THE CAPSINA

An Historical Novel.

By

E. F. Benson

Author of

"The Vintage" "Limitations" "Dodo"

"The Judgment Books" etc.

With Illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1899

"HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"

[Contents]

ILLUSTRATIONS
["HE RAISED THE MUSKET TO HIS SHOULDER"]
["UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"]
["THE SPIRIT OF THE STILLNESS TOUCHED THE CAPSINA'S SOUL"]
["HALF A DOZEN MEN BURST INTO THE CUSTOM-HOUSE"]

[CHAPTER I]

The little town of Hydra, white-walled and trailing its skirts in the Ægean, climbs steeply up the northeastern side of the island from which it is named, and looks towards the hills of Argolis on the mainland and the setting of the sun. Its harbor sheltered from the northern and southern winds, and only open towards the west, where the sea is too narrow ever to be lashed into fury by gales of that quarter, was defended in the year 1819 by a very creditable pier and a good deal of swift and rakish shipping. The inhabitants lived a life somewhat sequestered from their oppressed and down-trodden countrymen, supporting themselves by enterprises of fishing and the humble sort of commerce, and the hand of the Turk, then as now lustful, cruel, and intolerable, lay but lightly on them, for the chief products of the island itself were only stones and cold water, untaxable goods. But something of the spirit of stones and cold water, something of the spirit, too, of that quickly roused sea, soon made furious, soon appeased, but always alive, had gone to the making of the men of Hydra; and they were people frugal and hardy, resourceful and industrious, men of the wave and the mountain. Of its various clans—and its regime was highly feudal—that of Capsas was the wealthiest and most influential; but just now, a tragic prologue to this tale, a blow so direful had fallen on those much-esteemed men, and in particular on Christos Capsas, a youth of about two and twenty, that the clan generally, and Christos in particular, were in a state of paralyzed inaction strange to such busy folk. It had happened thus:

The head of the clan, Nicholas Capsas, had died some nine months before, leaving an only daughter, Sophia, henceforth officially called the Capsina, just nineteen years of age. The clan all remembered that they had warned each other that trouble would come on account of the Capsina, and they found to their unspeakable dismay, and without a grain of pleasure in the fulfilment of their prophecy, that their gloomy forebodings were completely accomplished. Sophia was a girl of much greater force of will than it was at all usual to look for in a woman, for the most refractory women, so the clan believed, chattered and scolded, but obeyed. The Capsina had struck out a new and eminently disconcerting line in following her own desires in silence, deaf to remonstrance. The beginning of trouble had been a very stormy scene between her and her father when, following the invariable law of clan etiquette, she had been betrothed on her eighteenth birthday to her cousin Christos, on whom now so paralyzing a consternation had fallen. She had submitted to the ordeal of formal betrothal only on condition that she should marry Christos when she thought fit, and at no other time. Such an irregularity was wholly unprecedented, but Sophia declared herself not only ready, but even wishful to throw the betrothal wreaths into the fire sooner than marry Christos at any time not fixed by herself, and the ceremony took place only on this understanding. Three months later her father had died suddenly, and when Christos on this morning, one tremble of timorousness, but conscious of the support of the entire clan, went to the Capsina, offering his hand and heart, to be taken by her with the greatest expedition that mourning allowed, she looked him over slowly from head to heel and back again, and said, very distinctly, "Look in the glass." This her betrothed had rightly interpreted as a sign of dismissal.

Sophia, after hurling this defiance at her family, gave Christos time to retreat, and then went about her daily business. Her mother had died some years before, and since her father's death she had had sole management of the house and of all his business, which was ship-building. But she had been accustomed from the time she could walk to be in and out of the building-yards with him, and the outraged clan, even in the unequalled bitterness of this moment, would have confessed that she was quite capable of managing anything. She was tall and finely made, and the sun had joined hands with the winds of the sea to mould her face with the lines of beauty and serene health. Her eyes and hair were of the South, her brow and nose of her untainted race, her mouth firm and fine. She watched Christos out of the gate with all the complete indifference her great black eyes could hold, and then set off down to the ship-yard where a new brig was to be launched that day.

There she stood all morning among the workmen, bareheaded to the sun and wind, directing, and often helping with her own strong hands, and though it would have seemed that she had her eyes and all her mind at the work, she yet found time to glance through the open gate on to the pier, where she could see a talking knot of her clan gathered round the rejected Christos; and, in fact, her mind was more given over to the difficult question of what step she should next take with regard to the question of marriage than to the work on hand. For, indeed, she had no intention of marrying Christos at all. Since her father's death her work and position had become more and more absorbingly dear, and she did not propose to resign her place to a somewhat slow-minded cousin, whom, as she had candidly declared on her betrothal, she loved only as much as is usual among cousins. The question was how to make this indubitably evident.

The ship was to be launched about mid-day, and, as the time drew near, Sophia began to wonder to herself, not without a spice of amusement, whether the clan would think it consistent with the correct attitude of disapproval to attend the launching to which they were as a matter of course invited. After the barrel of wine, in which the success of the new ship would be drunk, had been hoisted on deck, she even delayed the event a few minutes to give them time if they wished still to come. But it was evident that she had offended beyond forgiveness, and she stood alone on the ship when she hissed stern foremost, true to an inch, into the frothed water. Sophia, ever candid, was not at heart ill-pleased at the absence of the clan, for as she was godmother so also she was peculiarly mother to the new ship, departing therein from certain formulated rules as to the line of the bows and the depth of the keel, which, so she thought, if made deeper would enable her to sail closer to the wind, and she loved her great child more than she loved her betrothed. She had even, which was unusual with her, spent several intent and sleepless hours in bed at night when the ship was yet on the stocks, her mind busy at the innovations. Surely the ships that others built were too high in the water, especially forward; a sudden squall always made them sheer off into the wind, losing way without need. A less surface in the bows was possible. Again, a longer depth of keel would give more grip on the water and greater stability, and it was with much tremulous hope and frequent misgivings lest this new departure should involve some vital and unforeseen error that she had laid down the lines of the ship in a manner perfectly new to the shipwrights of the island.

And as the building progressed and the timbers of the hull rose to their swifter shape, her hopes triumphed over misgiving, and she felt that this new ship was peculiarly hers—hers by the irresistible right of creation, not shared with any.

She stayed on board till a late hour that evening, seeing to the hoisting of the tackle by which the masts should be raised the next day, absorbed in the work, and dwelling with a loving care on the further details, and it was nearly dark, and the workmen had gone ashore an hour already when she rowed herself back to the yard. Not till then did her mind return to the less enticing topic of Christos, which she had left undetermined, and she walked home slowly, revolving the possibilities. Her great, stately watch-dog, a terror to strangers, and not more than doubtfully neutral to friends, received her with the silent greeting of a wet nose pushed into her hand, and when she had eaten her supper, the two went out on to the veranda. That was the companionship she liked best, silent, unobtrusive, but sensitive, and she took the great brute's fore-paws and laid them on her lap, and talked to him as a child talks to its doll.

"Oh, Michael," she said—the adoption of a saint's name to an animal so profane had greatly shocked the clan, but the Capsina remarked that he was a better Christian than some she knew—"oh, Michael, it is an impossible thing they would have me do. Am I to cook the dinner for Christos, and every evening see his face grow all red and shiny with wine, while he bids me fetch more? Am I to talk with the other women as sparrows twitter together in a bush? Am I to say I love him? Oh, Michael, I would sooner stroke your hair than his. Then what of the cousins? They will call me an old maid, for many cousins younger than I are married. But this I promise you, great dog, that unless I love I will not marry, and what love is, God knows, for I do not. And if ever I love, Michael—yes, they say I am fierce, and of no maiden mind. So be it; we will sail together in the brig Sophia, for so will I name her—you and I and she. And if some one, I know not who, comes from the sea, all sea and sun, some one not familiar, but strange to me and stronger than I, you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I shall be his, all of us, all of us; and we all, he and I and you and the ship, will go straight up to heaven."

She laughed softly at herself, and buried her face in the dog's shaggy ruff. "Oh, Michael," she whispered, "the cousins are all saying how queer a girl I am. So perhaps am I, but not as they think. I should be the queerer if I married Christos, and yet to their minds my queerness is that I do not. Why did you not bite him when he came here this morning? for so he would have run away, and this thinking would have been saved. Yet you were right, he is a familiar thing, and we do not bite what is familiar. Perhaps, when the strange man comes, I shall hate him, although I do nothing else but love him. Yet, oh, I am proud, for we are prouder, as the proverb says, than the Mavromichales of Maina. But, Christos, he is slower than a tortoise, and less amusing than a mule; oh, well enough no doubt for some, but not for me. Perhaps I shall marry none; that is very likely, for the men I see here, for instance, are not fit things to marry, and so, I make no doubt, they think me. And there is always the ship-building. Oh, we will get very wise, Michael, and sail our ship ourselves, and see strange countries and over-sea people. There must be some one in this big world as well as I, and yet I have not seen him, but we will do nothing without thinking, Michael, unless it so happens that some day we no longer want or are able to think. Perhaps that—there, get down, you are heavy."

She pushed the dog's paws off her lap, and, rising from her chair, went to the end of the veranda to look out upon the night. The full moon swung high and white among the company of stars, and the sea was all a shimmer of pearly light. A swell was rolling in soft and huge from the south, and the end of the pier was now and again outlined with broken foam. Beneath the moonlight the massive seas looked only a succession of waving light and shadow, and the rattle of the pebbles on the shingly beach outside the pier in the drag of the swell came rhythmical and muffled. The Capsina, in the unrest and ferment of her thoughts, was unwittingly drawn towards that vastness of eternal and majestic movement, and slipping her embroidered Rhodian hood over her head, she whistled softly to Michael, and went down through the strip of garden towards the shore.

She passed along the quay and out beyond the harbor; all the wandering scents of a night in early summer were in the air, and the rough strip of untrained moorland which lay beyond the town was covered with flowering thyme and aromatic herbs, rooty and fragrant to the nostrils. She walked quickly across this and came down to the shingly beach which fringed the promontory. All along its edge the swell was breaking in crash and flying foam, for the south wind of the day before had raised a storm out to sea, and several ships had that day put in for shelter. Far out she could see a pillar of spray rise high and disappear again over a reef of rock, gleaming for a moment with incredible whiteness in the moonlight. Michael snuffed about in rapturous pursuit of interesting smells among the edge of rough herbs that fringed the beach, making sudden excursions and flank movements inland, and grubbing ecstatically among the tussocks of cistus and white heath after wholly imaginary hares. By degrees Sophia walked more slowly, and, coming to the end of the promontory, stopped for a moment before she began to retrace her steps. No, she could not marry Christos; she could not cut herself off from the thrill that her large independence gave her, from working for herself, from the headship of the clan. For her she thought was a wider life than that of the women of her race. How could she limit herself, with her young, strong body, and the will which moved it, to the distaff and the spinning-wheel? Christos! He was afraid of Michael, he was afraid of the sea, he was afraid of her. But how to make this clear to demonstration to the clan was beyond her. Moreover—and the thought was like a stinging insect—there lay at home the deed of her betrothal to her cousin.

She whistled to Michael and turned back into the town. Several groups of men were scattered along the length of the quay, and the Capsina, walking swiftly by, saw that Christos was among them. She hung on her step a moment, and then, with a sudden idea, turned round and called to him.

"Christos Capsas," she said, "I would speak to you a moment. Yes, it is I, Sophia."

Christos disengaged himself from the group a little reluctantly and followed her. He was a somewhat handsome-looking fellow, but rather heavily made, and slow and slouching in his movements. The Capsina, seeming by his side doubly alert, walked on with him in silence for a space, and then stopped again.

"See, Christos," she said, "I have no wish to offend you or any. If what I said this morning was an offence to you, please know that to me now my words were an offence. Yet I will not marry you," and on the word she suddenly flared out—"oh! be very sure of that! And I have something to say to the clan. Be good enough to tell them that I expect all the men to dinner with me to-morrow, when I will speak to them. You will come yourself. Yes? Let me know how many will be there to-morrow early. Good-night, my cousin. Michael, be quiet, and come with me."

The clan signified their intention of accepting the Capsina's invitation in large numbers, for they too felt that their family affairs must come to a crisis, and that something explicit was needed. The Capsina, they were sure, would supply this need. As the day was warm, she gave orders that the dinner should be served in the veranda, and that the barrel of wine which had been put on board the brig should be brought back, for it was her best. All morning she attended to the things for their entertainment, first going to the market to buy the best of the freshly caught mullet and a lump of caviare, wrapped up in vine leaves, and choosing with care a lamb to be roasted whole over the great open fireplace; then, returning to see that the pilaff of chicken was properly seasoned, that the olives were dried and put in fresh oil, and herself mixing the salad, flavoring it with mint and a sprinkling of cheese and garlic. After that the rose-leaf jam had to be whipped up with cream and raw eggs for the sweets, and another pot to be opened to be offered to the guests, with glasses of cognac as an appetizer; cheese had to be fetched from the cellar, and dried figs and oranges from the store cupboard. Then Michael, to whom the hot smells were a tremulous joy, must be chained up, and in the midst of these things there arrived a notary from the town, who, at Sophia's dictation, for she had but little skill at writing herself, drew up a deed and explained to her where the witnesses should sign or make their mark. By this time it was within an hour of dinner, and she went to her room to dress, and think over what she was going to say.

Sophia had an inbred instinct for completeness, and she determined on this occasion to make herself magnificent. She took from their paper-wrappings her three fête dresses, one of which had never been worn, and looked them over carefully before deciding between them. Eventually she fixed on the new one. This consisted of three garments, a body, a skirt, and a long sleeveless jacket reaching to the knees. The body was made of fine home-spun wool buttoning down the side, but the whole of the front was a piece of silk Rhodian embroidery in red, green, and gold, and a narrow strip of the same went round the wrists. The skirt was of the same material, but there was stitched over it a covering of thin Greek silk, creamy-white in color, and round the bottom of the skirt ran a trimming of the same Rhodian stuff. Before putting the jacket on she opened a box that stood by her bed, and took from it four necklaces of Venetian gold sequins, one short and coming round the neck like a collar, and the other three of increasing size, the largest hanging down almost as far as her waist. Then she put on the jacket, which, like the other garments, was bordered with embroidery, and draping her hair in an orange-colored scarf of Greek silk, she fastened it with another band of Venetian gold coins, which passed twice round her head. Then, hesitating a moment, she went back to the box where her gold ornaments were kept, and drew out the great heirloom of her clan, and held it in her hand a moment. It was a belt of antique gold chain, more than an inch in width, each link being set with two pearls. The clasp was of two gold circles, with a hook behind, and on each of them was chased the lion of Venice. Scroll-work of leaves and branches, on which sat curious archaic eagles, ran round it, and eight large emeralds were set in each rim. Sophia looked at it doubtfully for a moment or two, and then fastened it round her waist, inside her jacket, so as to hide the joining of the body and skirt.

Her guests soon began to arrive, the first of them being Christos, the father of her betrothed, with his son. The old man had determined to be exceedingly dignified and cold to Sophia, and as a mark of his disapproval had not put on his festa clothes. But the sight of that glorious figure, all color, walking out from the shade of the veranda into the brilliant sunlight to meet them, took, as he said afterwards, "all the pith" out of him.

Sophia received him with a sort of regal dignity as befitted the head of the clan: "You are most welcome, Uncle Christos," she said, "and you also, cousin. I was sorry that your business prevented your being able to come to the launching of the new boat, but perhaps you will like to see her after dinner."

Uncle Christos shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"I had no idea you would be so grand, Sophia," he said, "and I have come in my old clothes. Christos, too, you slovenly fellow, your shirt is no fresh thing."

The younger Christos's fustanella was as a matter of fact quite clean, but he smoothed it down as if ashamed of it.

"But, Sophia," went on the old man, "they will not be all here yet. I will run to my house and be back in a moment," and he fairly bolted out of the garden.

Christos and Sophia were thus left alone, but Sophia was quite equal to the occasion, and spoke resolutely of indifferent things until the others arrived. By degrees they all came, the elder Christos the last, but in the magnificence of all his best clothes, and they sat down to dinner. And when they had finished eating and the pipes were produced, Sophia rose from her place at the head of the table and spoke to them that which she had in her mind.

"It is not my wish," she said, "to hurt the feelings of any one, but I will not violate my own. As you perhaps have heard"—and the slightest shadow of a smile passed over her face, for she knew that nothing else had been spoken of for the last four-and-twenty hours—"my cousin Christos has asked me to fulfil my betrothal to him, and I wish to make my answer known to you all. You understand me, then: I will not marry my cousin, either now or at any other time. I have here"—and she took up from the table the deed of the betrothal—"I have here that which is witness of my betrothal to Christos Capsas. With the approval of my family and clan I will tear it up and burn it. If there is any one here who objects to this, let him say so, and I will tell you what I shall then do. Without his approval, and without the approval of any one else, I shall send to the town for the notary, procure witnesses, and sign my name to this other deed. I am no hand with the pen, but so much I can write. In it I bequeath all my property, to which I am sole heiress—for my father, as you know, died without a will, suddenly—not to my clan, nor to any one of my clan, but to the priests."

A subdued murmur of consternation ran round the table, and the elder Christos called gently on the names of five or six saints, for the clan were not on good terms with the church, and the Capsina herself had threatened to loose Michael on the first priest who set foot uninvited in her house. A paralyzed silence succeeded, and Sophia continued her speech.

"See," she said, "I am perfectly in earnest. We are prouder, as our proverb says, than they of Maina, and, being proud, I for one do not threaten things which I am unable or unwilling to perform. Perhaps marriage seems to me a different thing from what it seems to you. But that is no reason that I am wrong or that you are right. My betrothed I believe to be an admirable man, but I am so made that I do not choose to marry him, nor, at present, any other man. And now the choice is with you. I destroy in your presence and with your consent both these papers, or I will sign in your presence and without your consent that which only needs my signature. I will leave you here for half an hour, and when I return, Christos Capsas, the father of Christos, my betrothed, will tell me what you have decided. Uncle Christos, you will please take my place here and tell the servants to bring you more wine when you want it. You will find the white wine also very good, I think."

And with these paralyzing words the Capsina dropped her eyes, bowed with a wonderful dignity and grace to the clan, who rose to their feet despite themselves at the beauty of the girl, and marched into the house.

At the end of half an hour she returned, and standing a moment in her place turned to the elder Christos.

"You have decided," she said, and taking up the two deeds in answer to a nod from her uncle, she tore them across and across. Then she gave the pieces to a servant.

"Burn them," she said, "there, out in the garden, where we can all see."

Certainly the Capsina had a sense for the dramatic moment, for she stood quite still where she was in dead silence until a puff of wind dispersed the feathers of the ash. Then she turned briskly and filled her glass.

"I drink prosperity to him who was betrothed to me," she said, "and wish him with all my heart a better wife than I should ever have made him. And here," she cried, unbuckling the great gold belt, "take your wife to-morrow, if you will, or when you will, and here is my gift to the bride."

And she handed the gorgeous thing across to her cousin, clinked glasses with him, and, draining her own, flung it to the ground, so that none other should drink from it.

Then sitting down again:

"This is a fortunate day for you, Christos, if only you knew it, and for you all. For here am I, a free woman, who knows her trade, and will give all her time and energy to it, and indeed I am not lazy, and so double the riches of the house, instead of sitting at the distaff and picking up the olives. For, in truth, I do not think that I am of the stuff that wives are made of. You have often told me, uncle, that I should have been a man, and, before God, I think you were right. And you, dear Christos, some day I should have tried your patience beyond all bearing, and you would have raised your hand to strike me, and then, perhaps, you would have felt my fists rattling about your face, or maybe, if I really was angry, for I do not think I could take a blow from any man, I should have set Michael at you. And then, if you were wise, you would have run away, for I think Michael would kill whomever I told him to kill, for he is greatly obedient, and a fine thing it would have been for the folk to see the head of the clan running from a four-legged dog, while his wife hished the beast on from the threshold."

A roar of laughter greeted this, and Sophia looked up, smiling herself. "So we are friends again, are we not?" she said; "and we will never again give others cause to say that they of the clan are of two minds among themselves. And now, cousins, if you have smoked and drunk what you will, let us go down and see the new brig, for indeed I think she will have no luck unless you all come. To-morrow the masts are hoisted; this morning I have had no time to attend to my business."

The brig was duly inspected, and though some of the elder men shook their heads over this new-fangled keel, and the somewhat egoish name of Sophia for the Capsina's ship, the general verdict was satisfactory. To celebrate this day of her emancipation she let all the workmen go home, giving them half a day off work, and returned alone to her house towards evening. She went at once to loose Michael from his unaccustomed confinement, and stood for a moment with her hand on the dog's neck.

"Michael," she whispered, "does it not seem to you that Christos desired the money more than he desired me? Yet, perhaps, it was the others who urged him, for, in truth, he looked a little downcast. But that a man should consent to that! Well, I am too happy to-day to find fault with any one."

For that year and the next Sophia worked with unintermittent energy in her ship-yard. Sometimes it seemed to herself that a kind of frenzy for ships and the sea had possession of her, and, busy with open-air thought, she never even noticed the glances which men cast on her. Her fame, the stories of her wonderful knowledge of ships, her fiery beauty, her utter unconsciousness of men, had passed beyond the island, and sailors who had put in at Hydra would wait about on the quay to catch a glimpse of her, or speak to her, for she would always have a word for sailors. She was not content to know that her ships were truly built and seaworthy, but she cruised about, mastering the individuality of each; for, as she said, a ship, like a horse, would obey one master when it would not obey another, and her own brig, the Sophia, turned out a miracle of speed, and could sail, it seemed as by magic, into the teeth of a gale. She commanded it herself, directing its course with an apparent recklessness, really the result of knowledge, through the narrow channels and swirling currents of the close-sown islands, through passages where rocks were ranged like a shark's teeth, row on hungry row, and the green water poured over them with the speed of an autumn gale, or beating about, close-hauled, past the reef of wolves which lie waiting off Methana. Sometimes she would charter herself to a merchant, and carry trading produce as far as the Asiatic coast, or to Alexandria; but for the most part she seemed possessed merely by the desire for the sea, an instinct of her race, but coming to flavor in her, for the fierce battling of skill calculated against the brute force of the incalculable elements, for the hundred tactics which nothing but practical intimacy can teach. To her clan she became a sort of cult, the more so as she had left all her property, if she died unmarried, to Christos, who, in point of fact, took to himself a wife within six months of the final rejection.

In 1821, when she was now near the end of her twenty-first year—alert for adventure—came the stinging news of the outbreak of the revolution.

To Hydra, that small and frugal island, tales of Turkish cruelty, greed, and lust, and the inchoate schemes of vengeance, had come only as echoes vague and remote, and the news of the outbreak was like the bolt out of the clear sky. For the Turks had formed a sufficiently accurate conception of the character of those dour islanders, and while there were women, and to spare, in the other places, and it seemed that on the mainland, peopled, so they considered, with richer and softer folk, taxation might be indefinitely increased, it was not for a fattened pasha to procure with trouble and fighting what an indolent order given over his pipe could bring him. Sophia, on the eve of her return from a prolonged and prosperous cruise, interviewed the captain of a caique who had put in with the news of the taking of Kalamata, and heard a tale to make the blood bubble and boil—how the rising had run like fire through summer-dry stubble from north to south and east to west, how that Greece was to be free, and pull no longer under an infidel yoke. Tale followed tale; the man had seen with his own eyes free-born Greeks, man, woman, and child, treated as an unmerciful master will not treat his beast; he had tales of torture, followed at the last by death, lingering and painful, but welcome as the end of pain—of things unnatural and bestial beyond word or belief. There had been a cousin of his living near Nauplia. He had come back from the fields one day to find his wife dead and abominably mutilated on the threshold; his two daughters had been carried off—with them his two younger sons; the elder lay stifled by his mother. They had—And Kanaris stopped, for the thing could not be told. It was on the quay, within half an hour of her landing, that the Capsina heard the first news, and in her brusque way she whisked the man up to her house and gave him wine and tobacco, and listened while he talked. Others of the clan were there to welcome her, and stayed to hear, old Christos among them, and the tales were stopped and pointed with exclamations of fierce horror and curses on the Turk. Sophia sat in dead silence, but her eyes were black flames, and more than once her lip trembled at some story of hideous outrage on women and children. She only asked one question—"They are Greeks, to whom the devils do such things?" And on the answer, "And we too are Greeks," she said, and her hand clinched.

Her foreman had been waiting for orders as to the unloading of the brig, and when the tales were over, she sent for him.

"Begin the unloading now, at once," she said, "and let the work go on all night. Oh, man, are you a stuffed bird, that you stare so at me? Do you not understand the tongue of your fathers, or shall I speak Turkish? I will be down there in an hour. Unload at once." Then turning to the captain of the caique, "You will sup with me," she said, "and you too, Christos. By-the-way, what is your name?"

"Constantine Kanaris."

"That is a good sea-name. Do you hate the Turk, and can you handle a boat?"

"The one as thoroughly as the other."

"I offer you a birth in the Sophia, directly under me. I command my own ship."

"And I, too," said Kanaris, "as my father and grandfather have done before me."

"You accept the post?"

Kanaris looked rather bewildered.

"Capsina," he said, "you are one of few words, and so am I when work is to be done. I have told you of Nicholas Vidalis, who is among the first movers of this revolution. Him I have promised to serve, in the cause of the war. I cannot go back from that."

The Capsina frowned, and struck the table impatiently.

"Do you not understand?" she said—"that his work is my work? Oh, Uncle Christos! what is the matter with you? Has the sky fallen, or do you hear the trumpet of the archangel? God in heaven! for the present there is no more trading for me. Do you not see that there must be a fleet, or these devils will keep on sending more arms and armies into the country? Are you a Greek, man—are you anything but a fiend from the pit, that you can wonder at me, when you hear how they treat other clans, free-born and scornful as ourselves, like slaves and beasts? That I should be busy like a mule carrying silk stuff, when such things are going on! There must be a fleet, I tell you, and the Sophia is the first ship of that fleet. By God! but I have found my work at last! It was not for nothing that I have built ships, and learned how to sail them, and take them where the devil himself would be afraid to trust to his luck. Now quick," she said to Kanaris—"do you take this berth or not? I want a man something like you, who hates and works and is silent. You will suit me, I think."

"Our purpose is war on the Turk and no other purpose?" asked Kanaris.

"That is better," said the Capsina—"we are getting to business. Yes, only war on the Turk. War? Extermination, rather, for that is the only business of Christians with regard to them. And you shall be no loser, if we prosper; and if we do not prosper, I pay you still the wage of the captain of a brig."

Kanaris flushed.

"Why do you say that?" he asked. "Is it for that that Nicholas—God be thanked for him!—and those like him serve?"

"I was wrong," said Sophia, "but you were a stranger to me till this moment, but you are no stranger now. You will come?"

"I will come," he said.

With that they fell to supper, and when supper was over Sophia and Kanaris went down to the harbor. The brig was lying close in unlading, and returning boats were passing to and fro from it to the shore. Two great resin flares on the deck showed them a crowd of men working at the crane by which the freight was conveyed from the hold and swung over the side to the barges that received it. The cargo was of silk from the Syrian coast and was for Athens and Salonica; but the foreman, in blind obedience to Sophia's instructions, was unloading it and storing it in her shed on the quay. They found him there when they got down, and she nodded approvingly when she saw what progress the work had made.

"Have we another ship in?" she asked.

"Yes, the Hydra, but she is due to sail to-morrow to Syria," said he.

The Capsina stood for a moment thinking.

"May the Virgin look to Syria!" she said. Then, "What is your caique doing?" she asked Kanaris.

"Picking up chance jobs."

"Here is one then, and Syria is all right. Will you undertake to deliver the silk to Athens and Salonica?"

"Before what date?"

"This day three weeks. My men shall do the freighting for you, and you can sail to-morrow night. You will carry it easily; it is only a quarter of the Sophia's cargo, for we have discharged at Crete and Melos. Also it is the season of south winds."

The matter was soon arranged, and the two went on board the Sophia, that Kanaris might see the ship. To him, as to the Hydriots, the build of the vessel was new, but she had acquitted herself too well on her previous cruises to allow of any doubt as to the success of what had been an experiment, and Kanaris, who had more than once been on board English and French cruisers and men-of-war, talked with Sophia as to the guns she should carry. They could obtain these, he told her, at Spetzas, where the revolutionists had formed a secret arsenal. It would be better, he suggested, to delay any alteration in the bulwarks and disposition of the ship till they saw what guns were to be got.

At the end of an hour or so they went on shore again, Kanaris to his caique, Sophia back to her house. The night was still and windless, and from her room she could see the flares on the Sophia burning upright and steady in the calm air, and the rattle of the gear of the crane was audible. She felt as if her life had suddenly burst into blossom, and the blossom thereof was red.

[Chapter II]

Next day came news that Spetzas had openly joined the insurrection, and two proselytizing brigs put into Hydra, to try to raise, if not more ships, at any rate recruits. They both carried the new Greek ensign, white and blue, and bearing the cross of Greece risen above the crescent of Turkey. The tidings that the Capsina was going to join the revolutionists with her ship had already spread through the town, and when next morning she went down to the quay to speak with the captains of the Spetziot vessels, she was like the queen bee to the swarm, and the people followed her, cheering wildly. Their voices were music and wine to her, and the thrill of exultation which belongs to acts of leadership was hers.

Fierce and fine too was the news from Spetzas: the people had risen, and after an immense meeting held on the quay had chosen a commander, and broken open the treasury in which was kept the annual tribute to the Ottoman government. The taxes had just been got in, and the treasury was full. With this money eight brigs were being armed and manned, and would set sail to Melos, at which island, as they knew, were several Ottoman vessels making their annual cruise of conscription for raising sailors. In such manner was the vintage of the sea to begin.

Round the Capsina and the Spetziot captains the crowd surged thickest. One of these, Kostas Myrrides, had a certain loud and straight-hitting gift of oratory, and the crowd gathered and swayed, and hung on his words. There had been erected for him a sort of rude dais made of a board placed upon two barrels, and from there he spoke to the people.

"The wine is drawn!" he cried; "to the feast then! Yet indeed there is no choice. Greece is up in arms, and before long the armies and fleets of the infidels will be on us. What will it profit you to stay still and watch? Do you think that the Turks will sit in justice and examine whether this man is an insurgent and the other is not? Is that their way of dealing? The justice of the Turk! You have heard the proverb and know what that means. The fire of war leaps from cape to cape and mountain to mountain. Kindle it here. Already has one of you, and that a woman whose name will not be forgotten, thrown in her lot with a glorious cause—Greece, the freedom of Greece!"

The shout rose and broke in waves of sound, only to swell and tower afresh when the speaker unfurled the new-blazoned flag, and waved it above them. Truly, if the Turkish ship of conscription had come in sight, there would have been short shrift for those on board.

The government of Hydra was in the hands of twelve primates, who were responsible to the Ottoman government for the annual tribute in specie (in itself but small), and also for the equipment and wages of two hundred and fifty able-bodied seamen yearly to the Ottoman fleet. To raise this more considerable sum a tax of five per cent. was levied on the income of every man in the island. Now the ship-owners were more than the bulk of the tax-payers, and it was clearer than a summer noonday that if they joined the revolutionists, unless the island revolution became general, or their ships met with immediate success, the Ottoman fleet would descend on the Hydra, and the Shadow of God would have a word for the primates, and a rope. Thus it came about that while the uproar was still growing and fermenting on the quay, the primates met together, and found grave faces. The Capsina, they considered, was primarily responsible for this consternating stroke, but to try to guide the Capsina back into the paths of peace, they feared, was like attempting to lead the moon with a string, and to quarrel with her was to quarrel with the clan, to whom she was as a god, eccentric, perhaps, but certainly unquestionable. The responsibility of debate, however, was not granted them, for before they could devise any check on the Capsina, a new and tremendous burst of cheering caused the president, Father Jakomaki Tombazes, to rise and go to the window. Three vessels were leaving the port, two being the Spetziot vessels, with the Greek flag blazoning its splendor to heaven, and as for the other, there was no mistaking the build of the Sophia. Tombazes gasped, then returned to the others.

"The Capsina has gone," he said. "And, by the Virgin," cried he, rising to the heroical level of the event, and striking the table with his fist, "she is a brave lass, and Hydra should be proud of her!"

This straightforward statement of the duty of Hydriots was not less abhorrent to the assembled primates. The Capsina had gone, the clan were shouting themselves hoarse on the beach, and, where an action of the Capsina was concerned, it was not less idle to argue with the clan than to employ rhetoric to a mad bull. The only courses open were to fly for safety to the mainland, join the revolutionists, or employ coercive measures with the rest, whereby they should not do so. Now the tax-collectors were necessarily of their party, for the necks of all the officials under the Turkish rule were, so to speak, in one noose, and there were also a number of old, sedately minded or retired men who would distinctly prefer to live out their lives in inglorious peace, unless matters were already in the fire, than to burn squibs, for in so small regard did the primates hold the revolution, under the very nose of the Shadow of God. But, look at it as they might, they were bound to confess that a sorrier party had never been got together. Even Tombazes, by his remark about the duty of Hydra, showed he was of no reliable stuff, and the primates seemed depressed. For the rest, the island was capering in exultant frenzy on the beach, at what the Capsina had done, and what they would do.

Tombazes, who as their president should have shown himself a pillar of prudence, alone of them all sat with a glistening eye, and smiled, showing his teeth in his black and scarcely gray-streaked beard. Then throwing his head back, he burst out into a great crack of laughter.

"The Capsina is finer than we all," he said. "What a girl! She is the only man among us, for all our long beards. Who knows she may not sail straight for Constantinople, force her way into the Sultan's presence, and set Michael at him. I can almost see her doing it, and indeed I should dearly like to. 'Hi, Michael, at his throat, boy!' she would cry. Yet I see her walking out again safe and leaving him lying dead like a broken doll, for I cannot imagine three armies of Turks stopping her. She would call them dogs and devils, and, the chidden dogs, they would tuck their tails away and only snarl. Yes, my brothers, this is not in order; I am but a fond dreamer. But let us come to the point. The Capsina beats us. Oh, she beats us! We need not waste time in making faces at that. But what next? Of course we must do our best to stop this rising, but, though I would not have it said by others, my heart is not wholly on our side, though my head shall be. Is not the Capsina stupendous?"

He rose again from his place, and hurried to the open window for another glance.

"They are all crowding on sail," he said, "but the Capsina's ship is first—first by half a mile, I should say. She is always first. Pre-eminently has she been first this morning. Yes, yes, I know, let us come to the point. Perhaps Brother Nikolas will give us his views," and the great burly man bent down his head to hide the inextinguishable joy of his face.

Brother Nikolas's views were short, sour, eminently depressing, and as follows:

The Turkish ships which were cruising for the conscription would be at Hydra before the end of April—that is to say, in considerably less than a month. Instead of two hundred and fifty able-bodied recruits they would find twelve, or perhaps eleven, primates—here his eyes looked lemon-juice at Tombazes—a quantity of unemployed tax-collectors, some elderly gentlemen, some women, and some children. This would probably be thought an unsatisfactory substitute. They could fill in the probable course of subsequent events for themselves, for one Turkish raid was very like another. He would suggest guarding the treasury at the risk of their lives, to show that they, at any rate, had no hand in the matter.

Others spoke in the same melancholy vein, and at the end Tombazes.

"The point, so I take it, is this," he said. "Unless we stop this movement, or, if we are unable to stop it, unless we run away for refuge to the insurgent armies in Greece or in other islands, we are certainly dead men. Brother Nikolas has suggested that we have a certain duty to the Turk; well, that is as it may be, but in any case we are at present the vassals of the Sultan, and for the sake of our own necks, this meeting, I am sure, would wish to repudiate the movement. It will be no manner of good, but we must let that be known. With your consent, I will send for the mayor, and make an official inquiry as to what the tumult is about, and where and why the Capsina has gone. Meantime, and with the utmost haste, I suggest that we stow the island revenues in the church. It may be difficult, but I think it will be possible if we do it quietly. The money will certainly be safer there."

The primates dispersed: some to mingle with the crowd, and try to allay this illicit enthusiasm, whereby certain men got infected with it; some to make arrangements for the funds of the national treasury being moved to the church; Tombazes alone, though burning to go down among the people, waiting in the room where they had met for his conference with the mayor, Christos Capsas. Indeed, he was in most unprelatical vein, and the meeting of the two was very cordial; you would have said they took the same side. Christos dwelt with extreme complacency on the expedition of the Capsina—it was like the clan, he said, to take the lead in adventure—and Tombazes, though officially he had bound himself to deprecate it, gave a halting lip-service only to the cause of the primates.

"And the men of the island, you say," says he, with a dancing eye, "are resolved to follow this—this most imprudent and ill-advised example set them by the Capsina? Man, do they realize what it means? Do they not know that the Turks will descend on those they leave behind—their women and their children?"

"Yet the women would have them go," said Christos.

"The more senseless they. Yet women are ever so. For what will happen to them? Are the Turks so chivalrous? And will Turks make kind parents to the children who will be fatherless?"

"Yet the children are sailing sticks and branches in the harbor, and throwing stones at them. 'This,' they say to one another, 'we will do to the Turks.'"

"By the Virgin, they are true Greeks, then!" shouted Tombazes, lustily, forgetting himself for a moment but his voice ringing true. Then with impatience: "What does it matter what the children do?" he asked. "It is a new thing to take counsel of the children before we act."

"Yet you asked me of the children," said Christos, smiling, "and, as you said, father, they are true Greeks."

Tombazes sat down, and motioned Christos to take a seat.

"You, then, are on the side of the women and the children," he said, "or rather, if you look at it aright, against them; for sure is it that you give them over to the Turks to treat—to treat as Turks treat women and children. Your son Christos a servant in the harem—have you thought of that?"

"I am on the side of the Capsina," said Christos.

Tombazes looked furtively round, as if to see that none other was there, walked slowly to the window, and came back again with quicker step. Twice he began to speak, twice stopped, but at the last he could contain himself no longer.

"And so, by all the saints, am I!" he cried. "See, Christos, I trust you, and this must not be known nor guessed. For sure I would, if I followed my desire, sail after that splendid girl—yes, swim to wherever she may go—with the Greek flag over me. Man, but my heart burned when I saw that. The cross above the crescent, and soon no crescent at all. Thus shall it be. But I and the others, and you, too, are put over these people, and we must make them consider what will follow. Nothing must be done wildly; because we are aflame with this wonderful, prophetic flag, tinder to that spark, we must not act as if the thing was done, as if the moment we take up arms, down go the Turks like the walls of Jericho; and in this, Christos, I am speaking with all the sincerity God gave me. No enthusiasm, no sudden rising will do the work; the fight will be long and bitter, and if a new and glorious thing is to spring up, it will be watered with tears and with blood—with tears of the fatherless and widow, and blood of the fathers. Tell me yourself, you are the father of a family, with a stake in peace; what are you meaning to do?"

"The Capsina has lent me the Hydra, which was to have sailed to Syria to-day with stuff for the Turkish governor. The stuff she has thrown overboard, and I sail to-morrow for Nauplia, where I shall get orders."

"She threw the Turk's stuff overboard? I would it had been Turks! Great is the Capsina!" and the primate capered barbarously up the room and down again. "And now I will go down to the people," said he. "You and I have a secret, Christos; but I wonder how long the devil will give me strength to keep it."

Down on the quay matters had fared more briskly than among the primates. A member and delegate of the Revolutionist Club, by name Economos, had landed with the ships from Spetzas, and had been preaching revolt and revenge to willing ears. Even before the departure of the Capsina, whose sails were now a gull on the horizon, he had begun enlisting volunteers, and before Tombazes reached the harbor, he was already at the head of an armed band, including several ship-captains, and was rapidly earning a cheap popularity by addressing the mob as "citizens of Greece."

Tombazes, who, for his ruddy face and burly heartiness, was popular with the people, made his way through to where the crowd was thickest, and instantly interrupted the man's speeches.

"Now what is this all about?" he cried, good-humoredly, pushing his way in. "What is all this disturbance? It is all most irregular. Ha, Dimitri, you should be driving out the sheep instead of wasting time on the quay, for all the world like a quacking goose that can't lay an egg! You, too, Anastasi, now you are a less idiot than some, tell me what this is about, and who is that holding a flag which I do not remember to have seen before?"

He made his way through the people up to Economos.

"Now, my good fellow," he said, "just stop preaching for a moment. We primates have a good deal of preaching to do, and so we have much sympathy for those who listen. Who are you, where do you come from, what's your business, and what's your name, and what are you talking about? Oh, you silly folk!" he cried, aloud, as a discontented murmur rose up. "You are all going to have fair play—that is why I am here. But just let me learn what it is all about. Melesinas, don't brandish your knife in that foolish way, or you will be cutting your own oaf's hand off!"

Economos paused, and realizing that there was nothing to be gained by insolence, seeing that this man was a friend evidently of the people, stepped down from the table on which he was standing.

"My name is Antonios Economos," he said. "I am an emissary from the Club of Patriots in Greece, and I am here to raise the revolt in Hydra against the Turk."

"That is all very well," said Tombazes. "You want ships and support, and for ships you want men, and for men money. Has the Club of Patriots supplied you with that?"

"The treasury—the national treasury!" shouted several voices.

Tombazes looked up quickly, and, springing forward with an agility which in a man of his bulk bordered on the miraculous, seized hold of a big fellow whom he had seen shouting and shook him till his teeth rattled in his head.

"Another word," he cried, "and I pop you into the harbor. You too, George, I saw you shouting too. If I tell your wife it will be but little supper you get. I am ready for you all, five under one arm and six under the other. Oh, I will teach you to interrupt when I am talking to another. Get back with you from the table, all of you, all of you. And you there, Yanni, bring me wine and two glasses, this gentleman and I have to talk together, and chairs—two chairs; and the sooner the rest of you silly quacking folk clear away, the fewer there will be for me to put into the sea, and that will save trouble for us all: for me, in getting hot on so warm a day, for there are fat lubbers among you; and for you, in having to change your clothes."

The crowd edged a little back, more good-humored than resentful, for they were accustomed to be treated like children by Tombazes, and the island knew him familiarly as "The Nurse." He was their doctor, a practitioner of heroic simples, sun and sea being the staple of his prescriptions, their spiritual consoler, herein also employing the less morbid remedies. He could sail a boat against the best of their seamen, and he had again and again, as they all knew, taken the side of the people against the greedy and grabbing primates. The wine and the chairs were brought, and he and Economos sat down, clinked glasses, and settled down to talk.

"You will have found dry work in all that talking," said Tombazes, "unless you are very fond of your own voice. Good wine is the gift of God, and this is not bad. Now I heard what that man shouted, and so did you. Now tell me straight, for this it will save trouble. Was it you who suggested that they should get the money from the treasury, or they?"

Economos, who had been playing the noisy demagogue all morning, and was quite prepared to play it again, if advisable, determined for the present to talk soberly.

"They suggested it," he said, dryly. "I'm willing also to tell you that it struck me as an admirable notion."

"Did it so?" said Tombazes, musingly. "Then you are more easily pleased than most men, for your idea of the admirable seems to me the silliest thing I have ever heard tell of. And as I am older than you, and a man of experience, it is likely I have run against many silly things in this world. Now, man, sit down; this is my way of speaking; no man in this island takes offence at what I say, for he knows that would not help what he has his hand to—aye, and he would be like to get his nose pulled, which is of the more immediate consequence. Now tell me how many ships do you mean to victual and put into commission with your admirable notions?"

"Four, to begin with," said Economos.

"Four, to begin with, says he!" exclaimed Tombazes, in a lamentable treble voice. "And how many to end with, and with what will you be paying the crews? Man, do you think you will find enough to keep them in pipes and tobacco with what is in the treasury? Four, to begin with!—save us all!"

"The crews will average sixty men each," continued Economos, "and that will make two hundred and forty. Every year the treasury pays the wage of two hundred and fifty men. I deal with facts, you see."

"Come, then, let's have facts," cried Tombazes, "and surely I will help you. It's facts the man will be wanting. Why, you must have a fever or an ague in your blood! You want bleeding, man, I see it in your eye. Do you think we collect the taxes for a whole year together?"

"I suppose what there is in the treasury will last us a month."

"Well, say it lasts a month," said Tombazes. "What then? You will return here for more money. Much will you find when you have taken from the island just those men who pay the bulk of the taxes. I'm thinking that your admirable notion is even sillier, if we look into it, than it appeared on the surface. And even the look of it on the surface made me think you had been better for blood-letting."

"See, father, listen to me," said Economos, with sudden earnestness. "Have you heard what has happened? Surely you have not, or you would not speak thus. Do you know that Kalamata has been taken by the Greeks, that the beacons of liberty have flashed from one end of the country to another? A free people have stood in the meadows round Kalamata and sung the 'Te Deum' for that great and wonderful victory. Is that not a thing to make the blood tingle? In the north, Germanos, archbishop and primate, has raised the revolt. The monks of Megaspelaion are up in arms; Petrobey and they of Maina have come forth like a herd of hungry wolves."

Tombazes' eye flashed.

"It is fit that you should tell me all you have to say for their mad scheme. Go on, man, go on. Tell me all you know. I—I can judge better so."

Economos suspected the truth, that the primate was all tinder to the flame, and, with a certain acumen, did not let him see this, nor did he at present tax him with it. Instead, he spoke of the plans of the revolutionists—how that the Turks were flocking into Tripolitza, from which, when the time came, there would be no escape; how essential it was to the success of the war that Greece should be cut off from the headquarters of the Ottoman forces. This could not be done till the coasts were in the hands of the insurgents, and their ships prevented fresh arms and men being sent into the country. That was the part of the Greek ports and islands. Spetzas had already joined; in Psara soon would the standard of revolution be raised; was Hydra, the largest and best-manned, she who should be both arms and sinews of naval Greece, to stand neutral? Indeed, neutral she could not be. If she was not with the insurgents the Turks would soon make her into an advanced point from which they could the more easily reach the mainland. She would be garrisoned; her harbor would be a cluster of Turkish ships—would that be a pleasant thing for the Hydriots? Their only safety was in fighting. Greece was in arms—what matter to the Turks if Hydra had joined the insurgents or not? Would the mob of soldiers and sailors spare them? Would they leave the Hydriots their houses while they camped on the hillside? Would their women be spared because they were loyal? And the danger to Greece was thus doubled. The Turks would be holding an eyrie from which to swoop in the midst of the patriots. "Indeed," concluded Economos, returning from his somewhat rhetorical language to colloquialism, "we will have no wasps' nests in the seat of our trousers, if you please."

This was too much for Tombazes, and motioning back the crowd, who had begun to encroach again, he spoke low to the other.

"I shall surely burst unless I speak," he said. "Do you not see how I am with you? Man, you are blinder than the worms if you do not see that. But if you drop a word of that till I give you leave, I swear by the lance of St. George and the coffee-pot which he made whole, that I will kick you till my foot is sore and you are less like a man than a jelly-fish! That treasury notion of yours is absurd. That I stick to, and for the reasons I gave you. Give it up, I ask you, for the present. Mark you, and listen to me. I am a traitor in my camp for a good cause, and I can help you. If the primates and others are assured you are not going to touch the national treasury—for its safety, they think, means their safety from the Turk—half the opposition will be withdrawn. You must raise money another way. Moreover, you want five times as much as there is in the treasury. And what is the use of four ships? Eh, that was what I meant when I said your notion seemed to me the silliest thing I have ever heard. Did you not see that? Ah, well, God made the blind men also! There are at least thirty in the harbor, which are all capable of carrying guns and of outsailing those lubberly Turkish tubs. You must have them all. And you must not leave the women and children here defenceless. You must organize a body of men who will guard the harbor and the town. Luckily there is no landing except this side the island. Afterwards, of course, you will add the money in the treasury to what must be collected by levying a tax. Milk the treasury dry, man. The money will be stored in the Church of St. George, and I shall have the key. Now mark the result of our conversation. I have persuaded you, so I shall tell the primates, and you the people, not to touch the treasury—that alone will quiet my party considerably. Propose to the people to levy a tax on all the capital in the island, and submit that to the primates as the only condition on which the treasury will be untouched. The people will give willingly, the primates unwillingly, but the money will be the same. Fill your glass; shake hands with me, and I will go to my party. I drink to the freedom of Greece, and to you. Viva!"

For the next two or three days negotiations went on between the primates and the people, and often Tombazes had occasion to wear a mighty grave face, whereby he should cloak the merriness of his heart. The part he was playing, as he assured himself, was the only way of fighting for the good cause, for had he openly joined the revolutionist party, the confidence which the other primates felt in him would be gone, and they would be the more eager to oppose tooth and nail to any proposals. But what they regarded as his diplomatic victory with regard to the national treasure, gave him a position of extraordinary security among them, and Economos, perhaps partly for his own ends, and the spurious credit which the people would give him of having successfully fought down the opposition of the primates, was equally anxious to conceal Tombazes' part in the affair.

At length a sum adequate to meet all immediate expenses was raised; the crews were all paid one month's wages in advance, with the prospect of prize-money won from the Turks, and the people seized on the national treasury. Tombazes' ill-suppressed delight at this step, which was conveyed to the primates in conclave, put him for the moment within an ace of exposure.

Fresh intrigues began; the primates, to make the best of a bad job, appealed to those sailors and captains who had formerly been in their employment, offering fresh berths in their own service; for many of them owned ships, and as the island was now pledged to the national cause, they, too, proposed to have a finger in the prize-money. Economos, on the other hand, failing to see how it was just that those who had opposed the scheme should take a share in it now, organized a revolutionary committee in whose hands should be the sole conduct of the war, and naturally enough did not appoint any primate on it. Eventually—for both sides were somewhat afraid of each other, and wished to avoid open collision—a compromise was arrived at. Those captains and men who had already definitely engaged themselves in the service of the revolutionists during the opposition of the primates, were forbidden to serve on the primates' ships. On the other hand, the ships of the primates were to be admitted to the fleet, and should be treated in the matter of prize-money with the others. Finally—and had the primates known the cause of this, there would have been angry men in Hydra—the command of the entire fleet was given to Tombazes.

On the morning of the 29th of April a solemn service was held in the church, and Tombazes read out the declaration of the independence of Hydra as part of the free state of Greece.

"It is determined by us," so ran the proclamation, "the primates and governors of this island of Hydra, to serve no longer nor obey the infidels who are the enemies of God and of His Christ, and of the blessed mother of Christ, and from this day we declare that we will make ourselves a free people of the realm of Greece. In the support of this resolve it will be our duty to fight for our wives, our children, our country, and we will fight till the death without counting the cost, and giving whatever we possess—our goods, our obedience, and our lives—to our country's cause. May He who is the Giver of Victory and has already given us the will to fight, strengthen our arms and deliver His foes and ours into our hands."

By the first week in May, such was the frenzy of expedition among the men, the Hydriot contingent, numbering twenty sail, was ready to go to sea. The eight brigs from Spetzas which had sailed to Melos to capture the Turkish conscription ships had put in at Hydra, uniting themselves with Tombazes' fleet, and reported complete success. The credit of the capture however belonged, as they acknowledged, to a strange ship that sailed as if by magic, and which no one knew. For as they were nearing Melos, intending to get inside the harbor where they knew the Turks were, and capture them before the Melian contingent got on board, and while they were still a couple of miles out to sea, the wind, which so far had been favorable, dropped, and the airs became so light and variable that they lay for two days like painted ships, taken back rather than making ground.

At this point, Tombazes, to whom the Spetziot captain was telling his tale, got up from his chair and waved his arms wildly.

"It was she—I know it was she! Thank God it was she," he cried. "Go on, man."

Captain Yassos looked at him a moment in surprised wonder.

"It certainly was a she," he said. "How did you know?"

"The spirit of prophecy was upon me!" cried Tombazes. "Finish your tale."

"It was our desire to take the ships, you will understand," he said, "before the Melian folk got aboard, while if we failed, they ran risk of being murdered by the Turks, for fear of their helping us. But it would seem God willed it otherwise, for He sent us no wind except as it were the breath of a man cooling his broth. A little mist, too, was rising seaward and spreading towards us, and when we who knew the sea saw that, we thought it impossible we could get ten miles in time, for the mist means a calm and windlessness."

"Oh, am I a boy who would be a sailor, that you tell me the alphabet of things?" exclaimed Tombazes.

"You will see it all makes the thing more marvellous," said the other, smiling, "so be patient with me. Well, we were cursing at the calm when suddenly, on our starboard quarter—my ship being to starboard of all the others—there came it seemed the shadow of a ship, white and huge, with all sails spread and coming towards us. Dimitri, my son, who was with me, said, 'Look, father, look!' and crossed himself, and I did the same. Now I am no left-handed man at ship sailing, but when I saw that ship moving slowly but steadily towards us while we lay like logs, I thought it no canny thing. She passed half a cable's length from us, and I saw her guns looking through the open ports, new so they seemed to me; and on her topmast, and I blessed the Virgin when I saw that, was the flag of Greece. One man stood at the tiller whose face seemed familiar to me, and by him stood a woman, tall, and like the morning, somehow, to look upon. In that still air I heard her say to him, 'A point more to starboard,' so it seemed that she was the captain, and as she passed us she waved her hand, and cried, 'Do you not wish a share in this, or am I to go alone? Come, comrades, follow, follow. I bring you the wind.'

"On her word the wind awoke, the slack ropes began to run through the blocks, and in a few seconds the sail was full. Up went our helm, and we followed. But it was like following a hare on the mountains to follow that great white ship. She swam from us as a fish swims from a man in the water, and before we had turned the cape behind which lies the harbor we heard her guns. Twice before we came up she had sailed round the largest of the three ships, pouring in broadside after broadside, the other replying clumsily and hardly touching her, and just as I, who was ahead of the rest, fired at one of the others, the ship she was battering struck its colors, and anchoring, she let down the boats, and with two boat-loads of her crew she put off to board them. Then those treacherous devils of hell under the flag of truce, you mind, again opened fire on her. But it seems she had calculated on that, and on the instant her ship blazed again, firing over their heads and raking the deck where the Turks were. This time, as I could see, they fired red-hot ball, and one, I suppose, struck the powder-magazine, for it was as if the end of the world came, and a moment after the Turk sank. The boarding party was not far from the ship, and the explosion showered boards and wreckage round them, but thereat they turned and rowed back again, their work being done for them. For me, I had my own affairs ready, and for ten minutes we blazed and banged at each other, but before it was over I looked round once, and saw already at the harbor's mouth the ship which had come out of the mist beating out to sea again. Now, father, you seem to know who that woman was; who was it?"

"Glory be to God!" said Tombazes. Then, "But, man, you are an ignorant fool. Who could it be but the Capsina of Hydra? But where has she gone? Why is she not with you?"

"I know not: she was gone before we had finished with the others."

With the combined squadron from Spetzas and Hydra had joined nine ships from Psara. There was half a day's trouble with them, for they refused at first to recognize the command of Tombazes, and said it was fitter that the three islands should cast lots, and let the choice of the admiral go with the winner. They had, they said, a most wary man of the sea among them, who had worked with the Russians and knew the use of the fire-ship. But the Spetziots had accepted Tombazes as commander of the two islands, and the Psariots were told that they might do the same or leave the squadron, and they chose the former, though ill-content.

They cruised northward, for knowing that news of the revolution had reached Constantinople and that the Sultan Mahmud was preparing to send a fleet to the refractory islands, they hoped to intercept this, and thus prevent punishment reaching their homes or fresh supplies putting into ports on the mainland. Several times they sighted Turkish ships, and thus two or three small prizes were taken. For ten days they met none but single ships, which, without exception, surrendered, often without the exchange of a shot; the crews were taken and sent back to Hydra or Spetzas, where they were prisoners; but these vessels being for the most part trading brigs of the poorer class, there was little booty to be divided among the captors.

The tenth day of the cruise saw the squadron off Cape Sunium, at the extreme south end of Attica. The day before they had run before a strong south wind, hoping to clear the promontory before night and get through the dangerous straits to the north of it by daylight. Until evening the heavens had been clear, but the night came on cloudy, starless, and calm, and fearing to pass the straits in so uncertain a light, for they were full of reefs, orders had been given to lie to and wait for day. But the currents of that shifting sea rendered it impossible to maintain position. The greater part of the squadron was caught by the racing flow of water that runs up northwest towards Peiraeus, and drifted safely but swiftly up the gulf. Of the remainder, all but two weathered Sunium and lay for shelter under Zea, where they remained till morning. But these two, finding themselves dangerously near the rocky south headland of Sunium, beat out to sea again before the breeze dropped, and by morning lay far out to the east of the others.

Day broke windless and calm, with an oily sea, big, but not broken, coming in from the south. The ships in the gulf had to wait for the land breeze to spring up: those off Zea who had passed Sunium lay to till the others joined them, but the two to the east, Hydriot ships, out of shelter of the land, had a moderate breeze from the north.

For two hours after daybreak they waited, but the others, out of reach of their wind, made no sign, and about nine o'clock they were aware of a Turkish ship coming from the north, and sailing, as they supposed, to the islands or to some Peloponnesian port. The two Greek ships were lying close together, it may be a cable's distance apart, and it was immediately clear to each that the Turk must be stopped, for the purpose of their squadron was none other than this. The admiral's ship, far away to the west, it was impossible to signal, and even if possible, ineffectual, for nought but a miracle would have brought up a land breeze at nine in the morning. So as in duty bound the two brigs, like sea swallows, put about, and hoisting the Greek flag went in pursuit of the Turk.

As they neared her it was evident that a day's work was before them, and Sachturi, the captain of one of the brigs, signalled to Pinotzi: "Ship of war," and Pinotzi signalled back: "So are we." Yanni Sachturi, the captain's son, a lusty, laughing boy of about eighteen, danced with delight as he read the signal to his father, and heard the order to clear for action. The ports had been closed, for a heavy sea had been running during the night, but in a few minutes the guns were run out, the men at their posts, and the pokers heating in the galley fire. Sachturi's vessel carried ten guns, four on each broadside and two in the bows; Pinotzi's only six, but of these two were thirty-two-pounders and heavier than any of Sachturi's.

The Turk was running due south, and Sachturi from the bridge, seeing that if they went straight for her, she would pass them, ordered that his ship should he laid two points nearer the wind, and Pinotzi followed his lead. In ten minutes it was clear that they were rapidly overhauling her, and in another half-hour they were but a short mile off. For a moment the Turk seemed to hesitate, and then, putting about, went off on an easterly tack. But here the Greek gained more speedily, and she, perceiving this, went off straight down wind again. This manoeuvre lost her more ground, and Sachturi and she were now broadside to each other when the Turk opened fire. Her aim was too low, and the halls struck the water some two hundred yards from the Greek ship. In spite of her imposing appearance Sachturi noticed that only five guns were fired, the balls from three of which ricochetted off the sea, and flew, two of them, just beyond the Greek's bows, the other clearing the deck without touching her. Sachturi's guns replied, but apparently without effect, and changing his course he made an easterly tack to pass behind her, for all her guns seemed to be forward. Pinotzi, who had heavier ordnance, ran up broadside, and he and the Turk exchanged a volley or two, but, owing to the heavy rolling of the ships and the inexperience of the Greek gunners at least, without doing or receiving damage.

Sachturi's guess had been correct, though why a ship-of-war had put to sea only half-armed he did not pause to consider, and, coming up within range, he let her have the starboard guns. But he had thus to lie broadside on to the sea, which made accurate aim difficult; and again putting her head to the sea, he ran on, meaning to use the two guns in his bows at close quarters.

For an hour or more it was the battle of the hawk and the raven. The two Greek ships skimmed and tacked about on the light breeze, sometimes getting in a broadside as they closed in, sometimes passing behind her stern, where she seemed to be unarmed. Twice Sachturi sailed round her, giving broadside for broadside, and at last a lucky shot cut the main-mast of the Turk in half, bringing down to the deck a pile of wreckage and canvas. They could see the men hauling away to clear the deck, when another shot from Pinotzi brought down the second mast, leaving her rolling helplessly, with only the mizzen standing. Sachturi had just rounded her stern, and had given another broadside, when the Turk fired, and a ball crashing through the bulwarks killed two sailors, and with them Yanni, who was just taking an order from his father to close with her and throw on the grappling-irons.

Sachturi did not move; but he set his teeth for a moment, and looked at Yanni. He was lying on his back, half his chest shot away, staring up into the sky. His face was untouched, and his mouth seemed to smile. He was his father's only son, and Sachturi loved him as his own soul.

In another ten minutes the grappling-irons were cast on to the Turk; twice they were thrown off, but the third time two anchored themselves in the ropes and blocks of the wrecked main-mast, and, though the Turks sought furiously to free themselves, in another minute the Greeks from Sachturi's ship were pouring over the side. Since Yanni had been killed he had only said three words, twice when the grappling-irons were thrown off, and he ordered them to be cast again, once as they boarded, "Spare none!" he had cried.

The order was obeyed. The Turks had exhausted their ammunition, and fought with knives only, charging down with undaunted bravery on the muskets of the Greeks, and when the deck was cleared the boarders went below. In a cabin they found an old man, dressed in the long white robe of a Mussulman patriarch, with the green turban of the sons of the Prophet on his head, playing draughts with a woman. And here, too, Sachturi's order was obeyed.

The booty taken was immense, for on board were presents from the Sultan to the Pasha of Egypt, and when the Turkish ship was no more than a shambles they brought it all on board Sachturi's vessel for division. They found him sitting on the deck, with Yanni's head on his knee. He was quite silent and dry-eyed; he rested his weight on one hand, with the other he was stroking the dead lad's hair.

[CHAPTER III]

The next fortnight's cruising was well rewarded by the prizes they took, but already symptoms of a dual control in the fleet, and thus of no control at all, had unhappily begun to make appearance. The primates were by no means disposed to forgive the slight which Economos had put upon them, and before long they devised a cunning and unpatriotic scheme of paying in public money, so to speak, their private debt to him. To a certain extent the immediate adoption of his naval plans among the sailors had been due to the hopes he put forward to the islanders of winning large prizes, and the primates, by making a main issue of this secondary desire among them, began to reinstate themselves in power. Much of the booty taken was to be divided on the return of the squadron to Hydra, and Economos, at the suggestion of Tombazes, proposed that one-half of the gains of the cruise should be appropriated to the prosecution of the war. This was an equitable and patriotic suggestion, but coming as it did from Economos the primates opposed it tooth and nail. Equally, too, did it fail to satisfy the more greedy and selfish of his supporters, who cared for nothing but their own aggrandizement.

Economos's proposal had been put forward one afternoon some three days after their return to Hydra, at the sitting of the revolutionary committee, which had been reorganized and included all the primates. Tombazes alone of his class supported Economos, but the matter was still in debate when they rose for the day.

The afternoon had been hot and windless, but an hour before sundown a southerly breeze began to stir, and before long word was brought by a shepherd who had been grazing his flocks on the hill above the town that he had seen a ship under full sail off the southwest, making straight for Hydra. It was known that a Turkish ship had escaped the fate of its consort at Kalamata, but the fleet, though they had kept a lookout for it, had seen nothing of it. Her fate they were to learn later. Tombazes hesitated what to do; the ship might be part of the Turkish squadron which had been cruising off the west coast of Greece; again, it might be the single ship from Kalamata. In the former case they had better look to the defence of their harbor, in the latter it might be possible to man a couple of brigs and give chase.

He determined, however, to wait a little yet; for no other ship had been sighted, and as long as there was but one it would be time to give chase when she declared herself more manifestly. So going down to the quay, where he would meet Economos and other commanders, he mingled with the crowd. Even in so short space the ship had come incredibly nearer, and even as he looked a livelier gust shook out the folds of her flag, and at his elbow some one shouted, "The Capsina; it is the Capsina! It is the Capsina back again!" The flag she carried was blue and on it was the cross of Greece, no crescent anywhere.

On she came, black against the crimson sky, crumpling the water beneath her forefoot. On the quay the crowd thickened and thickened, and soon there came to them across the water a cheer from the ship. At that all throats were opened, and shout after shout went up. For the moment all the jealousies and quarrelling were forgotten, the primates mingled their enthusiasm with the rest, feeling that but for the example so memorably set by the Capsina their pockets would be lighter by all the prize-money they had won; and even Father Nikolas, perhaps the sourest man God ever made, found himself excitedly shaking hands with Economos. After passing the southern point of the harbor the Sophia hauled down her mainsail, and three minutes afterwards she had swung round and her anchor chains were screaming out. Before she had well come into harbor fifty boats were racing out to meet her, then one of her own boats was let down, and they saw that tall girlish figure, preceded by Michael and followed by Kanaris, step in.

The elder Christos, with his son and daughter-in-law and grandchild, were the first on the steps when she came ashore. She kissed them affectionately, asking first after one and then the other.

"And what has been doing since I went?" she asked. "I have only heard that certain ships from Hydra have been stinging the Turks very shrewdly, but no more. For me I have not been idle, and two Turkish ships lie on the ooze of the deep sea, and one more I have taken to Nauplia; it will do penance for having served the Turk in now fighting for us. Ah, father," and she held out her hand to Tombazes, "or admiral shall I call you? Here is the truant home again."

But before the evening was out, though the enthusiasm of the people grew higher and higher as the Capsina's deeds went from mouth to mouth, the primates cooled, and Father Nikolas from being positively genial passed through all the stages of subacidity and became more superacid than one would have thought it possible for so small a man to be. For it appeared that Tombazes had dined with her and that she had wished to hand him over at once no less than eight hundred Turkish pounds for the "war fund." Tombazes had told her that at present there was no war fund, and that on this very day a proposal had been made for one, which would without doubt be vetoed on the morrow. At this it seemed that the Capsina stared at him in undisguised amazement, and then said, "We shall see!" Soon after a boy from her house came running into one of the cafés on the quay, which Economos frequented, and said that the Capsina wished to see him immediately.

Economos seemed disposed to finish his game of draughts, but his opponent, no other than the rejected Christos, who was getting the worst of it, rose at once, and swept the men back into their box.

"When the Capsina calls for us we go," he remarked, laconically.

"And when she sends you away you go also, but elsewhere," remarked Economos, who had heard of Christos's dismissal, and with this Parthian shot left the café in a roar.

The elder Christos was also with the Capsina, and when Economos entered she rose.

"You are doing what is right," she said, shaking hands, "and I am with you. So," and she looked severely at her uncle—"so will Christos Capsas be. Sit down. There is wine for you."

Then turning to Tombazes:

"It is quite out of the question not to have a war fund," she said. "On the mainland half of all that is taken goes to it, and the other half, remember, is divided among far more men in proportion to the prizes than we have here. Good God, man!" and she turned to Christos, "how is it possible that you did not see this? And you tell me you were going to vote with the primates. How is the war to be carried on thus? Is the war an affair of a day or two, to last no longer than an autumn's vintage? Already, you tell me, the national treasury is empty. Have you finished the war? for if so, indeed I have not heard the result; or how will you pay the men for the next cruise? How do the numbers go on the question? There are four of us here who will of course vote for the fund."

Tombazes appeared somewhat timorous.

"Capsina," he said, "it is not my fault, you know; but you must remember that you are not on the committee."

The Capsina laughed.

"That is not a matter that need trouble you," she said. "We will see to that to-morrow. The meetings are public, you say. Well, I shall be there—I mean to be on the committee, and of course I shall be. By the Virgin! it would be a strange thing if the head of our clan had no voice in affairs that so concern the island. It is fit also that Kanaris should be of the committee, for though he is a Psarian yet he serves on a Hydriot ship, and it is likely that I shall give him the command of another when I cruise next."

Even the blind faith with which Tombazes regarded the doings of the Capsina was disposed to question this, and Christos moved uneasily in his chair.

"Is it not a little irregular," he asked, "that one of another island should have a voice in the government of Hydra?"

"The war, too, is a little irregular," said the Capsina, "and only in the matters of this war do I propose he should have a vote. Now, father," she went on, "here is this man, one of a thousand, as I know him to be. He and I will fight any two of your ships, and knock them into faggots for the fire quicker than a man could cut them from a tree. He is of Psara, it is true, but he serves Hydra. And he shall have a voice in the matter of the fleet to which he now belongs."

With the admission of the Capsina and Kanaris into the committee, the conclusion would not be so foregone, so thought Tombazes, as it first appeared to him. For their admission he pledged himself to vote, and for the rest he trusted the Capsina.

Long after the others had gone Sophia sat where she was, lost in a sort of eager contentment. The home-coming, the enthusiastic pride and affection of her people, stirred in her a chord she had thought and almost hoped was forever dumb. The wild and splendid adventures of the last weeks, her ardent championship of her race, the fierce and ever growing hatred of their detestable masters, had of late made the sum of her conscious desires. But to-night something of the thrill of home was on her, more than once she had looked half enviously at the small ragged girls who stared at her as she passed, who were most likely never to know anything of the sweet sting of stirring action, but live inactive lives, with affection for ardor, and the care of the children for the cause of a nation. Michael lay at her feet, and she wondered vaguely if it were better to be as she was, or to sit at the feet of a master and be able to call nothing one's own, but only part of another. But to think barren thoughts was never the Capsina's habit, and her mind went forward to the meeting next day.

The meetings were held always on the quay. A table was set, round which sat the four-and-twenty members of the committee, and the people were allowed to stand round and listen to the official utterances. But after the pleasant freshness of hearing Father Nikolas say bitter things to Tombazes, and Tombazes reply with genial contempt or giggle only, had worn off, they were not usually very generally attended. But this morning, an hour before the appointed time, the end of the quay, where the meetings were held, began to fill, chairs and benches were in requisition, and Sachturi's father, the miser of Hydra, by report the richest man of the place, had given two piasters for a seat, which in itself constituted an epoch in the history of finance. By degrees the members of the committee took their places, Tombazes looked round with ill-concealed dismay at the absence of the Capsina, and called for silence. The silence was interrupted by a clear voice.

"Michael, Michael," it said, "come, boy, we are very late." And from the end of the quay came the Capsina, attended by Michael and Kanaris. She walked quickly up through the crowd, which made way for her right and left, stopping now and then to speak to some friend she had not yet seen, and still round the table the silence continued.

Father Nikolas broke it.

"The meeting has been summoned," he said, bitterly. "Am I to suppose it has been summoned for any purpose?"

But Tombazes had his eyes fixed on the Capsina.

"Is the meeting adjourned?" asked Father Nikolas, and the chairman smiled.

The Capsina by this time had made her way up to the table and looked round.

"A chair," she said. "Two chairs. Kanaris, sit by me, please."

She had chosen her place between old Christos and Sachturi, and the two parted, making room for the chairs. Kanaris sat down in obedience to a gesture from her, but she remained standing.

"I have a word to say," she began, abruptly. "Since the clan of Capsas has been in this island, the head of the clan has always had a voice in all national affairs. I have been prevented from attending the former meetings of this particular assembly, because I was perhaps better employed in chasing and capturing Turkish ships. And as head of the clan I take my seat here."

For another moment there was dead silence, and Father Nikolas, in answer, it would appear, to hints from his neighbors, stood up.

"This matter is one on which the vote of the committee is required," he said; "for, as I understand, by its original constitution it possessed the power of adding to its numbers. For myself—"

But Sophia interrupted him.

"Does any one here, besides Father Nikolas," she said, "oppose my election?"

"I did not say—" began Father Nikolas.

"No, father, because I made bold to interrupt you," remarked the Capsina, with dangerous suavity. Then, turning in her place, "This committee, I am told, was elected by the people of Hydra. There is a candidate for election. The chairman shall give you the name."

"The Capsina is a candidate for election," said Tombazes.

Among the primates there was a faint show of opposition. Father Nikolas passed a whispered consultation to his colleagues, and after some delay eight of them, amid derisive yells from the people, voted against her, but her election was thus carried by sixteen to eight. But there was greater bitterness in store for Father Nikolas.

The Capsina again rose, and the shouts died down.

"I have first," she said, "to make a report to the admiral of the Hydriot fleet, to which I belong, as to the doings of my crew and myself. We sailed, as you know, perhaps a little independently, but what we have done we have done for this island. On the second day of my expedition we sank a Turkish vessel, which was cruising for conscription in the harbor at Melos, with all on board. Perhaps some were picked up, but I do not know. On the eighth day we captured a cruiser off Astra, and Kanaris took her into Nauplia, where she will now enter the service of the Greek fleet. On the twelfth day we sank a corvette off the southern cape. There was a heavy sea running, and she went to pieces on the rocks. We have also taken a certain amount of prize-money, the disposition of which I will speak of later. But first there is another matter. Kanaris is by birth a Psarian, but he serves on my ship, and he is willing to continue to serve in the Hydriot squadron. It is right that he should have a voice in the affairs of our expeditions, for I tell you plainly if any man could sail a ship between the two Wolf rocks of Hydra, he is that man. He has been taken into the most intimate councils of the central revolutionary committee, and it is not fit that he should be without a voice here. Also before long he will be in command of the Sophia, when a new ship I am building is ready. Father Nikolas will now be good enough to tell us his reasons for his opposing my candidate."

Father Nikolas started as if he had been stung, but then recovering himself, "The Capsina has already stated them," he said. "This man—I did not catch his name—"

"If you reflect," said the Capsina, sternly, "I think you will remember that you did."

Father Nikolas looked round with a wild eye.

"This man," he continued, "is a Psarian. Is that not sufficient reason why he should find no place in a Hydriot assembly?"

"Surely not, father," said the Capsina, "for you, if I mistake not, are by birth a Spetziot; yet who, on that ground, would seek to exclude you from the assembly?"

"The cases are not similar," said Nikolas. "Thirty years ago my father settled here, while it is but yesterday that this Kanaris—"

"I was waiting for that," remarked the Capsina, absently.

A sound came from the chairman almost exactly as if somebody sitting in his place had giggled, and then tried unsuccessfully to convert the noise into a cough, and Father Nikolas peered at him with wrinkled, puckered eyes.

"I will continue," he said, after a pause in which he had eyed Tombazes, who sat shaking with inward laughter, yet not venturing to meet his eye for fear of an explosion. "For ten years I have sat in the assembly of primates, and any dissatisfaction with my seat there should have been expressed thirty years ago, some years, in fact, before she who is now expressing it was born."

The Capsina smiled.

"I think I said that no one would think of expressing, or even perhaps—well, of expressing dissatisfaction," she replied, "and I must object to your putting into my mouth the exact opposite of what you really heard from me."

"Your words implied what I have said," retorted Nikolas, getting white and angry.

"Such is not the case," said the Capsina. "If I were you, I should be less ready to find malignant meanings in words which bear none."

Here Tombazes interfered.

"Father Nikolas," he said, "we are here to discuss matters of national import, and I do not see that you are contributing to them. Kanaris, let me remind you, is a candidate for election."

Kanaris himself all this time was sitting quietly between the Capsina and Sachturi, listening without the least evidence of discomposure to all that was being said. He smiled when Nikolas suddenly blurted out the name of which he was ignorant, but otherwise seemed like a man who supports the hearing of a twice-told tale with extreme politeness. He was rather tall, strongly built, with great square shoulders, and his dress was studiously neat and well cared for. His hair, falling, after the custom of the day, on to his shoulders, was neatly trimmed, and his chin very smoothly shaven. In his hand he held a string of amber beads, which he passed to and fro like a man seated at a café.

Now, however popular the election of the Capsina had been with the people, it was soon clear to her that there was no such unanimity about Kanaris. The islanders were conservative and isolated folk, and they viewed with jealousy and resentment anything like interference on the part of others in their affairs. But for the adoring affection in which they held the girl, without doubt Nikolas's party would have won the day, and, quick as thought, the Capsina determined to make use of the people's championship of herself to gain her ends. She was of a quick tongue, and for the next ten minutes she concentrated the acidity of Nikolas on herself, provoking him by a hundred little stinging sayings, and drawing his attack off from the debate on to herself. At length he turned on her full.

"Already we see the effect of having a woman in our councils," he said. "An hour has passed, and instead of settling affairs of moment our debate is concerned with the management of the monastery rain-water and the color of my hair. This may be useful; I hope it is. But in no way do I see how it bears upon the conduct of the fleet. And it is intolerable that I should be thus exposed in the sight of you all to the wanton insults of this girl." His anger suddenly flashed out. "By the Virgin," he cried, "it is not to be stood! It was an ill day for the clan, let me tell them, when the headship passed into hands like that. I will not submit to this. A Hydriot is she, and where is the husband to whom she was betrothed? I tell you she cares nothing for Hydra, nor for the war, nor for any of you, but only for her own foolhardy, headstrong will."

"Is the Father Nikolas proposing that I should now marry Christos Capsas?" asked Sophia. "That is a fine thing for a primate to say, or is it not since he came to Hydra that my cousin Christos chose a wife for himself?"

Father Nikolas's face expressed an incredible deal of hatred and malice. "This must be stopped," he said; "this woman or I leave the assembly."

"The remedy lies with Father Nikolas," said the Capsina.

Nikolas paused for a moment: his mouth was dry with anger.

"It is not so long ago," he said, "that I heard Hydra proclaimed an independent state, and subject to none. Show me anything more farcical than that! Free, are we? Then who is this who forces herself and her creatures into our assembly? Are we to be the slaves of a woman, or her clan? I, for my part, will be dictated to and insulted by no man, or woman either. The clan of Capsas—who are the clan of Capsas? They are leagued together for their own self-seeking ends."

This was just what Sophia was waiting for. She sprang to her feet, and, turning to the people, "Clan of Capsas!" she cried. "You of the clan!"

In an instant at the clan cry there was a scene of wildest confusion. Old Christos jumped up; Anastasi overturned his chair and stood on the other side of Sophia; Michael raged furiously about in the ecstasy of excitement, and from the crowd that stood round men sprang forward, taking their places in rows behind the Capsina till their ranks stretched half-way down the quay.

Then the Capsina called: "The clan of Capsas is with me?"

And a great shout went up. "It is with you."

She turned to Father Nikolas.

"If you or any other have any quarrel with the clan, name it," she said.

Father Nikolas looked round, but found blank faces only.

"I have no quarrel with the clan," he said, and his voice was the pattern of ill-grace.

"Then," said Sophia, "again I propose Kanaris as a member of this committee."

The appeal to the clan had exactly the effect Sophia intended. It divided the committee up into those for the clan and those against it, and that strong and cheerful phalanx seemed to be terrorizing to waverers. Amid dead silence the votes were given in and counted, and Tombazes announced that Kanaris was elected by sixteen votes to nine.

The business of the war-fund then came before them, and this Sophia opened by handing over to Tombazes eight hundred Turkish pounds, that being half of the prizes of her cruise. Economos, who had been instructed by the Capsina, laid before Tombazes a similar proportion of his takings, and Sachturi and Pinotzi followed the lead.

Some amusement was then caused by Anastasi Capsas, who had been unlucky in the late cruise, gravely presenting to Tombazes the sum of twenty-five piasters, for all that he had taken was a small Turkish rowing-boat which he found drifting after Sachturi's capture of the Turkish ship, and which he had subsequently sold for fifty. Father Nikolas, it was noticed, did not join in the laugh. But a moment afterwards he rose.

"Perhaps the Capsina or the chairman will explain what is meant by the war-fund," he said. "At present I know of no such fund."

The Capsina rose.

"I hear that yesterday there was debate on this matter," she said, "and that Economos proposed that part of the booty taken should be given to a war-fund. Now it is true that nothing was said about this before the last cruise, but I understand that the money raised has been exhausted, and unless you consider that the war is over, I would wish to know how you intend to equip the ships for the next cruise. Or has Hydra tired of the war? Some of our ships have been lucky: Father Nikolas, I believe, took a valuable prize. It is easy, then, for him to defray the expenses of his ship for the next voyage. But with Anastasi Capsas, how will it be? For, indeed, fifty piasters will not go far as the wages of sixty men."

She paused a moment, and went on with growing earnestness.

"Let us be sensible," she said, "and look things between the eyes, as a man looks before he strikes, and not pretend there are no obstacles in the path. We have decided, God be thanked, to be free. This freedom can only be bought dearly, at the cost of lives and money, and by the output of all our strength. We are not fighting to enrich ourselves. Only the short-sighted can fail to see this, and the short-sighted do not make good counsellors. Can any one tell me how we are to man ships for the next cruise, how get powder, how make repairs to our ships? On the mainland they are contributing one-half of all that is taken to the service of the war. Would it become us to ask for funds from them—for, indeed, they are sore pressed for money, and many of them serve without pay or reward. What has Nikolas Vidalis got for his ten years' work, journeying, scheming, risking his all every day? This, as he himself said, the right to serve his country! Is he not wise to count that more worth having than many piasters? Have you heard what happened to the second ship from Kalamata, which put into Nauplia on its way to Constantinople, to bring back men and arms? Two boys followed it out into the bay at Nauplia, ran their caique into the stern, set fire to it, and saved themselves in their small boat. One was a son of Petrobey, the other was Mitsos Codones, the nephew of Nikolas; him I have never seen, but there is a song about the boys' deed which the folk sing. There is their reward, and where should they look for a better? Are we mercenaries? Do we serve another country, not our own? Is the freedom of our country to be weighed against money? But this I would propose—that after our next cruise, should anything of what we give now be left over when the men are paid and the ships fit for use again, let that, if you will, be divided. Only let there never be a ship which cannot go to sea, or is ill-equipped for want of money, which might have been ready had not we taken it for ourselves. Now, if there is aught to say against this, let us hear it. For me, I vote for the war-fund to be made up of half the takings of each ship."

The Capsina's speech won the day, and even a few of the primates went over to her side, leaving, however, a more malignant minority. At the end of the meeting the money was collected, and the Capsina was fairly satisfied with her morning's work.

It was two days after this that word was brought to Hydra by a vessel of Chios, that Germanos, Archbishop of Patros, had need of Economos. The latter had friends and relations in Misolonghi, and as there was a strong garrison of Turks there, it seemed wiser to get the soundings of the place, so said the archbishop, from a man who would move about unsuspected. Therefore, if his work in Hydra was over, let him come. Late that afternoon he had gone to see the Capsina, in order to find out whether any of her vessels were by chance going to Nauplia or some mainland port, and could put him on his way.

"For my work here is finished, or so I think," he said. "Only this morning, indeed, I met Father Nikolas, who alone has been more detrimental to the cause than even the Turks; but he seemed most friendly to me, and regretted that I was going."

The Capsina was combing out Michael's ruff after his bath, and was not attending very closely. But at these words she left the comb in Michael's hair and looked up.

"What is that?" she said.

"I met Father Nikolas an hour ago," said Economos; "he thanked me for all I had done here, and said that he had hoped I was stopping longer. In fact, I think he has quite withdrawn all his opposition."

Now the Capsina had excellently sure reason for knowing that the primate still harbored the bitterest grudge against Economos for having first proposed and eventually carrying the institution of the war-fund, and her next question seemed at first strangely irrelevant.

"Do you walk armed?" she asked.

"Not in Hydra."

She drew the comb out of Michael's ruff, and clapped her hands. The servant came in at the summons.

"I want to see Kanaris," she said. "Send for him at once."

She stood silent a moment or two, until the servant had left the room, and then turned to Economos.

"I don't really know what to say to you," she remarked, "or how to account for my own feelings. But it is borne in upon me that you are in danger. Nikolas friendly and genial to you! It is not in the man. He is genial to none. That he should be genial to you of all men is impossible. Afterwards I will tell you why. Come, what did he say to you?"

"He asked me to sup with him this evening," said Economos, "and I told him that for aught I knew I might be gone before."

"He asked you to sup with him?" said the Capsina, frowning. "God send us understanding and charity! But really—" and she broke off, still frowning. Then after a pause:

"Look you," she said, "I do not know much of Father Nikolas, but this I know, that you can have no enemy more bitter. He took, so you tell me, a valuable prize in this last cruise. It is you, so he thinks, who has deprived him of half of it, and certainly it is you and I between us who have done so. Now the man has good things in him. I am trying, you understand, to put together these good things, his certain hatred of you, and his asking you to supper. Did you notice how he winced when at the meeting the other day I said: 'You are a Spetziot, but for that reason we would not turn you out of our assembly,' I think he knew what I meant, though my words can have meant nothing but what they seemed to say, except to him, Kanaris, and to me. It is this: He is a primate, but he is married, and fifteen years ago the Turks carried off his wife, who is a cousin of Kanaris, from Spetzas. Now I believe that the one aim of his life is to bring her back. She is in Athens, and he knows where. Man, you have taken half the ransom out of his closed pocket, I may say. Does he love you much? And if a Spetziot does not love he hates, and when he hates he kills. Why, then, did he ask you to supper?"

"You mean, he intended to kill me?"

"Yes, I mean that," said the Capsina.

"The treacherous villain—"

"No doubt, but think what you have done. Now, without unreasonable risk to you, I want to be certain about this, for Nikolas, I know, will give trouble. I am going to send you off to-night in the Sophia, to be landed at Kranidi. But I want you to leave this house alone, and walk down to the quay alone. There is not much danger; your way lies through the streets, and, at worst, if my guess about Nikolas is right, he will try to have you knifed. He dare not have you shot in the town, but a man's throat can be cut quietly. Man, what are you afraid of? Indeed, I wish I was you. But here is Kanaris. Kanaris, did you see or speak to any one on your way up here?"

"Yes, to Dimitri, the servant of Nikolas. He was coming out of a shop."

"What shop?"

"Vasto's shop."

"They sell knives in Vasto's shop," remarked the Capsina. "Well, what did he say to you?"

"He asked if Economos was with you. And I said that I thought so."

"That is, then, very pretty. Kanaris, you are to take Economos over to Kranidi to-night. He will leave this house in an hour exactly. You will wait for him in that dark corner by Christos's house, and keep your eyes open. Why? Because Dimitri will not be far off, and he will try to knife him. Dimitri, I am afraid, must be shot. Economos will do the shooting, but he must not shoot towards the dark corner of Christos's house, or there may be a Kanaris the less. Mind that, Economos. If he shoots not straight, Dimitri will probably run down towards the quay, where he will mix with the crowd. It shall then be Kanaris's business to stop him. Or he may run up here. It shall then be my business."

Presently after Kanaris went down to the harbor to get the Sophia ready for sea. With a fair wind it was only two hours to Kranidi. The navigation was simple: a dozen men could work the ship, and they would be back before morning.

The Capsina took down two pistols, and proceeded to tell Economos what he was to do. He must walk straight to the quay and quickly. He must stop to speak to no man, and not fire unless attacked. She would be in the shadow of her own gate, Kanaris at the lower end of the street, where it opened on to the quay, so that should any attempt be made on his life the assassin would be hemmed in on both sides.

"Yet, yet," she said, hesitating, "ought I to warn Nikolas that I know? It seems a Turkish thing to do, to set a trap for a man. Really, I am afraid I should do the same to you if I were he, only I think I should have the grace to kill you myself, for I cannot think I would have my dirty work done for me, and I should not be such a fool as to ask you to supper. I don't want this wretched Dimitri to be killed—I wonder what Nikolas has paid him? Yes, it shall be so; one who attacks in the dark for no quarrel of his own will be ever a coward. So shoot in the air, only to show you are armed, and leave Dimitri to me."

At the end of the hour Economos rose to go. The Capsina went with him to the gate, and from the shadow looked cautiously out down the road. The far end of it, a hundred and fifty yards off, opened on to the brightly lighted quay, and against the glare she saw the figure of a man silhouetted by the long creeper-covered wall to the right of the road.

"Yes, that is Dimitri," she whispered. "Begone, and God-speed. Don't shoot, except to save your own life. Run rather."

She stepped back under cover of her gate, and looked after Economos. He had not gone more than twenty yards when she heard a quick but shuffling step coming down towards her from above, and, looking up, saw Father Nikolas. Standing as she did, in a shadowed embrasure, he passed her by unnoticed, and went swiftly and silently across the road, and waited in the shadow of the opposite wall. He had passed so close to her that she could almost have touched him. Then for a moment there was silence, save only for the sounds of life on the quay and the rapid step of Economos, getting fainter every second. Then came a sudden scuffle, a shot, and the steps of a running man getting louder every moment. She was just about to step out and stop him, when Father Nikolas advanced from opposite. The man gave a little sobbing cry of fright, till he saw who it was.

"You have failed," said Nikolas, in a low voice.

"Yes, and may the curses of all the saints be upon you!" cried Dimitri. "You told me he went unarmed. You told me—Ah, God! who is that?"

The Capsina stepped out of the shadow.

"Yes, he has failed," she said. "And you, too, have failed. This is a fine thing for the Church of Hydra. Man, stop where you are. Not a step nearer. I, too, am armed. By God," she exclaimed, suddenly, rising an octave of passion and contempt, and throwing her pistol over the gate into her garden, "come a step nearer if you dare, you or your hired assassin—I am unarmed. You dare not, you dare not commit your murders yourself, you low, sneaking blackguard, who would kill men under the guise of friendship. You asked Economos to supper to-night, regretting he was going so soon: that would have been the surest way! Instead, you send another to cut his throat in the dark. You have failed," and she laughed loud, but without merriment. "A fine, noble priest are you! Hydra is proud of you, the clan delights in you! In the name of the clan I pay you my homage and my reverence."

Not a word said Father Nikolas.

"So you have no reply ready," she went on. "Indeed, I do not wonder. And for you, Dimitri, is it not shame that you would do the bidding of a man like this? Now, tell me at once, what did he give you for this?"

"If you dare tell—" whispered Nikolas.

"Oho! So there is perhaps something even more splendid and noble to come! If you dare not tell, rather," said Sophia. "Quick, man, tell me quickly."

The man fell on his knees.

"Capsina, I dare not tell you all," he said. "But I have a disgraceful secret, and Father Nikolas knew it. He threatened me with exposure."

The Capsina turned to Nikolas.

"So—this grows dirtier and more ugly, and even more foolish than I thought, for I did you too much justice. Devil I knew you were, but I gave you the credit for being cunning. It is not very safe for a man like you to threaten exposure, is it?"

And she turned and went a step nearer to him.

Father Nikolas, in a sudden frenzy, ran a couple of steps towards her, as if he would have seized her. For answer she struck him in the face.

"That for you," she said, suddenly flaming again into passion—"that for you; go and tell the primates that I have struck a priest. It is sacrilege, I believe, and never was I more satisfied with a deed. Run, tell them how I have struck you, and get me punished. Sacrilege? Is it not sacrilege when a man like you shows the people the blessed body and blood? You are afraid of man, it seems—for you dared not touch Economos yourself—but it seems you hold God in contempt. You living lie, you beast! Stand still and listen."

And she told Dimitri the story of Nikolas's marriage. Then, turning again: "So that is quits," said she, "between you."

Then to Nikolas: "Now go," she said, "and remember you are in the hollow of my hand. Will you come at night and try to kill me? I think not."

Nikolas turned and went without a word.

The Capsina saw him disappear, and then spoke to Dimitri.

"You poor, wretched creature!" she said. "You have had a lesson to-night, I am thinking. Go down on your knees—not to me, but to the blessed Jesus. I forgive you? That is no word from one man to another. Go to the church, man, or to your home, or even here, and be sorry."

"Capsina! oh Capsina!" sobbed the man.

Sophia felt strangely moved, and she looked at him with glistening eyes.

"You poor devil! oh, you poor devil!" she said. "Just go by yourself alone somewhere and think how great a brute you are. Indeed, you are not a fine man, and I say this with no anger, but with very much pity. You had no grudge against Economos. Yet because you were afraid you would do this thing. Thank God that your fear saved you, your miserable fear of an ounce of lead. What stuff are you made of, man? What can matter less than whether you live or die? Yet it matters very much how you live and how you die. There, shake hands and go."

[CHAPTER IV]

The fleet put to sea again in the last week of May, cruising in the Archipelago, eager for the spring coming of the Ottoman ships. They took a northeasterly course, and on the 5th of June sighted a single Turkish man-of-war to the north of Chios. But it put about, before they were in range to attack, and ran before them to the mainland, anchoring in the harbor of Erissos, beneath the walls of the Turkish fort. To attack it there at close quarters meant exposure to the fire from the fort as well; moreover, the harbor was nearly landlocked, and thoroughly unsuited to that rapidity of manoeuvre by which alone these little hawks could dare attack the ravens of the Turkish fleet, for, except when the sea-breeze blew, it lay nigh windless. Tombazes could scarce leave it to sail south, but his plan of action was determined by the appearance, on the morning of the 6th of June, of more Ottoman ships from the north—a man-of-war, three frigates, and three sloops—and before noon news arrived from a Greek town called Aivali, farther up the Asiatic coast, that the garrison of Turks had been suddenly increased in the town.

Here, then, was work sufficient: the single Turk must not sail south, the fresh convoy of ships must be stopped, and help must be sent to Aivali. What this increase of garrison might mean, Tombazes could not conjecture, but he told off fifteen vessels to follow the Turkish ships, while the rest waited at Erissos to destroy the blockaded vessel at all costs and with all speed, and then sail on to Aivali. A meeting of the captains was held on the admiral's ship, and it was resolved to attempt the destruction of the Turk by fire. A Psarian in the fleet was said to know the use and handling of fire-ships, and one was prepared, but badly managed, and the only result was that two of its crew were first nearly roasted and then completely drowned. However, on the following day another Psarian volunteered to launch one, which was managed with more conspicuous success. The boat was loaded with brushwood, and brushwood and sails were soaked in turpentine. It set off from the fleet while it was yet dark, and, conveniently for the purpose, a white mist lay over the harbor. The air was windless, and it had to be rowed swiftly and silently up to the anchorage of the Turk. They had approached to within a cable's length when they were sighted from on board the enemy, but the captain of the fire-ship, Pappanikolo, knowing that a few moments more would see the work done, urged the men on, and drove his boat right into the bows of the Turk, contriving to entangle his mast in the bowsprit ropes. Then, bidding his men jump into the boat they towed behind, he set fire to the ship and rowed rapidly off. A few muskets only were fired at them, and they escaped unhurt. Not so their victim. In a moment the fire-ship blazed from stem to stern, pouring such vast clouds of smoke up from the brushwood, which was not quite dry, that it was impossible for those on board or from the fort to reach the seat of the flames. Many of the sailors jumped overboard and swam to land, but the ship itself burned on till the fire reached the powder-magazine and exploded it.

This being done, the remainder of the Greek fleet weighed anchor and went north again. While rounding Lesbos they met the ships which had pursued the rest of the Ottoman fleet returning. They, too, had shunned the Greeks, but with the south wind had escaped into the Dardanelles, where the Greeks had not ventured to follow. Most of the pursuing vessels had been of the primates, and the Capsina expressed her scorn in forcible language.

Aivali was a wealthy commercial town in the pashalik of Brusa and on the coast of Asia Minor. Since the outbreak of the war several similar Greek towns had been plundered by irregular bands of Turks, and the pasha, seeing that his revenues were largely derived from Aivali, for it was the home of many wealthy Greeks, was personally very anxious to save it. Thus the troops which, as Tombazes had been truly informed, had been sent there, were designed not for its destruction but its preservation. But the news of the destruction of the ship at Erissos had raised the excitement of the Turkish population at Aivali and desire for revenge to riot point, and already several Greeks had been murdered in the streets. Such was the state of things when Tombazes' fleet dropped anchor outside the harbor.

That night, under cover of the darkness, came a deputation to the admiral. Unless he helped them their state was foregone. Their protectors would no doubt guarantee them their lives, but at the sacrifice of all their property; but, as seemed certain if the Turkish population rose against them (for they had heard that irregular bands of soldiers were marching on the town), the luckier of them would be murdered, the fairer and less fortunate sold as slaves. They appealed to Tombazes to rescue them, and take them off on the fleet, and this he guaranteed his best efforts to do.

Aivali was built on a steep hill-side running up from the sea. The lower ground was occupied with wharves and shipping-houses, then higher up came the manufacturing quarter, consisting mainly of oil-mills, and on the crest of the hill the houses of the wealthier inhabitants. It was these which would be the first prey to the mob.

Early next morning Tombazes landed a company of soldiers to protect the families who embarked. The troops of the pasha, who wished to prevent any one leaving the town, replied by occupying a row of shops near the quay, and keeping up a heavy musket fire on the troops and the ships. Meantime the news that the Greek fleet would take off the inhabitants was over the town, and a stream of civilians had begun to pour down. The soldiers returned the fire of the Turks, while these were embarked in small boats and taken out to the ships; but the odds were against them, for their assailants were firing from shelter. But suddenly a shout went up from the fleet as the Sophia weighed anchor, and, hoisting her sails, came close in, shouldering and crashing through a line of fishing-boats, risking the chance of grounding. Then, turning her broadside to the town, she opened on the houses occupied by the Turks, firing over the heads of the soldiers and embarking population. The first broadside knocked one shop to pieces, and in a couple of minutes the Turks, most of the regular troops, were swarming out of houses like ants when their hill is disturbed, and flying to some position less exposed to the deadly and close fire of the Sophia.

Simultaneously the Greeks of the town, fearing that this occupation of the houses lower down by the regular troops should cut off their escape, in turn occupied some houses in the rear, and kept up another fire on them. Between the Sophia and them the troops were fairly outclassed, and the line of retreat for the population was clear again.

But this engagement of the regular troops with the Greeks gave the rabble of the Turkish population the opportunity they desired. They rushed to the bazaar and rifled the shops, spoiling and destroying what they did not take; and, after leaving the quarter gutted and trampled, made up the hill to the houses of the wealthiest merchants, from which the Greeks were even now fleeing, and captured not only goods, but women and children. Unless some speedy move was made by the troops, it was clear that the bulk of the population would escape or fall into the murderous hands of the rabble; and unable, under the guns of the Sophia, to make another attempt to hold the quay against the Greeks, they set fire to various houses in a line with the shore, that a barrier of flames might cut off the lower town from the upper. Meantime they collected again at the square which lay to the left of the town, with the purpose of making another formed attack on the troops on the beach. The Greek soldiers seeing this, as it was now hopeless to try to save the town from burning, themselves set fire to another row of houses at right angles to the beach in order to cut them off from the line of embarkation, and between the quay and the new position taken up by the Turkish troops. In a short time both fires, under the ever-freshening sea-breeze took hold in earnest.

Meantime boat-load after boat-load of the sailors had put to land; among the first, when the guns of the Sophia were no longer needed, being the Capsina and Kanaris, with some two dozen of the crew. They went up the town to help in protecting the line of retreat, and the fires being then only just begun, passed the oil-mills, and reached the wealthier quarter. The Turkish population, seeing they were armed, ran from them, and in an hour, having satisfied themselves that the upper quarter of the town was empty, turned back again towards the sea. But suddenly from some quarter of a mile in front of them rose a huge pillar of smoke and fire, and with it a deep roaring sound as if all the winds of heaven had met together. Kanaris first saw what it was.

"Quick, quick," he said, "it is an oil-mill caught! There is a whole row of them below us!"

They hurried on, but before they had gone many yards they saw at the end of the street down which they were to pass another vast volume of flame break out, sweeping across to the opposite houses in long tongues of fire. From inside the mill came a crash, and next moment a river of flaming oil flowed out and down the street. To pass that way was impossible, and they turned back to make a détour to the other side of the town, away from the quarter where the troops were assembled. But before ten minutes had passed a dozen more mills had taken fire, and when at length they had passed the extremity of the line of fire, and came out on the quay, it was to find the beach empty, and the boats no longer at the shore. The torrent of flaming oil had poured down the steep and narrow streets, and thence across the quay over on to the water, where it floated, still blazing, and a belt of fire some thirty feet broad lined the water along the bay. The charred posts on the edge of the harbor-wall were hissing and spluttering, sending out every now and then little lilac-colored bouquets of flame, and it was somehow across that burning canal that their retreat lay.

The Capsina stood still a moment and then broke out into a laugh.

"We shall get through tighter places together, Kanaris," she said. "See, the oil has already ceased flowing, but we cannot stop here. The troops may be down again. Look you, there is only one way. A run, a good long breath, a dive; if we catch fire, next moment the water will put it out—and up again when we are past the flames. It is not more than thirty feet."

Meantime the Turkish troops hearing that one party, at any rate, of the Greeks was still in the town, and thinking that all retreat by the beach was now cut off, had stationed themselves away to the left beyond the flames. The Capsina waved her hand to them.

"No, no, we don't go that way, gentlemen!" she cried, and next moment she had run the dozen scorching and choking yards across the quay and plunged into the flames. Kanaris followed, and after him the others with a shout. The Turks, seeing this, discharged their muskets at them, but ineffectually. A moment later a boat had put off from the Sophia, and, as they rose safe beyond the flames they were dragged on board dripping, yet strangely exhilarated and thrilled with adventure.

The deck of the Sophia was packed with men, women, and children rescued from the sacked and burning town, and strange and pathetic were their stories. Many did not know whether their families had been saved or not, for in the panic and confusion of their flight the children perhaps had been carried off in the boat from one ship, the parents in another. Some had come on board with nothing but the clothes they were in, others had dragged with them bags of money and valuables, but all were in a distraught amazement at the suddenness of the hour which had left them homeless. The sun was already sinking when the Capsina got back to her ship, but the glow of the sunset paled before that red and lurid conflagration in the town, and after dark, when the land breeze set in, the breath of it was as if from some open-mouthed furnace, and the air was thick with ashes and half-consumed sparks, making the eyes and throat grow raw and tingling with smoke. So, weighing anchor, they sailed out to the mouth of the harbor, some miles away from the burning town, where the heat was a little assuaged and the air had some breath of untainted coolness in it.

By next day the fire had died down, a smouldering of charred beams and eddying white ashes had taken the place of blazing houses and impenetrable streets, and once more the town was searched for any Greeks that remained. Some few were found, but in no large numbers; and that afternoon the fleet turned south again to give the homeless a refuge on one or other of the revolted islands. Many of the able-bodied at once enlisted themselves in the service of the revolutionists, others seemed apathetic and stunned into listlessness, and a few, and these chiefly among the older men and women, would have slunk back again, like cats, preferring a ruined and wrecked home to new and unfamiliar places.

Throughout August and September the fleet made no combined cruise; some ships assisted at the blockade of Monemvasia, others made themselves red in the bloody and shameful work at Navarin. Then for a time all eyes and breathless lips were centred on the struggle going on at Tripoli; the armies and ships alike paused, watching the development of that inevitable end.

Autumn and early winter saw the Capsina at Hydra, busily engaged in building another ship on the lines of the Sophia, but with her characteristic points even more developed. She was going to appoint Kanaris to command the old Sophia, and to sail the new one herself. December saw her launched, and about the middle of January the Capsina took her a trial-trip up as far as Nauplia.

It was one of those Southern winter days which are beautiful beyond all capacity of comprehension. There was a sparkle as if of frost in the air, but the sun was a miracle of brightness, and the wind from the southeast kindly and temperate. The sea was awake, and its brood of fresh young waves, laced here and there with a foam so white that one could scarcely believe it was of the same stuff as those blue waters, headed merrily up the gulf, and the beautiful new boat, still smelling aromatically of fresh-chiselled pine wood, seemed part of that laughing crowd, so lightly did it slip on its way, and with a motion so fresh and springing. From the time she left the harbor of Hydra till she rounded the point of Nauplia, her white sails were full and brimming with the following wind, and it was little past noon when they swung round to the anchorage.

All that afternoon the Capsina was busy, for there were many friends to see, and she spent some time on the Turkish ship which she had captured in the spring and which was being made ready for sea again; and all the time her heart was full, she knew not why, of a wonderful great happiness and expectancy. The busy, smiling people on the quay, the sparkle of the gulf, the great pine-clad hills rising up towards the fallen Tripoli, her own new ship lying at anchor in the foreground—these were all sweet to her, with a curious intimacy of sweetness. Her life tasted good; it all savored of hopes and aims, or fine memories of success, and she felt a childlike happiness all day that did not reason, but only enjoyed.

She was to sleep on board that night, returning to Hydra next day, and about the time of sunset she was sitting with Kanaris on the quay, talking to him and a Naupliot friend. The sky was already lit with the fires of the west sun, and the surface of the bay, still alive with little waves, was turning molten under the reflection. A small fishing-boat, looking curiously black against that ineffable blaze, was beating up to the harbor, and it gave the Capsina the keen pleasure of one who knows to see how well it was being handled. These small craft, as she was aware, were not made to sail close to the wind, but it seemed to her that a master who understood it well was coaxing it along, as a man with a fine hand will make a nervous horse go as he chooses. She turned to Kanaris.

"See how well that boat is handled," she said. "She will make the pier on this tack."

Kanaris looked up and judged the distance with a half-closed eye.

"I think not," he said. "It cannot be brought up in one tack."

The Capsina felt strangely interested in it.

"I wager you a Turkish pound it can and will," she cried. "Oh, Kanaris! you and I have something to learn from him who sails it."

The Capsina won her pound, to her great delight, and the boat drew up below them at the steps. It was quite close under the wall, so that they could only see the upper part of its masts, but from it there came a voice singing very pleasantly, with an echo, it seemed, of the sea in it, and it sang a verse of the song of the vine-diggers.

Up the steps came the singer, from the sea and the sun. His stature was so tall as to make by-standers seem puny. His black hair was all tousled and wet. He was quite young, for his chin and cheek were smooth, and the line of mustache on his upper lip was yet but faintly pencilled. Over his shoulder he carried a great basket of fish, supporting it freshly, you would say, and without effort, and the lad stood straight under a burden for two men. His shirt was open at the neck, showing a skin browned with the wind and the glare of the water, and the muscles stood out like a breastplate over the bone. His feet were bare and his linen trousers tucked up to his knees. And it was good also to look at his face, for the eyes smiled and the mouth smiled—you would have said his face was a smile.

The Capsina drew a long, deep breath. All the wonderful happiness of the day gathered itself to a point and was crowned.

"Who is that?" she asked the Naupliot, who was sitting with her.

"That? Do you not know? Who but the little Mitsos? Hi lad, what luck?"

Mitsos looked round a moment, but did not stop.

"My luck," he said. "But I must go first to Dimitri. I am late, and he wants his fish. For to-day I am not a free man, but a hireling. But I will be back presently, Anastasi, and remember me by this."

And with one hand he picked out a small mullet from his basket, threw it with a swift and certain aim at Anastasi's face, and ran laughing off.

So Mitsos ran laughing off, and a moment afterwards Anastasi got up too.

"We had better go," he said to Kanaris, "or the market will be closed, and you want provisions you say."

"Ah, yes," said the Capsina, "it is good that I have you to think for me, Kanaris, for I declare the thing had gone from my mind. Let them be on board to-night, so that we can sail with day."

The two went off together towards the town, and Sophia was alone.

"Some one from the sun and the sea"—her own words to Michael came back to her—"and you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I shall be his." The dog was lying at her feet, and she touched him gently with her toe.

"And will you be his, Michael? Will you be Mitsos's?" she said. "And what of me?"

Surely this was the one from the sun and the sea, of whom she had not dreamed, but of whom she could imagine she had dreamed, he who had gone at night and burned that great ship from Kalamata, returning, perhaps, as he had returned this evening, laughing with a jest for a friend and a ready aim, of whose deed the people sang. She had wondered a hundred times what Mitsos was like, but never had she connected him with the one of whom she spoke to Michael.

She rose from her seat and went to lean over the quay wall. She was convinced not in thought—for just now she did not think, but only feel beyond the shadow of doubt—that Mitsos was ... was, not he whom she looked for, her feeling lacked that definiteness, but he for whom she would wait all her life. He was satisfying, wholly, utterly; the stir and rapture of glorious adventure had seized him as it had seized her; the aims of their lives were one, and was not that already a bond between them? He was a man of his arm, and his arm was strong; a man of his people, and a man not of houses but of the out-of-doors. She had taken him in at one glance, and knew him from head to heel: black hair, black eyes, a face one smile, but which could surely be stern and fiery; for any face so wholly frank as that would mirror the soul as still water mirrors the sky, the long line of arm bare to the shoulder, trousers all stained, as was meet, with salt and sailing gear, the long, swelling line of calf down to feet which were firm and fit to run—surely this was he for whom she had been designed and built, and she was one, she knew, at whom men looked more than once. And her heart broke into song, soaring....

"UP THE STEPS CAME THE SINGER, FROM THE SEA AND THE SUN"

She stood up, a tall, stately figure, yet girlish, still looking out to sea. He had left his boat below the wall; he had said he would be back soon, and she meant to wait his coming. The wind was strong, and a coil of her glorious hair came unfastened, and she raised her hands to pin it up again; her skirt was blown tight and clinging against the long, slim lines of her figure, her jacket doubled back against itself by the wind, and like Mitsos, perhaps with thinking of him, her face was one smile.

The sun had quite set, but over the sky eastward came the afterglow of the day, turning the thin skeins of cloud to fiery fleeces, and flooding the infinite depth of the sky with luminous red. Behind her the town flushed and glowed, and the white houses were turned to a living gold. After a while she faced round again, for she heard steps coming, and seemed to know that it was Mitsos back again.

"Oh, Anastasi!" cried a voice, "but is there not a fool waiting behind that corner with a good fish to throw and waste? Take it home to your supper, man, and thank God for a dinner you have not earned except in that you have a large face easy to hit. Eh, do you think I cannot see you? You'll be thought a fine hand at hiding, will you?"

Mitsos advanced cautiously, for he was meaning to go to his boat, where he had left his coat and shoes, and the boat lay behind a corner most convenient for a hiding man. The Capsina was standing close by, and Michael bared his teeth as Mitsos came up.

"Fool, Michael!" said the Capsina; "is it not he?"

Then as Mitsos got within speaking distance—

"Anastasi has gone," she said; "you were over quick, were you not, at seeing him?"

Mitsos laughed, but paused a moment as Michael made the circuit of him, sniffing suspiciously.

"This is what I never entirely enjoy," he said, standing still. "Now no man can go sniffing round my bones and have a sound head on his shoulders. But there is less sport, so I take it, in fighting a dog. Ah, he is satisfied, is he? That is for the good. But where is fishy Anastasi?"

"He went to the market with Constantine Kanaris to buy provisions."

"Is Constantine Kanaris here?" asked the boy. "No, I know him not; but Nikolas Vidalis, the best man God ever made, and my uncle, knew him for a fine man. But why, if Kanaris is here she is here, for he serves with her."

"She! Who?"

"Who but the Capsina? I would give gold money to see her. Why—" Mitsos stopped short, and Sophia laughed.

"Thus there is double pleasure," she said, "for I, too, have often wished to see the boy of whom the people sing. Yes, I am the Capsina; why not?"

Mitsos's big eyes grew round and wide.

"What must you have thought of me?" he said. "But indeed I did not know—" and he bent down from his great height and would have kissed the hand she held out to him.

"Not so!" she cried, laughing; "they of Maina and we are equal."

"That is true," said Mitsos, standing upright a moment; "but where is her equal who took three Turkish ships?" and bending again he kissed it.

"Yet a lad I have heard of burned a ship of war," said she.

Mitsos flushed a little under his brown skin.

"That was nothing," he said, "and, indeed, but for my cousin Yanni there would have been no burning." Then changing the subject quickly: "You came to-day only, Capsina? Surely you will not go again to-morrow." Then, "Ah," he cried, "but I, too, am going to sea, so I may say, with you, for I am to be of the crew of the Turk you brought in here. But you will have a fleet soon!"

"I cannot have too many brave men to work with," said Sophia. "But you under me! Lad, you could sail a double course while I sailed single. Though I have known you perhaps ten minutes, yet you have made me the richer," and she held out the Turkish pound she had won from Kanaris, telling him how she had gained it.

Mitsos grinned with pleasure.

"Well, I think I do know this bay," he said, "for indeed I must have been more hours on it than in the house. But, oh, Capsina, when will that Turkish ship you took be ready for sea, for indeed it eats my heart to go catching fish when I should be catching Turks."

"They tell me in six weeks," she said, "but they seem a little slow about it all. They want more speediness. See you, Mitsos," she said, then stopped.

Mitsos looked up.

"See you," she said again. "Kanaris after this takes command of the old Sophia. I want some one who knows the sea, and who is better at home on a ship than on his own feet, to be under me: or it is hardly that—to be with me, as Kanaris will tell you. Come. I sail from here to-morrow, or I will even wait for two days or three: or if that is not time sufficient for you—yet what do you want, for your hands and feet you carry with you?—you can join me as soon as maybe at Hydra. So. It is an offer."

"Then to none other shall it now be offered," said Mitsos. "And what shall I want with two days or three? See, I will sail home now on the instant across the bay, to say good-bye to those at home, and they I know will be blithe to let me go, or rather would think scorn of me if I stopped and went not; and what does a man want with two days or three days to sigh or be sighed over? For my life I could never see that. Oh, Capsina, may God send us great winds and many Turks! I am off now; I am a fool with words, and how gratefully I thank you I cannot tell you. And Dimitri has never paid me my day's wage. May he grow even fatter on it!"

The Capsina laughed with pleasure.

"You go quick enough to please me," she said, "and that is very quick. And I hope, too, I may be found satisfactory, for indeed you do not stop to think what sort of a woman I may be to get on with."

"You are the Capsina," said Mitsos, with sturdy faith.

"You find that good guarantee? So do I that you are Mitsos; little Mitsos, they call you, do they not? That will be the name you'll hear from me, for indeed you are very big."

"And growing yet," said Mitsos, going down the steps to his boat. "Well, this is a fortunate day for me. I will be at your ship again in three hours, or four, if this wind does not hold. My homage, Capsina."

"And mine, little Mitsos."

He shoved his boat out from the wall, and she stood with sails flapping and shivering till he pulled her out from under shelter. Then with a heel over and a gathering whisper of water she shot out into the bay, and faded, still followed by the Capsina's gaze, into the dim starlit dusk.

So he was coming—he. Surely there could be no mistake about it all. A stranger, she had seen a stranger at sunset on the quay, and her heart had embraced him as its betrothed. Only an hour, less than an hour, had passed, and as if to confirm the certainty, all arrangements had been made, and this very night he would be on her ship. Day after day they would range the great seas together with one aim and purpose.

How could it fail that that welding should leave them one? Had not her soul leaped out to him? How strange such a meeting was, yet not strange, for it was the inevitable thing of her life. How impossible that they should not have met, and met, too, at this very time, she in the height of her freedom and success—yet, oh, how ready to be free no longer!—he, just when he hungered to be up and throwing himself against the Turk. Michael, too, surely Michael knew, for when Mitsos was going off again, he had walked down to the bottom step above the water and watched him set off, wagging his tail in acceptance of him. She would have wagered herself and the brig and Michael that they were all going up to heaven.

Presently after came Kanaris from the market, and he whistled across to the ship that it should send a boat to take them off. He was surprised to find the Capsina still on shore, supposing she would have gone back to supper on the ship, or would be with some friend in Nauplia. Indeed, a friend had gone seeking her on her ship, bidding her to sup with him, but she, wishing still to be alone, had said she was just going home. This was half an hour ago, and she lingered yet on the quay with Michael for guard. As they sat watching for the boat, hearing the rhythmical and unseen plash of oars getting nearer, this struck Kanaris.

"You have supped, Capsina?" he asked.

She looked up.

"Supped?" she said. "I don't think I have. Indeed, I am sure I have not. I am hungry. I got to looking at the sky and the water, Kanaris, as one does on certain days, when there is no wind at sea, and it is certain I forgot about supper. Surely I have not supped. We will sup on the ship when we get back, and, as we sup, we will talk. Yes, I have been thinking a big cargo of thought. I will tell you of it."

They were rowed back across the plain of polished harbor water, and went on board in silence. Supper was soon ready—a dish of eggs, a piece of the broiled shoulder of a roe-deer, which the Mayor Dimitri had sent to the Capsina with a present of wine and cakes made of honey. And when they had eaten, Sophia spoke of her plans.

"Kanaris," she said, "I have found him who will take, your place when you have command of the old Sophia, as you will on this next cruise. Oh, be tender with her, man, and remember, as I have always said, that she must be humored. She will sail to a head wind if you do not overburden her, but too much sail, though no more than others carry, would ever keep her back. Ah, well, you know her as well as I do. What was I saying? Oh yes, Mitsos Codones, the little Mitsos, you know, will join me here; he who gained me a pound this afternoon. He sails with me in place of the Captain Kanaris."

Now the offer of the presidency of Greece would have been less to the taste of Kanaris than the command of the Sophia, and his gratitude, though not eloquent, was sincere. But presently after the Capsina, looking up, saw doubt in his eye.

"Well?" she said.

"It is this," said Kanaris, "though indeed it is no business of mine. Mitsos is but a lad, and, Capsina, what do you know of him? Surely this afternoon he was a stranger to you."

Sophia smiled, and with a wonderful frank kindness in her black eyes.

"And you, Kanaris," she said. "Did not a strange sea-captain come to Hydra one evening? Did he not talk with me—how long—ten minutes? And was not a bargain struck on his words? Was that so imprudent a job? By all the saints, I think I never did a better!"

"But he is so young, this Mitsos," said Kanaris.

"Am I so old? We shall both get over it."

Kanaris filled his glass, frowning.

"But it is different: you are the Capsina."

"And he is of the Mainats. That is as good a stock as ours, though our island proverb says we are the prouder. And, indeed, I am not sure we are the better for that, for I would sooner have Mitsos here than, than Christos."

The Capsina, it must be acknowledged, found an intimate pleasure in putting into plain words what Kanaris could not let himself conjecture in thought.

"Christos?" he said. "Well, certainly. And if, he being a cousin of yours, I may speak without offence, it would be a very bold or a very foolish man who would wish to have Christos only to depend on in the sailing of a war brig."

"And the sailing of my brig will be the work of Mitsos," said Sophia. "Oh, Kanaris, you have lost a pound, and how bitter you are made."

Kanaris laughed.

"Well, God knows he can sail a boat," he said. "My pocket knows it."

"Then why look farther for another and a worse?" said the Capsina.

Kanaris was silent; the Capsina had hinted before that she meant him to command the Sophia in the next cruise, but he had yet had no certain word from her. And, indeed, his ambition soared no higher, and to no other quarter—to command the finest brig but one in the island fleet was no mean thing; but it is a human failing common to man to view slightingly any one who takes one's own place, even when it is vacant only through personal promotion. Kanaris's case, however, was a little more complicated, for the Capsina was to him what he had thought no woman could have been. His habit of mind was far too methodical to allow him the luxury of doing anything so unaccounted for as abandoning himself to another; but there were certainly three things in his soul which took a distanced precedence of all others. Ships were one, destruction of Turks another, and the Capsina was the third. In his more spiritual moments he would have found it hard to draw up a reliable table of precedence for the three.

And certainly he was in one of his more spiritual moments just now, for there were no Turks about, his ambition to command a fine ship was satisfied, and the Capsina seated opposite to him had never so compelled his admiration. To-night there was something triumphant and irresistible in her beauty, her draught of sparkling happiness had given a splendid animation to her face, and that flush which as yet he had only associated in her with anger or excitement showed like a beacon for men's eyes in her cheek. But in her face to-night the heightened color and sparkling eye had some intangible softness about them; hitherto, when it had been excitement that had kindled her, she looked more like some extraordinarily handsome boy than a girl, but to-night her face was altogether girlish, and the terms of comradeship on which Kanaris had lived with her, uncomplicated by question or suggestions of sex, were suddenly and softly covered over, it seemed to his mind, by a great wave of tenderness and affection. The Capsina, the captain of the boat, the inimitable handler of a brig, were replaced by a girl. He had been blind, so he thought; all these weeks he had seen in her an able captain, a hater of Turks—a handsome boy, if you will—and he was suddenly smitten into sight, and saw for the first time this glorious thing. But Kanaris was wrong; he had not been blind, the change was in the other.

But here, coincident with the very moment of his discovery, was the moment of his departure, and he left her with another, a provokingly good-looking lad, the hero of an adventure just after the Capsina's heart, and the subject for the songs of the folk. Was not Mitsos just such as might seem godlike to this girl? In truth he was.

She filled his glass again, and he sat and drank in her beauty. She seemed different in kind to what she had ever looked before—her eyes beat upon his heart, and the smile on her beautiful mouth was wine to him. He looked, weighing his courage with his chance, opened his mouth to speak, and stopped again. Truly such perturbation in the methodical Kanaris touched the portentous.

The Capsina had paused after her question, but after a moment repeated it.

"So why look farther for another and a worse?" she said again.

"Don't look farther," he said, leaning forward across the table, and twisting the sense of her question to his own use; "look nearer rather. Look nearer," he repeated; "and, oh, Capsina—"

The smile faded from her mouth but not from her eyes, for it was too deeply set therein to be disturbed by Kanaris.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"It is that I love you," said he.

But she sprang up, laughing.

"Ah, spare yourself," she said. "You ought to know I am already betrothed."

"You betrothed?"

"Yes, betrothed to the brig. No, old friend, I am not laughing at you. You honor me too much. Let us talk of something else."

Mitsos meantime was on his way back to the Capsina's betrothed. He had sailed rapidly across the bay, and made the anchorage close to the house in no longer than half an hour. His father, Constantine, had died two months ago, and since then he and Suleima had lived alone. Just now, however, Father Andréa was with them, staying a few days on his way to Corinth, where he was summoned by the revolutionists, and Mitsos, going through the garden to the house, saw him walking up and down by the fountain, smoking his chibouk.

"Ah, father," he said, "I am late, am I not? But I must be off again. I met the Capsina to-day in Nauplia, and she has offered me a place on her brig—the place Kanaris held under her, or rather with her, she says. She sails to-morrow morning. Suleima is in the house?"

"Yes, with the child, to whom the teething gives trouble. This is very sudden; but, lad, I would not stop you, nor, I think, will Suleima. Go to her, then."

Suleima had heard voices, but she was trying to persuade the baby to go to sleep, while the baby, it seemed, preferred screaming and struggling. She was walking up and down the room with it, crooning softly to it, and rocking it gently in her arms. She looked up smiling at her husband as he entered.

"I heard your voice," she said, "and I would have come out, but I could not leave the adorable one. Poor manikin, he is troubled with this teething!"

"Give me the child," said Mitsos; and the baby, interested in his own transference from one to the other, stopped crying a moment, and Mitsos bent over it.

"Oh, great one," he said; "is heaven falling, or are the angels dead, that you cry so? How will you be able to eat good meat and grow like the ash-tree, unless there are teeth to you? And how should there be teeth unless they cut through the gums—unless, like an old man, you would have us buy them for you?"

The baby ceased crying at the deep, soothing voice, and in a moment or two it was asleep.

"It is wonderful," said Suleima, taking it back from Mitsos, and laying it in the cot; "but, as you know, I have always said you were often more a woman than all the women I have ever seen."

Mitsos laughed.

"A fine big skirt should I want and a double pair of shoes," he said. "And, oh, Suleima, but it were better for the Turks I had been just a chattering woman."

"Eh, but what a husband have I got," said she, pinching his arm. "He thinks himself the grandest man of all the world. But what is there you have to tell me?—for I read you like father reads a book—there is something forward, little Mitsos."

"Yes, and indeed there is," said Mitsos, "but what with you and the child, and all this silly, daffing talk, it had gone from my mind. But this it is, most dear one, that the Capsina is here, and she has offered me the post just under her on the new ship she has built, that one you and I saw put in this morning. Eh, but it is grand for me! She will sail to-morrow."

"To-morrow! Oh, Mitsos!" Then, checking herself. "Dearest one, but your luck is still with you. She is a fine, brave lass they say, and handsome, too, and, so Dimitri told me, her ship is the fastest and best in Greece. So go, and God speed you, and I will wait, and the little one shall make haste to grow! You will stop here to-night? No? Not even to-night? Come, then, I must look out your clothes for you at once, for you must have your very best, and be a credit to the housewife."

She held Mitsos's hands for a moment, and put up her face to his to be kissed.

"Blessed be the day when first I saw you!" she whispered.

"And blessed has been every day since," said Mitsos.

"Even so, dearest," and she clung to him a moment longer. Then, "Come," she said, "we must make much haste if you are to go to-night, and indeed you shall leave behind that shirt you are wearing, to find it clean and fresh and mended when you come back. I will not have you going ragged and untidy, and oh, Mitsos, but your hair is a mop. Who has had the cutting of it? Sit you down and make no more words, and be trimmed."

Suleima got a pair of scissors, and clapping Mitsos in a chair, put the light close, and trimmed and combed out his tangled hair, with little words of reproof to him.

"Eh, but she will think you a wild man of the woods, fit only to frighten the birds from the crops. Sure, Mitsos, you will have been rubbing your head in the sand, and it was only yesterday you were scrubbing and soaping all afternoon. Well, what must be, must. Shut your eyes now and sit still," and clip went her scissors along the hair above the forehead.

"It is like cutting the pony's mane," she went on. "Such horse-hair I never saw yet. Well, the stuffing is half out of the sofa-cushion, and this will all do fine to fill it again. Now, stop laughing, lad, or an oke of hair will fall down that throat of yours, and so you will laugh never more. There, you are a little less of a scare-man. Get up and shake, and then change that shirt and trousers."

In an hour Mitsos was ready, and with a big rug on his shoulder in which his clothes were wrapped, he and Suleima set off to the little harbor below the house. The boy was going with him in order to take the boat back again, but Mitsos had sent him on ahead, and he and Suleima walked slowly down to the edge of the bay beneath a sky thick sown with stars.

"Mitsos," she said, "it will be with a heavy heart and yet a very light one that I shall say good-bye; heavy because we love one another, and yet for that reason very light. And, however far you are from me, yet you are here always in my heart, and the child is daily more like you. And, indeed, how should I love one who sat at home and went not out on these great quests? Where should I have been now, think you, oh foolish one, if you had not gone catching fish and then Turks? so do not contradict me. And oh, Mitsos, I am going to say a very foolish thing for the last. You are so dear to me that I can scarcely speak of you to others, for so I seem to share you with them; and it would please me if I thought that you too would be very sparing of my name, for so I shall feel that, as on those beautiful nights together on the bay, we enjoyed each other in secret, and none knew. And now we are come to the boat—look!—and the boy has made ready. It is very bravely that I say good-bye to you, for with my whole heart I would have you to go. Oh, most beloved!"

For a minute, or perhaps two, they stood there silent, and though the smile on Suleima's mouth was a little tremulous and her eyes were over-brimmed, it was for very love that the tears stood there. And Mitsos kissed her on the eyes and on the mouth, and yet again; and though his voice was betwixt a whisper and a choke, his heart was light even as hers, and full of love.

The news of his coming was brought to the Capsina as they sat in the cabin by Michael's furious barking at the boat, which he heard drawn up alongside.

The Capsina got up when she heard that, and again her face so glowed that Kanaris wondered.

"That will be the little Mitsos," she said, "for a thousand pounds. He will want supper it may be," and she went on to the main deck to let a ladder down to him, for most of the crew were on shore still.

"Ahoy! ahoy!" shouted Mitsos from his boat. "Oh, Michael, be still! Am I a robber?" and he shouted again.

"Yes, I am coming," cried the Capsina, in answer. "It is you, is it not, Mitsos? Wait a moment, and I will let down a ladder to you."

Mitsos climbed up with his bundle on his shoulder, and bade the lad put back for home again. "So I am here," he said to the Capsina.

"And you are welcome—doubly welcome," said the Capsina, with a sparkling eye. "Oh, Mitsos, take care of your head. Are you not a size too large for my boat? I never thought of that. Come down to the cabin and have your supper; Kanaris and I have eaten, but we will sit with you."

She blew on her whistle, and gave Mitsos's bundle in charge to be taken to his cabin, and led the way.

"You know Kanaris? No?" she asked. "Ah, I remember you saying you did not. He is of the best of my friends. This way, little Mitsos. Here we are."

Though Kanaris had been disposed to think with jealousy of his successor, it was not in the nature of man to resist Mitsos. For he had all the ardor of a boy, as befitted his years, and with that an experience beyond them; and the modesty that comes from having done great deeds mixed with none of the conceit of the imagination that sees oneself acting greatly, should the chance come, and neither man nor woman could look in his face, as frank and cheerful as the eyes of a dog, and feel no impulse of friendliness. And Kanaris was not a man who from habitual reserve would distrust a friendly impulse when it came, and so it was that in half an hour they were all chatting together, like children, of ships and fish and winds and waves and the hundred healthy things that made the environment of the life of all of them. As the evening wore on they heard the crew coming merrily back from Nauplia, but they sat talking late, like friends who have met again.

Their three cabins were close together, and the Capsina, after showing Mitsos his, went to her own and sat there in the dark, too happy to think or sleep. She heard Michael's nails tapping along the wooden floor outside, and then with a soft thump he curled himself up outside her door, according to his custom. From Mitsos's cabin she heard the rattle of shoes, and soon after the partition wall between them creaked as he curled himself up in his berth against it. Then there was silence, and still she sat in the darkness of her cabin, looking out from the port-hole towards the quay of Nauplia, black beneath the stars, and seeing the lights from the town cast in long unwavering reflection over the calm water, and filled with a rapturous uncontent.

She was on deck next day, while yet night was mixed with morning, fresh as a flower, though having slept but little, and before six she gave the order to hoist sail, for a fair wind was blowing, and they could clear the harbor without need of boat or tow-rope. Day was coming infinitely clear and sweet; overhead there still burned a big star or two, which got paler and paler every moment till they seemed white and unluminous, like candles in the sunshine, and by degrees the pale primrose strip of sky in the east flushed with color before the upvaulting of the sun. The flush spread to the zenith, and was answered by the surface of the bay, and before they cleared the point of Palanede the sunrise was on them. She turned just as the first rays struck the ship, and saw Mitsos just coming on to the deck a few yards away; and the sun shining on her face, and Mitsos gladdening her eye, gave a radiance to her beauty that drew his eyes to her in a long gaze.

And in pain and rapture together she looked at him, and her heart exulted in its noble and self-rendered slavery.

For a moment neither spoke; then, and with an effort:

"So you have slept well, little Mitsos? And you do not repent our sudden bargain? There is time yet to put you ashore."

"I have slept all night and I repent nothing."

The Capsina did not answer at once, but looked out to sea, and wetting her finger, held it up into the wind and glanced at the compass.

"The wind is due north," she said, "and only light. The channel of Spetzas, through which we pass, is east-southeast. The distance you should know. Give the order, little Mitsos."

Mitsos smiled and scratched his head.

"Eh, but I do not know the ship," he said.

"Look at it, then."

Mitsos looked at the lines of the vessel, then at the canvas she was carrying.

"First hoist jib and halyards," he said. "We can carry more sail than this."

"And then?"

"Oh, Capsina," he cried, "but you want to find me ignorant! However, I should say, go right across to within a mile of Astra, squaring the sails ever so little, and then make the channel in one run. And now, God defend me from having said a very foolish thing."

"I think your prayer is heard," said the Capsina. "Therefore, it is time to have breakfast," and she called Mitsos's orders.

"Come down," she said; "the ship is running free and fine, and it will be an hour yet before we put on the second tack. Ah, here is Michael. He knows you, does he not? That always seems to me a thing of good omen, for indeed I trust Michael more than I trust myself. He welcomed Kanaris so, and I never had a better friend. Is Kanaris not up yet? He knows he is only a passenger now, and will have his lie in bed. Well, we will breakfast all the same."

When they had breakfasted, Sophia took Mitsos a tour of the ship. She was a brig of three hundred and fifty tons, very long for her beam, and deep-keeled. On her upper deck she carried six nine-inch guns—two forward under the forecastle, two amidships, and two astern. Both forward and stern guns were mounted on a carriage, which revolved nearly half a circle and looked from a very wide port, so that the stern guns could be trained on a point due astern, or be used for a broadside, or could fire forty-five degrees ahead, and the bow guns in the same way could fire straight ahead, or in any direction up to forty-five degrees behind them. The main-deck was armed in a similar manner with six guns, placed not directly below the upper-deck guns, but some ten yards horizontally from them, so that the smoke from the lower should not rise directly and interfere with the sighting of the upper. Mitsos, to the Capsina's great delight, saw and commended this arrangement, which was new to him. On the main-deck the forward and stern guns—four-inch, not six-inch—could not fire right astern or right ahead, but they had a wide broadside range. Below the deck the battery consisted of twelve guns, six on each side; the four guns in the centre of each side being of the same weight as those on the upper deck, but those in the bows and stern being four-inch guns. Thus in all she carried twenty-four guns—sixteen six-inch and eight four-inch—and it was a sight that made Mitsos lick his lips with blood-thirstiness.

"You would say she was a fortress," he said.

The two chattered like children over a new toy all their own, and Kanaris, who soon joined them, seemed to each to be like an elder who had outgrown enthusiasm; yet even to him the toy seemed flawless. The Turkish men-of-war and cruisers alike were contemptibly inferior in point of speed, and the men-of-war, which were armed with much heavier guns, carried all their strength in the broadside, while the Capsina's ship had two guns which could shoot straight ahead or astern, and six which could fire on either diagonal.

Meantime the ship was nearing Astra, and the wisdom or foolishness of Mitsos's tactics would soon be patent. But while they were still three miles off he turned to the Capsina.

"I have made a mistake," he said. "If we go about at once we shall still make the channel. For indeed she could go as an arrow goes."

The Capsina smiled with a thrill of pleasure in her ship.

"I won a pound over you yesterday," she said; "and if Kanaris will bet again, I will stand to win another. Give your orders, little Mitsos."

Kanaris looked incredulous.

"Kranidi is a very fine place," he said; "but I take it we want to sail between Spetzas and the land."

"Will you bet?" asked the Capsina.

Kanaris paused a moment, and heard Mitsos giving the order in a voice extraordinarily confident.

"I think I will not bet," he said.

After that there was the sailing-gear of the ship to be gone through. To Mitsos, used as he was to the big schooner sail, these square canvases seemed a thought unwieldable, but the foresails, the jib, and halyards had taken his fancy at once.

"It is a rein to a horse," he said; "it must go as you will."

"And it is according to your will that it shall go," said Sophia.

The hours of the golden day went by; they had made eight knots in the first hour, and nine in the second; and about ten in the morning, Kranidi, a grain of sparkling salt in the gray stretch of hill, appeared small and very distant. And at that Mitsos frowned.

"Again I was wrong," he said; "we might have put about a mile sooner. But, indeed, how was I to know?"

They were through the channel of Spetzas before noon; but presently, after the wind dropped altogether, and for a couple of hours, they lay becalmed on a windless sea, but swept slowly northward by the current running up the coast. The Capsina chafed at the delay, for though she would have waited two days or three at Nauplia, as she had said, for Mitsos, the loss of a few hours now seemed wholly disproportionate, for she was very eager to get off again on the fresh cruise. Kanaris remembered the morning he had spent with Nikolas on the Gulf of Corinth, and said to the Capsina:

"I was with Nikolas Vidalis in just such a position as this, and he said what seemed to me a very wise thing, Capsina: 'I am never in a hurry,' says he, 'when I am going as fast as I can.'"

"Ah, he was a man," said the Capsina; "but when did you ever know a woman who thought that? Why, it is only when we are going as fast as we can that we are in a hurry; if we are not going our quickest, we are not in a hurry."

Mitsos was lying on the deck, with his cap pushed over his eyes, and his back against the mast.

"That is not what Uncle Nikolas meant," he remarked.

The Capsina laughed.

"Wisest little Mitsos, explain to me, then."

"He meant—he meant—Oh, surely you see what he meant," said Mitsos, feeling too sleepy to express himself.

"Well, anyhow, his nephew is not in a hurry," said Sophia, looking at his lazy length.

"His nephew is completely comfortable," said Mitsos. "It is very good to be on this ship, and my bones are sweet to me."

Sophia felt a trifle irritated with him. It had been extraordinarily pleasant to her to see him make himself so readily at home the evening before, but just now she felt a little ill-used at his entire contentment with the brig and her and himself. She would have preferred a little feeling of some sort to any amount of pure content. But a moment afterwards he looked up quickly.

"There is a breeze coming," and he got up. "Yes, there it comes," he said, pointing southward. "We shall have to square sails till we get round again. Shall I give the order, Capsina?"

"Please." Then when he joined her again: "How did you know the breeze was coming, little Mitsos?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I smelt it. Really, now you ask me, I find I can't tell you."

"That is curious," said the Capsina. "I had heard there were men who could do that, but I put it down to folks' tales. Michael, I think, knows sometimes, and now I look at you I notice your nostrils grow big and small like a dog's."

"They are as God made them," said Mitsos, piously.

The Capsina laughed. "Oh, inimitable boy!" she cried. "Come, let us look round the ship again. Yes, it is good to be at sea, is it not? Here comes the breeze indeed. There! Did you see her shake herself as if she woke up suddenly, this beautiful shining ship, all ours! See how quickly she gathers way! We shall be at Hydra by five if this holds. Of course you will live with me there till we start, but I expect we shall be on the ship more than off. You might well have smelt the breeze, Mitsos, for surely it smells very good, and there is more to come, or I am the more mistaken."

It was still an hour before the sunset when they cast anchor in the harbor of Hydra, for the wind had got up and promised a stormy night. The clan welcomed the Capsina's new importation with fervor when they heard who it was; and certain of the primates wondered whether she would demand another seat in the assembly. But in truth the Capsina had other things to think of; for the Hydriot fleet was not going to cruise again till the spring, while she was going to make all speed to be off, with Kanaris on the Sophia, and she and Mitsos on the Revenge, for so had the new ship been named. And in these things there was much food for many thoughts.

[CHAPTER V]

The Revenge and the Sophia were ready for sea by early in February. Even the clan, who were accustomed to the habitual fever of the Capsina's energy, found themselves wondering whether she was a woman or a whirlwind. No job was too big for her, no detail too small, and she would be superintending the storage of the powder in the Sophia one moment, and the next would be half-way across to the anchorage of the Revenge, to see whether they had planed away the edge of her cabin door, which would not shut properly, and had sent from the wicker-makers the cages for the fowls. There seemed, indeed, to be only one person on the island, for the population were just tools in the hands of the Capsina—machines for lifting weights or stowing shot. She reduced her foreman to a mere wreck, for the unfortunate man had to stay up three consecutive nights doing the Capsina's business, and was roundly abused when she found him asleep after dinner the fourth day. Kanaris fared little better, and Mitsos alone seemed capable of dealing with the girl. She would find him sitting at a café after dinner smoking a pipe and playing draughts; and when she asked him whether he had done this or seen to that, he would say:

"I have worked ten hours to-day, Capsina, and I have not smoked ten minutes."

"Smoke, smoke!" cried the Capsina; "smoking and drinking is all that men are fit for!"

And Mitsos, with a face conspicuously grave, raised his voice and called for a pipe and a glass of wine for the Capsina, and an awed silence fell for the moment on those round, for this seemed little short of blasphemy; but the Capsina only glanced at Mitsos's demure face, burst out laughing herself, and was off again.

Kanaris and Mitsos lodged in her house, but until the last evening, when all was ready, and there was positively nothing left for her to do, she was never there except occasionally for supper and for sleep. Even on the last evening of all, as soon as supper was over, she started up.

"We are ready," she said; "why not sail to-night? What is the use of wasting time here?"

Mitsos, who had not finished, slowly laid down the mouthful he was raising to his lips.

"Oh, Capsina!" he said; "be it known to you that for my part I will not go till to-morrow. Yes, this is mutiny, is it not? Very well, put me in irons; but for the sake of all the saints in heaven, let me finish my supper!"

The Capsina looked at him a moment.

"Little Mitsos," she said, "you are a gross feeder."

And with that she sat down again, and filled both their glasses and her own.

"To the little Mitsos's good digestion!" she cried, and clinked her glass with his.

Mitsos smiled, but drank to his own digestion.

"And there is yet another toast," he said. "It is to the tranquil Capsina. Hurrah!"

They were going south round the capes, then north again, up the west coast of Greece, to cruise in the Corinthian Gulf, for there, as they knew, were Turkish vessels, which sailed from village to village along the coast, massacring and burning and destroying the Greek maritime population. The events of the last summer and autumn had made it clear even to that indolently minded enemy that if once Greece got command of the sea the war would be over, for on land the cause of the Revolution daily gained fresh recruits, and, if once the ports and harbors were in the hands of the insurgents, it would no longer be possible to send in fresh men and arms, except by the long and dangerous march through the disaffected mountains of north Greece. There, as the Turks had found to their cost, it was impossible to bring on a pitched engagement, for true to the policy of Petrobey, the villagers pursued a most harassing, baffling policy of guerilla warfare. The invaders could burn a village, already empty before their approach, but next day as they marched, suddenly the bare and rocky hill-sides would blaze, large bowlders would stream down the ravines and upset the commissariat mules, and during the livelong night dropping shots would be kept up, and a sentry, firing back at the uncertain aim of the momentary flash of a musket, would be bowled over from the other direction. But as long as the sea remained in the hands of the Turks they had little to fear; regiment after regiment could be poured into the country, and the end would be sure. With this object, several Turkish vessels were cruising among the clustering villages on the gulf, burning ships and depopulating the men of the sea. But it was an ill day for them when the news of their doings came to Hydra. It had been arranged that some fifteen brigs should follow the Capsina in the spring, and part would close the mouth of the gulf while the others joined her. Tombazes had in vain urged her to wait, for no Turkish fleet would be sent out from Constantinople till spring; the Greeks would have the start of them leaving Hydra, and no sane man would think of cruising in the winter. But all remonstrance was useless, for the Capsina only said:

"Then I suppose Kanaris, Mitsos, and I are mad. That is a sore affliction, father. Besides, you would not have us stop; Turkish ships, you know, are in the gulf."

For more than a week after they started they were the butt of violent and contrary winds, but the Capsina was impatient of delay no longer. Indeed, on the surface she was "the tranquil Capsina" to whom Mitsos had drunk, and he at any rate had no cause to know of the unrest that stormed below her tranquillity. They had set out from Hydra about eleven of the morning, and almost immediately after leaving the harbor they had taken a somewhat different course to the Sophia. She made a wider tack to port, while the Revenge sailed closer to the wind, and after they had turned the southern end of the island, and there was open sea, with the main-land lying like a cloud to the west, Sophia and Mitsos left the bridge. Just as they went down she looked round: Kanaris was far away to the offing, Hydra was sinking down to the north, there was only sea and Mitsos. And with an uncontrollable impulse she held out her hands to him.

"At last!" she cried, and before the pause was perceptible—"at last we are off!"

She loved these fierce winds and heavy seas which kept them back; it was a fierce and intimate joy to her to wake at night and know that Mitsos was there, to wake in the morning for another day of that comradeship, which was in itself already the main fibre of her life. The huge gray seas from the south hissed and surged by them, with dazzling, hungry heads of lashed foam, now and again falling solid on the bows with a shower of spray, and streaming off through the scuppers back into the sea. The wind shrilled and screamed through the rigging; the buffeted ship staggered and stood straight again, then plunged head-foremost with a liquid cluck and crunch into the next water-valley; the bowsprit dipped in the sea, then raised itself scornfully with a whiff of spray twenty feet above the crest of the wave; and every wave that beat them, every squall that whistled aloft, every flash of raking sunlight that fled frightened across the deck was for the two of them; they stood side by side, wrapped in tarpaulins, and watched the beautiful labor of the ship; they sat in the swaying, rolling cabin, and it was like a game to pluck at the food as it bowed and coquetted away from their hands; like a game, too, the scramble and rush across the deck, laid precipitously towards the seas rushing by, or the house-roof climb up it as it rose staggering to the next billow, or the watching Michael as he toiled or slipped after them, sometimes sliding gravely down on his haunches, sometimes doing tread-mill work up the wet incline; but for one of them at least the game was one at which the stake was serious. They would amuse themselves with the most childish sports, watching themselves to see who could stand the longest on one foot when the ship was pushing and shouldering its way along through the cross sea, the one finding pleasure in such things because he was just a boy with a double portion of animal spirits, the other because anything that was shared with him was passionately well worth doing. Often and often Mitsos wondered that this was the same girl who had nigh driven the Hydriots to death, doing more than any of them, yet indefatigable; and she that this was the Mitsos who had brought hot death to that Turkish ship in the harbor at Nauplia.

For three days the southwest wind blew half a gale, and the sky was one driven rack of scudding rain-clouds. Sometimes a squall would sweep across the sea, the torrent hissing audibly into the water, and more loudly than the scream of the wind as it approached. The windward sea would become a seething caldron; the broken wave-tops were scarce distinguishable from the churning of the rain—all was furious foam. Then the squall would charge slanting across the deck, pass, and perhaps for half an hour the wind would seem to moderate, but again the humming of the rigging would change to a moan, and the moan to a shriek; and so another night they would sail, scarce making any way, but, tacking wide out to sea, return again, having won but a dozen miles in half a dozen hours. All the time the Sophia kept a wider and more seaward course, now and then getting close to them at the end of her starboard tack, and then standing out again.

But on the fourth morning they woke to a sky washed clean by the rain, and of an incredibly soft blue. The gray, angry waves became a merry company of live beings which sparred in jovial play with the ship. The wind was still fresh, but it had veered round to the north, and mid-day saw the two ships close together, rattling along close-hauled in the channel between Cerigo and Cape Malea. To the south the island lay green and gray and fringed with white, and, to the north, promontory after promontory, each grayer and bluer than the last, melted into the bay of Gythium. It was a morning on which those in whose veins the joy of life is flowing are conscious from toe to finger-tip, from finger-tip to the end of the hair, of the indubitable goodness of life, and the smallest thing was a jest to them, and the largest a jest also. Michael, in particular, caused many mouthfuls of laughter; for his dinner was thrown out of its bowl by a sudden lurch of the ship, and he ran after the various bones as they rolled away, growling and ill-pleased, till he too was laid on his back, and picked himself up with the air of not being hungry and having fallen down on purpose. And the perception of the shallowness of this seeming, combined with a half-swallowed piece of orange, reduced Mitsos to a choking condition, and the Capsina thumped him on the back.

"Thank you, yes, I am altogether recovered," says he; "but, oh, Capsina, you have a very strong arm."

"Little Mitsos, it was for your good," said the Capsina, a thought sententiously, setting her white teeth in the peel of her orange.

"I suppose so; things that are good for one, I have noticed, make one a little sore."

"What do you know about things that are good for you?" asked she.

"That only; that they make one sore. For indeed I do not think that things that are good for one are good for one. You understand?" he added, hopefully.

"Perfectly," said the Capsina, and they laughed again, causelessly.

The evening brought calmer weather, and to them somewhat calmer spirits, and that night after supper they talked quite soberly.

"Oh, but it is a strange world," said the Capsina; "to think that a week ago I had never set eyes on you, and now—well, there is no one in the world I know better. I have taken you as I found you, and you me; we have asked no questions of father or mother, and here we are. Oh, it is a strange world!" she said again.

Now there was perhaps no subject in the world to which Mitsos had dedicated less thought than the strangeness of the world. So he waited in silence.

"Is it not so?" went on Sophia. "What could have been less likely than the chance that put your boat in to Nauplia that night, and on the one tack. For, indeed, if you had taken two tacks, and so I had lost my pound to Kanaris, I should not have stopped there."

"Then should I at this hour have been catching the little fish in the bay," said Mitsos, "and that is only worth the doing when there is nothing forward. Yet I like the bay," he added, thinking of Suleima, "for I have had many good hours there. See, there is Taygetus, all snow! You would say she was a bride," he added, with an altogether unusual employment of metaphor.

He got up and leaned over the bulwarks looking out to the north, where the top of Taygetus appeared above a bank of low-lying cloud, itself bright in the evening sunshine. The sea had gone down considerably in the last hour, and they moved with a steady swing over the waves, no longer torn and broken. In the lessening wind they had been able to put on all sail, and the ship, with its towers of fresh snowy canvas, seemed like some great white seabird, now skimming, now dipping in the waves. From where she sat, Sophia could see the sky reddening to sunset under the arched foot of the main-sail, and when the bows rose to a wave Taygetus would appear as in a frame between the ship and the sail. Mitsos was leaning on the side, in front of the main-mast, bareheaded and blown by the wind, his face turned seaward, so that she saw only the strong clear line of brow and cheek. And the sight of him, listless, contented, and unconscious of her, filled the girl with a sudden spasm of anger and envy. The last week, which had so welded itself into the essentials of her life, seemed no more to him than the sound of the wind which had buffeted them, or the hiss of some spent wave which had struck them yesterday; she had been mad, so she thought, to have so let herself go, abandoning herself like that to the childish pleasure of the hour. It seemed the one moment incredible that he had not guessed that this child's-play was something far different to her, at the next impossible that it should have seemed to the boy to be anything else. They had played, laughed, chattered together, and to him the play had been play, the laughter and the chattering mirth only. Yet she counted the cost and regretted nothing, and waited with an eager patience for the fierce deeds in which their hands would be joined, and therein surely draw closer to each other. The affection and delighted comradeship of the boy was hers; hers too, so she promised herself, should be the keener, inevitable need for her when they did a man's work together.

That evening they passed round Cape Malea, keeping close in to the land, and Mitsos, as they turned northward, watched with all the pleasure of recognition the near passing of the coast where he and Yanni had made their journey with the messages for the mills. Sophia listened eagerly to the story, making Mitsos tell over again of the fight in the mill, and she sat silent awhile after he had finished.

"That explains you," she said at length; "for these last days you have been just a child, but I suspect that when there is work forward you are made a man; and there will soon be work forward for you and me, little Mitsos," she added to herself.

Two days after this they were nearing Patras and the entrance to the Corinthian Gulf, and being no longer in the open and empty seas, it was necessary to use some circumspection in their advance. They lay to some eight miles outside Patras, and Kanaris came on board to consult. The fortress of Patras was in the hands of the Turks; but they would give this a very wide berth, so Kanaris suggested, and pass Lepanto, another Turkish fortress in the narrows of the gulf, at night. It was there the greater risk awaited them. Lepanto was a heavily armed place, the gulf was less than three miles broad, shoal water lay broad on the side away from the fortress, and the channel close below its walls. Further, it was ludicrously improbable that either the Sophia or the Revenge would be allowed a passing unchallenged, for indeed the resemblance of either to peaceful trading brigs was of the smallest. But Sophia, with the support of Mitsos, demurred: it were better to seek a weed in a growing cornfield than to go into the gulf without some guidance as to the position the Turkish cruisers were in, but beyond doubt Germanos or some other of the revolutionists at Patras could give them information.

"For, indeed," said the Capsina, with asperity, "I have not come a pleasure sail in a little rowboat with a concertina to sing to."

"But do you mean to put in to Patras," asked Kanaris, "and say to the Turks who hold the fort, 'Tell me where is Germanos, for I wish to know where the Turkish cruisers are'? Will they not guess your business when they see the ship?"

"No, I shall not do that," said the Capsina, "nor shall I put out a great notice in Greek and Turkish that all may read, saying I am the Capsina and carry four-and-twenty guns. Oh, speak," she said, turning to Mitsos, "and do not sit as round-eyed as an owl at noonday!"

Mitsos grinned.

"Never mind the compliments," he said, "and give me time, Capsina, for it is my way to think slow."

"If they know that you are at Patras," continued Kanaris, "word will go to the Lepanto, and we shall see nought of the gulf but the bottom of it."

"And so will the little Mitsos be among his little fish again," said the Capsina.

"The devil take the little fishes!" said Mitsos. "Why will you not let me be, to think slow, and tell you some very wise thing in the end? I shall go think by myself." And he went forward.

"How can you be so imprudent, Capsina?" said Kanaris. "Yes, I am at your orders completely: I need not remind you of that, and where you go I go. But you have ever told me to say my mind."

"You are quite right," said the Capsina, "but we will wait to hear what this slow thinker says."

In ten minutes or so Mitsos returned, still owl-like, but, so said the Capsina, with a blush of intelligence on his face.

"I am thinking I shall have to be a peasant lad again, with a mule and a basket of oranges. For I take it that both you and Kanaris are in the right, Capsina."

"The oranges will help us very much," remarked the Capsina, but the owl still sat in Mitsos's eyes.

"For thus," he continued, "even as in the days of the mill fight, I will go into Patras and find Germanos and speak with him."

"But how are you to get to Patras?" asked Kanaris.

"I have in my mind that there is a place called Limnaki, three miles this side Patras, and the foulest spot God ever made, being one pestilent marsh. Now my thought is that our brig could sail close in there, while the other waited about on the alert. That shall be this afternoon, and before it is dark I can be with Germanos. Then he will tell me where these Turks are in the gulf, and before morning I shall be at Limnaki again. So far I am with the Capsina, but then let us do as Kanaris says, and pass the guns of Lepanto at night."

"Hoot, hoot! so the owl speaks!" said Sophia; "and I think the owl is right. You know Germanos, do you not, little Mitsos?"

"Surely. I was at Tripoli."

It was so arranged, and Kanaris returned to his ship, while the Revenge put about, and in an hour's time had got close in to the shore opposite Limnaki. It was a starved little village, feverish and unhealthy, and the chance of Turks being there was too small to reckon with. Mitsos got into peasant's dress, and as time was short, omitted the oranges and the mule, and after being landed quietly, set off an hour before sunset over the hill towards Patras. Barefooted, and with a colored handkerchief for a cap, he passed without remark through the gate of the town, and mingled with the loiterers in the market-place.

The citadel of Patras was still in the hands of the Turks, and the Turkish garrison there, and the Greek revolutionists who held the monastery hill both lived in a state of semi-siege, while meantime the rest of the Greeks and Turks in the town continued to pursue the usual trade, finishing up six days out of the seven with a little mutual massacring in the streets; and Mitsos's object was to get to the Greek camp without involving himself in any street row. The monastery was but a quarter of an hour's walk from the square, and he reached the outposts of the Greek lines in safety, and demanded to be taken at once to Germanos. He gave his name, and stated that he was on the business of the Capsina.

Germanos received him immediately with kindness and courtesy, though the little Mitsos, remembering the affairs at Tripoli, was as stiff as the soul of a ramrod. But, to Germanos's credit be it said, his manner suffered no abatement of geniality, and when he had heard Mitsos out, he spoke:

"There are nine Turkish vessels in the gulf," he said. "Three are coming along the north coast, and left Lepanto only two days ago. They attacked a village called Sergule yesterday, and, I should think, would move on again to-day or to-morrow. Three more were at Corinth two days ago, and, I have just heard, were going northward; the other three are somewhere along the south coast, but I do not know where. But how are you going to get in, little Mitsos?"

"We are going to sail in," said Mitsos, curtly.

Germanos looked at him a moment in silence. Then, "That is not very courteously said, little Mitsos," he answered. "Yes, I know you think that has passed which passes forgiveness. Yet Nikolas forgave me, did he not, and do you not know that I was sorry and ashamed, and did I not say so publicly? That was not very easy to do. But I do not wish to interfere; if you desire to know more that I can tell you, you are welcome to my knowledge, and, if you will, my counsel; if not, I can only regret that I can be of no more service to you, and wish you God-speed—that with all my heart."

Mitsos stood a moment with eyes downcast. Then with a wonderful sweet frankness of manner he spoke:

"You are right, father," he said, "and I am no better than a sulky child. I ask your forgiveness."

"You have it very freely, nephew of Nikolas, for indeed Nikolas forgave even me," said the proud man.

Mitsos's face dimpled with a smile, both genial and sorry.

"So, that is good," he said. "Well, father, here we are, still outside the gulf, and we want, if we can, to pass in to-night, so that they in Lepanto shall not see us."

Germanos thought a moment.

"I can help you," he said, "and it is pleasure to my soul to do so. You do not see all your difficulties. You can depend on getting past Lepanto with the land-breeze in the evening, which blows off the hills out of Lepanto, and a little up the gulf. Now the land-breeze drops by an hour after sunset, and so by then, therefore, must you be past Lepanto. That is to say, you must pass Patras in broad day. You will be seen from the citadel, a man on horse will reach the straits before you are there, and word will go across to the fortress. It is now after sunset, and it is hopeless to attempt it to-night. But to-morrow I can help you, and this promise I give you, that to-morrow afternoon we make a sortie, and hold the two city gates on the east, so that no man passes out. Thus word cannot be sent to Lepanto. For, believe me, if you are seen, as you must be seen passing here, the straits will be guarded, and you will never get in. But, little Mitsos, what a scheme! Is it the Capsina's? For how will you pass out again; for when once they know you are there, the straits will be guarded. They have ships at Lepanto."

"In a month the fleet leaves Hydra," said Mitsos; "till then we have plenty of work in the gulf. But that is a wise thought and a kind one of yours, father."

Germanos got up and walked about; he was much moved.

"If this is the spirit of the people," he said, "it will be no long time before not a Turk is left in Greece."

"The people are not all as the Capsina, father," said Mitsos.

"It is splendid! splendid!" cried Germanos. "Whenever did a man hear of so noble a risk? To shut herself up in a trap for six weeks, fighting like a wild beast at bay. And, indeed, there is cause; five villages already have been exterminated—they are no more. We on land cannot touch the ships. None know where they will come next, and it is out of possibility to garrison all the villages of the gulf. God be praised for giving us such a girl!"

"Indeed there is none like her," said Mitsos. "But it is borne in upon me that she is waiting off Limnaki, and she does not like waiting."

"I will have you seen safely out of the town," said Germanos, "for, indeed, we cannot spare you either, little one. How is the wife and the baby?"

"The one is as dear as the other," said Mitsos, "and they are both very dear."

Mitsos was escorted out of the town and set on his way by a dozen men, to defend him from the street brawls, and before midnight he was down again on the shore at Limnaki, where he found the boat waiting to take him off. The Capsina had come ashore, and was pacing up and down like a hungry animal. Mitsos told her how he had sped; she entirely approved the primate's scheme, the ship was got under way, and they went north again, with a fitful and varying breeze, to join Kanaris.

All next morning they lay some eight miles out to sea, waiting until the time came for them to move up the gulf. A west wind was blowing, and now one and now the other beat a little out to sea, in order to keep their distance from the land. On the Capsina's ship an atmosphere of nerves was about, for all the men knew what they were to attempt, and the waiting was cold matter for the heart. Mitsos alone possessed himself in content and serenity, and smoked a vast deal of tobacco. Michael had caught the prevailing epidemic, and followed the Capsina about on her swift and aimless excursions fore and aft with trouble in his eye.

At length the Capsina came and sat down by Mitsos, who had chosen a snug berth under the lee of the forecastle, where he was sheltered from the wind and warmed by the winter sun.

"Have you ever bathed on a cold day?" she asked.

"On many," said Mitsos. "But why?"

"Is there not a moment before one jumps in?" asked the girl, and she set off again to look to the ammunition for the thirtieth time that morning. Mitsos smoked on and soon she returned, having forgotten that for which she had gone.

"It is all this arranging that is a trouble to me," she said. "Had you not gone to see Germanos and take precautions, I should have been as calm—as calm as you, for, indeed, I know nothing calmer. The devil take that silly scheme of yours, Mitsos. But to know that he is taking measures for our safety, and we have to wait till his measures are taken—oh, it beats me!" she cried. "And there are other things."

Mitsos's eye roamed over the sky for inspiration and noticed the sun.

"It is time for dinner," he said; "in fact, it is already late, and my stomach howls to me."

A singing west wind had been blowing all day, and promised to usurp the air of the land-breeze; but, not to run risk, about four o'clock the Capsina signalled to Kanaris, and they both hoisted sail and went eastward. The wind was still holding; they made good sailing, and half an hour before sunset they were off Patras. They were not more than a mile out to sea, and it was possible in that clear air to make out that something unusual was going on. The fort seemed deserted, but they could see lines of men, moving slow and busy like ants, lining the western wall. Now and then a spit of smoke would come from the citadel, followed after an interval by the drowsy sound of the report, and once or twice a long line of white vapor curled along the city wall, and the rattle of musket-fire confirmed it. It was clear that Germanos was as good as his word.

The sun had already set half an hour when they neared Lepanto, but a reflected brightness still lingered on the water, and as they approached they had the lights of the town to guide them, and the Capsina put on all sail. The strength of the wind had risen almost to violence, and Mitsos, standing with the Capsina on the poop, more than once feared for the masts, or to hear the crack of the mainsail. Once he suggested taking a reef in, but the Capsina paid no attention. All afternoon the girl had been strange and silent, as if struggling with some secret anxiety, and Mitsos, seeing she gave no account of it, refrained from asking. Kanaris's orders were simply to follow, but when they had passed the fort, and still the Capsina neither spoke nor moved from her place, Mitsos again addressed her, but with some timidity, for her face was iron and flint.

"We are safe past," he said. "Where do—"

But she interrupted him vehemently.

"Get you below," she said; "this night I sail the ship."

Mitsos wondered but obeyed, and sat up awhile in the cabin; but the ship still holding her course, as he could tell from the rapid swishing of the water, about nine he went to bed. Later the sound of the anchor-chain woke him for a moment, and he waited awake, though laden with sleep, for a minute or two, in case he was wanted. Then there came the unmistakable splash of a boat lowered into the water and the sound of oars. At that he got up, threw on a coat, and went on deck.

It was starlight and very cold; several sailors were standing about, and he asked one of them, who took the duty of first mate, where they were. Dimitri pointed to a faint glow along the shore.

"That is—that was Elatina," he said.

"And what was Elatina?"

"A village the Turks have burned. The Capsina is being rowed there," he said, "and as she got into the boat I saw she was crying."

"Crying? The Capsina?"

"Yes; it was the village her mother comes from," said Dimitri, who was a Hydriot.

Mitsos hesitated a moment, but reasoning that as the Capsina had said nothing of this to him it was a thing outside his own affairs, he went back to bed again.

He woke again in the aqueous, uncertain light of dawn, and in the dimness made his way on deck. The water was a mirror, the sky hard and clear as some precious stone. The Capsina was not returned to the ship; she had been gone ashore all night, and none on board knew anything of her. The boat she had disembarked in had been back once during the night to take more men: they supposed she was trying to save some whom the Turks had left for dead.

Kanaris's ship was lying close, and after taking some coffee, Mitsos rowed across to consult with him. He advised going ashore, and though Mitsos hesitated at first, for if the Capsina had wanted him she would have sent for him, they went together.

The long line of houses along the harbor was still smouldering—though for the most part they had been skeletons of dwelling-places, built only of wood—a heap of charred and blackened beams. Sometimes a breath of moving air came down from the mountain behind, and fanned the burned heaps into a sullen glare of glowing charcoal, or blowing off a layer of white ash, showed that the fire still lived beneath. A row of mimosa-trees fronted the houses, their leaves all singed and wilted with the heat, and as the two landed on the quay the dawn breeze awoke and blew straight down to them across the burned town, hot and stifling, and, what gave to Mitsos a sudden pang of intimate horror, with the smell of burning wood was mingled a smell as of roasting meat. Here and there from a heap of charred ruins protruded a blackened leg or arm, or the figure of a man or woman lay free from the fallen timbers, but with hair consumed to its roots, and holes burned in the clothes, a crying horror and offence to the purity and sweetness of morning. Once, on their way up that street of death, Mitsos turned to Kanaris with ashen lips. "I think I cannot go on," he whispered, but after a moment or two he mastered himself and followed the other. The ghastly hideousness of the sight, now that his blood danced with no fever of war nor was his heart shadowed by an anxiety fiercer than this indiscriminate death, touched some nerve which the shambles at Tripoli had left unthrilled. Here and there from the waters of the harbor the masts of some sunken vessel pricked the surface, and the slope of the beach was strewn with the wreckage, not of ships alone. And by degrees Mitsos's cold horror grew hot with the fiery lust for vengeance; and steeling himself to look and feed on the sight, before long he looked and needed no steeling. The color returned to his lips and inflamed his face, his eye was lit from within with the thought of what should swiftly follow. For beyond a doubt this was the work of the three ships that had sailed from Lepanto only a few days before, and, indeed, they must have been gone not yet a full day.

Curious and pitiful was it to see the dogs still guarding a pile of burned beams which their instinct told them was home; they had returned, no doubt, when the fierceness of the fire was over, and now lay in front of the consumed houses, growling at Kanaris and Mitsos as they passed, or, if they came close, springing up with bared teeth ready to attack. At one house a great gaunt dog rose as they approached and stood with hackles up, snarling; the poor brute stood on three legs, for the fourth was broken and hung down limply. And, seeing that, a sudden poignancy of compassion at this faithfulness in suffering stung Mitsos to the quick, and, drawing his pistol, he put the beast out of his pain.

As yet there had been seen no sign of the Capsina or her party, but the noise of the shot reached them, and next moment two of the sailors came at a run round a corner some small distance up the street. They waited on seeing who the new-comers were, and Kanaris and Mitsos came up with them.

"Where is she?" asked Mitsos.

"At the house of her mother, clearing what is fallen to see if there are any left alive."

Mitsos and Kanaris followed, and, passing through two short streets of ghastly wreckage, found themselves at the house. It was larger than most, and built of stone, so that while the walls still stood the inside was one piled mass of burned beams and fittings of the floors and staircase. As they came near four sailors emerged out of the door with the charred burden of what had been a man. This, covered with a cloth where the face had been, they laid with others like it a little distance off.

The Capsina had kept with her some half-dozen of the men, with whom she was clearing the beams and débris, having sent the remainder off to other houses. She was hacking furiously at a beam too heavy to drag away except in pieces when Mitsos entered. Her dress, hands, and face were all blackened with the work; one hand was bleeding, and round the wrist was wrapped a bandage of linen. Seeing Mitsos, she stopped for a moment and wiped the sweat from her forehead. No tears or sign that she had been weeping was in her eye, only a savage and relentless fury.

"So you have come," and she looked up. "Ah, it is day already," and she quenched an oil-lamp that was burning by her. "I was going to send for you and more men when day broke, for it was no good coming at night. I only stayed because I could not go away. Send for more men from our ship, little Mitsos, and you, Kanaris, from yours, for we must make speed, leaving only a few there and a few on the shore, who will send word if the Turks are seen. And let those on board be in readiness to sail at a moment. Ah!" she went on, with a sudden lifting of her hands indescribably piteous, "we should have come straight through Lepanto and chanced everything. Then, perhaps, we might have saved the place. This," and she clasped her hands together and then threw them apart—"this was the house from which my father took his bride. Ah, ah!"—and she took up her axe and fell to hewing at the beam again, like a thing possessed.

It was no time to waste words, and as soon as the fresh contingents came, some with axes, others with ship's cutlasses and capstan-bars, or anything that would help clear the wreckage, Mitsos and Kanaris went off and began searching the houses for those who might still be alive. They found that the massacre had taken place and been done with thoroughness before the burning began, and the devil's work had been carried out coolly and systematically. At the end of the street leading up out of the village towards the mountain there had evidently been some sort of combined stand made by the villagers, for there the corpses lay thick; and higher up on the path lay others who had run for their lives, only to be shot down by those infernal marksmen as they climbed the steep hill-side. But an hour's search was rewarded by Mitsos finding one man who still breathed, but who died not half an hour after; and farther on, in the front room of a house, he discovered a woman lying dead, while on her breast lay a baby, alive and seemingly unhurt, who pulled at its mother's dress crying for food.

Then he turned and searched the houses opposite on the other side of the street, but found nothing that lived, and so came back to the church, which stood with doors open, and being built of stone throughout, the Turks had not attempted to fire.

To make the search thorough, though not expecting to find any one there, he entered, and then stopped with a quick-drawn gasp.

No pillage had been done there, the place was orderly and quiet; a row of little silver lamps untouched and lighted hung across the church above the low altar-screen; a big brass candlestick stood on the left, filled with the great festa tapers, still burning. Only from the great wooden crucifix which stood above the altar the carved Christ had been removed, and in its place, fastened hand and foot by nails and bound there by a rope, was the figure of a young man, naked.

Mitsos paused only for a moment, crossed himself, and without speech beckoned to the others. The door of the altar-screen was locked, but putting his weight to it, he burst it open. Then, with three others, he mounted onto the altar, and lifting the cross from its place, laid it on the floor. The figure on it lay quite still, but there was no other mark of violence on it than the rents in the hands and feet made by the nails, and even as Mitsos wrapped a piece torn from his shirt round one of them to get a firmer hold, the lad stirred his head and opened his eyes.

"Fetch Kanaris," said Mitsos, to one of the men; "he has skill in these things."

One by one the nails were loosened and the limbs freed, and Mitsos carried the lad down the church out into the fresh air, where he propped him up against the door. The blood had clotted thickly round the wounds, and though the withdrawal of the nails had caused it to break out afresh, Mitsos managed to stay the flow by bandaging the arms and legs tightly where they joined the body, as Nikolas had taught him to do. The lad had fainted again, but one of the sailors, a rough Hydriot fellow down whose cheeks the tears were running, though he knew it not, had spirits with him, and poured a draught down the young man's throat, and in a little while he moved one arm feebly. Another had found his clothes laid by the altar, and Mitsos tenderly, like a woman, wrapped these round him as well as he could without jarring him, and then, lifting him gently off the stones where they had set him down, laid him across his knees, supporting his head on his shoulder.

Before long Kanaris came, washed and bound up the wounds, and, as the life began to run more freely and the hopes of saving him increased, arranged a litter with leaves and branches strewn on an unhinged door, and had him carried down to the ship.

When he was gone Mitsos went back into the church, and putting the carved image back onto the cross, set it again in its place above the altar. Then for that he had committed sacrilege in standing there, he knelt down before he left the church.

"Oh, most pitiful!" he said, "if I have sinned Thou wilt forgive."

When he got outside again the rest of the men had gone back to the work, but he paused on the church steps a moment, blind with pity and hate and the lust for vengeance, and with a heart swelling with a horror unspeakable. The wounds of that living image of the crucified should not cry to deaf ears. The very sacrilege that had been done seemed to consecrate his passion for revenge, to lift his human hate and pity into a motive of crusade for the wrong done to Christ. Blasphemously and in hideous mockery those incarnate devils had turned their inhuman cruelty into a two-edged thing, cutting at God and man alike. And with the Capsina feeding hate in the ruins of her mother's home, and Mitsos feeding hate at the house of God, it was likely that their ship had not been named amiss.

The work was over an hour or two before the sunset. The Capsina had found in her mother's house nothing but the dead, but, elsewhere, two women who were still alive, but died before the noon; Kanaris had found none, so that from what had been a flourishing village two days ago there were left only the young man with whom they had preferred to commit outrageous blasphemy, leaving the body to a lingering death rather than to kill, and the baby untouched by some unwitting oversight. Only a few bodies of Turks had been found—the thing had been massacre, not fight. As the Capsina and Mitsos were going down to the ship again in silence, he saw her turn aside to where a dead Turk was lying under a tree. She stamped on the face of the dead thing without a word, and followed by Mitsos, stepped into the boat that was waiting for them.

No sooner had all got on board than the Capsina gave the order to start. But before they had gone half a dozen miles the breeze failed, and, for the night was close upon them, they lay to waiting for the day, fearing that if a breeze sprang up in the night they might, by taking advantage of it, overshoot those for whom they were looking. The lad the Turks had crucified was on Kanaris's ship, where he would receive better doctoring than either Mitsos or the Capsina had the skill to give him, but the baby was on the Revenge.

They had not tasted food since morning, the Capsina not since the night before, and they ate ravenously and in silence. Once only during their meal did the Capsina speak.

"When I have hung those who did this thing," she said, "I may be able to weep for my own dead."

But when they had eaten, and were still sitting speechless opposite each other, a little wailing cry came from the cabin next them, and the Capsina rose and left the room. Presently after she brought the baby in, rocking it in her arms, and before long the child ceased crying and slept, and Mitsos, looking up, saw the girl weeping silently, with great sobs that seemed to tear her. And at that he got up and went on deck, thinking that it would be the better to leave her alone with the baby.

He awoke before dawn next morning to a haunting sense of horror and excitement, to which by degrees awakening memory gave form, and only throwing on his coat, went up. A thick white mist hung over the bay higher than where he stood on the deck, but it seemed to be not very thick, and strangely luminous. So he climbed up the rigging of the mainmast as far as the cross-trees and looked out. The sky was cloudless—a house of stars—in the west the moon was pale and large. They were not more than a mile from a rocky headland, which peered out darkly into the white mist farther down; perhaps a mile away another pointed a black finger into the water, and between the two the line of coast was lost, and Mitsos rightly supposed that they were opposite some bay. Then suddenly, with a catch of his heart, his eye fell on a couple of masts which rose pricking the mist scarcely half a mile distant, and looking more closely he saw the masts of two other ships, one to the right, the other to the left, a little farther off. And with fierce excitement he climbed down and went to the Capsina's cabin. In a moment, so quickly that she could not have been asleep or undressed, she came out to him with a finger on her lip.

"Hush!" she whispered, "the baby is asleep. What is it, Mitsos?"

"Three ships are lying not far from us," he said. "I make no doubt they are the Turks. You can see their masts from the cross-trees; on deck there is white mist."

"Where are they?"

"Between us and land, which is a mile off, on the entrance of a bay."

"Is there wind?"

"Not a breath; but when day wakes the wind will wake with it, and the mist will lift. The sun will be up, I should think, in an hour. There is the smell of morning already in the air."

The Capsina paused a moment, thinking intently, and went out on deck.

"Praise be to the God of vengeance!" she said. "Oh, Mitsos, pray that our revenge may be complete. See, this is what we will do. As soon as the wind comes we sail round them into the bay, Kanaris attacks them on this side. Send across to Kanaris at once. Saints in heaven, but how are we to find him in the mist? Go aloft again, lad; see if you can spy his masts: he cannot be far, for when we lay to last night he was close by us, and look out to see if there is a sign of wind coming."

Mitsos returned speedily. "He is not a quarter of a mile from us to seaward," he said, "and it is already lighter, and I see where we are: the farther cape is just this side Galaxidi. And oh, Capsina, there is a great black cloud coming up from the west; the wind may be here before the sun."

In a few minutes the Revenge was all alive, though silent and soft-footed, making ready, as a cat makes ready for its spring. A boat had put off for Kanaris's ship with Mitsos in it, who was to explain what their tactics were to be. All that they could be certain of was to take the Revenge in between the land and the Turks, for they would get the breeze first, while Kanaris waited outside to stop them if they would not engage but tried to escape across the gulf. If they stood their ground he was to close in on them.

Mitsos was back again in less than twenty minutes, but already the jib, halyards, and upper and lower yards had been set, in case the wind came down on them, as so often happened in that narrow sea, in a squall; the men were all at their posts, the cutlasses and muskets were laid out in depots on the deck, if it came to a hand-to-hand fight, and the Capsina was on the bridge. Dimitri, who was a kind of first mate, being directly under Mitsos and the Capsina, was standing with her, and even as Mitsos joined them there came through the still thick mist the shiver of a sigh, and the jib flapped once and again. Then from down the gulf, without further warning, the squall was upon them; in a moment the mist was rent and torn to a thousand eddying fragments, the Revenge heeled slowly over to the wind and began to make way. For a short minute sea and land were as clear as in a picture; they saw Turkish ships lying half a mile off, to the northeast, at the mouth of the bay, and next moment the rain fell like a sheet. But that glimpse had been enough; there was room and to spare to pass between the nearer headland and the ships, and the Capsina pointed without speaking, and Dimitri roared his order to the men at the tiller. The Revenge trembled and struggled like a thing alive; once the tiller broke from the two men who held it, and she sheered off straight into the wind again; but next moment they had it fastened down and they tacked off northeast, and for a minute the rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the ship threshed on through the ruffled water, gathering speed.

The men were ready at the guns, but the order had been not to fire till they were broadside. Already they could see a stir and bustle on the nearest Turk, and sailors were putting up the jib, as if to run out to sea. Then it seemed they sighted the Revenge bearing down on them, and they hesitated a moment, and presently after Mitsos saw two or three ports being opened. But they were too late; by this time the Revenge was broadside, and all three batteries poured a deluge of shot into her, slipped past her like a swan, and fired again as she crossed their bows, leaving the three Turks, as the Capsina had intended, between her and Kanaris.

Once in the bay, the face of the squall reached them not so violently, for they were under shelter of the promontory close to which they had passed; but the Capsina ran on some half-mile before putting about. Of the Turkish ships they could see that the middle one, lying too close to the one on the leeward of it, had, in trying to put out to sea, fouled the other, and Kanaris observing this, hauled up his halyards, beat up a little way against the wind, and then, turning, fired a broadside into them. Meantime, the ship first attacked, whose foremast had been shot in two by the Capsina's broadside, had cut away the wreck and was making for the open sea, and seeing this the Revenge was put about, and making a wide tack to eastward, passed near the two which had fouled each other, and got in two rounds, with only the reply of one. Kanaris, whose business it was to stop any of them getting away, instantly put about to head the escaping ship, but the other slipped by him, and the two beat out to sea together.

The Capsina saw this.

"He will overhaul her in two miles," she said to Mitsos; "and now to our work again," and her face was grimmer than death and hell.

The other two ships were now free; but they saw at once that the one which had received the fire both of the Revenge and Kanaris was already doomed, and from minute to minute as they overhauled them she was visibly settling down with a cant to leeward. There was no doubt that she had been struck by one or the other below the water-line, and, indeed, as they neared her they could see the pumps vomiting water down her sides. She still carried sail, for they seemed to hope to get near the land before she foundered, but her sails dragged her farther over, until from the deck of the Revenge, now some three hundred yards distant, they could see both lines of bulwarks, with a strip of deck in between. Then they saw them begin to lower the boats, and at that the Capsina gave the word to fire, and Mitsos, thinking on the deeds of the day before, felt his heart laugh within him. At that range the heavy guns of the brig were the sentence of destruction, and their whole broadside went home, sweeping the decks and tearing fresh holes in her side. Already the list was so great that she could no longer reply, and as they neared her the Capsina again gave the command to fire.

Then was seen a disgraceful thing; for the second ship, still untouched, put about, leaving her companion a wreck at the mercy of the Revenge. But indeed there was little to be saved, and the Capsina, seeing the tactics of the other and not wishing to waste shot now the work was done, put down her helm and, passing by the bows of the disabled ship, went in pursuit. The other carried two stern guns, and she opened fire, but both balls hummed by harmlessly—the one missing altogether, the other just carrying off a few splinters from the starboard bulwarks; and in answer the Revenge sheered off a moment into the wind, which was still shifting to the north, and replied with the three starboard guns of the upper deck. One shot went wide, but of the two others the bow gun made a raking gash in the stern of the chase, and that amidships, which fired a little after, took the rudder, smashing the rudder-post below the juncture with the tiller, leaving her simply in the hand of the wind. In a moment she swung round from her course and pointed straight across the bows of the Revenge.

On the instant the Capsina saw her chance, for in a second or two she would cross close.

"Let go the helm!" she shrieked; "get ready to fire starboard guns."

The tiller banged against the side, and the Revenge swung round into the wind, while every moment the two ships got closer to each other, and at a distance of not more than a hundred yards they were broadside to broadside. Then:

"Fire!" she cried.

For a moment they neither saw nor heard anything through the wreaths of their own smoke. Then, as the wind dispersed it, they saw the great ship a wreck on the water. She heeled over till the yard-arms dipped and the sails trailed in the water. The deck, they could see, was covered with men holding on, as if to prolong the bitterness of death, to whatever they could catch. Some climbed up the mast, others clung to the bulwarks, some jumped overboard. But the Capsina scanned it all with hungry eyes, and, as if unwilling to leave the feast, gave an order to shorten sail, and in the slackening speed ran to the stern of the Revenge to look her last on the drowning men.

Then she turned to Mitsos.

"We may leave them, I think," she said; "they are more than a mile from land."

Kanaris and his charge were out of sight, and the Revenge put about to the ship she had left before. She was sinking fast, but they saw that the crew had manned some half-dozen boats, which were rowing to land, and the Capsina called Dimitri.

"Sink all," she said.

The hindermost boat was not more than two hundred yards ahead, but the Capsina delayed her fire. Then, as they got within fifty yards of it, she walked slowly and calmly to the side of the ship, and spoke in Turkish.

"We are more merciful than those who crucify," she cried. And then, "Fire!"

The other boats seeing what had happened, and resolving, if possible, to sell their lives more dearly, got ready their muskets. But the Capsina saw this, and while they were out of musket range:

"The bow guns for the rest," she said. "It is good target practice."

Five out of the six boats had been sunk, and they were already preparing to fire on the sixth when a sudden pity came over Mitsos.

"Look," he said, "there are women in that boat!"

The Capsina shaded her eyes for a moment against the glare of the water.

"Turkish women only," she said.

"But women!" cried Mitsos, with who knows what memories of one who had lived in a Turkish house.

"There were women in Elatina," said the Capsina. "Fire!" Then turning to Mitsos: "Are you a woman, too?" she said—and suddenly her voice failed as she looked at him. "Mitsos, little Mitsos!"

And he looked at her, biting his lip to check the trembling of his mouth.

"Even so," he said, and turned away.

The first squall had blown over, and an hour of checkered sunshine succeeded; but in the west again the clouds were coming up in wind-tormented ribbons, and they had only just cleared the bay when a second hurricane was on them. For some three-quarters of an hour the wind had been slowly shifting into the north, and the wreckage of the ship they had sunk at the mouth of the bay had drifted a little out to sea, and they cut between drift-wood and masts and here and there a man still afloat. Where Kanaris and the third ship were they had no certain idea, but it was impossible for the clumsy Turkish ships to tack against a violent wind without having the masts crack above their heads, and this one, as they knew, was without its foremast, and must have sailed nearly down wind. The second squall was even more violent than the first, and the Revenge scudded out to sea with only jib and halyards flying. As they got farther from the funnel of land down which the wind came, the force of it decreased a little, and they hoisted the upper yards on the mainmast. But for an hour or more they raced across a choppy and following sea, obscured by driving squalls of rain, before they sighted either. All this time the Capsina had hardly spoken, and Mitsos, standing by her, was as silent. But as they came in sight of the two ships, both running before the wind, she stamped on the bridge.

"Hoist this foresail!" she cried.

Mitsos looked up: the ship, he knew, was carrying as much sail as she could.

"You will lose your mast," he said.

The Capsina turned on him furiously.

"Let us lose it, then!" she cried.

"And you will go none the faster," he said. "More sail will only stop the ship."

"That is what they say," she remarked. "They say it pulls a ship over, and makes the bows dip. What do you advise, little Mitsos?"

"By no means hoist the foresail. Even if the ship can carry it you will go the slower," he said. "Is it an order?"

"Yes."

Then suddenly she turned to him.

"Do not judge me," she said, "for indeed I am not myself. When this is over, if God wills, I shall be myself again. Oh, lad!" she cried, "have you water or milk in your veins? Do you forget what we saw yesterday?"

Mitsos looked at her a moment, and caught something of the burning hate in her eye.

"I do not forget," he said. "But the women—oh, think of it!"

"I too am a woman," said Sophia.

Then, after a pause: "Ah, but look; is not the ship worthy of its name? See how she gains on them! Oh, Mitsos, go below if you will, and take no part in this. But I must do what I must do. Surely God is with us. Do you forget what you saw in the church? You do not. Neither do I forget the house of my mother."

Again the rain came on, a cold scourge of water, and in the lashing fury of the downpour both ships were again lost for a while.

Then there followed a raking gleam of sunshine, which struck the gray of the sea, turning it to one superb blue, and already they could see the figures of men on the ships. Kanaris was on the port side, trying evidently to head the Turk, and if she came on to give her a broadside, or if she declined to drive her back. The sea was rising every minute, and the three ships rolled scuppers under, and it was evidently out of the question for him, in such a sea and at the distance they were apart, to fire at her.

The Turk had made a good start against Kanaris, and though the Sophia was overhauling her, it was clear that she was no tub, and as they were both running before the wind, it was more a question of which ship could carry most sail than of seacraft; and for another mile or more they ran on, the two pursuing ships gradually gaining on the enemy, but not very rapidly. It was evident that she was making for some port on the southern side of the gulf, perhaps where she expected the second trio of Turkish ships, and it was this the Capsina wished to prevent. But the Turk saw that both were gaining on her, and knowing that the opposite coast must be at least nine miles off, hoisted the mainsail. The Capsina started in amazement as she saw the great canvas go up; the mast bent like a whip for a moment, but stood the strain, and she scudded off.

"It is desperate," she said to Mitsos; "she cannot stand it. In ten minutes she will be ours."

The Capsina was right; only a temporary lull could have let them get the sail up, and before many minutes the squall came down on them again; the mainmast bent, and then, with a crash they could hear from their ship, broke, and a great heap of canvas encumbered the deck.

"Two points to starboard!" said the Capsina. "Get ready to fire port guns!"

More rapidly than ever the distance diminished; the Revenge creeping up on the starboard side, the Sophia holding her course to port, until at length the doomed ship was nearly between them, and on the moment the Capsina gave the word to fire, and the broadside crashed into the Turk. A moment after Kanaris fired, and the Turk replied with a broadside to each. The Capsina did not wait to reply again, but sailed past her, and then put the helm hard to port, risking masts and sails, so that the ship swung round with her broadside to the Turk's bows some five hundred yards off. Kanaris, who kept his distance, fired again, and section by section, slowly and with deliberate aim, the Capsina volleyed at her bows. Steady shooting was impossible on such a sea, but some of the shot they saw went home, one hitting the bowsprit, and several others crashing through the bulwarks and raking the ship lengthways. No fire answered them, but her broadside replied twice or thrice to Kanaris, doing some damage.

The Turk was now practically a log on the water, and the Capsina, knowing there was time and to spare, made a wide tack off into the northeast, and returning on the opposite tack again closed up with the Turk from behind, putting a broadside into her stern.

At that there was only silence from the Turk, and the Capsina closed in again on the starboard quarter, signalling Kanaris to do the same on the port side, and as they approached they saw that the decks were strewn with dead. A company of men were marshalled forward with muskets, who separated into two companies, and manned the bulwarks on each side, waiting for the ships to come to a closer range.

But the Capsina laughed scornfully.

"I would not waste the life of a man on my ship over those dogs," she said. "Train the bow guns on them and do not sink the ship. Kill the men only."

The wind was abating and the sea falling, and in a quarter of an hour of the eighty or a hundred men who had been left they could only see sixteen or twenty. But these continued firing their muskets coolly and without hurry at the approaching ships, and a couple of men on the Revenge were wounded and one killed.

"I should not have thought Turks were so brave," said the Capsina. "Be ready with the grappling-irons! Port the helm! And be quick when we get in. Fifty men with muskets man the port side. Keep up the fire! Keep under shelter of the bulwarks all of you!"

The Revenge slid up to the Turk's starboard quarter, and as they got within a hundred yards the Capsina gave orders to furl all sail; as the distance lessened, the irons were thrown, the ropes were pulled home, and the two ships brought up side by side.

A dozen Turks or so were still gathered in the bows, but as the crew of the Revenge swarmed the deck, they laid down their muskets and stood with arms folded. One of them, in an officer's uniform, was sitting in a chair smoking.

He got up with an air of indolent fatigue, still holding the mouth-piece of his pipe.

"I surrender," he said, in Greek. "Where is your captain?"

The men made way for the Capsina, and she walked up the deck between their lines.

"I am the captain," she said.

The man raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed!" and he laughed softly to himself. "You are too handsome for the trade," he said. "You are better looking than any of my harem, and there are several Greeks among them. Well, I surrender."

"For that word," said the Capsina, "you hang. Otherwise perhaps I should have done you the honor to shoot you."

The man blanched a little, and his teeth showed in a sort of snarl.

"You do not understand," he said. "I surrender."

"You do not understand," she replied. "I hang you. For my mother was of Elatina."

She came a step nearer him.

"If it were not that I hold the cross a sacred thing," she said, "I would crucify you, very tenderly, that you might live long. Oh, man," and she burst out with a great gust of fury, "it is you and what you did in Elatina that has made a demon of me! I curse you for it. There, take him, two of you, and hang him from the mizzen yards. Do not speak to me," she cried to the captain, "or I will smite you on the mouth! It is a woman you are dealing with, not a thing from the harem."

In a moment two men had bound his legs and pinioned his arms, and, with the help of two more, they carried him like a sack up the rigging and set him on the yard. Then they made fast one end of the rope to the mast and noosed the other round his neck, while the Capsina stood on the deck, unflinching, an image of vengeance. And at a sign from her they pushed him off into the empty air.

Mitsos gave one short gasp, for though he would have killed a man, laughing and singing as he drove the knife home, in fight, his blood revolted at the coldness of this, and he turned to the Capsina.

"You say you are a woman!" he cried. "Is that a woman's deed?" and he pointed to the dangling burden.

"He insulted me," said the Capsina, "and I repay insults. As for the rest, shoot them," and she turned on her heel, with her back to Mitsos, and he could not see that her lip was trembling.

But it was not at the hanging or the shooting that she trembled. She had sworn she would avenge the death of those in Elatina—for to her these were not prisoners of war, but murderers of women—and that she did without flinching. But Mitsos's words recalled her to herself, and thinking inwardly of the child's-play on the ship with him, she wondered if it were possible that this stone which seemed to be her heart could ever be moved again to tears or laughter, or that Mitsos could smile again or jest with so cold and cruel a girl. And at that thought she turned to him piteously.

"Oh, Mitsos, it is not me, indeed it is not!" she cried, passionately. "Take me as I am now out of your remembrance, for pity's sake, and think of me only as I was before. I will be the same again; I will be the same. Ah, you don't understand!"

[CHAPTER VI]

The prize was divided equally between the two ships, as it had been agreed that all taken on this cruise, by whichever ship captured, should be shared in common, after one-half had been appropriated to the fund for the war, out of which the wages of the crew were paid. Evidently the spoils from Elatina had been carried on this ship, for they found many embroidered Greek dresses, several vestments, presumably from the desecrated church, and a considerable sum of money, packed in hampers. The Revenge had hardly suffered at all in the encounter, but a hole had been stove high in the bows of the Sophia, some five yards of bulwark had been knocked into match-wood, and the round-house was a sieve. They had also lost eight men killed, and from both ships some thirty wounded. Under these circumstances it was best to put in at Galaxidi for repairs, and, as the crew would not now be sufficient for the handling of the ship in case of a further engagement, for the raising of a few recruits. Kanaris himself had a graze on the wrist from a musket-shot as they were getting to close quarters, but the hours had been sweet to him, and his cold gray eyes were as of some wild beast hungry for more.

The Capsina examined the gear and sailing of the prize with scornful wonder. "A good hole for rats to die in," was all her comment. But there were half a dozen serviceable guns and a quantity of ammunition, the latter of which they divided between the two brigs. She would have liked to remove the guns also, for, apart from their use, she felt it would be a pleasant and bitter thing to make them turn traitors to their former owners, but there was no tackling apparatus fit for such weights, and they had to be left. But as she had no notion of letting them again fall into the hands of the Turks, she set fire to the ship before leaving it, and saw it drift away southeastward, a sign of fire, with its crew of death, its captain still dangling from the foremast and swinging out from right to left beyond the bulwarks as the ship rolled. There was a gun loose in the deck battery, and they could hear it crashing and charging from side to side as the unruddered vessel dipped and staggered to the waves, with flames ever mounting higher. Then another squall of impenetrable rain swept across the sea, and they saw her no more.

The Capsina had intended to escort Kanaris as far as Galaxidi, on the chance of other Turkish ships being about, but when they came near and saw that the coast was clear, she turned off into the bay where they had fought that morning to see if there was anything left of either of the other two ships worth picking up. But she found that both had sunk, one in deep water, the other in not more than fifteen fathoms, and through the singular clear water they could see her lying on her side, black and dead, while the quick fishes played and poised above and round her. The sight had a curious fascination for the girl, and, after putting about, she lay to for an hour under shelter of the land, while she rowed out again to the spot and leaned over the side of the boat, feeding ravenously on the sight, angry if a flaw of wind disturbed the clearness of it. But to Mitsos, though his heart could be savage, the poor ship seemed a pitiful thing, and he wondered at the fierceness of the girl.

They reached Galaxidi before the evening and the land-breeze fell, and the Capsina, who had cousins there, went ashore with the baby, intending to leave it there, for, indeed, on the brig they had but little time or fit temper for a child that should have been still lying at its mother's breast. She heard from her friends of a young mother who would perhaps take charge of it, for her own child, a baby of three days old, had suddenly died, and the Capsina herself took it there, nursing it with a singular tenderness, and jealous of all hands that touched it.

"See," she said to the mother, "I have brought you this to care for. I am told that your own baby has died. It seems like a gift of God to you, does it not? Yet it is no gift," she added, suddenly; "the child is to be mine. But I will pay you well."

The young woman, no more, indeed, than a girl, came forward from where she had been sitting, and looked at the baby for a moment with dull, lustreless eyes.

Then suddenly the mother's love, widowed of its young, leaped into her face.

"Ah, give it to me," she cried, quickly. "Give it me," and a moment afterwards the baby was at her breast.

The Capsina stared for a little space in wonder and amazement, then her face softened and she sat down by the girl.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Catherine Vlastos," and her voice caught in her throat; "but Constantine Vlastos, my husband, is dead, and the little one is dead."

Again the Capsina waited without words.

"Tell me," she said, at length, "what is it you feel? How is it that you want the child? It is nothing to you."

"Nothing?" and the girl laughed from pure happiness. "It is nothing less than life."

"You will take it for me?"

"Take it for you!" Then, as the baby stirred and laid a fat little objectless hand on her breast: "You are the Capsina," she said, "and a great lady. They tell me you have taken three Turkish ships. Oh, that is a fine thing, but I would not change places with you."

Sophia rose from her seat, and walked up and down the room.

"You loved your husband?" she said, at length. "Was that why you loved your baby, and why you love this baby?"

"I don't know. How should I know?"

Sophia stopped in her walk.

"And I love the baby, too," she said, "and I know not how or why. Perhaps only because it was so little and helpless, for, indeed, I do not like children. I don't want to leave it here. Yet I must, I suppose. Will you promise to keep it very safe for me? Call it Sophia, that is my name; and, indeed, it has a wise little face. I must go. Perhaps I shall call here again in a few weeks. Let me kiss it. So—I leave money with you, and will arrange for you to be supplied with more."

She turned to the door, but before she was well out of the house she came back again and looked at the baby once more.

"Yes, it is very curious," she said, "that I should care for it at all. Well, good-bye."

Mitsos, meantime, had gone across to Kanaris's ship, where they were busy with repairs. The squalls had blown themselves out, and sky and sea were a sheet of stars and stars reflected. The work was to go on all night, and he had to pick his way carefully between planks and hurrying workmen, doing the jobs by the light of resin flares. The resin flares brought the fishing into his mind—the fishing those dear nights on the bay, and the moonlight wooing and winning of Suleima. How strange that Suleima should be of the same sex as this fine, magnificent Capsina—Suleima with all her bravery and heroism at the fall of Tripoli, woman to her backbone, and the Capsina, admirable and lovable as she was, no more capable of being loved by him than would have been a tigress. Yet she had sobbed over the little crying child—that was more difficult still to understand. And Mitsos, being unlearned in the unprofitable art of analysis, frowned over the problem, and thought not at all that she was of a complicated nature, and then felt that this was the key to the whole situation, but said to himself that she was very hard to understand.

He found Kanaris dressing the wounds of the lad who had been crucified. Healing and wholesome blood ran in his veins, for though they had been dressed roughly, only with oil and bandages, they showed no sign of fester or poisoning. The lad was still weak and suffering, but when he saw Mitsos coming in at the cabin door his face flushed and he sat up in bed with a livelier movement than he had yet shown, and looked up at him with the eyes of a dog.

"I would rise if I could," he said, "and kiss your hands or your feet, for indeed I owe you what I can never repay."

Mitsos smiled.

"Then we will not talk of that," he said, and sat himself down by the bed. "How goes it? Why, you look alive again now. In a few days, if you will, you will be going Turk-shooting with the rest of us. Ah, but the devils, the devils!" he cried, as he saw the cruel wounds in the hands; "but before God, lad, we have done something already to revenge you and Him they blasphemed, and we will do more. How do they call you?"

The boy was sitting with teeth tight clinched to prevent his crying out at the painful dressing of the wounds, but at this he looked up suddenly, seeming to forget the hurt.

"Christos is my name," he said. "That is why they crucified me. Oh, Mitsos, do you know what they said? They looked at me—you know how Turks can look when they play with flesh and blood—when I told them my name, and one said, 'Then we will see if you can die patiently as that God of yours did.'"

The lad laughed suddenly, and his eyes blazed.

"And though I wince," he said, "and could cry like a woman at this little pain, yet, before God, I could have laughed then when they nailed me to the cross, and set me up above the altar. I cannot tell you what strange joy was in my heart. Was it not curious? Those infidel men crucified me because my name was Christos. Surely they could have had no better reason."

Kanaris had finished the dressing of the wounds, and the boy thanked him, and went on:

"So I did not struggle nor cry at all; indeed, I did not want to. Then soon after, it was not long I think, hanging as I did, the blood seemed to sing and grow heavy in my ears, and my head dropped; once or twice I raised it, to take breath, but before long I grew unconscious, supposing at the end that I was dying, and glorying in it, for I knew that the Greeks would come again and find me there, and the thought that I should be found thus, with head drooped like the wooden Christ, was sweet to me. And they came—you came—" and the lad broke off, smiling at the two.

Mitsos's throat seemed to him small and burning, and he choked in trying to speak. So for answer he rose and kissed the boy on the forehead, and was silent till again he had possession of his voice.

"Christos," he said, and involuntarily, with a curious confusion of thought, he crossed himself—"Christos, it is even as you say. For it seems to me that somehow that was a great honor, that which they did to you, though to them only a blasphemous cruelty."

Mitsos paused a moment, and all the dimly understood superstitious beliefs of his upbringing and his people surged into his mind. The half-pagan teaching which suspected spirits in the wind, and saw gods and fairies in the forest, strangely blended with a child-like faith which had never conceived it possible to doubt the truths of his creed, combined to turn this boy into something more than human, to endow him with the attributes of a type. He knelt down by the bed, strangely moved.

"It is I," he said, "who should kiss your hands, for have you not suffered, died almost on the cross, where wicked men nailed you for being called by His name?"

Mitsos was trembling with some mysterious excitement; and his words were so unlike anything that Kanaris had suspected could come from him, that the latter was startled. His own emotions had been far more deeply stirred than he either liked or would have confessed, and to see Mitsos possessed by the same hysterical affection frightened him. He laid his hand on his shoulder.

"Get up, little Mitsos," he said; "you don't know what you are saying. See, the Capsina has gone on shore; you will have supper with us. We will have it all together here, as I have finished the doctoring. You feel you can eat to-night?" he said, turning to the boy.

Christos smiled.

"Surely, but you and Mitsos must feed me," and he looked with comic contempt at his bandaged hands.

"That is good," said Kanaris, and, clapping his hands, he told the cabin-boy to bring in supper for the three.

Mitsos's serene sense soon came back to him, and he wondered half-shamedly at himself, and thought of his previous excursion into the kingdom of hysterics, which he had made after the fight at the mill. Certainly Christos was human enough at supper, and they put victuals into his mouth, and in the vain attempt to ply him with wine simultaneously, brought him to the verge of choking.

Mitsos found the Capsina waiting up for him on the Revenge when he got back. She was sitting idle, a thing unusual, and she looked as if she had been crying. But she smiled at him, though rather tremulously, as he entered, and pointed to a seat, and all Mitsos's amazed horror at the hanging was struck from his mind.

"Oh, Capsina," he said, "you do not know how sorry I feel for you. Surely you were no more than just to those on the Turkish ships, and indeed this is no time for gentleness. You have been thinking of those that—that were in Elatina?"

The Capsina nodded.

"Of them, and, oddly enough, of the baby, which I have left here. How is the lad they crucified? You have seen him?"

"Yes." Then in a whisper, "Is it not strange?" he said; "his name is Christos."

"Oh, Mitsos! Was that why they did thus to him?"

"Yes. They said they would see if he could die as patiently."

The Capsina flushed, and her eyes were fire.

"Then may Christ never forgive me if I do not revenge this thing by blood and blood and blood! Here and by this I vow," and she laid her hand on the little shrine at the end of the cabin, "that if ever I stay my hand or spare one of those accursed enemies of Him, that that day shall be the last day of my life, for indeed I shall not be worthy to live and breathe pure air of His making. So I swear. And may all the saints of heaven, and may the blessed Christ, and the thrice-holy mother of Christ, help me to keep my vow!"

She knelt a moment before the shrine, crossing herself, and then turned to Mitsos.

"We will take the lad with us, if he will come," she said, "for I think that the blessing of God cannot fail to rest on the ship that carries him. I will go and see him in the morning. And now, little Mitsos, let us go to bed, for it has not been a very quiet day for us; and for me, I could sleep like a child tired with play. Good-night, lad. I thank God every day for that meeting of ours."

She held his hand in hers for a moment, with a gentle pressure, looking at him with great shining eyes and smiling mouth.

"Good-night," he said; "and oh, Capsina, I bless God for that meeting, too, and as far as there is strength in me I will help you to keep your vow. It is even so; they are the enemies of the Christ, and He has graciously made to us for Him. Yet—yet, do not hang a man again. For somehow it seems to me poor manners to add insults to death, and to insult is what Turks do."

Sophia looked at him, silent, then laughed, passing her hand wearily over her eyes.

"And as you are of the Mainats, and I of the clan of Capsas, you think we should have fine manners. Oh, little Mitsos, you are a boy of the very oddest thoughts. Well, be it as you say. I was angry when I did that, and indeed we have no time for anger, for the sword does not feel angry when it strikes. It only strikes, and strikes true. So."

[CHAPTER VII]

From the moment of entering the Gulf of Corinth one precaution was of primary necessity to the success of the Capsina's expedition, and that was that no word of the coming of her ships should go about between the various Turkish ships in the gulf. Their good fortune had determined that the nine ships which they knew were there were separated into groups of three, and she felt confident that her two could tackle three. But supposing word went about, and the remaining six mobilized, the position would be serious enough to steady even those two brigs full of tigers.

It was practically certain that the Turkish garrison of Lepanto had before this received news from Patras of their entrance into the gulf, and if so only the most dire stress of circumstance would drive the Capsina to attempt to pass again, except at night, for the channel was altogether commanded by the heavy guns of the fortress, and she preferred the windy waters of the gulf, with room to turn and manoeuvre, to that tight-rope of a way. Hitherto all had gone well, for of the three ships they had encountered neither man, woman, or child would do aught else than toss with the ooze and tangle of the gulf, and tell their tale to the fishes; and a further point in their favor was that only a very few villages on the shore had Turkish garrisons, so that any combined movement to drive them into a corner would be difficult of execution. Their safety chiefly lay in expeditious action, and their danger in the escape of any Turkish ships which might manage, after being attacked by them, to join the others.

Now the Capsina's recklessness was of the more judicious kind, or, rather, it may be said that she was prudent, except when the occasion demanded a free disregard of possible consequences; it was clearly a poor economy to save a little time and go to sea with ships not thoroughly up to the mark, and she waited with a rebellious patience until the Sophia was altogether fit for action again. The folk of Galaxidi regarded her more in the light of some splendid incarnation of the spirit of insurrection than a woman, and to them, as to Mitsos, Christos was almost a sacred thing. Men and women came in shoals on to the Revenge, where the Capsina had caused him to be moved when he was enough recovered, and looked with a kind of religious awe at the lad whom the infidels had crucified. And the great pride the boy took in what had been done to him was inspiring to see.

But the Capsina's impatience found a bridle in directing and superintending, with Mitsos and Kanaris, the establishment of a fort at Galaxidi which should command the harbor. Galaxidi boasted one of the few well-sheltered harbors on the gulf which could for certain be reached by a well-handled boat in stormy weather, for while the harbor at Aegion faced nearly north and was impossible to make in a northwesterly gale, and the harbor at Corinth had so narrow an entrance that, with a heavy cross sea, a ship was as like as not to be shouldered on to the breakwater, at Galaxidi the harbor faced south, and had a wide entrance protected from the violent westerly winds by the long headland, on the other side of which lay Elatina. Otherwise, the shore for several miles was rocky and inhospitable, and no enemy's ship, as the Capsina saw, could take Galaxidi unless it first had possession of the harbor, and it was on the end of the promontory which commanded it that she caused the defences to be begun.

Heretofore the whole of this coast district had taken no part in the work of the Revolution, and the bloody scheme of the Turks was to wipe out those fishing villages one by one, so as to secure themselves against the possibility of such movements in the future. Such had been the fate of Elatina; for such a fate, no doubt, had Galaxidi been devilishly designed, when the two Greek brigs overtook and spoke with the designers thereof.

On the second day of their stay there, when even the Capsina had been forced to be prepared to stop at least a week, she and Mitsos prowled about the quay and harbor like whelps on some sure trace of blood, how rightly no future was to prove.

"It is a death-trap, little Mitsos," said the girl. "See, this is my plan. Let us put up a big shed on the quay, for all the world like a Turkish custom-house, with the Turkish flag over it, if you will—don't frown, Mitsos, you seem to think that it is our mission to render the Turkish nation immortal—a flag to give confidence, as I was saying. But it shall be no custom-house, or rather a custom-house where the dues are rather heavy, and of our sort. Thus, supposing by some devil's luck either of those two companies of ships escape from us, we can at least do our best to head them towards Galaxidi."

"Where they will see their own flag flying," put in Mitsos. "Eh, but I am a partner with a tigress."

"And I with a ba-a-lamb, it seems," went on the girl, with a glance at this fine-grown ba-a-lamb. "Thus they will sail in unsuspecting, and all the fiends in hell are in it if ever they sail out," she concluded, with a sudden flare.

"There is more to it than that," said Mitsos. "We are in this gulf for a month, or more than a month maybe. It is well to have a place for breathing in. It is sure that we cannot get out of the gulf until the coming of the fleet, or so I think. Well, with a fort here in the hands of the Greeks, we shall not need to."

The Capsina stood silent a moment surveying the harbor, with her head a little on one side.

"It is by no means a rotten egg we are trying to hatch," she said, at length. "The mayor, who is my cousin, shall dine with us to-day, and there will be much talking. Go back to the ship, lad, and smoke your pipe. That is what you want."

"Am I so stupid this morning, then?" asked Mitsos.

"There is no mellowness in tobacco," said she, sententiously, quoting a Greek proverb. "No, you are not stupid, but I have other business in which you have no share."

"And what is that?"

"And who will have made the little Mitsos my confessor?" said she, drolling with him. "Well, father, I am going to see the baby."

"The blessing of the saints be on your work, my daughter," said Mitsos, with prelatical solemnity. "But you are never away from the baby, Capsina. Am I to be superseded?"

She flushed a little.

"Not from my affection," she said, with secret truth; "only in the matter of advice, I claim a right to consult another." And she turned and walked briskly away from the quay.

The mayor, Elias Melissinos, was a little withered man, with a face the color of a ripe crab-apple. His eyes, bright and black like a bird's, peeped out from a great fringe of eyebrow, and seemed the very hearth and home of an infernal shrewdness. He was the first cousin of the Capsina's mother, but thought nothing of his connection with the clan, remarking with much truth that the same God made also the vermin, and the tortoises upon the mountain. But as he had grave theological doubts as to whether it was God or the devil who had made the Turks, he was a suitable ally. He ate his dinner peeking and peering at his food, and swallowing it gulpingly like pills, with a backward toss of his head, occasionally glancing at Mitsos, who fed Christos and himself alternately, and asking sharp little questions. When they had finished they went on deck, and Elias sucked at his pipe like a grave little baby, while the Capsina made exposition.

"See, cousin," she said, "Mitsos and I have examined the quay, and we both think that it is easily defensible and hard to take. There is already a big shed on there; you will have to build another one on the promontory, opposite; between them they will command the harbor like a two-edged sword."

"You will be putting guns on the sheds, maybe?" asked Elias, briskly.

"There would not be much advantage to us in building the sheds and leaving them totally empty," remarked Mitsos.

"Yes, but my dear cousin," said Elias, "where are the guns to come from? For I never yet authentically heard that they grew on the mountain-side. Muskets we have and plenty of them, but I am thinking that before a Turkish ship gets within musket-shot our sheds will be spillikins and match-wood; and, if it comes on to rain, the muskets will get rusty; but, indeed, I don't know that there will be any other result worth the mentioning."

"You can have two four-inch guns from the Revenge and two from the Sophia," said the Capsina, "for we are a little overarmed if anything. What say you, Mitsos?"

Mitsos scratched his head.

"I say that I wish there were not so many good guns lying at the bottom of the Gulf of Corinth," he said.

"Where do they lie?" asked Elias.

The Capsina sprang up.

"Indeed, the little Mitsos has no wooden head, though he thinks slower than snails walk, cousin. One ship and all its guns lie in fifteen-fathom water, not a mile from land, in the bay westward from the point of Galaxidi. I could lead you there blindfolded. Can you raise them, think you?"

"We can try," said Elias. "But if your brigs are over-armed—"

"They are not overarmed!" cried the girl. "I wish we had more guns."

Elias bowed, with a precise little smile on his lips.

"The mistake is mine," he said. "I was wrong when I thought I heard you say so. Please continue, cousin."

"For the expenses, I will provide out of the money we have put aside for the war fund," continued the Capsina. "How much have we, little Mitsos? Oh, is there nothing you know? In any case there is enough. Then you want men. Are there plenty here who are ready to take up arms?"

"They are ready to stand on their heads, cousin, if you bid them," said Elias.

"Good; now about the attempt to raise some of those guns," and she plunged into details of rafts and gear and divers and tackling, leaving, it is to be feared, both her listeners in a state of bewildered confidence in her powers to draw the moon to the earth if so she wished, but confused as to the methods she purposed to adopt.

In such ways the Capsina drew a curb on her impatience to be gone again, and derived a certain satisfaction in curtailing the hour of Mitsos's tobacco smoking. The six guns, after an infinity of trouble and the swamping of two rafts, were raised and towed to Galaxidi; the corn-mills were put to grind powder, a black flour of death; another shed was run up opposite the quay, and loads of earth and sand to be packed in corn sacks were stored as a protection for both forts. The quantity indicated, as Mitsos pointed out, an outrageously impossible harvest; but, as the Capsina retorted, Turkish ships coming to raid a town do not usually pause to consider whether the preceding summer has been weather suitable for the crops.

But the Capsina having put these preparations in train, intrusting their complete execution to Elias, stayed not an hour after the Sophia was again fit for sea, for every hour wasted meant an hour's risk to some perhaps defenseless village, and eight days after their arrival they put to sea again eastward, touring round the gulf, and leaving Galaxidi humming like a hive of bees.

For several days they made but little way, the winds being contrary or calm, and the hours were the first hours of the cruise lived over again. With the help of two crutches Christos was soon able to limp about the deck, and, as his boyish spirits reasserted themselves, became pre-eminently human, showing only a dog-like affection for Mitsos, who fussed over him insistently. The thing both pleased and enraged the Capsina; half the time she was jealous of the lad, but for the rest found it suitable enough that the little Mitsos should have rescued him, and that the rescued should agree with her in his lovableness. When the deck was wet and Christos's crutches showed a greater aptitude for slipping than supporting, Mitsos would take him and carry him across to some sheltered place, where the three would sit by the hour, talking and laughing together.

On one such evening, following a day of fretful and biting rain, the sky had cleared towards sunset, and they were tacking out to sea for a mile or two under a northeasterly wind, to anchor, as soon as the land-breeze dropped, at the end of the second tack, making, if possible, a dark wooded promontory which lay due east. The Capsina always kept as near as possible to the shore, so as not to run the least risk of missing the Turkish ships, which, as they knew, were going from village to village, and a watch was kept for the enemy's ships, the Capsina offering a prize to the sailor who first sighted them.

Mitsos had come slipping and sliding across the deck with Christos in his arms, and a sudden roll of the ship had come near upsetting them.

"So, hereafter," said Mitsos, "you shall shift for yourself, Christos, for you put on the weight of a sack of corn every day. You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

"Not in any way."

"Are you sure?"

The Capsina burst out laughing.

"Oh, little Mitsos, that I should compare you to a hen. But a hen with one chicken, no other—you and Christos."

Mitsos sat down and filled his pipe and Christos's.

"Well, I know one who clucked considerably over a baby," he said. "And I like taking care of people. There's your pipe, lad. Open your mouth."

The Capsina laughed again.

"Chuck, chuck, chuck," said she.

"Well, let me have two chickens, then," cried Mitsos. "What can I do for you, Capsina?"

"You can be my very good comrade."

"Surely, I hope so. But let me fuss for you. Christos is getting well, and I must take care of somebody."

"Well, you can tell me if it is time to put about."

"Eh, but I didn't bargain that I should have to get up," said Mitsos, raising himself foot by foot, and looking out. "Well, yes, we shall make that promontory on the next tack, and then we can lie to. Nothing been seen of the devils, Dimitri?"

Dimitri shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, we'll put about. You'd best move, Christos. When we go on the other tack you'll get wet there."

"It is of no consequence whether I get wet," remarked Sophia.

"Well, come along, then," said Mitsos. "I'll carry you across first."

Sophia hesitated.

"Help me up, then," said she, and laughed.

Mitsos bent down, gathered her up, and staggered across the deck with her, half laughing, half puzzled.

"Eh, but God made you a big woman," he said. "Why, Christos is half your weight. Steady, now."

But the Capsina slipped from his arms.

"Oh, Christos; it is always Christos!" she cried. "There, go and fetch him, little Mitsos! He is trying to walk himself, and he will get a fall."

Mitsos stared a moment, but obeyed, and the Capsina finished the journey across the deck alone, and stood looking out over the sea for a moment with a flushed face and a hammer for a heart. A thrill of tremulous exultation shook her, and unreasonably sweet she found it. The thing had been nothing—he had taken her up as he would take a child up to help it over a brook, but for a moment she had lain in his arms, with his face bent laughing into hers, and the very fact that this had meant no more than the shadow of nothingness to him gave her a sense of secret pleasure to be enjoyed alone. She had felt the sinews of his arm harden and strain as he lifted her—her own arm she had cast, for greater security, round his neck. She had felt on her wrist the short hair above his collar, for since they had come to sea he had cut it close, saying that the salt and spray made it sticky. And at that physical contact the last shred of unwilling reserve went from her.... She was his, wholly, abandonedly....

In a few moments Mitsos returned with Christos's long legs dangling from his arms, and for an hour more they sat together beneath the lee bulwarks, while the ship started on its last tack. The sun was already a crimson ball on the sea, and the mountains on the north of the gulf were obscured in a haze of luminous gold which seemed to penetrate them, making them glow from hither. A zigzag line of fire was scribbled across from the horizon to the ship, and from the sheets of spent foam which flung themselves over the weather-side as the brig shouldered its way along through the great humping seas, the spray turned for a moment to a rosy mist before it fell with a hiss white and broken on the weather-deck. With a crash and a poise the bows met the resounding waves, then plunged like a petrel down the sheer decline of the next water valley, and the black promontory which they were already opposite, with its fringe of foam, rose and fell like the opening and shutting of a window over the jamb of the bulwarks. The land-breeze was steady and not boisterous, and hummed like a great sleepy top in the rigging. Mitsos sat on the deck with his back to a coil of rope, facing the other two, his face turned rosy-brown by the sunset, and the Capsina, looking at him, knew the blissful uncontent of love. And the sunset and the sea died to a pearly gray; one by one the stars pierced the velvet softness of the sky, until the whole wheeling host had lit their watch-fires, and presently, after the brig passed the promontory, the white sails drooped and were furled, and the whole world waited, silent and asleep, for the things of the morrow.

They were now nearing the easternmost end of the gulf, and about twelve of the next day they could see dimly, and rising high in heaven, the upper ridges of Cithaeron—"a house of roe-deer," so said Christos. The sea-haze rose, concealing the lower slopes, but the top was domed and pinnacled in snow, clear, and curiously near. All the coast was well known to Christos, for his father had been a man of the sea, trading along the shore. Vilia, so he told them, was the chief village at the gulf's end; the immediate shore was without settlements, except for a few cottages which clustered round certain old ruins, walls, and high towers, so he said, big enough for a garrison of Mitsos's men; and thus his ears were pulled. Porto Germano was the name of the place, because a man of outlandish language, so it seemed, and of guttural voice, had made great maps of the place. "There are only walls and towers," said Christos; "yet he spent much time and labor over them, and gave money to those who held machines and tapes for him, writing many figures in a book, and talking to himself in his throat."

Mitsos and the lad were sitting aft as Christos delivered this information in a half-treble staccato voice, with an air of sceptical innocence, and shyly as to a demigod. The Capsina had left them and gone forward, but she returned soon to them with a quicker step and a heightened color.

"Mitsos," said she, "come forward. No, come you, Christos, for you are sharp-eyed, and you, little Mitsos, signal to Kanaris that he join us."

"Is there, is there—" began Mitsos.

"Oh, little Mitsos!" cried the girl. "But there will be blood in the sunset, if God is good. Go you and signal, lad; and come forward, Christos. It seems I have won my own prize."

They were some six miles off the eastern shore of the gulf, running before a favorable wind, and after Mitsos had signalled to the Sophia, which was between them and the north coast, on the port tack, and had seen her put about on the starboard tack in answer, he went forward to join the Capsina and Christos.

Right ahead and close in to land they could see the masts of three ships, but the hulls were down. The moment was critical, for the ships were evidently at anchor, as no sails were spread, and they were close in shore. Thus, every minute, perhaps, was murder and rapine to some Greek village. It was possible that they had only just come, and that the Capsina was in time to save a village. Again, it was possible that the infernal work was even now going on, even that it was over.

The Capsina stood in thought for a moment only.

"It is this," she said to Mitsos. "We are certain that Vilia is the village they are making for. Vilia is how far inland, Christos?"

"Two hours and a steep way through pine-woods."

"Thank God for the pine-woods. Look, Mitsos, they will have meant to leave the ships at anchor while they raided Vilia, but beyond any shadow of doubt they will have left some part of their crews on board, who will, of course, give the alarm if Greek ships are seen approaching. We have to get between their ships and the men they have sent up to Vilia. There is no village on the mountain-side except Vilia, Christos?"

"None."

"How are we to do it?" asked Mitsos. "The moment they see us they will send after their men."

"There is no time to lose," said the Capsina, quietly. "Hoist the Turkish flag," and she looked at Mitsos as if questioningly, and Mitsos met her gaze.

"Yes," he said, "it is one of the things I do not like, and I am unreasonable. There is no other way of getting in, and all things are right to save Vilia. I would turn Moslem if so I could kill more of them. Oh, Capsina, I quite agree with you. I will even hoist it myself. How comes it you have one?"

"Because I am one who looks beyond to-morrow," said she, much relieved. "I made it in Hydra myself."

The signal was made to Kanaris, and a few moments afterwards they saw the Turkish flag run up on the Sophia. The wind still held, and the Revenge took a reef in to let the Sophia join her, and by the time the hulls of the Turks had risen above the horizon line of water, the two were sailing close together.

They approached quickly, under a steady and singing west wind, and before two o'clock they could already see the thin line of cutting ripples breaking on the shingle, and yet from the Turkish ships came no sign. They lay at anchor some furlong from the shore, it would seem deserted.

The Capsina's orders were to be ready to fire on the word, but if possible to pass the Turkish ships without firing a shot and cast anchor between them and the shore. Her object was, if the men had landed to take Vilia, to cut them off from their ships, which, if possible, they would capture; but at present there was no means of telling in what state things were; only the deserted appearance of the Turkish ships argued the probability of the raid having set forth. The Capsina, if this probability should prove true, had given orders, signalling them to Kanaris, to leave one-third of the men on the ships and land with the rest in pursuit of the Turks, for if, as was now certain, since the brigs had been allowed to approach so close, they had no suspicion that armed ships of the Greeks were in the gulf, they would have attacked Vilia with all their available men, leaving a handful only on their ships.

As they came alongside, with sails already furled, moving only by their impetus and ready to swing round and cast anchor, a Turk strolled across the deck of the ship nearest to the Revenge, and, leaning carelessly on the bulwarks, shouted in Turkish, and for answer had only the hiss of the lapping water and the sight of Mitsos's unfezzed head, for the Capsina had told the rest to keep out of sight; and as the appearance of a woman on the bridge would have seemed odd to even those indolently minded folk, she had left Mitsos alone there, while she crouched in concealment behind the bulwarks. At that suspicion seemed to awake, and he popped his head down and was seen no more, and a moment afterwards, just as the anchor of the Revenge splashed plunging into the sea, two shots were fired in rapid succession from the Turk's bow gun, which was pointing out to sea and evidently aimed at neither the Sophia nor the Revenge.

At that the Capsina jumped up.

"That is a signal," she cried; "there is no time to lose! Down with the devil's flag and up with the cross!"

A great cheer went up from the men as the blue-and-white ensign was hauled up the mast, for, like Mitsos, they put the hoisting of the crescent among the things they "did not like," and in three minutes the first boatloads were on their way to the shore. Along the beach were drawn up the boats in which the Turks had landed, guarded only by a few men, who, as the Greeks drew near the shore, fled incontinently into the olive-groves that grew down to within fifty yards of the sea, and climbed to the foot of the pine-forests of the upper hills.

"Let them run," said Mitsos, "for I could ever run faster than a Turk," and he vaulted clean and lithe over the boat's side, and pulled her in through the shallow water to the shore. "Eh, Capsina," he added, "but it won't do to let those boats stop there, else the men will be embarking to their ships again when we chase them, and sail off with our prizes. Dimitri, see that as soon as we have gone all boats are taken away from the shore and tied up to the Revenge or the Sophia."

"So shall it be," said Dimitri. Then: "Oh, most beloved little Mitsos, cannot I come with you?" he asked; "for I should dearly like to hunt the turbaned pigs through the forest."

Mitsos shook his head.

"It is the Capsina's order," he said, "and we must not leave the ships without good garrison. But," and his eyes twinkled, "when I am after some fat brute, who trips in the brushwood, and calls on the prophet who shall be very slow to help, I will think of you, Dimitri. Meantime you have your hands full. Board the Turkish ships, one by one, with three-quarters of the men from the Sophia and Revenge together, for they have no boats, and cannot reach us, and make ready supper, for I doubt we shall get no dinner to-day, except only food for joy. They will not have left more than half a dozen men on each ship."

"And those half dozen?" asked Dimitri, completing the question with a look.

"Yes, it must be so," said Mitsos. "And now off with you!"

The second boatload and the third came racing to land, and using for greater expedition the deserted Turkish boat to disembark the men, in less than half an hour the whole contingent, some four hundred and fifty, were ranged ready to start. Mitsos had in vain endeavored to persuade the Capsina not to come with them; they would have a run fit to make a man burst, he said, up the hills, and at the end God knew what rough-and-tumble fighting. But the girl, breeched like a man, and carrying musket and pistol, scornfully refused to be left behind, and, indeed, she seemed fit for any work. Mitsos looked at her with candid admiration as she trotted briskly along up the slope from the beach by his side, and:

"It is like being with Yanni again," he said. "When the lad found his legs too short for the pace, why, he would lean on me, so," and he drew the Capsina's arm within his own, and bade her give him of her weight. And the Capsina, flushed and panting a little, did as he told her.

Mitsos had been intrusted with the ordering of this raid of the raiders, and he called a halt as they got to the edge of the pine-wood, and repeated his instructions. The men were to form a long open file on each side of the path leading up the hill, so that should the Turks have turned and scattered through the woods on the signal of recall they might not slip past them. Fifty men were to stop there on patrol at the edge of the wood so as to intercept any who might have passed the advanced body, who, if they marched through the pine-wood which extended to within a mile of Vilia without encountering the enemy, were to form again on the open ground.

"And this, too," said Mitsos, in conclusion, with a voice of most joyful conviction: "the Turks are certainly a work of the devil. Therefore, it is entirely our business to hate them and to kill them. This is the last raid of these men. God has willed it so, and has made them short of leg and the more easily overtaken, short of arm and the easier to deal with at close quarters. Therefore"—and he raised his voice—"open out right and left as I gave the order."

And the men, with mouths full of laughter at the little Mitsos's homily, opened out.

The pine-wood through which they hoped to hunt the "turbaned pigs" grew thick and tall above them, and the ground was muffled with the fallen needles. Here and there, in spaces where the pines grew thinner, sprouted a tangle of scrub and brushwood, but for the most part the ground was bare of undergrowth. The track, a cobbled Turkish road, wound round the contours of the hill, and thus those in the wood on each side had to march the more slowly, allowing for the deviousness of the path. The morning was as if borrowed from the days in the lap of spring; the mid-day sun shone with the cheerfulness of April, peeping like a galaxy of warm-rayed stars through the clusters of needles on the pines, and the west wind, fresh and vigorous from the sea, gave briskness to the going of the blood. Glimpses of the snows of Cithaeron far and high in front carried the foot on after the eye, and the steepness of the ascent melted fast under vigorous feet. As the line went forward up the mountain-side, the sea, like a friend, rose with it, as if to watch and guard its foster-children, till a ravine cut crossways through the mountain hid that cheerful presence from the eye though its crispness lingered in the limb. Here the trees grew somewhat thicker, a spring had flushed the hill-side with a more stubborn growth of low creeping things, and owing to the windings of the road those who marched on either side were hanging on their footstep to allow the followers of the path to keep up with them, when the Capsina beckoned to Mitsos, who was forcing his way through a belt of young poplar which grew in the open. He paused, and, seeing what she had seen, crawled into cover of the pines and passed the word down to halt, and that those on the path should leave it for shelter of the bushes.

The slope of the ravine opposite them was thickly covered with trees, but high upon it, three hundred feet above them, and a mile away, was a little group of glittering points, winking and flashing among the trees, like the dance of the sun on water, and moving down towards them. Now and then, as if the sun had disappeared behind a cloud, they would be hidden from sight by a thickness in the pines, to burst out again in a fleet of bright moving spots where the ground was clearer. The advancing line of the Greeks had halted, those on the path had made concealment of themselves under the trees; and but for the bright specks opposite the mountain-side seemed tenanted only by the whispering pines, and only watched by a few high-circling hawks.

The Capsina was standing by Mitsos, and the lad's eyes blazed with a light that was not the fury of hate which the burned ruins of Elatina had kindled, nor veiled by the softening of pity for a man hung at his own yard-arm, but the clear, sparkling madness of the joy of fighting—the hungry animal joy of scenting the desired prey.

"Oh," he whispered, and "oh," again, and with that he looked up and saw the circling hawks. "They will be nearer before night," he said, "and fat with pickings. It is all as clear as sea-water, Capsina, and easier than smoking. We wait here exactly where we are, but closing up a little, and very still, till the Turks strike the bottom of the ravine below us. Then a volley, perhaps two, and, for they will break and scatter, then every man to feed his own knife and pistol. If it please you, I will give the order."

"And think you Vilia is safe?" asked the Capsina.

"Oh, woman, how can I tell? But, safe or not, there is nothing to do but what we are doing. We only know that the devils are not in Vilia now and are coming to us. We deal with them first. Is it an order?"

"Surely."

Mitsos passed the word right and left and sat down, taking no notice of the girl, but drawing his finger along the edge of his long knife. Once or twice he drove the point tenderly and lovingly into the bark of a tree, but for the most part sat smiling to himself, purring, you would say, like some great cat. Suddenly he turned to the Capsina.

"Get you back to the ships," he said. "This is no work for a woman that we have on hand. I would not have a woman see it."

The Capsina laughed softly.

"In truth, little Mitsos, you know not much about women. Who told you that women have soft hearts and fear blood? Some man, no doubt, for it is not so."

"It will not be fit for you," said Mitsos again. "Will you not go back?"

"Certainly I will not."

Mitsos sat still a moment frowning.

"It is true that I do not know much about you. But—"

"But then I am not like a woman, you think?" asked the girl, with a sudden anguish at her heart.

"Yet I would there were more women like you," said Mitsos. "So be it, then. Look, they are getting closer."

Meantime the Greek line had closed up, and Mitsos stole away in cover of the trees to give the orders. The signal for firing was to be one musket-shot from the Greek line, given by himself. If the Turks stood their ground, the firing was to continue; if they broke each man was to be his own general, and his business was to kill. Turks were good marksmen, but they were slow of foot; and the wood was thick, and knives were the gift of God. The Greeks would collect again (and Mitsos smiled like an angel militant), when the work was done, in the place they now occupied.

Then came the space of quivering delay, when men could have found it in their hearts to shriek aloud with the straining tension, pulling like pincers at their flesh, while they were compelled to stand still and watch in silence that little glittering patch dancing and shining down the mountain-side. Mitsos for his own part was conscious of no thought but an agonized desire for tobacco, and to Kanaris the fact that he had left three if not four piastres lying loose on his cabin table was the source of an immeasurable regret; a stray lock of the Capsina's hair, which had escaped from her cap, and blew now and again against her cheek, was an annoyance of nightmare intensity, but all watched the growing, glittering patch. In another ten minutes it was nearly opposite them on the hill-side in front, some quarter of a mile away, and they could see that the men were hurrying along, half running, half marching unencumbered by booty or captives; and at that Mitsos drew a sigh of relief, for he knew that they had not reached Vilia when the signal of recall turned them back. Then he took his musket up from the ground where he had laid it, and holding it ready, with finger on the trigger, looked round at the Capsina.

"It is nearly over," he whispered. "Indeed, I am in a hurry to-day," and she smiled in answer.

Slowly and now with perfect steadiness, though five minutes before his hand had been like some ague-stricken thing, he raised the musket to his shoulder, and picking out one of the foremost men who were coming down the path opposite, kept him balanced on the sight of the gun, for, with the thriftiness of his race, he saw no reason why his signal to the others should not be in itself of some little use, and as the man stepped on to the little arched bridge that crossed the stream below, fired. The man spun round and fell, and a volley from right and left indorsed his shot.

He shook some powder out of his flask into his hand.

"That is a good omen," he said. "Oh, Capsina, I am most exceedingly happy!"

The Turks had halted for a moment, and a few fired wildly into the trees. A bullet struck the ground at Mitsos's feet, burying itself in the pine-needles, and the lad ripped up the ground with his knife, and put the bullet he was going to ram home on the top of his charge into his wallet again.

"To be returned," he said, and fired, and there was joy in his heart.

A second rather straggling volley came from the almost invisible Greeks, and at that the Turks stood no longer, but broke in all directions, some following the stream in its course to the valley, some charging up the hill where the Greeks were posted in order to get back to the ships, some rushing up the hill-side again in the direction of Vilia.

"Shall we go, little Mitsos?" said the Capsina, as if she would ask him to take a turn about deck.

They were standing not far from the path, and Mitsos for answer pushed the Capsina behind a tree.

"Fire at those coming up the path," he said, "and for the sake of the Virgin remember that I am in the brushwood not far in front," and he jumped over a low-growing bush.

About fifty Turks had kept together, and were coming up the path towards them at a double. Some two dozen Greeks had already begun running down the path after the others, and there were a few moments' tussle and fighting, two or three falling on both sides, but the Turks struggled through them and hurried on. Mitsos, the Capsina, and a few others fired coolly and steadily at them from cover, but they soon passed them and were lost in the wood behind. Mitsos threw his musket down.

"The knife and pistol for me," he said. "Come. The patrol outside will talk to those."

For the first few minutes the odds were largely against the Greeks, for many of the Turks, despairing of escape, had hidden themselves in clumps of brushwood, which, as the Greeks came on, spurted and bristled with fire, and some number were wounded, but a few only killed. But when once they got the ambushed Turks out of the nearer hiding-places, and on the move again, the odds were vastly the other way. The trees were so thick that, as Mitsos had seen, muskets were of little use, and it was hand-to-hand fighting, or pistols at close quarters. Pistols, however, required reloading, and time was precious, for the main object was to prevent the Turks from reforming, or gaining open ground where they could make an organized resistance. But knives were always ready to the hand, and needed no charging but the arm-thrust, and in a little while only occasional shots were heard, and hurrying steps slipping on the muffled floor of pine-needles, or the short-drawn gasp of the striker or the groan of the struck. Now and then a couple of figures, with perhaps two more in pursuit, would hurry across a piece of open ground, and but for that a man on the slope opposite would have seen only the hill-side, green and peaceful, and heard the whispering of the trees above his head, or what he would take to be the sound of the wild boars routing and tramping in the undergrowth, and have suspected nothing of that dance of death raging under the aromatic pines. He would, perhaps, have noticed that the hawks were wheeling in large numbers, and very silently, without their usual shrill pipe, above the trees, and would have said truly to himself that there was carrion somewhere below them.

Mitsos and the Capsina had kept close together, but Kanaris, cool and business-like as ever, had lost them almost at once among the trees, for he had turned aside a moment to investigate a musket-barrel which pointed out of a clump of oleander by the stream, and had been rewarded for his curiosity by having his hair singed by the fire which passed close to his temple. Mitsos had paused a moment and laughed as he saw Kanaris draw back a step or two and jump with knife raised into the middle of the clump.

He shouted "Good-luck!" to him, and turned in time to see the Capsina fly, like some furious wild-cat, holding her pistol by the barrel in one hand and her long knife in the other, at a man who was crossing her between two trees just in front. He saw the Turk's lips curl in a sort of snarl, and he put his hand to his belt a moment too late, for the next the Capsina's knife had flickered down from arm's-length to his throat, and the butt of her pistol caught him on the temple. He fell sprawling at her feet, and she had to put one foot on his chest as purchase to pull the knife out again.

"Yet she is a woman," muttered Mitsos to himself, and, wheeling round, "Ah, would you?" he cried, and another Turk, rushing at the Capsina, who was still tugging at her knife, got Mitsos's weapon between his shoulder-blades.

The girl turned. "Thanks," she said. "I owe you one. Pull my knife out for me, little Mitsos—pull; oh, how slow you are!"

Even in so short a time the tide had completely turned, and the Turks were but as game driven from one cover to another. The Greeks who had gone off in pursuit of those who had fled down the bed of the stream were returning, for no more of them were left to be slain, and the fight was centring round a copse of low-growing trees more in the open and higher up the hill. The majority of those Turks who were not yet slain had taken refuge here, and already the place had proved expensive to the Greeks, for more than twenty lay dead round it. The brushwood was so thick that it was impossible to see more than a yard or two, and while a man was forcing his way in after some Turk in front of him, a shot would come from the right or left, or from closer at hand a knife would lick out like a snake's tongue, and while he turned to his new enemy, the pursued became the pursuer.

Such was the state of things when Mitsos and the Capsina came up. The latter had received a nasty cut across her left arm, and Mitsos had tied it up roughly for her, being unable to persuade her to stop quiet out of harm's way while the work was finished. But she refused, laughing wildly, for drunkenness of blood was on her, and the two went forward together.

She paused a moment some fifty yards from the edge of the copse. From the ground above it every now and then a Turk would make a dash for the cover, sometimes getting through the Greeks, who were fighting on the outskirts, sometimes knifing one on his way, or more often falling himself; and once from behind them a man ran swiftly by, cutting at Mitsos as he passed, and disappeared with a bound into the trees. The Capsina looked round at the dead who were lying about, and her face grew set and hard.

"What fool's work is this?" she cried. "We are in the open, they in shelter. Smoke them out."

She caught up a handful of dry fern, and firing a blank charge into it obtained a smouldering spark or two, which she blew into flames. Half a dozen others standing near did the same, and fixing the burning stuff on her knife she rushed forward to the very edge of the ambush, while from without half a dozen muskets cracked the twigs above her, and rammed it into the heart of the thick tangled growth. Other fires were lighted along the west side of the copse, the dried raffle of last year's leaves caught quickly, and the wind took the flame inward. The greener growth of spring cast out volumes of stinging smoke, and when the place was well alight she drew off the men, stationing them round the other three sides, advancing as the flame advanced, for escape through the choking smoke and fire was impossible. Then, at first by ones and twos, the Turks came out like rabbits from a burrow, some bursting wildly out and occasionally passing the line of Greeks, some standing as if bewildered and trying to steal away unobserved, others running a few steps out and then turning back again. An hour later the whole copse was charred ash and cinders.

It remained only to search for the dead and wounded of the Greeks. The dead, whom they accounted happy, they buried there on that smiling hill-side, so that the preying beasts of the mountain and the carrion-feeding birds might not touch them, but only next spring the grasses and flowers would grow the more vivid on their resting-places; the wounded they carried back tenderly to the ships. And how thick the Turks lay there the hawks and eagles know.

[CHAPTER VIII]

The fourth day after saw the two brigs returned in peace to Galaxidi again, an expenditure of time which had cost the Capsina much misgiving and impatience, but for which to the reasonably minded there was an undeniable necessity. For the crews of both ships had lost somewhat heavily in the battle at Porto Germano, and even the girl herself was bound to admit that they wanted more men. Again, they had on their hands three empty Turkish vessels, all fully equipped for war, which they could not leave behind lest they should again fall into the hands of the enemy, and which it would have been a glaring and inconceivable waste to destroy. For there was on board a large quantity of ammunition and shot, three or four hundred muskets, and, in all, eighteen guns; and, though the Capsina grumbled that the powder was damp and the guns would burst if used, and even offered to stand forty paces in front of each of them in turn while Mitsos fired them at her, her remarks were rightly felt to be merely rhetorical, and to express her extreme impatience at the enforced delay and nothing further. So Mitsos was put in command of one Turkish ship, Dimitri of another, and Kanaris's first-officer of the third; Christos, chiefly because he rashly expressed a wish to be transferred with Mitsos, was retained by the Capsina on board the Revenge, and he stepped ashore at Galaxidi looking battered. "God made the tigers and tigresses also," was his only comment to Mitsos when the latter asked how he had fared.

The Capsina was already vanished on some hurricane errand by the time Mitsos had brought his ship to anchor, and Christos and he being left without orders or occupation took refuge in a café, where they sat awhile smoking and playing draughts, for outside the day was nought but a gray deluge of driven rain. To them at a critical moment in the game entered the Capsina, and words adequate for the occasion failed her. But Mitsos, seeing that her eye betokened imminent chaos, took a rapid mental note of the position of the remaining pieces on the board. Then he said, hurriedly, to Christos: "It's my move, remember, when we get straight again," and stood up. Christos shrunk into a corner.

"Mitsos Codones, I believe?" remarked the Capsina, with a terrifying stress on the last word, and a burning coldness of tone.

"And I believe so, too," said Mitsos, genially.

"Whom I engaged to play draughts in low cafés," said the Capsina, with a wild glance, "and to waste his time—Oh, it is too much," and the draughtsmen described parabolas into inaccessible places. "God in heaven! is it not too much," cried the girl, "that I have to go hunting you through the villages of Greece, up and down the Lord knows where, to find you playing draughts with that pigeon-livered boy? And the Revenge is pulling at her hawser, while Mitsos plays draughts; and the Greeks are being murdered all along the coast, and Mitsos plays draughts!"

An interminable grin spread itself over Mitsos's face. "And the Capsina, I doubt not, goes to see a strange baby, while the Greeks are murdered all along the coast. And the Revenge strains at her hawser, and the Capsina spends her time in abusing her own first officer," he said. "Oh, Capsina, and where is there a choice between us? Do not be so hasty; see, I shall have to pick up all these draughts, for finish the game I shall and will, and as you very well know we do not start till to-morrow. It was my move, Christos, and these pieces were so—eh, but there is another. Is it up your sleeve, Capsina?"

The Capsina glared at Christos a moment as if she were a careful mother who had discovered him luring a child of hers into some low haunt and directed the torrent of her grievance against him.

"Never did I see such a lad," she said; "if you were of the clan I should set you to the loom and the distaff like the women. He would sit and look at the sea by the hour, Mitsos; he would throw bread to the gulls. Gulls, indeed!"

Mitsos fairly laughed out.

"Oh, Capsina," he cried, "sit down and watch us play. There is nothing we can do, you know it well. The new men have volunteered—Kanaris had the choosing of them; you settled that yourself, and the Revenge cannot start before morning. Then how does it assist the war to stamp up and down through the villages of Greece, as you say, and call me and Christos bird-names? There, I am cornered; I knew that would happen; and the pigeon-livered wins. Move, pigeon."

Mitsos shook back his hair from his eyes and looked inquiringly at the Capsina.

"Does not that seem to you most excellent sound sense?" he said.

The Capsina stood a little longer undecided, but the corners of her mouth wavered, and Mitsos, seeing his advantage, clapped his hands.

"Coffee for the Capsina!" he cried to the shopman. "Is it not so, Capsina?" He fetched her a chair. "Now watch us finish, and then Christos will play you, and I will take your side. Thus we stand or fall together, and may it ever be so with us. Christos is the devil of a cunning fellow, for be it known to you I am pretty good myself, and see what there is left of me."

"Oh, fool of a little Mitsos!" said the girl, and she looked at him a shade longer than a friend would have done and sat down.

"There came a caique in from Corinth this afternoon," she said, "with news of the other three ships, and with news, too, from overland—from Nauplia!"

Mitsos paused with his finger on a piece.

"What is the news?" he asked.

"The three Turkish ships tried to put in there, but they could not make the harbor."

"No, I mean the news from Nauplia?"

The Capsina looked up, raising her eyebrows.

"Are they at home so dear? Yet you have been with me a month now, Mitsos, and except only that you want to say good-bye to those at home before starting, I know not if you have father or mother. And it is bad manners," said she, with her nose in the air, "to ask for what one is not given."

"But what is the news?" repeated Mitsos.

"Good news only: the town is blockaded by land and sea, so that no Turk can go out or in. The Greek women and children with the men who do not serve—but there are few such—all left the town the night before the blockade began and have encamped on the mound of Tiryns. But in the spring the Turks will send a fresh army south, in time, they hope, to raise the siege."

"Praise the Virgin!" said Mitsos; "but Nauplia will be starved out before that. I move, and my king goes as straight as a homing honey-bee into the mouth of the pigeon-livered. But there is no other way, oh, your Majesty!"

The Capsina laughed.

"Surely there has never been a lad yet so single of purpose," she said. "To him there is nothing in all the world but a little wooden king."

"Even so, if only the news from Nauplia is good!" said Mitsos, smiling half to himself, "and if the little Turks will be kind and sail northward to us."

"Yet still you do not tell me," said the girl, "and I will throw my manners away and ask. Have you a mother, Mitsos?"

"No, nor father either," and he stopped, remembering what he and Suleima had said to each other as they walked beneath the stars down to the boat.

"Then who is it who is so dear?" she asked, and with a sudden uprising of anxiety waited for the answer.

"It is Suleima!" said Mitsos, "the little wife, and he the adorable, so she calls him, the littlest one."

The Capsina stared a moment in silence.

"So," she said, at length, "and you never told me that! Little Mitsos, why have you so greatly made a stranger of me?"

She rose from where she sat, and with that the flame in her eyes was quenched, and they were appealing only as of a chidden dog.

"Indeed, Capsina," and again "Indeed," he said; but the girl turned quickly from him and went out of the place, leaving her coffee untouched, into the dark and rain-ruled night.

She walked up the quay and down again, hardly conscious of the driving rain. On the right the water below the harbor wall hissed and whispered to itself like an angry snake under the slanting deluge. The Sophia and Revenge lay side by side some two hundred yards out; from nearer in she could hear the rattle of the crane which was unloading the Turkish ships which they had captured, and a great oil flare under the awning flickered and flapped in the eddying draughts. The wind kept shifting and chopping about, and now and then the drippings from off the houses would be blown outward in a wisp of chilly water across her, and again the spray from the peevish ripples in the harbor would be cut off and thrown like a sheet over the quay. But in the storm of her soul she heeded not, and that chill and windy rain played but a minor part in the wild and bitter symphony of her thoughts. At first it seemed an incredible thing to her: ever since she had seen Mitsos come up out of the sunset from his boat, her conviction had been unchanged, that this was he, the one from the sea and the sun, who was made to fulfil her life. As if to put the seal on certainty, that very night he had joined her on the ship; they had tossed together to the anger of the Ægean, together they had played like children on a holiday, and they had been together and as one, comrade with comrade, in the work to which they had dedicated themselves. Comrade to comrade! That was exactly Mitsos's view of it, but to her the comradeship was her life. Yanni, the cousin of whom he had often spoken, Kanaris, the lad Christos—she was to Mitsos as they were, perhaps a little less than they, for she was a woman.

Oh, it was impossible! God could not be so unkind. She who spent her days, and risked her all—and oh, how willingly!—fighting against His enemies, was this her wage? Who was this Suleima? A Turkish name by the sound. Some moon-faced, pasty girl, no doubt, fat, fond of sweet things, a cat by the fire, what could she be to Mitsos? The littlest one, Mitsos's son—and at the thought impotent, incontinent jealousy and hatred possessed her soul. Mitsos was not hers but another's, pledged and sealed another's—and she walked the faster. Michael, who had accompanied her without murmur, since such was the duty of a dog, stood a moment under the protecting eaves of a house, with his head on one side, looking at her in reproachful protest, for even his shaggy coat was penetrated by the whipping rain. But she still walked on, and he shook himself disgustedly from head to tail and went after her. Opposite the café again she hung on her step, looking in through the rain-slanted window-panes. Mitsos was bent over his little wooden kings, absorbed and sheltered, while she was outside rain-drenched, with anguish for a heart. Ah, what a humiliation! Why could she not have lived like the other women of her class, have married Christos the cousin, and long ago have settled down to the clucking, purring life, nor have looked beyond the making of jam, the weaving of cloth, marriage among the domestic duties? She had thought herself the finest girl God had made, one who could treat with scorn the uses and normal functions of her sex, one who had need of no man except to serve her, one who thought of woman as a lower and most intensely foolish animal, whose only dream was to marry a not exacting man, and settle down to an ever-dwindling existence of narrowing horizons. Yet, where were all those fine thoughts now? She had sailed her own ship, it was true, and sent a certain number of the devil's brood to their account, but what did that profit her in the present palpable anguish? Her pain and humiliation were no less for that. The clucking women she despised were wiser than she; they at any rate had known what they were fit for; she alone of all had made a great and irrevocable mistake. She, the Capsina, was brought down to the dust, and Mitsos played draughts with the little wooden kings. Her flesh and blood, her more intimate self, and that childish need for love which even the most heroically moulded know, cried out within her.

Then pride, to her a dominant passion, came to her rescue. At any rate none knew, and none should ever know, for thus her humiliation would be at least secret. She would behave to Mitsos just exactly as before: not one tittle of her companionship, not an iota of her frank show of affection for him should be abated. And, after all, there was the Revenge, and—and with that, her human love, the longing of the woman for the one man came like a great flood over the little sand and pebbles of pride and jealousy and anger, and she cried out involuntarily, and as if with a sudden pang of pain, bringing Michael to her side.

They had reached the end of the quay; on one side of the road was a little workman's hut, erected for the building of the Capsina's "custom-house," and, entering, she sat down on a heap of shingle, which had been shot down there for the making of the rough-cast walls of the building. Michael, cold and dripping, but too well bred to shake himself when near his mistress, stood shivering by her, with a puzzled amazement in his eyes at the unusual behavior of the pillar of his world. The girl drew him towards her, and buried her face in his shaggy, dripping ruff.

"Oh, Michael, Michael!" she sobbed, "was not one to come from the sea—all sea and sun—and we, were we not to be his, you and I and the brig, and was not heaven to fly open for us? Indeed, it is not so: one came from the sea and the sun, but it was not he. I was wrong. I was utterly wrong, and now the world holds no other."

The rain had ceased, and from outside came only the sullen drumming of the waves breaking on the shingle beyond the harbor, followed rhythmically by the scream of the pebbly beach, dragged down by the backwash, and the slow, steady drip from the sodden eaves. Suddenly these noises became overscored with the rise and fall of voices, and the Capsina drew Michael closer to her and hushed his growling.

"So, indeed, you must not mind, Christos," said Mitsos's voice, "for there is none like her. Her eyes but grow the brighter for the excitement, when, to tell the truth, my heart has been a lump of cold lead. It is an honor to us that we are with her, that she trusts us—she even likes us—which is more than she did for any of those in Hydra. Eh, but it will be rough to-morrow. Look at the waves! I suppose she has gone back to the ship."

"I expect so," said Christos; "let us go, too, Mitsos."

"No, but wait a minute. There is nothing like the sea at night, unless it be the Capsina. It is strong, it is ready to knock you down if you come too near, yet it will take you safely and well if you only make yourself—how shall I say it?—make yourself of it. The fire-ship—did ever I tell you about the night of the fire-ship? Of course I did not, for I never told any but Uncle Nikolas, nor am I likely to, except to one only. Yes, so it is; I admire her more than I admire the rest of this world rolled into one—always, so I think, I would do her bidding. She might chide me—I would crawl back to her again; I would even bring Suleima, too, on her knees, if so it pleased the Capsina. She must know Suleima. I feel she does not know me, nor I her, until she knows Suleima. Well, come; let us get back. I think the good news from Nauplia must have made me drunk. Surely I was anxious and knew it not. Did I ever tell you how the Capsina and I ... Oh, she is of finer mould than all others!" And the voices were caught and drowned in the riot of the sea.