And her voice was a little raised and tremulous, and she stopped abruptly, though her silence half strangled her. She seemed unable to exchange an ordinary word with him without letting her sex obtrude itself. If she was never to be aught but a comrade to Mitsos, it would be something, at any rate, to make him know how much more he was to her. Her fierce, full-blooded nature, accustomed to impose its will on others and to exercise no control on itself, if baffled in the first respect might at least realize the other. She was hurt; each day of her life hurt her; at least, she could cry aloud. But the mood passed in a moment: Mitsos was full of the thought of Suleima, whom he would see that evening. He would think her mad, or worse; and still, he would not care. She would cease even to be a comrade to him.
Mitsos had not noticed the raised voice nor the abrupt breaking off. He was dimly suspicious that the Capsina was making metaphysical remarks to which politeness required an answer, and he frowned and shook his head hopelessly to himself, there being no subject of which he knew less. But the sudden introduction of Suleima into the question made things clearer.
"Suleima?" he said. "Why did I meet her? Oh, Capsina, how could it have been otherwise? Tell me that. For I could not be myself without her. Oh, I cannot explain, for God, in His wisdom, made me a fool!" he cried, and he puffed away at his pipe.
"And tobacco is always tobacco," remarked the Capsina, justly enough.
They sat in silence a while longer, and then the girl got up from where she was sitting and strolled towards the bows of the ship, which pointed up the gulf. She could see the ruddy-gray side of the fortress hill Palamede which stood up five hundred feet above Nauplia, but the town itself lay out of view behind a dark promontory which ran rockily out. The sea was perfectly calm and of a translucent brilliance, clear as a precious stone, but soft as the air above it. Fifteen fathoms below lay the sandy bottom of the gulf, designed, here and there, like a map, with brownish-purple patches of sea-weed, and between it and the surface, poised in the water, drifted innumerable jelly-fish and medusæ, shaped like full-blown balloons, with strange, slippery-looking strings and ropes trailing below them. Some were pink, some of a transparent and aqueous green, some rustily speckled like fritillary flowers, but all, as in a stupor of content, drifted on with the current of warm water settling into the bay. Now and then a shoal of quick fish would cross, turning and wheeling all together like a flight of birds, their burnished sides glittering in the sun-steeped water, or stopping suddenly, emblazoned, as if heraldically, on the green field. A school of gulls were fishing behind, dipping in and out of the water for chance fragments from the ship. Mitsos, lying at ease on the deck, with his pipe in his mouth and his cap pushed forward to shield his eyes from the sun, seemed to excel even the jelly-fish in content, and to the girl it appeared that she alone, of all created things, was of an uneasy heart. That evening they would reach Nauplia. News of their coming would before now have gone about, and she tingled at the thought of the welcome they would get together. Not only for her would those shouts go up, but for Mitsos with her, thus sounding with more than double sweetness to her ear. And when the shouting and acclamation were over she would go back to the ship, and Mitsos would go to Suleima. She hated this girl whom she had never seen, and mixed with her hatred was an overwhelming curiosity to see her.
Mitsos finished his pipe, got up thoughtfully foot by foot, and strolled towards where she was standing leaning over the bulwarks. He was getting impatient for the coming of the tardy wind, but judged it to be on the first page of good manners that he should keep his impatience private. Also he wanted to let this girl know in what admired esteem and affection he held her, and his tongue was a knot when he sought for words. Day after day they had run the same fine risks, their hearts had beat as one in the glory of the same adventures, they had laughed and fought and frolicked like two lads together, welcoming all that came in their path; and yet he could not take her arm and let his silence speak for him. Even Yanni had never been more ready and admirable of resource, more ignorant of what fear was, more apt and suited to him, nor more lovable, as comrades love. She had all the live and fighting gifts of his own sex, yet in that she was a woman he felt that they were the worthier of homage, and that he was the more unable to pay it.
His bare-footed step was silent across the decks, and he came close to her before she knew of his coming. And after spitting thoughtfully into the water, leaning with both elbows, awkwardness incarnated, on the bulwarks next her, he spoke.
"Oh, Capsina," he said, "how good a time I have had with you! And will you make me a promise, if it so be you are one-tenth as satisfied as I? It is this: If ever again—for now, as you know, with this siege of Nauplia and the Turks coming south, my duty is here—if ever, at some future time, you have need of one who hates the Turks and will act as your lieutenant or your cabin-boy, or will, if you please, swim behind your ship or be fired out of your guns, you will send for me. For, indeed, you are the bravest woman God ever made, and it honors me to serve you."
And once again, as on the night he joined the ship, he took of his cap and bent to kiss her hand.
Mitsos blurted out the words shyly and awkwardly, in most unrhetorical fashion, yet he did not speak amiss, for he spoke from his heart. And the Capsina stood facing him, and, holding both his hands in hers, spoke with a heart how near to bursting she only knew.