The Capsina: An Historical Novel

by E. F. Benson

Mitsos hesitated a moment, but reasoning that as the Capsina had said nothing of this to him it was a thing outside his own affairs, he went back to bed again.

He woke again in the aqueous, uncertain light of dawn, and in the dimness made his way on deck. The water was a mirror, the sky hard and clear as some precious stone. The Capsina was not returned to the ship; she had been gone ashore all night, and none on board knew anything of her. The boat she had disembarked in had been back once during the night to take more men: they supposed she was trying to save some whom the Turks had left for dead.

Kanaris's ship was lying close, and after taking some coffee, Mitsos rowed across to consult with him. He advised going ashore, and though Mitsos hesitated at first, for if the Capsina had wanted him she would have sent for him, they went together.

The long line of houses along the harbor was still smouldering—though for the most part they had been skeletons of dwelling-places, built only of wood—a heap of charred and blackened beams. Sometimes a breath of moving air came down from the mountain behind, and fanned the burned heaps into a sullen glare of glowing charcoal, or blowing off a layer of white ash, showed that the fire still lived beneath. A row of mimosa-trees fronted the houses, their leaves all singed and wilted with the heat, and as the two landed on the quay the dawn breeze awoke and blew straight down to them across the burned town, hot and stifling, and, what gave to Mitsos a sudden pang of intimate horror, with the smell of burning wood was mingled a smell as of roasting meat. Here and there from a heap of charred ruins protruded a blackened leg or arm, or the figure of a man or woman lay free from the fallen timbers, but with hair consumed to its roots, and holes burned in the clothes, a crying horror and offence to the purity and sweetness of morning. Once, on their way up that street of death, Mitsos turned to Kanaris with ashen lips. "I think I cannot go on," he whispered, but after a moment or two he mastered himself and followed the other. The ghastly hideousness of the sight, now that his blood danced with no fever of war nor was his heart shadowed by an anxiety fiercer than this indiscriminate death, touched some nerve which the shambles at Tripoli had left unthrilled. Here and there from the waters of the harbor the masts of some sunken vessel pricked the surface, and the slope of the beach was strewn with the wreckage, not of ships alone. And by degrees Mitsos's cold horror grew hot with the fiery lust for vengeance; and steeling himself to look and feed on the sight, before long he looked and needed no steeling. The color returned to his lips and inflamed his face, his eye was lit from within with the thought of what should swiftly follow. For beyond a doubt this was the work of the three ships that had sailed from Lepanto only a few days before, and, indeed, they must have been gone not yet a full day.

Curious and pitiful was it to see the dogs still guarding a pile of burned beams which their instinct told them was home; they had returned, no doubt, when the fierceness of the fire was over, and now lay in front of the consumed houses, growling at Kanaris and Mitsos as they passed, or, if they came close, springing up with bared teeth ready to attack. At one house a great gaunt dog rose as they approached and stood with hackles up, snarling; the poor brute stood on three legs, for the fourth was broken and hung down limply. And, seeing that, a sudden poignancy of compassion at this faithfulness in suffering stung Mitsos to the quick, and, drawing his pistol, he put the beast out of his pain.

As yet there had been seen no sign of the Capsina or her party, but the noise of the shot reached them, and next moment two of the sailors came at a run round a corner some small distance up the street. They waited on seeing who the new-comers were, and Kanaris and Mitsos came up with them.

"Where is she?" asked Mitsos.

"At the house of her mother, clearing what is fallen to see if there are any left alive."

Mitsos and Kanaris followed, and, passing through two short streets of ghastly wreckage, found themselves at the house. It was larger than most, and built of stone, so that while the walls still stood the inside was one piled mass of burned beams and fittings of the floors and staircase. As they came near four sailors emerged out of the door with the charred burden of what had been a man. This, covered with a cloth where the face had been, they laid with others like it a little distance off.

The Capsina had kept with her some half-dozen of the men, with whom she was clearing the beams and débris, having sent the remainder off to other houses. She was hacking furiously at a beam too heavy to drag away except in pieces when Mitsos entered. Her dress, hands, and face were all blackened with the work; one hand was bleeding, and round the wrist was wrapped a bandage of linen. Seeing Mitsos, she stopped for a moment and wiped the sweat from her forehead. No tears or sign that she had been weeping was in her eye, only a savage and relentless fury.