"Kanaris—is it Kanaris?" she cried. "I am here and safe."
Kanaris ran up, breathless and bloody, and more enthusiastic than his wont.
"It is all over," he panted; "we have driven them out of the village, and the rest from Nauplia are seeing to those who have escaped. Surely you bear the good luck with you, Capsina."
"That is as God wills!" Then lowering her voice: "I am attending to a woman in here, a Greek. Take command of the men, Kanaris, and leave me here. We stop here till morning, and let a good watch be kept. Ay, man, I have killed three Turks, one with the knife and two with the pistol."
Then she went back into the hut again and sat down by Suleima.
"Your name is Suleima, then," she said, in a cold and steady voice, "and your husband's name Mitsos Codones?"
"Surely," said Suleima. "Oh littlest, hush you, and sleep."
"Give me the child," said the Capsina, suddenly, with a cruel choking in her throat; "let me hold it. Children are good with me."
She almost snatched the baby out of Suleima's arms, and in the darkness Suleima, wondering and silent, heard her kissing it again and again, and heard that her breath sobbed as she drew it.
In truth the stress and tempest of the impossible battling with the heart's desire had burst on the girl. At one moment she wondered that her hand did not take up the loaded pistol that lay beside her and kill Suleima as she sat there, and at another that she loved the woman who was loved of Mitsos, and could have found it in her heart to kiss her and cling to her as she had clung to the baby. So this was she whom so strange a pathway had led to her, this Suleima, whom she had seen so often in the visions painted by her imagination. She had pictured herself a hundred times meeting Suleima, killing her, and passing on with the road clear to Mitsos at the end of it. She had pictured Suleima coming to her for safety from the Turks, she had heard herself say: "You come to me for safety?" and laughing in her face at the thought and turning her back to where some hell of death received her. She had seen Suleima a dull hen-wife, fond of Mitsos, no doubt, and clever at the making of jam. What she had not seen was a woman, motherly like this, yet not afraid, a pistol in one hand, the little one on the other arm. Here they were, sitting together in the deserted hut, they two and the baby and the dead Turk, who sprawled on the floor, and yet she fulfilled none of these visions. The knowledge that Suleima had heard her name called by Kanaris, the suspicion that she had betrayed herself, troubled her not at all; the child was Mitsos's, and she devoured it with kisses.