will, my counsel; if not, I can
only regret that I can be of no more service to you, and wish you
God-speed--that with all my heart."

Mitsos stood a moment with eyes downcast. Then with a wonderful sweet
frankness of manner he spoke:

"You are right, father," he said, "and I am no better than a sulky
child. I ask your forgiveness."

"You have it very freely, nephew of Nikolas, for indeed Nikolas forgave
even me," said the proud man.

Mitsos's face dimpled with a smile, both genial and sorry.

"So, that is good," he said. "Well, father, here we are, still outside
the gulf, and we want, if we can, to pass in to-night, so that they in
Lepanto shall not see us."

Germanos thought a moment.

"I can help you," he said, "and it is pleasure to my soul to do so.
You do not see all your difficulties. You can depend on getting past
Lepanto with the land-breeze in the evening, which blows off the hills
out of Lepanto, and a little up the gulf. Now the land-breeze drops
by an hour after sunset, and so by then, therefore, must you be past
Lepanto. That is to say, you must pass Patras in broad day. You will
be seen from the citadel, a man on horse will reach the straits before
you are there, and word will go across to the fortress. It is now after
sunset, and it is hopeless to attempt it to-night. But to-morrow I
can help you, and this promise I give you, that to-morrow afternoon
we make a sortie, and hold the two city gates on the east, so that no
man passes out. Thus word cannot be sent to Lepanto. For, believe me,
if you are seen, as you must be seen passing here, the straits will be
guarded, and you will never get in. But, little Mitsos, what a scheme!
Is it the Capsina's? For how will you pass out again; for when once
they know you are there, the straits will be guarded. They have ships
at Lepanto."

"In a month the fleet leaves Hydra," said Mitsos; "till then we have
plenty of work in the gulf. But that is a wise thought and a kind one
of yours, father."

Germanos got up and walked about; he was much moved.

"If this is the spirit of the people," he said, "it will be no long
time before not a Turk is left in Greece."

"The people are not all as the Capsina, father," said Mitsos.

"It is splendid! splendid!" cried Germanos. "Whenever did a man hear of
so noble a risk? To shut herself up in a trap for six weeks, fighting
like a wild beast at bay. And, indeed, there is cause; five villages
already have been exterminated--they are no more. We on land cannot
touch the ships. None know where they will come next, and it is out of
possibility to garrison all the villages of the gulf. God be praised
for giving us such a girl!"

"Indeed there is none like her," said Mitsos. "But it is borne in upon
me that she is waiting off Limnaki, and she does not like waiting."

"I will have you seen safely out of the town," said Germanos, "for,
indeed, we cannot spare you either, little one. How is the wife and the
baby?"

"The one is as dear as the other," said Mitsos, "and they are both very
dear."

Mitsos was escorted out of the town and set on his way by a dozen men,
to defend him from the street brawls, and before midnight he was down
again on the shore at Limnaki, where he found the boat waiting to take
him off. The Capsina had come ashore, and was pacing up and down like a
hungry animal. Mitsos told her how he had sped; she entirely approved
the primate's scheme, the ship was got under way, and they went north
again, with a fitful and varying breeze, to join Kanaris.

All next morning they lay some eight miles out to sea, waiting until
the time came for them to move up the gulf. A west wind was blowing,
and now one and now the other beat a little out to sea, in order to
keep their distance from the land. On the Capsina's ship an atmosphere
of nerves was about, for all the men knew what they were to attempt,
and the waiting was cold matter for the heart. Mitsos alone possessed
himself in content and serenity, and smoked a vast deal of tobacco.
Michael had caught the prevailing epidemic, and followed the Capsina
about on her swift and aimless excursions fore and aft with trouble in
his eye.

At length the Capsina came and sat down by Mitsos, who had chosen a
snug berth under the lee of the forecastle, where he was sheltered from
the wind and warmed by the winter

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