The Capsina laughed softly.
"In truth, little Mitsos, you know not much about women. Who told you that women have soft hearts and fear blood? Some man, no doubt, for it is not so."
"It will not be fit for you," said Mitsos again. "Will you not go back?"
"Certainly I will not."
Mitsos sat still a moment frowning.
"It is true that I do not know much about you. But—"
"But then I am not like a woman, you think?" asked the girl, with a sudden anguish at her heart.
"Yet I would there were more women like you," said Mitsos. "So be it, then. Look, they are getting closer."
Meantime the Greek line had closed up, and Mitsos stole away in cover of the trees to give the orders. The signal for firing was to be one musket-shot from the Greek line, given by himself. If the Turks stood their ground, the firing was to continue; if they broke each man was to be his own general, and his business was to kill. Turks were good marksmen, but they were slow of foot; and the wood was thick, and knives were the gift of God. The Greeks would collect again (and Mitsos smiled like an angel militant), when the work was done, in the place they now occupied.
Then came the space of quivering delay, when men could have found it in their hearts to shriek aloud with the straining tension, pulling like pincers at their flesh, while they were compelled to stand still and watch in silence that little glittering patch dancing and shining down the mountain-side. Mitsos for his own part was conscious of no thought but an agonized desire for tobacco, and to Kanaris the fact that he had left three if not four piastres lying loose on his cabin table was the source of an immeasurable regret; a stray lock of the Capsina's hair, which had escaped from her cap, and blew now and again against her cheek, was an annoyance of nightmare intensity, but all watched the growing, glittering patch. In another ten minutes it was nearly opposite them on the hill-side in front, some quarter of a mile away, and they could see that the men were hurrying along, half running, half marching unencumbered by booty or captives; and at that Mitsos drew a sigh of relief, for he knew that they had not reached Vilia when the signal of recall turned them back. Then he took his musket up from the ground where he had laid it, and holding it ready, with finger on the trigger, looked round at the Capsina.