E. F. Benson

“ Nicholas, perched on the taffrail, balancing himself with an exquisite precision to every movement of the boat, talked in his deep low voice of a thousand schemes, all blood-stirring, with the Turk for target. For no one knew better than himself the value of personal power, and the success of his proselytizing had been to a large extent, even as in the case of Mitsos, the outcome of his own individuality, which could so stir the minds of men, and fan to a flame the smouldering hatred against the Turks, and cause it to leap up in fire. ”

“ Lower down the pass where the hills began to melt into the plain it grew warmer, and in a half dream of exhaustion for a moment he thought that a treeless hollow of the hills was the bay of Nauplia, lying cool and dark beneath the night. Nauplia, the bay, the white wall—it seemed that that time belonged to a boy called Mitsos, but not himself; a boy who had been happier than the kings of the earth, whereas he was a foot-sore, utterly beaten piece of consciousness, that would plod along the white ribbon of road forever. ”

“ Oh, of course you are right, and I—I—Yanni, is it not hard? What was it I said to you? Something devilish, I know. Don't give me up, Yanni; there is none—there will soon be none who loves me as you do."
Yanni's great black eyes grew soft with tears, and he put his arm round Mitsos' neck as his head lay on the table.
"Oh, Mitsos! poor little Mitsos!" he said again. "What is to be done? If only Nicholas or my father knew; and yet you could not and cannot tell them. Perhaps she is not on the ship, you know."
"Perhaps, perhaps—oh, perhaps she is!" cried Mitsos. ”

“ Strong as the Greek position now was, inevitable though the fall of Tripoli appeared, yet he knew that an army demoralized is no army at all. Was the honey to turn to bitterness? Was that fair day that seemed now dawning to come in cloud and trouble?
Germanos had listened with growing resentment, and he burst out in answer:
"You are wrong, Nicholas; believe me, you are wrong! It is the primates who have to put up with insult. This army of yours is a band of wanton children, long chid and beaten, breaking out from school. It knows neither reverence nor respect, where respect is due." ”

“ Before long the moon rose above the castle behind them, and turned the whole world to silver and ebony. Cicalas chirped in the bushes, and the fragrance of the southern night came drowsily along the wind. Every now and then a noise would rise up for a moment in the town, shrill to its highest, and die away again.
A boy brought them out coffee, made thick and sweet in the Turkish manner, and two narghilés with amber mouth-pieces, and brazen bowls for holding the coarse-cut tobacco. On each he placed a glowing charcoal ember, and handed the mouth-pieces to the two men. ”

“ Petrobey shook his head again.
"One woman fly in the face of that mob? God be with your kind heart, Nicholas. Poor little Mitsos, poor lad!"
Nicholas tore off a crust of bread, and staying only to swallow a draught of wine, went out again into the blinding glare of the streets. Everywhere it was the same ghastly scene over again: heaps of bodies; gutters with slow, oily streams of blood flowing and congealing; here a Turk wounded and in the last agony of death; there some young country lad shot through the heart, lying with open mouth and glazed eyes, which stared unblinkingly at the sun. ”

“ Beyond again lay the dim, dark blue of the sea, and across that, more guessed at than seen, the stencilled shapes of the hills beyond the gulf. Their path, a cobbled Turkish road, ascended steadily, skirting about the edges of the deep ravines, and making detours round the acuter slopes which rose above them to the top of the mountain ridge; and the mules ambled slowly along with their panniers of oranges on either side, while Mitsos and Yanni walked behind, dressed in their roughest peasant clothes, talking of the thousand things of which boys talk. ”

“ The sun had come out as they sat there and shone full onto Mitsos' face, and Yanni, as gently as a woman, pushed his cap over his eyes that it should not waken him, and with infinite craft filled his pipe and managed to get a light from his flint and steel. He felt almost jealous of this girl whom Mitsos loved. It was not fit that he should go a-mooning after womankind, who were—so Yanni thought—an altogether inferior breed. It was Mitsos' business to fight, and do the work of fifty men. How splendid he had been one night at Kalamata, when they sat in the café after supper! ”

“ For two days and nights the citadel had been packed like a crate of figs with defenceless and civilian humanity, more than half of whom had to lie out under the cold of the spring night exposed to the dews and the sun, some of them barely half clad, just as they had been awakened from their sleep when they had fled panic-stricken to the citadel. Below in the Greek army the utmost content and harmony still reigned. ”

“ The moon was not yet risen, but in the clear starlight the edges of the serrated hills were sharply etched against the sky, and the water of the bay, just curdled by the wind, lay vast and sombre across to the farther shore. The light from the resin-flare vaguely showed the lines of the boat in which Nicholas was preparing the net, but all was dim except Mitsos' figure and a few feet of glittering, flame-scribbled water round him. ”

“ There, half a mile above the citadel, in a church of which the sun was the light, and the soft, cool north wind the incense that wafted thanksgiving to heaven, stood the first Greek army of free men that had known the unspeakable thrill of victory since the Roman yoke had bound them a score of hundred years ago. Some were old men, withered and gray, and ground down in long slavery to a cruel and bestial master, and destined not to see the full moon of their freedom ”

“ As he crept up alongside of these he heard the subdued murmur of women's voices from within the first house—the home, perhaps, of some Turkish captain and his harem; and the sound of women's voices made mirth to him, and he listened for a while, smiling to himself. From the next house came more such music, and once a woman walked to the window and stood looking out for a minute, or perhaps two, unveiled and playing with the tassel of the blind-cord, till from within some one called her by a purring Turkish name, and she turned into the house again. ”

“ All the ardor and hot blood of the Greeks leaped like a blush to the surface, and on all sides, mixed with the noise of the singing, rose one great sob of a thankful people born again. Petrobey, with Nicholas on one side and Mitsos and Yanni on the other, hardly knew that the tears were streaming down his tanned and weather-beaten cheeks, and to the others, as to him, memory and expectation were merged and sunk in the present ineffable moment. ”

“ Thus ended a day, the disgrace of which will only be forgotten when the glory of men like Nicholas has faded too. Dark and horrible in part as were the deeds which were to follow, no cruelty so cold-blooded and preconcerted stains the other pages of the war. Cruelties there were, and many black and shameful deeds, but deeds wrought in hot blood and in the drunkenness of revenge; and happily the massacre of Navarin is unapproached and unparalleled. ”

“ The inimitable cousin stirred in his sleep, woke, and stretched himself.
"Oh, little Yanni," he said, "what a brute I am! Have you been sitting here all the time with my head on you? Why didn't you knock it off? But the sun is getting low, and we must be on the road. How's the head?"
"Oh, it's all right," said Yanni; "a bruise like a walnut, but it doesn't ache any more. You ride, Mitsos. I can walk perfectly." ”

“ They had approached to within about twenty yards of the beach, and within about five yards of each other, when Mitsos stopped and pointed back. The upper edge of the net, fitted at intervals with corks to keep it floating, was visible on the bright surface of the sea, trailing in an irregular oval. But inside this oval the moonlit water was strangely agitated and unquiet, quivering like a jarred metal-plate, and from moment to moment a little silvery speck would glitter on it.
"Look," he said to Nicholas, "the little fish are there. We must be as quick as we can. ”

“ Yanni was struggling in the grasp of two men, the Greek and the Turk, and Mitsos, without losing a moment, flung himself onto Krinos, who was nearest him, and dragged him off with a throttling grip. Krinos dropped his hold on Yanni and turned round to grapple with his new assailant, whom, to his dismay, he saw towering half a head above him. At that moment all Mitsos' cheerfulness and good spirits were transformed into a white anger at the treachery of the man, and, tightening his hold, he wrestled for his life. ”

“ Directly opposite the wine-shop stood a whitewashed house, built in a rather more pretentious style than the dwellings of most Greek peasants, and fronted by a garden, to which a row of white poplars gave a specious and private air. A veranda ran around two sides of it, floored with planks, and up the wooden pillars, by which it was supported, streamed long shoots of flowering roses. A low wooden settee, cushioned with two Greek saddle-bags, stood in the shade of the veranda, and on it were sitting two men, one of whom was dressed in the long black cassock of a priest—both silent. ”

“ At the end of half an hour the latter had finished his fresh leading of the net, and as a stiffer breeze had awoke, ruffling the surface of the water and making it difficult to see the fish distinctly, they started to sail across the bay. Mitsos waded out to the boat, trousers and shoes in hand, set the big brown sail, and giving a vigorous shove or two with the oar sent the boat round so that it caught the wind. In a moment it heeled over without stirring, and then the whisper of its moving came sibilantly from the forefoot, and gathering speed it glided on across the dark water. ”

“ Nicholas smiled.
"That gives a double sound," said he; "you pray not for their destruction, but for their speedy salvation. Is that it?"
"To love all men is a hard saying; for, indeed, I love my nation, and I am sure that the removal of the Turks will be for their permanent good. What does the psalmist say, though he was not acquainted with the Turk, 'I will wash my footsteps in the blood of the ungodly'?"
"As far as I can learn the ungodly were expecting to wash their footsteps in my blood at Corinth," said Nicholas; "but they behaved as it is only granted to Turks to behave. ”

“ Yanni jumped up, and, crouching beneath the stern of the caique, thrust the lantern open into a heap of brushwood impregnated with turpentine. It caught and flared up in a moment, and while from the Turkish ship came sudden confused sounds and runnings to and fro, the flame leaped along the caique from stern to bow, ran like a flash of lightning up the sail, and was driven by the wind with a roar right into the broken panel. Next moment Mitsos, having cast loose their smaller boat, pushed off backward into the darkness, and both the boys, seizing their oars, rowed for life. ”

“ The hawklike, eager eyes were closed, the eager nostrils were still, and the dignity of death gave the face a wonderful sweet seriousness, and a tranquillity which it had seldom worn in life. The prince and Germanos arrived before noon, knowing only that Tripoli was taken, and Petrobey, to whom Mitsos had told what Nicholas had said, found words which were a humbling and an awe to that proud man, and together the two went to where he lay. ”

“ For another more glorious spring was ready to burst forth, and that, which in Greece through a winter of bleak and storm-smitten centuries had lain battered by the volleyings of oppressive clouds, and bitten and stung with frost, had meanwhile so drunk life into all its fibres from that which would have done it to death, that already the green of its upspringing was vivid on the mountain-side, and held promise of a perfect flower, tyranny being turned into the mother of freedom, and smiting into strength. ”

“ Then with another scowl at Yanko:
"Can't you even drink to those who are made different to yourself, if they are of a finer bake?" she said; "or is there not spirit in you for that? I should have been a mile on the way by this time," she said to Mitsos, "if it had pleased the good God to make me a man and send you with such a message to me."
"You, Maria?" said Mitsos, suddenly.
"Yes, and how many days of horse-hire does Yanko think I should have asked for my pains? Nay, I should have lit candles to the Virgin in the joy of having such work given me to do, if I had had to beg my way." ”

“ God knows what will happen when the end comes, for the camp is like a pack of wolves. This Mitsos of yours has some glimmerings of sense, but look at the risk you run if you do as he tells you. Fancy running to meet a lot of wolves, you in your Turkish dress, crying you are a wolf too. Ah, dear me, dear me, and the child and all! But this is my idea: separate yourself at all costs from the other women. If they stay in the house, run; if they run, stay here. Do not be seen with them; unveil your face, as the Greek women do, and if possible avoid a mob of Greeks. ”

“ Yanni, who was lounging on the wall with Mitsos in the afternoon sun, preparatory to starting on a night raid down in the plains, saw him coming and whistled ominously.
"There will be mischief," he said, softly, to Mitsos. "Germanos is a good man and true, but these little primates are not all like him."
"I wish they would leave us alone," grumbled Mitsos; "that little monkey-faced Charalambes is doing a peck of harm. He tells the men that all the fighting is for the glory of God. I dare say it is, but there are blows to be struck, and a paper man would strike as well as he. ”

“ Mitsos stared at him a moment like a chidden child; the fit ended as suddenly as it had begun, and he sat still a minute or two, idly plucking the fragrant shoots of thyme, or tossing them in the air.
"It has been a great day, Yanni," he said. "This sort of adventure is like wine to me. I think it must have made me drunk. And now I have cursed that devil I feel better. But I was so angry all the way here that I thought I should have burst. I wonder what made me laugh just now. Uncle Nicholas told me once that men sometimes went crazed the first time they killed any one. ”