Chapter Twenty Eight.
The greater part of the population of the island residing near the harbour were assembled on the shores of the bay to enjoy, under the shade of the high cliffs, the deliriously cool air of the evening, and to welcome the return of their chief, whose mistico was seen approaching from the westward.
There were old men and women, the elders and parents, as well as the young men and maidens, who had come with happy hearts, to amuse themselves with various light sports, but chiefly to dance their favourite Romaika, which has been handed down to them from the earliest days of their heroic ancestors, when it was known under the more classic name of the Cretan or Doedalian dance.
Century after century has seen it danced by the youths and maidens of successive generations, on the self-same spots—always the most beautiful in the neighbourhood—both on the islands and on the main, since the time when Greece was young and strong—the fit cradle of the arts and sciences; when that literature was produced which will last as long as the world exists; when those temples arose, and those statues came forth from their native rock, which subsequent ages have never been able to equal; when all that the human mind could conceive most elegant had its birth; when her ships traversed all known seas, and her colonies went forth to civilise the earth; when her sages gave laws to the world, and a handful of her sons were sufficient to drive back thousands upon thousands of the vaunted armies of the East; from those glorious epochs to the time when, sunk in effeminacy and vice, despising the wisdom of her ancestors, she fell under the sway of the most savage of the tribes she had once despised—yet still, in abject slavery, while all that man cared for was destroyed, the sports of their youth were not forgotten; and what was learned in youth, the parents taught their children to revive, as their only consolation in their misery and degradation.
Thus, Homer’s description of the dance in his days would answer perfectly, even to the very costume, for that danced in a remote island of the Archipelago:—
“A figure dance succeeds:
A comely band
Of youths and maidens, bounding hand-in-hand;
The maids in soft cymars of linen drest;
The youths all graceful in the glossy waistcoat.
“Now all at once they rise—at once descend,
With well-taught feet, now shaped in oblique ways,
Confusedly regular, the moving maze:
Now forth, at once, too swift for sight they spring,
And undistinguish’d blend the flying ring.
So whirls a wheel in giddy circle tost,
And rapid as it runs the single spokes are lost.”
Among the spectators was Nina, and after much persuasion she had induced Ada Garden to accompany her, with Marianna. Ada had done so after due consideration, from believing that it would be better to appear as much as possible at her ease; and by meeting the strangers, without appearing in any way to recognise them, or to take interest in them, to disarm any suspicions she thought it probable old Vlacco might entertain.
The veteran pirate had at first grumbled at allowing her to leave her tower; but Nina silenced him by asserting that, during her lord’s absence, she had the chief command; and that if he would not obey, she would complain of his cruelty and tyranny, and declare that he was no better than a Turk.
Marianna was delighted at once more finding herself looking at a crowd, and sadly wanted to go and join the dancers, though her mistress would not allow her to do so; and even Ada herself felt her spirits rise under the genial influence of others’ happiness. She forgot that the handsome, spirited youths she saw before her were beings brought up to become robbers and murderers; and that the lovely maidens she gazed on were taught to consider such deeds as justifiable and praiseworthy. She saw in them, for the moment, only the descendants of the ancient Greeks; and in form and feature, and even in dress, how slight the change. Alas! that their own indolence and effeminacy should have reduced them so low that they should become the slaves of despots, and thus have all the vices inherent in a state of slavery. Nina and Ada did not venture down into the bay among the crowd, but stood apart on a ledge, raised some thirty or forty feet above the sands, at the entrance of the ravine, where they could overlook the whole scene. The old fishermen and their wives were seated in groups, either on the rocks under the cliffs, or on seats formed of the spars and planks of the boats ranged along the sands. The youths wore their gayest sashes, and their red fezzes set jauntily on one side; and the maids their best cymars, with their beautiful hair adorned with garlands of wild flowers, in rich profusion, streaming down their backs.