CHAPTER XVII
RESCUING THE GARRISON OF ATHENS
“I TELL you what it is, Mr. Beveridge,” the governor said when the latter went up to call as usual upon his arrival at Corfu, “I quite begin to dread the appearance of that smart schooner of yours; during the last five weeks you have added a thousand mouths to my anxieties. What we are to do with all these poor creatures I have not the slightest idea. We can’t go on feeding them for ever; and what with the voluntary fugitives and those brought over to us, there are at present some forty or fifty thousand strangers in the islands, and of these something like half are absolutely dependent on us for the means of living.”
“It is a very difficult problem,” Mr. Beveridge said. “Of course, when the war is over the great proportion of them will return to their homes in Greece; but the fugitives from the Turkish islands and mainland are in a different position. Doubtless, when peace is made, there will be some arrangement by which those families which have men among them can also return to their homes without being molested; but those consisting only of women and children could not do so. Some of the women and girls can find employment in Greek families, and I suppose the rest will finally become absorbed as servants in the towns on the Adriatic.”
“I see nothing else for it, Mr. Beveridge; unless you choose to continue your good work, and transport them in batches across the Atlantic. I believe there is a great dearth of women in Canada and the United States.”
“You will have to set up schools and teach them English first, sir,” Mr. Beveridge laughed, “or they would not be welcomed there. When they can all speak our language I will think over your suggestion.”
“Do you think that Greece ever will be free, Mr. Beveridge?”
“I think so. Certainly I think so. These terrible massacres on both sides seem to render it absolutely impossible that they should return to their former relations. The Turks have not yet made their great effort, and I believe that when they do they will reconquer Greece. But I do not think they will hold it. The hatred between the races is now so bitter that they can never live together in peace; and I believe that the Greeks will continue their resistance so long that Europe at last will come to their assistance, and insist upon a frontier line being drawn. This terrible affair of Chios, dreadful as it is, will tend to that. The Christian feeling of Europe will become more and more excited until, if the governments hold back, the people will force them forward, and England and France at least will, if necessary, intervene by force. I believe that they would do so now were it not for jealousy of Russia. It is Russia who fomented this revolution for her own purposes, and it is solely the fear that she will reap the whole benefit of their action that causes England and France to look on this struggle with folded arms.”
“I fancy you are right, and that that will be the end of it,” the governor said. “I need not say how earnestly I wish the time would come. I can assure you I have a very anxious time of it. What with providing for all these people, what with preventing breaches of neutrality by the Greeks, and what with the calumnies and complaints that the Greeks scatter broadcast against us, I can assure you that my task is not an enviable one.”
“I can quite imagine that. The Greeks make it very hard for their well-wishers to assist them; indeed, if they were bent upon bringing obloquy upon their name they could hardly act otherwise than they are doing. The one man they have hitherto produced who goes his way regardless of intrigue and faction, fighting bravely for the country, is Constantine Kanaris, who has destroyed two Turkish ships with his own hand. A hundred of such men as he is, and Greece would have achieved her independence without foreign assistance; and yet, even in his own ship, he is unable to maintain even a shadow of what we should consider discipline. He himself acknowledged as much to me at Psara.”