The girl rocked the child to and fro gently.
"Say it again, little one," she whispered, "say 'Capsina.' I know not why that is so sweet to me," she continued to Suleima, when the child had piped her name again, "but somehow it seems to put me more intimately with him and you. Surely he would not have taught the child my name if he was not my friend. So clearly can I see him doing it, sitting there by the hour smoking, and lazier than a tortoise. Indeed, he is a baby himself; we used to play child-games on the Revenge when we sailed from Hydra, and laughed instead of talked."
"He has told me," said Suleima—"he has told me often!"
After that they sat for a while in silence. Now and then one of the women of the village would go by the illuminated square of the door, or one of the Greek sentries would pass on his round, whistling softly to himself. Otherwise the world was a stillness. The moon was risen, and little bars and specks of light filtered in through the roof of branch and bough. The body of the Turk, still lying where he had fallen, sprawled in the other corner, but neither of the women seemed to notice it. An extraordinary sense of effort over had possession of the Capsina; she had betrayed herself, and that to the one woman in the world to whom she would have thought it impossible to speak. Her pride, her strong, self-sufficient reserve, her secret, which she thought she would have died to keep, had been surrendered without conditions, and the captor was very merciful. She was tired of struggling, she had laid down her arms. And it was wonderfully sweet to hold Mitsos's child.... It was not easy for her to speak, but when a reserved nature breaks down it breaks down altogether, and when she spoke again she held nothing back.
"Even so," she said. "I loved him as soon as I saw him, and I love him still. But in this last hour I do not know how a certain bitterness has been withdrawn; perhaps the bitterness of hatred which was mixed up with it, for I hated you, and you were part of Mitsos. That is your doing—you would not let me hate you, and indeed it is not often that I am compelled like that. And now, Suleima, get you home. I will send a couple of men with you to see you safe; but the Turks are gone. There is no danger."
"You will come with me, Capsina?" asked the other. "Will you not sleep at the house to-night?"
"I must wait here with my men." She hesitated a moment. "But do you ask me? Do you really ask me?"
"Ah, I hoped you would come," said Suleima, smiling. "You will come, will you not? Did I not hear you tell Kanaris he was in charge this night?"
"And may I still carry the little one?"
"Will you not find him heavy?"