The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson

"It is so," he said; "I smell it."

"There are two ships near us," said Kanaris, "both of the biggest kind. The farther one you and I take, the nearer the Psarians. Pray God, they are not utterly fools. With wind I would burn that ship with a tobacco-pipe."

Mitsos smiled sleepily but hugely.

"A fine big tobacco-pipe is this caique," he said. "Are the sails fastened?"

"I have done all while you slept," said Kanaris. "Look and see if it satisfies you. The turpentine only remains. There are the cans; we will do that now. After that no more tobacco."

"That is the drawback to fire-ships," said Mitsos.

Kanaris had nailed the sails to the mast so that they would stay there burning till all the canvas was consumed, and fastened the yards with chains so that they too would blaze until they were entirely burned, and not drop. The brushwood he had piled in the bow, half-mast high, and it only remained to pour the cans of turpentine over sails, deck, and fuel. Even as they were thus employed the stars paled, and were quenched, and with the first definite saffron light in the east a sudden shiver shook the sails, and the boat lifted and moved a little. After a moment another whisper came from the east; the sails flapped, and then began to draw. Kanaris and Mitsos went to the stern, and then Kanaris took the rudder, while Mitsos kindled an oil-lamp and soaked a little dry moss with turpentine, wherewith to fire the ship. A sudden rose flush leaped up to the zenith from the east; the boat rose to a new-born ripple and came down with a cluck into the trough of it; one star only, as if forgotten, hung unextinguished in the sky. The wind had yet scarcely reached the Turkish ships, and they still hung on their anchors, their stern swung round by the current, presenting a starboard broadside to the wind, which now blew shrill and steady, taking the caique along with hissing forefoot and strained canvas. Already Kanaris and Mitsos had passed under the bows of the first Turkish ship, and were not a hundred yards from the second when the Psarian sailors set light too soon to their fire-ship, and, jumping into the boat they towed behind, rowed away. Kanaris gave one grunt of dissatisfaction, for he saw that they had miscalculated their time, and that the fire-ship would only just catch in the bowsprit of the Turk, and also that they had fired it too soon, giving the alarm perhaps to the others. But the wind was brisk, and he had hardly turned his head again, when Mitsos said quietly, "It is time."

Kanaris nodded, put the helm hard aport, and jumped into the boat behind, as Mitsos thrust into the heap of brushwood at the bottom of the mast the pile of burning moss he had kindled at the lantern. He had calculated his distance to precision. The fire-ship struck as Mitsos jumped, staggering with the shock, into the smaller boat, just abaft the forechains, and was instantly glued to the side of the Turk by the force of the wind. In a moment a pillar of flame leaped from the deck to the top of her mast; an eddy of fire shot out like a sword-stroke across the deck of the Turk. Next moment the brushwood in their bows caught, and rose, a screaming curtain of fire, over the forepart of the other. Nor was the fire-ship of the Psarians without use to them. It had caught only in the bowsprit, and was even then drifting harmlessly away to leeward; but at least it burned bravely and poured out dense volumes of smoke, which, coming down the wind, hid them from their victim. And half blinded and choked with it, yet grateful, they took up their oars and rowed away south till they were a safe distance from the anchored ships.

They did not stop till they were some half-mile from them, and then, panting and exhausted, they paused and looked back. The flames were well hold of the ship, and as they mounted and triumphed, they roared with a great hollow uproar of bellowing.

Kanaris stroked his beard complacently.