The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

by E. F. Benson

The house of Abdul Achmet, where Suleima lived, was near the western gate of the city, opposite to which were stationed the Argive corps. Though the Greek troops there could not see across the houses to the gate where the flag was flying, they heard the tumult of shouts and firing begin, they saw the sentries on the gate turn and fly, and without waiting for news or instructions they assaulted the gate and tried to force it. But it held firm against their attack, and they had to blow out the staples of the bolts before they could get in. The main street up towards the square lay straight before them, and they poured up it to where they could see the crowds battering at the houses, killing all the Turks, men, women, and children, whom they met flying away. Among the foremost was Father Andréa, a priest of the Prince of Peace no more, but a fury of hatred. In ten minutes his long, two-edged knife was red from point to hilt, and as he dealt death to the masses of refugees one sentence came from his mouth, "The sword of the Lord!" But just at the corner, where the side street ran down to the little door opening from Abdul Achmet's house below the harem window, a Turk whom he had charged attacked him, evading his upraised knife, and knocked him over, only to find death two yards off. Andréa hit his head against the curbstone of the pavement, lay there for a few moments stunned, and came to himself with the world spinning round him. He rose and staggered out of the blinding sunshine into a cool, dark doorway, some yards down the street, to recover himself a little and to stanch the blood which was flowing from his head; but his knife, which had been struck from his hand, he picked up and carried with him.

Meantime Suleima, from the latticed window, had seen the charge of the Argives, and the terrified women, calling on Allah and the Prophet, ran trembling and sobbing about like frightened birds caught in a net. Abdul did not appear; he had probably run from the house, and the servants seemed to have fled too. Some of the women were for following their example and trying to escape to the western gate, which was only two hundred yards off, as soon as the road was more clear; others were for climbing up to the roof, and hiding themselves there; others for shutting themselves into some small chamber in the house, hoping they would not be discovered. At length, amid an infinity of wailing clatter, they agreed on this, and Suleima, obedient to Penelope's instructions, waited among the hindermost, and then turned to slip down-stairs and out. Zuleika saw her and cried to her to come back, then seemed disposed to follow herself, but Suleima heard her not, and glided down the stairs like a ghost. On the first landing she stopped for a moment and took the veil off her face; her black hair streamed down over, her shoulders reaching to her waist, and she tied it up in a great knot behind her head. Then she wrapped her bernouse round her, and waited a moment till she was certain that none were following her. A strange new courage made steel of her muscles; never in her life had she known so warm a bravery, for when she was out in the boat with Mitsos, or returning to the house after one of those excursions, she had trembled with fright lest she should be discovered, and all this last week she had had sudden qualms and shiverings of terror at the thought of the innumerable dangers that lay before her. But now that the time had come she slipped down the stairs as calmly as she went to her bed or her bath; she thought of herself no longer, but of the unborn babe she carried. A moment's faltering, a babbling word where a firm one was wanted, would be death to that which was dearer to her than herself, and she hastened to the doorway, and seeing that the side street seemed deserted, slipped out, strong in the strength that is the offspring of the protective instinct for that which is as intimately dear as self, and dearer in that it is not self, which only women can know. That day saw many bloody and cruel acts, and many cowardly and craven things, and perhaps only one deed of instinctive, unconscious heroism, and that was Suleima's sublime attempt to save the child of him she loved.

As she opened the door, the roar of death and murder rose like the roar of the sea, and yet the dread of loneliness to one bred in a chattering harem was hardly less terrible. Whither should she go on her desperate attempt? Looking up the street to the main road leading to the square, there suddenly came into sight a woman running distractedly with shrill cries towards the western gate, and, even as she passed, a Greek coming up from the opposite direction ran her through the body, and wiping his sword on her dress, passed on. Cold fear rushed like a river round her heart, yet she would not give it admittance. She must be brave; she would be brave. There was no safety within, that was sure; among the rest of the Turkish women how should she be spared? To the south a column of black smoke rose from a quarter already burning; flame and sword were around her. Then for fear she should lose her courage altogether if she delayed, she drew one deep breath and stepped out into the street, terrible to her in its emptiness, more terrible still in the thought that at any moment it might sing and roar with death.

Now it was so that the moment after Suleima stepped out of the doorway Father Andréa, only thirty yards off, got up with a heart that was one red flame of anger. He had wrapped a rough bandage round his bleeding temple, and that blow had stung him to madness, while in his hand, so thought the wild, revengeful man, he held the sword of the Lord, dripping with the blood of the ungodly. Man, woman, and child, they were all one accursèd brood. With this thought whirling in his brain like some mad, dervis thing he looked down the street and saw a Turkish woman walking towards him, and "The sword of the Lord!" he cried again.

The woman fled not, but ran towards him, crying out "Save me; I am of your blood!" And seeing by the long, black robe and hair that streamed over his shoulders that he was a priest, "Save me, father!" she cried again, "I am of your blood!"

"Mother of devils! mother of devils!" muttered Andréa; but then stopped suddenly, with arm uplifted, not ten yards off, for over his wild brain there came the astonished thought that she had spoken Greek. At the sight of that red knife, and at those fierce words, Suleima uttered a little low cry of despair; but in a moment her strength came back to her redoubled, and she flung aside her bernouse, showing the lines of her figure.

"Would you slay me, father?" she cried again, "I who am of your blood? and see, I am with child!"

Father Andréa paused, stricken out of thought for a moment, and wiped his blade against his cassock. "Greek, she is Greek," he said to himself, "yet from the house of the Turk."

Suleima stood as still as a marble statue and as white. The black bernouse had fallen to the ground, and her silk robe flowed loosely round her figure. He moved a step nearer.

"You are Greek," he said to her. "How came you here?"