The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson

The other corner of the veranda was covered with wooden trays, over each of which was stretched a confining sheet of gauze. In the trays were spread fresh shoots of mulberry-leaves, on which reposed hundreds of silk-worm moths of the fairer and fatter sex busy laying eggs, as in duty bound, and, it must be conceded, fulfilling their duty with the utmost profuseness. The males, smaller and rather duller in color, fluttered about against the gauze or walked drone-like across the leaves, taking rude short cuts over their wives when they happened to find those estimable women in their way. Outside the gauze on the floor of the veranda lay another tray full of shoots of mulberry-leaves eaten bare by the broods of young caterpillars already hatched, or still covered with the eggs, which looked like a rash of minute gray spots. Suleima was behindhand with her work, for the eggs should have been transferred to the mulberry-trees before they hatched, and she moved quickly backward and forward from the row of young trees in the garden which spring had clothed in their new gowns of green, carrying the egg-laden twigs in her hand. These she either tied to the living shoots or, where the foliage was thicker and no sudden gust of wind could blow them away, she merely put it in the middle of the growing leaves. Round the trees, below the lowest output of branches, was painted a band of lime to prevent the caterpillars straying. She sang gently to herself out of a happy heart as she moved on her errands, stopping every now and then on the step from the veranda, and looking out over the shining shield of the bay towards Nauplia with eyes eager for the ruffling land-breeze which should bring a ship, which she waited for, climbing up wave after wave against it as a man climbs a ladder rung by rung.

Outside in the garden the air was still windless, and the trees stood with leaves drooping and motionless as if in sleep. Only near the fountain the alder, whose finer fibre perceived a moving air where others let it pass unnoticed, whispered secretly to itself. The spring had been late in coming, but in a day, so it seemed, the sun grew warm and sluices of mellow air were flung open to flood the land, and from hour to hour the anemones and little orchids had multiplied themselves by some vast system of progression along the hill-side as the stars grow populous in the heavens at the fall of night. Already Suleima's red anemones, sheltered from north winds by the house, and more forward than those fed by the thinner soil of the moorland, were over; one blossom only still held its full-blown petals, and to Suleima it seemed a thing of good omen that there should be just one left for Mitsos on his return. For this morning the Revenge, recognizable by its area of canvas, vaster than that of other ships, and the raking line of its bows, and flying the Greek flag, had been sighted out in the gulf, from the village of Tolo, heading for Nauplia. But to the sea-breeze had succeeded a dead calm, and she was yet some three miles out, mirrored in the sea as still as a ship in a picture till the land-breeze should awake. Father Andréa had set off for Nauplia after the mid-day dinner to welcome Mitsos home, and to catch a glimpse of the Capsina.

All afternoon the Revenge lay dozing on an unwrinkled sea. There was not breeze enough even to make the sails shiver and flap; you would have said the wind was dead. To the Capsina and Mitsos it was strange to lie idle thus, without even the occupation of considering their plans for the morrow, and the girl at times half hoped that the wind would soon come which would bring them to Nauplia and part her from Mitsos, half felt that the interminable procession of days would be only hour after impossible hour without him. The memory of that moment when, forgetting Suleima indeed, yet not remembering her except as in the hour of victory a comrade's heart goes out to a comrade, he had taken her into his arms, was like some devouring thirst which made dry her soul. She was too just to blame him for it; the fierce exultation of that night of battle and thunder had been all that prompted him. At such times a man would kiss a man, and so, and in no other way, had he kissed her; he had but overlooked the fact that she was a woman, had been ignorant she was a woman who loved him. She had returned to him a minute afterwards to find him shy, ashamed, awkward, and knew as well as if her thoughts were his own what was in the lad's mind. He wanted to apologize, thinking that he might have offended her, yet hesitated, lest he might solidify the matter for offence; perhaps he even feared that she imagined he was thinking so light of her as to treat her to a little love-making. Now the Capsina felt sure of the ancestry, so to speak, of that embrace; she was not offended; she knew he was not making love to her, and with a delicate simpleness almost too straightforward to call tact, she had entered into conversation with him so quickly and naturally that he was at his ease again.

But, justice of God, the difficulty and the unfairness of it all! That wild, fierce joy which filled Mitsos at the sinking of the Turkish ship was paid for not alone by those drowning cries, but by her also, and heavily. She had succeeded too well, so she told herself, in her assumption of a perfectly natural manner. Had Mitsos's sudden action been dictated not by the excitement of that moment, but by the spasm of heat of a man for a woman, she had shown herself too disregardent, she had taken it too lightly; she had treated him, so he must have thought, as a boy who had been merely rude to her, but whose rudeness she had overlooked. And she laughed out at the thought, and Mitsos raised his eyebrows and asked what the matter for amusement was.

They were alone, for Christos had been left with his cousins at Patras now more than a week ago. They had passed the guns of Lepanto by night, after hanging about ready to fight their ships if they attacked, but out of range of the fort guns, for nearly a week. But one evening, after the sea-breeze had failed, a sudden wind had got up after midnight, in obedience to the Greek proverb that says, "On the first of spring the wind alone is contrary," and they had sailed out, passing close under the guns of the fort, reaching Patras before daybreak. Certainly the wind had been divinely punctual, for the very next day every sense said that winter was over. March and April had been cold and rainy, smiling sometimes through their tears, but for the most part scolding months, full of peevish weeping. But then, with the early days of May, the change came. The Primavera scattered her flowers broadcast over the land, and every land-breeze was sweet with the promise of budding woodland things. Bees, more than once when they were farther than a mile from land, had flown busy and drunken across the deck, and the superstitious sailors had told the Capsina that surely some very good thing was on its way to her.

To-day they had dined on deck, and after dinner Mitsos, in a ferment of restlessness at the sight of home, had gone more than once to the side of the ship, sniffing to find if he could smell the wind. But the wind yet tarried, and now he had stretched his lazy length along the deck, his head supported by a coil of rope, and smoked his narghile as he talked. He had just received his share of the prize-money—more than a hundred pounds—and this large sum was weighing on his mind when the Capsina's laugh broke in upon his meditations, and he roused himself.

"Talking of the prize-money—" he began.

"Which we were not doing," said the Capsina.

"Then let us do so now. It is thus: I do not want it, for it was not for that I came, and I would rather that you gave it to the war fund."

The Capsina turned a little away and played with the end of a rope lying near her.