THE PORT DUES OF CORINTH
Nicholas got safely across to Corinth early in the morning after he had parted from Mitsos, but was obliged to wait there two days for a caique to take him to Patras. The revolution for which the leading Greeks throughout the Peloponnese were preparing was there in the hands of the Archbishop Germanos. Like Nicholas, he too had felt the cruel appetites of the Turk, and, like Nicholas, he was willing to leave revenge unplucked until the whole scheme was ripe to the core. An agent of his had met the latter at Corinth, bidding him come, if he had a few days to spare, at once; if not, as soon as he could. But as Nicholas had left Nauplia with the idea of proceeding to Patras at once, he sent the messenger back, saying he was on his way, but that for greater security he would come by sea. That he was suspected of being concerned in intrigue against the Turk he knew, and as his plans were now already beginning to be thoroughly organized, and the club had made him their principal agent in the Morea, he wished to avoid any needless risk in passing through the garrisoned towns on the gulf.
On the second day, however, a Greek caique laden with figs was starting from Corinth, and Nicholas went on board soon after dark, and about midnight they started.
For a few hours an easterly breeze drew up from the narrow end of the gulf, but it slackened and dropped between three and four in the morning, and daylight found them becalmed, with slack sails, some eight miles out to sea, and nearly opposite Itea. To the north the top of Parnassus wore morning on its face, and stood high above them rose-flushed with dawn, while they still lay on a dark, polished plain of water as smooth as glass. On the opposite side of the gulf, but farther ahead, Cyllene and Helmos, on the north side of which last winter's snow still lay heraldically in bars and bezants, had also caught the light, which, as the sun rose higher, flowed like some luminous liquid down their slopes, wooded below with great pine forests.
Nicholas had pillowed himself on the deck, and woke when the sun had risen high enough to touch the caique. The captain and owner of the boat, who had been all night in the little close cabin below, came up as he roused himself and sat down near him.
"The wind has dropped altogether," he said; "we may be here for hours. Are you in a hurry to get on?"
Nicholas filled his pipe very carefully.
"I am never in a hurry," he said, "if I am going as quick as I can. I would make a wind if I could, but I cannot, and so I am content to wait. If swearing would do any good I would even swear, but I find it has no effect on the elements. You have a good heavy cargo."
"A good, heavy cargo?" said the man. "Yes, and we should have a dipping gunwale if those devils had not seized six crates of figs at Corinth."