The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson

"Yet there were good things even in Abdul, though not of his intention, but his age rather," she said; "for instance, he was very calm and lazy, and he let us do as we liked, and never troubled us. Indeed, I think he hardly spoke to me six times. Yet had I been there a year longer, who knows? For latterly he used to look at me with his mole's eyes."

Mitsos frowned.

"Don't speak of it," he said, sharply; "he is in hell; even for me that is enough, and for me enough is not a little."

They tacked out to sea again after passing the white wall, for they were going across to the sandy bay where Mitsos used to fish. Nauplia, with the fires of the besiegers and besieged, gleamed like a low cluster of stars at the mouth of the bay, and the island, with its old Venetian castle on it, stood up a black blot against the glittering company. Towards Tripoli the hills were clear and black, and cut out with the exquisite precision of a southern night. Now and then from the town a sudden roar, soft and muffled with its travel over the water, would rise and die away again, but for the most part only the whisper of the severed water or the tap and gurgle of a wavelet crushed by the bows broke the silence. Then putting to land, Mitsos, with his spear and light, poked among the rocks for fish, while Suleima sat on the warm, dry sand watching him. And it seemed to both that the romance of the wooing was not yet over.

But to the beleaguered garrison of Nauplia scorching days and dewless, unrefreshing nights went by in hot procession, and by the middle of June, though the Greeks were not aware, the besieged knew that unless relief came within a few days surrender was imminent. Remembering in what fashion the Greeks had kept the treaty of Navarin, they had but little confidence in the observation of the terms of any capitulations they might make; but remembering, too, scenes of traffic, what Germanos with bitter truth had called "the market of Tripoli," they hoped that their lives might be spared, perhaps until the approach of the army, if they stipulated that until the capitulation was finally signed they should be supplied with food by the besiegers, though at famine prices.

Now Ali, the Governor of Aryos, being supreme in Argolis, was the superior of Selim, the commander in Nauplia, but as there was no possibility of his conferring with Ali through the Greek lines, the proposed draft of the treaty of capitulation had to be drawn out by him. He was a shrewd man, busy and cunning, and the terms he proposed showed that he had not failed to intimately acquaint himself with the character of the chiefs who besieged the place. Accordingly, one day in the last week of June, Mitsos, who had returned to his duties as aide-de-camp, came to Hypsilantes saying that a white flag was flying over the northern gate, and that the Turkish commander wished to confer with the head of the Greek army.

Now at that time Kolocotrones was absent from Nauplia with a large band of his irregular troops, and in his absence, since nothing whatever had previously occurred during the siege which demanded strength in the hand or thought in the head, Hypsilantes had always been given a supremacy of courtesy, in virtue of his original mission from the Hetairia, and that this business should have occurred while Kolocotrones was away—though without doubt if, when the latter came back, he found fault with what Hypsilantes had done he would revoke his acts—was honey to the prince, who still clutched at the show of power. So calling together the other chiefs and members of the national assembly, he intimated to them what had happened, in beautiful language, and Mitsos was forthwith sent with a flag of truce in his hand to conduct Selim to Hypsilantes.

Selim was a brisk, lively little person, who conducted conversation, you would say, more by a series of birdlike, intelligible chirrupings than by human talk, and, more abstemious in his ordinary life than his countrymen, he had suffered less from the sparing rations they had been on for the last fortnight. The gate was opened as soon as Mitsos approached it, and Selim came trotting out, as pleased with his flag of truce as a child with a new toy, and twittered away to Mitsos, as they went back to Hypsilantes' quarters, with the utmost vivacity in rather imperfect Greek.

"And it's pleasant indeed," he said, "just to take a walk down these streets again, even if his highness and I can come to no terms and I am sent back like a hen into that infernal cage, though indeed it's little fattening we get there. And how old may you be, and how long have you been a rebel to his majesty?"

He looked up sharp and quick in Mitsos's face like a canary, and the lad smiled at him.