The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

by E. F. Benson

"You shall brush my clothes and sew my buttons," continued Yanni, "and lay my supper, and eat of my leavings. It is a fine thing to have a good strong servant. There's your pipe."

Mitsos reached out a huge hand, plucked Yanni's pipe from his mouth, and lit his own at it.

"There is a good clean smell abroad to-day," he said. "It is the first of spring. Just think; last year only I went out picking flowers with the little boys and girls on this day, and here am I now a man of war. It was good to sleep under the pines and wake to them whispering; was it not, Yanni? Perhaps that will come again when the kennel-work is over."

"Easter candles give I to the Mother of God," said Yanni, "for the days that are gone, and a candle more for every day we journey together, Mitsos."

"The Blessed Mother of God will have a brave lighting up one night, then," said Petrobey, "if things go well with us. There's many a tramp for you both yet. And who will be paying for the candles, little Yanni?"

The third day after, the two set out for Tripoli, Yanni trinketed out in his best clothes, as was fit for the son of a great chief, and going forward on a fine gray horse, Mitsos behind him on his own pony, in the dress of a servant, leading the baggage-mule. Four days' travelling, for they rode but short hours, being in no way very eager to get to the "kennel-work," as Mitsos called it, brought them to Tripoli, where Yanni went straight to the governor's house, leaving Mitsos outside in the square with the beasts.

The house stood on one side of the square, but to those outside showed only a bald face of wall, pierced here and there with a few iron gratings. As Mitsos waited he saw a woman's face thickly veiled peering out from one of these, and guessed rightly that here were the women's quarters. An arched gateway leading into the garden and closed by a heavy door, which had been opened to Yanni by the porter, and shut again immediately after he had entered, alone gave access to the premises. After waiting a few minutes the door was again opened, and a Turkish servant came out to help him to carry in the luggage. But the luggage was but light and Mitsos carried it all in himself, while the porter, leaning on his long stick, and resplendent in his embroidered waistcoat and red gaiters trimmed with gold, looked at him with indolent insolence, playing with the silver-chased handle of his long dagger. Behind the gate stood a small room for the porter, and on the left, as he entered, the side of the block of building he had seen from the street. A door was pierced in the middle of it, but the windows, as outside, were narrowly barred. The path was bordered on each side by a strip of gay garden-bed, and following the porter's directions he went straight on and past the corner of the main block, from the end of which ran out another narrow building right up to the bounding wall away from the street. In front of this lay a square garden planted with orange-trees and flowering shrubs, the house itself running from the square to the bounding wall at the back.

This second block of narrow buildings was two-storied, the upper story being faced by a balcony which was reached from below by an outside staircase. Four rooms opened onto this, and, still following his directions, he knocked at the first of the doors and a young Turk came out, who, seeing Mitsos with the luggage, reached down a key and proceeded to open the doors of the next two rooms. These, he said to Mitsos, were his master's rooms, and the end room was a slip of a place where he could sleep if his master wished to have him near. So Mitsos, as Yanni did not appear, unpacked his luggage and waited for him.

Yanni came up presently, accompanied by the porter, and was shown into his rooms, where Mitsos was busy arranging things. He shut the door hastily, and, waiting till the steps of the porter had creaked away down the balcony steps, broke out with an oath.

"The very devil, Mitsos," he said; "but this is no good job we are on. Here am I, and from within this kennel-place I may not stir. I sleep and am fed, and for exercise I may walk in that pocket-handkerchief of a garden and pick a flower to smell, but out of these walls I don't move."