"KATSI AND A FINE SELECTION OF COUSINS ACCOMPANIED THE TWO"
The clan, as Katsi Mavromichales had prophesied, soon learned that there was something going forward, and dropped into his house in groups of three and four to learn what it was. The recital had to be gone through again to a most appreciative audience, for Katsi took on his own broad shoulders the responsibility of making it public, and the only thing that failed to make the harmony of the evening complete was that the little soldiers had all gone home before the clan came out. The latter contemptuously supposed the soldiers were tired, for were they not little men? A few of the younger of the members had gone in a party to the barracks and tried to rouse the little men by throwing stones at the windows, but without result, and had subsequently quarrelled so violently at the café over the rival merits of the two corollaries, "The little men sleep sound" and "The little men are very deaf," that Katsi had to go out and knock their heads together, which he did with cheerful impartiality, the one against the other.
Confirmatory news of the effects of the explosion came from Nymphia next morning, and fulfilled the most sanguine hopes. The mill, so said the Greek who brought word, was blown to atoms, and as for Krinos, he was as if he had never been. A broken skull had been found some yards off, but of the rest of him no adequate remains were extant. It appeared also that there had been another man with him at the same time, for over forty teeth had been found by the enterprising youth of the village, which was more than Krinos ever had.
Katsi and a fine selection of cousins accompanied the two for a mile or so out of the village next morning to set them on their journey. There were no more messages to deliver, for they were now in the country of the clan, which was worked from Panitza by Petrobey, and Mitsos, as the slayer of the Turk and the treacherous Krinos, enjoyed the sweet sacrifices of hero-worship offered by his cousins. Two of them in particular, of about his own age, could only look at him in a state of rapt adoration, and feebly express their feelings by quarrelling as to which should lead his mule. Yanni, good lad, grudged Mitsos not one word or look of this admiration which was so showered on him; it warmed his heart to see that others like himself recognized the greatness of their splendid cousin.
On the brow of the hill above the village Katsi and the elder men stopped and went back to their work, but the younger ones escorted them as far as their mid-day halt—lithe, black-eyed young Greeks, girt about with the dogs of the clan, Morgos and Osman, Brahim and Maniati, Orloff and Machmoud, Psari and Drakon, Arapi, Cacarapi, Vlachos, Mavros, Tourkos and Tourkophágos, Maskaras and Ali, all great, stately dogs, shaggy-haired and eyed like wolves, and a contingent of smaller dogs of the most rascally kind, Pyr and Perdiki, Canella and Fundouki, who prosecuted an eternal feud with each other to keep themselves fighting fit, and allowed no man to pass along the road until a passage had been whipped through them by one or other of their masters. To Mitsos, who had lived so much alone, with only the companionship of his father, to be thrown suddenly among this crowd of boys of his own age, who welcomed him as a cousin and hailed him as a hero, was an incomparable pleasure, and with Nauplia, and all that Nauplia held, getting nearer day by day, he was utterly content.
All that afternoon they travelled quietly on, keeping close to the coast, and about sunset saw Mavromati, where they were to sleep, perched high upon the hills below an eastern spur of Taygetus. The tops of the range were covered with snow, and the low sun for a few minutes turned the whole to one incredible rose. But below in the plain there was already a hint of spring in the air; the worst of the winter was passed, its armory of storms and squalls was spent, and the earth had stirred and thrown forth the early crocuses. And something of spring was in the hearts and in the eyes of the boys as they wondered, not knowing that they wondered, what the year would bring. For another more glorious spring was ready to burst forth, and that, which in Greece through a winter of bleak and storm-smitten centuries had lain battered by the volleyings of oppressive clouds, and bitten and stung with frost, had meanwhile so drunk life into all its fibres from that which would have done it to death, that already the green of its upspringing was vivid on the mountain-side, and held promise of a perfect flower, tyranny being turned into the mother of freedom, and smiting into strength.