“My dear Zoe, don’t you think the Powers know that, and the Roumis too? The moment our poor wretches showed their noses beyond that barren labyrinth where Wylie and Christodoridi held up Jalal-ud-din, they would be turned back, you may be sure. They would have tried it themselves long ago if they hadn’t been certain of that. No, the Powers, in the interests of humanity, will see us starved to the point at which the Roumis are certain of a walk-over. That’s the secret of their forbearance, in spite of all the moral sympathy that Panagiotis assures us they feel. They are cruel only to be kind, of course.”
Two days of the allotted week passed by, and still the Powers and the Roumis remained inactive. Wylie muttered incoherently on his sick-bed at Ephestilo, and Zoe tried to compensate herself for her banishment from him by caring for the wounded from Ahmed Pasha, who had at least gained their injuries in his company. The third night was very foggy, and the watchers along the coast could hear the muffled sound of sirens and whistles as the European warships talked to one another. The morning was also foggy, but the fog lay over the sea, not the land. The warships were moored too far out to be seen, and even the fishing-boats at anchor loomed dimly through the haze. From Skandalo came exciting news. The boats lying farthest out had caught a glimpse of the yacht. She had burst upon them out of the gloom, and they had cheered her on, thinking that nothing could now prevent her from reaching the port. But from the direction of Therma there came a small foreign ship, steaming parallel with the shore, so as to cut the yacht off from Skandalo, and she had turned and fled back into the fog. From the cliffs at the southern extremity of the peninsula one or two glimpses of her had been caught, and refugees and insurgents were now crowding to the coast to watch for her. The warship had followed her out of the range of vision, so there was still the hope that she might shake off pursuit and run safely for Ephestilo, the only practicable harbour on that side, and one into which the pursuer would not be able to follow her.
Work was at a standstill that morning, for the imminence of the crisis drew every one to the cliffs. Mothers carrying their babies, sick and wounded men dragging themselves painfully over the ground, warriors forsaking their posts inland, townspeople and farmers who were now feeling the pinch of famine like their guests,—all converged on Ephestilo. The slopes on either side of the bay down to the water’s edge were parti-coloured with people, and all eyes were fixed on the space between the headlands, looking out to sea, as though it were the stage of a natural amphitheatre. Boom! came a hollow sound from seaward, and as though the shot had rent the curtain of fog, the yacht ran into sight at that moment, sparks mingling with the smoke from her funnels in the intensity of her effort to reach the shore. Her pursuer was visible immediately afterwards, close—terribly close—upon her, and steaming as before to cut her off from the one opening in the rocks that guarded the harbour. Sighs and moans of sympathy broke from the watching people as the shells of the pursuer fell before, behind, beside the yacht, then on board, causing her to shrink and stagger, but she still held on.
“Good old Armitage! He’s going to run her on the rocks—thinks we can salve the stores from her then,” said Maurice, and as he spoke a great cry rose up from the multitude on the shore. The yacht had run straight upon the reef. The fishermen, led by Maurice, rushed for their boats, only to recoil in terror as a shell splashed into the water of the harbour. Amid the tears and groans of the crowd, the commander of the destroyer went about his work methodically, sending an occasional shot into the bay to keep the onlookers quiet. The crew of the yacht were taken off in boats and transferred to the pursuer, which then withdrew a short distance and fired shot after shot into the grounded vessel. Her boiler blew up at last, with a tremendous explosion, and her shattered remains sank gently into the deep water outside the rocks, followed by a long despairing wail from the shore.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A RUSE DE GUERRE.
When the fog cleared away that evening, a sight ominous of doom met the eyes of the blockaded inhabitants of the peninsula. Inside the line of warships lay a row of other vessels, Roumi transports packed with troops, waiting like vultures for the dying agonies of their prey. The sight seemed to infuse a desperate resolution into the luckless refugees, for that night an epidemic of desertion set in. The insurgents and their leaders made no attempt to stay it, arguing, as Zoe had done, that in the absence of the refugees the food would hold out much longer. Therefore the Skandalo boatmen reaped after dark a rich harvest of jewels and other treasures saved from devastated homes in Therma, and the force guarding the Karakula lines also found opportunities of turning a more or less honest penny. Boat after boat put out into the darkness from the port, and a long straggling train of fugitives streamed along the isthmus. The morning light saw the boats returning, laden as when they started. They had been turned back by the picket-boats from the warships, and told that in future no craft from the peninsula would be allowed to pass the line of transports, while the Roumis on board the transports promised faithfully thenceforth to sink any boat approaching them that did not bring an offer of surrender. The fugitives who had chosen the land route came straggling back at intervals through the day. They also had been stopped by Jalal-ud-din’s force, and told to go back and starve,—or else bring about a surrender. When they would have flung themselves down to die round about the Roumi camp, they were driven back across the isthmus at the bayonet’s point. At present the Roumis considered their hungry mouths more desirable even than their blood, for not only would they help to consume the insurgents’ stores, but their clamorous misery would weaken the hearts of the fighting men.
The returning fugitives were shepherded once more into their allotted camps, and supplied with their meagre rations, to supplement which they wandered over the hills, seeking leaves and roots. The townspeople were openly mutinous, the insurgents angry and discontented. The only class not absolutely destitute were the fishermen, who found an eager market for whatever they could catch, but their operations were now restricted by the transports, which fired on them whenever they ventured more than a few hundred yards from the shore. Otherwise there was no further attempt at hostilities, only the dark masses looming ominous on the horizon. Gradually the belief spread that the Powers had forbidden the Roumis to engage in actual warfare, while allowing them to blockade the peninsula until its inhabitants were too much reduced to offer any resistance to a landing, and on the sixth day Prince Romanos came to Maurice.
“We must do something, or else all starve together,” he said. “I propose to cross the isthmus to-night, take the shore road, and attack Jalal-ud-din’s camp in the rear. The attack will merely be a cover for a raid upon his stores, which are the only thing we care about.”
“You will be shelled by the fleets,” said Maurice.
“I think not. The camp lies inland, and we shall return through the defiles. We must see that no one slips past to take the news of the attack to the ships, and then I hope we shall get back across the isthmus unmolested.”