[CHAPTER X]
The town of Nauplia itself lies on the north side of a tortoise-shaped promontory of land swimming splay-fashion out into the gulf. The upper part of this, surrounded by walls of Venetian fortification, was held by the Turks; the lower part, including the quay, by the insurgent Greeks. Behind the town, away from the sea, rose the rock on which was built Fortress Palamede, sharp, supreme, and jagged, like a flash of lightning, also in Turkish hands. A flight of steep, break-neck steps, blasted in many places out of the solid rock and lying in precipitous zigzags, communicated by means of a well-defended but narrow passage, battlemented and loopholed, with the citadel of the town proper. The south side of this promontory needed but little watching, for no man could find a way down crags which imminently threatened to topple over into the sea. On the west a water-gate communicated with a narrow strip of land giving into the shallow water of the bay, where no anchorage was possible. On the north the lower town was in the hands of the Greeks, whose lines of beleaguer stretched from the western end of the quay to the base of Palamede. On the east the only outlet was a small gate in the passage leading between Palamede and the citadel.
Now Nauplia was one of the strongest and, in the present state of affairs, quite the most important fortress in the Peloponnese still in the hands of the Turk. It communicated with the main arteries of war in the country; the harbor was well sheltered, defended by the town, and would give admirable anchorage to the the fleets of Europe, and the Sultan Mahomed, with his quick, statesmanlike sagacity, had seen that all his efforts must centre on its retention in Turkish hands. With Nauplia securely his, he could at will continue to pour fresh troops into the country, and there could be but one end to the war.
Had the Greeks acted with any singleness of purpose or the most moderate promptitude after the fall of Tripolitza in the previous October, Nauplia might have been taken without difficulty, but they let slip this opportunity. Instead they distributed honors and titles, and banners and tokens—a thing to make the more patriotic dead turn in their graves—and the Turks were in possession of a well-watered fortress, and had only to hold out till the fleet relieved them by sea and the army, which, under the command of the Serashier Dramali, had received orders to march straight to Nauplia, at the end of Rhamazan, drove off the besiegers.
April in the plains was somewhat rainless, and May unseasonably hot; and though the springs in the fortress did not run dry, yet the torrid weather made itself felt in the garrison of the sun-scorched Palamede. But the fleet, as was known, would set out in May, and Dramali would leave Zeituni, where he was encamped, in the first week of July. By the end of July, therefore, relief would be certain.
In the Greek lines much cheerfulness and nonchalant good-humor prevailed. During April the Turks had made two sorties, which were repulsed with but little loss to the besiegers and at a heavy price to the besieged, and the latter now seemed inclined to wait for relief, trusting to the admirable fortifications which defended them and a certain growing slackness on the part of the besiegers, rather than make another attempt. Hypsilantes, an excellent field-marshal when there was nothing to do, treated the chiefs with a courtly condescension, and frequently entertained them at dinner; while Kolocotrones, with his new brass helmet and a hearty raucous voice, went hither and thither, often leaving the camp for a week at a time on some private raid, and swelled and strutted already with the anticipation of a plentiful plunder. For the Greeks considered their own ships as adequate to stop any fleet the Sultan might send from Constantinople, and thought it impossible that the garrison would hold out until the coming of the army.
Mitsos, the truant aide-de-camp, chiefly conspicuous hitherto by his absence, reported himself the morning after his return to Prince Hypsilantes, who, taking into consideration what he and the Capsina had done, was pleased to accept his lack of excuses and poverty of invention with graciousness, and further gave him furlough for a week, on the granting of which the lad posted back to Suleima and the silkworms. And that evening, when the child was gone to bed and Father Andréa had charged himself to see that nothing caught fire, and that no changeling fairy—a vague phantom terror dreaded and abhorred of Suleima's soul—malignantly visited the cradle of the littlest, the two went off for old sake's sake in the boat, Mitsos with the fishing spear and resin, to visit the dark, dear places of the bay. The land-breeze was steady, and the moon already swung high among the stars, and from afar they could see the white wall that both knew. As they passed it, Suleima clung the closer to Mitsos.
"How strange it all seems," she said, "to think that I was there year after year, not knowing of any but old Abdul and the eunuch—oh, a pig of the pit!—and Zuleika and the others. And now they are where?"
"In hell," said Mitsos, promptly, and with all the cheerfulness of unutterable and welcome conviction. "Yanni sent Abdul there himself at Tripoli. Oh, a fat man. His cheeks were of red jelly, you would say, forever wobbling. I pray I may never be a jelly-man."
Suleima laughed.