The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson

"Yes, surely. But I thought you spoke as if, as if—"

"As if what?" asked the girl.

"As if you thought we should not be together."

"Oh, little Mitsos, you are a fool," she said. "While the Revenge is afloat there is need for you here. Good-night. Kiss Suleima for me, as well as for yourself, and promise you will make the adorable one say 'Capsina.'"

"Indeed he shall, and many times. But when will you come yourself? I have not yet welcomed you in my home, and for how many days have I been made welcome in this swift house of yours! You will come to-morrow? Let me tell Suleima so."

The Capsina nodded and smiled.

"Till to-morrow then," she said.

But Mitsos had construed her tone aright. Even in the very act of speaking she had hesitated, wondering if she were firm enough of purpose to sail without him, and wishing, or rather wanting, that she were; and in the same act of speech she had known she was not, and the question had halted on her tongue. But it had been asked and answered now, and she was the gladder; for the pain of his presence was sweeter than the relief of his absence.

Most of the sailors were on shore, a few only on the ship, and when Mitsos had gone she went down to her cabin, meaning to go to bed. The ripple tapped restlessly against the ship's side; occasionally the footstep of the watch sounded above her head, and human sounds came through the open port-hole from the Greek camp. The night was very hot, and the girl lay tossing and turning in her bed, unable to sleep. It was at such times when she was alone, and especially at night, that the fever of her love-sickness most throbbed and burned in her veins. Now and then she would doze for a moment lightly, still conscious that she was lying in her cabin, and only knowing that she was not awake by the fact that she heard Mitsos talking or saw him standing by her. Such visions passed in a flash, and she would wake again to full consciousness. But this night she was too aware of her own body to doze even for a moment; it was a struggling, palpitating thing. Her pulse beat insistently in her temples; her heart rose to her throat and hammered there loud and quick. The port-hole showed a circle of luminous gray in the darkness, and cast a muffled light on the wall opposite; the waves lapped; the sentry walked; the ship was alive with the little noises heard only by the alert. Her bed burned her; her love-fever burned her; she was a smouldering flame.

She listened to the tread of the watch, growing fainter as he walked to the bows; he paused a moment as he turned, and the steps came back in a gradual crescendo, till he was above her head, then died away again till they were barely audible. Again he paused at the turn, again came his steps crescendo, and so backward and forward, till she could have cried aloud for the irritation of the thing. Other noises were less explicable; surely some one was moving about in the cabin next hers, the cabin Mitsos used to occupy, some one who went to and fro in stockinged or bare feet, but with heavy tread. Then Michael, who lay outside her door, stirred and sat up, and began to scratch himself; at each backward stroke his hind-leg tapped the door, and the Capsina vindictively said to herself that he should be washed to-morrow. But he would not stop; he went on scratching for ten hours, or a lifetime, or it may have been a minute, and she called out to him to be quiet. He lay down, she heard, with a thump, and, pleased with the sound of her recognized voice, banged his tail against the bare boards. Then he began to pant. At first the sound was barely audible, but it seemed as if he must be swelling to some gigantic thing, for the noise of his breathing grew louder and louder, till it became only the tread of the sentry above. No, it was not the sentry; he walked a little slower than the panting—why could the man not keep time?—and still next door the padded footstep crept about.