At that Kanaris laughed aloud, and Mitsos, standing up in the boat, waved his cap with a cheer of derision. Then bending to their oars again, they were soon behind the promontory.
They were received with shouts of triumph by the Capsina and the crew, and the unsuccessful Psarians joined in their welcome to the full extent of their heart and voice. Envy was dumb. Once had Mitsos, once had Kanaris destroyed a man-of-war; now the two had destroyed another together; and by the hands of the two not less than twenty-five hundred Turks had perished. Kanaris came up on the deck first, and the Capsina rushed at him with open arms, and kissed him hard on both cheeks. A moment after Mitsos followed.
She ran to him, then stopped, and for a moment her eyes dropped.
She paused perceptibly; and he, flushed with triumph, joy and the music of their welcome dancing in his eyes, stopped too. The color had been struck suddenly from her face, and burned only in two bright spots on her cheeks. But before he had time to wonder she recovered herself.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, little Mitsos!" she cried; and throwing her arms round his neck, and drawing his head down, she kissed him as she had kissed Kanaris. Her eyes were close to his; his short, crisp mustache brushed the curve below her under-lip; his breath was warm on her. And what it cost her to do that, and how cheap she held the cost, God knows.
They waited behind cover of the land till dark drew on, and then, since they were land-bound, they manned the boats and warped the Revenge round the promontory. The Turkish ships, all but one which now lay black and fish-haunted in the ooze of the channel, had weighed anchor again, but were moving only very slowly northward. Once free of the southern cape of Tenedos, the Greeks found a breeze in the open, and making a southwesterly course, sailed quietly all night, and in the morning found the Sophia waiting for them. Here Kanaris and the two Psarians left the Revenge to join their own ship, and once more Mitsos and the Capsina were alone.
That day it seemed that the sun and the elements joined in their audacious success. Great white clouds, light and rainless, made a splendid procession on the blue overhead, and their shadows, purple in the sea, raced over the blue below. The Revenge danced gayly like a prancing horse, playing and coquetting with the waves, and they in turn threw wreaths of laughing spray at her, which she dashed aside. Under the light wind their full sails were easily carried, and once again an irresistible lightness of heart, bred of success, and health, and sea, as in the first days together, possessed the Capsina. That bad moment in the morning had passed; and, with a woman's variable mood, she fell into the other extreme. Nothing mattered; she loved Mitsos, and he did not love her; here was the case stated. In any case he liked her; he gave her shadow for substance; so she would play with the shadow as a child plays.
After their midday dinner they sat on deck, and Mitsos again told over the adventure of the day before.
"And it was odd," he said, "that when I saw the ship blazing, when, in fact, I saw that that was accomplished for which I had come, I was suddenly sorry. Now, Capsina, you are a woman, and understand things men do not. Why did I feel sorry?"
"Because you are a very queer kind of a lad."