The Capsina. An Historical Novel

These whispered arrangements made, they hurried back to the others and gave them what they had seen. The six goat-draggers were to be in the first line, who, as soon as they reached the rocks, would take off the muzzles, and then climb and scramble on as fast as might be. If they were seen or heard before they got close up to the lines, it was very unlikely they would be able to get in at all, for it passed the wit of man to fight and drive goats simultaneously; and it was worse than useless to get in without the goats, for thus there would be the more mouths to feed, and nought to feed them with. So "with the goats or not at all" was the order.

The ground was hard with the long heat, and they moved forward as silently as possible, but accompanied as they went by the sharp, swift pattering of the goats' feet drumming like a distant tattoo. To the right and left of them twinkled the rows of fires, but straight ahead where the rocks went up there was sheer untenanted blackness. They marched quickly, and every man besides looking to his own steps had to give an eye to the goats nearest him; but carrying their muskets horizontally and at the full length of their arms, these formed a useful though rough barrier. Already they were between the lines of camp-fires, and the black rock was close ahead, when the report of a musket sounded from the left, a bullet from a one-sighted gun sang above their heads, and a voice shouted a Turkish something. At that Yanni paused, and with his knife cut the string muzzle of one of the goats.

"Catch hold of the other horn, Uncle Kostas," he whispered, "and run. Pinch the devil and make him talk. Holy Virgin, if it is a dumb goat! Pinch him, oh, pinch him!"

Yanni gave a great tweak to the goat's ear as he ran forward dragging him, and the beast bleated lamentably and loud. Meantime the other two goats had been served in like manner and made shrill remonstrances, and the herd passed on through the opening made in the front ranks, after the sufferers.

"Oh, it is done," panted Yanni; "here are the rocks. Good God, they are steep! By the hind leg, uncle, lift it. So. We have got a prize goat, I think. There is another shot. But we shall be up before the sentries have given the alarm."

The other men opened out a little, still forming a barrier to the right and left of the herd, to prevent them straying till they gained the rocks, and then went up hand over hand on the face of the cliff. The face of the hill, though steep, was firm and reliable, with good hold for hands and feet, and in a few minutes the Mainats were scattered over the ascent, the men black and almost invisible against the dark cliff, and the dappling of the trotting goats only showing vaguely and uncertainly. Below in the Turkish lines they could see men stirring, and a few shots were fired at the hindmost of them; but so swift had been their passage, and so scattered their climbing of the rocks that they were already in the higher bluff before the Turks realized what had happened. From above, ahead, came heart-broken bleatings, and that was all.

Mitsos since the sun went down had been peering into the darkness over the citadel wall, and hearing the shots supposed that the relief party was passing the Turkish lines and that the alarm was given. Immediately he heard the bleatings of the goats, and, like the Turks, saw only a moving company of gray specks. A party was ready to make a sortie, but as there were but a few shots he waited.

"It is undoubtedly they," he remarked; "but in what fashion are they coming?"

And he went down to the gate, and looking through the window of the chamber saw the specks coming nearer. Before long the foremost were close, and he shouted "Yanni."

And from the darkness Yanni found just enough breath to shout: "Yes, yes, open the gate! Come on, brute."

Mitsos grinned, thinking that the words were to him.

"Surely little Yanni will be sore to-night," he said to himself, and with two others unbarred the gate. Next moment Yanni and Kostas rushed through struggling and panting, each with a horn of the mishandled goat, and the frightened, pattering herd poured after them. The other men had kept behind the beasts, and to right and left were shepherding them; and as soon as the last had passed in the gates were closed again.

Yanni flung himself on the ground, utterly blown, and too exhausted to notice Mitsos.

"Never again! oh, never," he panted, "will I drag a goat up the Larissa. So – don't ask me. Oh, I shall burst."

Mitsos had broken into a roar of hopeless laughter, which was taken up by the hungry garrison, and while Yanni was recovering he and the rest herded the goats together again, and rations of bread were given out, and a few goats killed.

Then having secured a great chunk of bread himself, he came back to Yanni, who was sitting up, still rather breathless. Kostas, with his fat red face, had not yet reached convalescence, but lay large and palpitating on the ground.

"Yanni, oh, little Yanni!" said Mitsos, "but I am one joy to see you. The goats too. It was a miracle of a plan. Yanni, when did you come? You will sleep with me to-night. Oh, there is the Prince."

And Mitsos stood up, and saluted the Prince with a twinkling eye, for he himself was a deserter; and the Prince's face was in patches of red and white, comical to the irreverent, and his breath whistled untunefully in his throat as he drew it. Mitsos fetched him a piece of sacking to sit on, and stood respectfully by him as he paused to get his breath.

"My aide-de-camp," said the Prince at last, smiling, "I had to come to you as you persisted in going away from me."

This was undeniably the statement of the case, and Mitsos waited a little sheepishly, and the Prince continued.

"But we will look it over," said he, getting up, "even a second time. For, indeed, little Mitsos, they would have made a legislator of me, for which I have no call, neither abilities therefor, or inclination, and I would rather be with the people. Show me, please, where I can sleep, and give me first some water, for I am tired and as thirsty as sand with climbing those rocks. Eh, but I have done a finer work to-night than I ever did in the councils of the senate!"

Mitsos soon found quarters for Hypsilantes, of the roughest, to be sure, and it was curious to him to see how the Prince took a sort of childlike pleasure in having to sleep in a shed, on a heap of sacking, with a crust of bread, a little very tough goat's-flesh, and a draught of water for his supper. His face quite lighted up at the thought that he was playing the soldier in earnest.

"This is better than swords and medals, Mitsos," he said, as the latter brought him the food. "There shall be no more honors and decorations for me or from me, for, indeed, there is no help in those things. I should have done better by scrambling up rocks and dragging goats with the others from the first. Listen at the lads singing! I would sing, too, for the lightness of my heart, had God given me a note of music in my throat."

Mitsos left him and went out to find Yanni, whom he had not seen since the taking of Tripoli. The Mainats had fraternized most warmly with the other part of the garrison, and they were lounging and leaning together on the wall, looking towards Argos, when Mitsos came out. The moon had not yet risen, and the party under Petrobey were still out on the far side of the town. But the sky had brightened with the approach of moonrise, and though the plain lay still sombre and featureless, except where the flash of muskets drew a line of fire across the dark like a match scratched but not lit, the bay had caught the gathering grayness of the sky, and lay like a sheet of dull silver. Across the water the lights of Nauplia looked like some huge constellation of stars growing red to their setting, and in the town below they could see that the Turks were on the alert, and little patches of men as small and slow as insects now and then crossed the streets which lay stretched out below them, hurrying towards the southeastern gate. The goats, relieved of their burdens, stood penned near, visible in the firelight which the men had lit to cook the flesh, adapting themselves with the nonchalance of their race to their new conditions, some still sniffing inquisitively at the ground, two or three fighting and sparring together, others lying down half asleep already with ears just twitching. Yanni was among the other men, and when he saw Mitsos coming, left the group, went towards him, and taking his hand, walked off with him to the other side of the citadel.

"Oh, Mitsos," he said, "what need of words? As soon as I knew you were here the devils of the pit could not have held me back. And you – tell me that Suleima has not made you forget me."

Mitsos put his arm round the other's neck.

"Not even Suleima," he said, "nor yet the littlest one, your godson, whom you have never seen, nor yet the Capsina, with whom I have spent more days of late than with Suleima. Did I not swear the oath of the clan to you, and that very willingly, and not a thing to be sworn lightly? And do we not love each other?"

Yanni gave a happy little sigh.

"So that is well," he said. "So now, tell me of all that concerns you. What of the Capsina, for I heard of the deeds in the gulf?"

"Indeed it is difficult to tell you of the Capsina," said Mitsos, "for never have I seen any one to compare with her. The soul of a man, I think, must have been given her; also she is as beautiful as – as Suleima, at least so another would say. Do you remember the journey we went together, Yanni? Well, my cruise with her was like that. Of all women I have ever seen I love one only, and yet I think I love the Capsina in the way I love you."

"And she?" asked Yanni.

"Oh, she likes me," said Mitsos. "I am sure she likes me, else we could not have got on so well together. We used to play and laugh like children, and everything was a joke – that was when we first started, and before she knew of Suleima."

"Why did you not tell her of Suleima?"

"Oh, that was some dear nonsense of Suleima's own. Then one day I did tell her, because she asked me straight who were they at home."

"What did she say?"

"I forget. Nothing, I think. Oh yes, she asked why I had treated her like a stranger, and not told her. I remember now; it puzzled me that she said that. Christos and I were playing draughts at the time, and I remember she went out soon after, though it was most wet and stormy."

Yanni whistled low and thoughtfully to himself, and Mitsos continued:

"I expect she will be soon at Nauplia when the fleet comes. Oh, she is splendid. You shall see."

He pointed down the hill where the relief party had come up.

"Do you see there?" he cried. "There are lights moving at the bottom of the hill, and men. They are drawing their lines more closely where you came up. There will be no passing them next time."

Yanni spat contemptuously over the wall.

"Who cares for the cross-legged Turk?" he said. "I saw Kolocotrones to-day. He says they are in the hollow of his hand. His hand, Mitsos! A dirty hand it is. He gnaws a mutton-bone, holding it in greasy fingers, and licking them afterwards, and drinks sour wine. Why should a man live like a pig when there is no need?"

"Because he has a pig's soul, even as the Capsina has a man's soul," said Mitsos. "Yanni, we must go Turk-sticking on the mountains when we get out of this. There will be plenty of Turks to stick."

"When will that be?"

"When the Turks have no more to eat, or when the fleet arrives, whichever happens first. You see, it is like this: The fleet still comes not, and without the fleet how shall they relieve Nauplia, not having sufficient food themselves. If the fleet does not soon come, they will have to make their way back to Corinth. Meantime, on the mountains, between here and there, every day fresh Greeks collect. How many men has Kolocotrones with him?"

"Ten thousand, he says," said Yanni, "but he always says ten thousand."

"May his saints have made him speak truth at last!" said Mitsos. "Then there are Mainats. How many?"

"A thousand," said Yanni, "and Niketas is already encamped on the hills with two thousand. Oh, Mitsos, it is a nice little trap we have ready for the devils!"

Mitsos suddenly felt in his pouch.

"Tobacco – oh, tobacco!" he cried. "Yanni, not a whiff has been in my mouth for three days, when the tobacco was finished. I will sell you my soul for tobacco. Surely you have some."

Yanni pulled out a roll of it.

"Halves," he said. "Cut it, Mitsos, and remember the saints are watching you!"

Mitsos ran across to the still glowing fire and fetched a light.

"The Capsina said I thought about nothing but tobacco," he remarked, "and indeed I do think about it a good deal. What was it we were saying? Oh yes, we stop here till there is no more food, and then we cut our way out, somehow. There will be broken heads that day. I pray mine shall not be one of them. But if the Turks move first we garrison the place and leave men here sufficient to hold it, and follow the Turks to Nauplia, if this fleet comes, or up into the mountains towards Corinth."

"You will join the Mainats again when we move?" asked Yanni.

"Surely." He paused a moment, frowning. "Yanni, it is absurd of me, but again I am disquiet about Suleima. I ought to have learned by now that God watches her very carefully. But supposing the Turks go towards Nauplia, the house is on the way."

Yanni laughed.

"And Father Andréa, maybe, will run away, leaving Suleima there. Oh, it is very likely," said he. "It is time to go to bed, Mitsos. Where do you sleep?"

"I will show you. There is room for two. Oh, I am a guard for the last two hours of the night, and you will have the bed to yourself. But surely at sunrise I will come back, very full of sleep, and I shall fall on you. Thus you will be flat."

A long barrack-room stretched from near the gate up the north side of the citadel, already nearly full of men stretched, some on the ground, others on sacking, asleep. The night was very hot, and the atmosphere inside was stifling. Mitsos sniffed disgustedly.

"This will not do," he said. "We will fetch the sacks and lie outside. Tell the guard, Yanni, that when my watch comes I shall be asleep by the gate, so that they may wake me."

Other men had come to the same conclusion as Mitsos, and on their way to the gate they passed many stretched out still and sleeping on the dry, withered grass. The moon had long since risen, and the plain was flooded with white light. The fire near the gate had died down, and only now and then a breath of wind passing over the fluffy ashes made them glow again for a moment. A little farther they passed the goat-pen against the wall, and two or three goats looked up inquisitively as they walked by out of long, shallow eyes. The sentry was opposite the gate as they came up, and Mitsos showed him where he would be in a deep embrasure of the wall, where a projecting angle stood out, leaving a dark corner sheltered from the glare of the moonlight. They threw down the sacking here and arranged it lengthwise, making a bed broad enough for two. Mitsos had brought his thick peasant's cloak with him, and this formed an admirable pillow, for the night was too hot to need it as a covering. He kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt, so as to let the cool night air on to his skin, and as his pipe was not yet finished, he sat and talked to Yanni, who lay down.

"But it is hot beyond endurance to-night," he said, "and you will see towards mid-day to-morrow, when there is no shelter for a fly, how fine a grilling-pan is this Larissa. The land is no place for a man to live; he should be on the sea year in and year out."

He beat out the ashes of his pipe.

"Yet it is good to be together again, Yanni," he said, lying down. "And now it is sleeping time. I wish the devil would fly away with sentry duty at night."

Three hours later the sentry came to wake Mitsos, and Yanni, who was not asleep, got up gently.

"I will take Mitsos's duty," he said. "Yes, I am Yanni Mavromichales, who came in to-night."

The man grunted sleepily and turned in, wondering whether, for any consideration in the world, he would take a night watch out of turn.

CHAPTER XI

But with the increase in the number of the garrison the flock of goats dwindled like patches of snow when the spring had come, and after a three days' grilling on the rock, and a calculation which showed that there was food for the whole number of men for only three days more, it was judged more prudent that, since the Turks showed no signs of meditating another assault, half the garrison should cut their way through the Turkish lines and go back to the Greek camp at Lerna and return again with fresh supplies of food. The Turkish fleet, meantime, had not appeared, and it seemed certain that the army would not hold Argos much longer. Forage and food were getting daily scarcer and more distant of gathering, and many men were stricken down with a virulent dysentery and fever, arising, no doubt, from their constant expeditions into the marshy ground and the unripe fruit which they plucked and ate freely. And day by day the Greeks continued to collect on the mountains.

It was decided that the original occupiers should go, for many of them were hardly fit for longer service after their ten days on that gridiron rock; but a few Mainats – and among others Mitsos – sturdily declared that they would not leave the place while there was a piece of goat's-meat or a loaf of bread remaining. Hypsilantes also, whose untrained body felt the heat and the coarseness of the scanty food most severely, was, after many fruitless attempts at persuasion, induced to be of the evacuating party. His object was already gained: he had thrown in his lot with the people, turning his back on the idle and cowardly senators; and it was important, until more food was obtained, to have as few mouths as possible to feed, provided that those who remained could hold the place in case of attack.

Fortune favored their escape, for before sunset on the night on which this partial evacuation was fixed a wrack of storm-clouds, scudding out of the sea from the south and spreading over the sky with a rapidity that promised a hurricane, brought in their train a noisy night of storm. By nine o'clock the rain had come on in torrents, with thunder and lightning, and in the headlong pelt they marched silently out of the gate, and crept down the hill-side towards the Turkish lines. These had been now drawn round the rocks where the Mainats had entered three nights before, and as they had to cut a way through the enemy somewhere, it was best to choose a place where there should be quicker going than down the goat-path. To the left of the rocks the hill ended in a steep earth-covered slope, below which were the lines, and this point most promised success. Under cover of the storm they approached unheard, and then quickening up, they ran down the last slope, which, under the tropical downpour, was no more than a mud-slide. Between the alleys of tents were lanterns, somewhat sparsely placed, and by good fortune the first Greeks who entered the lines came straight upon one of these, round which were two or three sentries. The sentries were neatly and silently knifed before any had time to raise the alarm or fire, and still at the double, the Greeks passed the second line of tents into another parallel passage. Here they were hardly less lucky. A shot or two was fired, and the alarm was given; but under that blinding and deafening uproar of the elements the Turks ran hither and thither, over tent-ropes and into each other, and without loss of a single man the Greeks gained the plain beyond.

Twice during the following week Petrobey attempted to force his way by night through the Turkish lines, which now closely invested the Larissa, for the taking in of fresh supplies to the troops there, but both times without success. The Turks had drawn off a number of troops from the town to strengthen those blockading the citadel, and they were on the lookout for these expeditions. Yet still the fleet did not appear, and it was becoming a question of hours, almost, how long Dramali could remain in Argos, for the intense heat of the last days had withered the scanty forage of the plains, and the men were in no better plight. But meantime the main object of the citadel garrison had been effected. Dramali had been delayed at Argos, not caring to leave this for towns occupied by the Greeks in his rear, instead of pushing on nearer to Nauplia. The Greeks had now collected in force in the hills. But if Dramali was nigh provisionless, the garrison was even more destitute; and on the morning after Petrobey's second attempt it was found that the provisions were coming to an end and, almost worse than that, the water supply was beginning to run short. They had hoped that the tropical storm of a week ago would have replenished the wells, but the sources lay deep, and the thirsty soil absorbed the rain before it penetrated to the seat of the spring. The only difficulty was how to get out.

That evening they had come to the end of the meat, there were only a few loaves left, and the water that day had been muddy and evil tasting; and Mitsos, as they sat round the remains of their scanty meal, tried to persuade himself that Petrobey would have advised their continuing to hold the place, for to propose that they should evacuate was a bitter mouthful. But the more prudent, and so to him less savory, council prevailed. The Mainats were sitting about, gloomy and rather dispirited, and none felt equal to the courage of saying they had better go. Mitsos had been selected by a sort of silent vote to the command, and they waited for him to speak. During a long silence he had been lying full length on the ground, but suddenly he sat up.

"Oh, cousins of mine!" he said; "it is not pleasant to say it, but it shall be said. Assuredly, we cannot stop here any longer. There is no more food, but little water, and that stale and full of the well dregs, and the others have tried twice to get in, and failed. It remains for us to get out."

The Mainats who were close and heard his words grunted, and those farther off came to find out what was forward. Mitsos repeated his words, and again they found a response of grunts. At that he lost his patience a little.

"This is not pleasant for me," he said. "You seem to want to stay here, and you make a coward of me for my thoughts. So be it; we stay. Much good may it do any one."

Kostas raised himself on his elbow. His fine fat face was a little thinner than it had been.

"Softly, little Mitsos," he said. "Give time. I am with you."

"Then why not have said so?" asked Mitsos, in a high, injured voice.

Yanni, sitting close, bubbled with laughter.

"Oh, dear fool," he said, "do you not know us yet? I, too, am with you. So are we all, I believe."

"If it is so, good," said Mitsos, only half mollified; "and if it is not so, very good also."

The clan suddenly recovered their spirits wonderfully. One man began whistling; another sang a verse of the Klepht's song, which was taken up by a chorus. Two or three men near Mitsos patted him on the back, and got knocked about for their pains, and Yanni was neatly tripped up and sat on. Mitsos also regained his equanimity by the use of his hands, and turned to Kostas.

"Is there no word for 'yes' among you but grunts only?" he asked. "Well, let it pass. We must go to-night. Every day the defences are strengthened; and as for that sour bread, thank God, we have done with it," and he picked up the few remaining loaves and hurled them over the fortress wall.

"I am better," he said, "and we will grunt together, cousins."

Now at the back of the Larissa, some hundred yards from the rocks up which the Mainats had climbed, there lay a steep ravine, funnel-shaped, cut in the side of the hill from top to bottom. It ended at the bottom in a gentler slope, and being a very accessible place, since the night surprise it had been closely guarded. The sides of it were sharp-pitched, and a stone dislodged from the top went down, gathering length in its leaps till it reached the bottom of the hill. Kostas had discovered this, for one morning, leaning over the battlements, he had idly chucked a pebble over, and watching its course, saw it fall on the top of a Turkish tent below and, being sharp, rip a hole in it, and Kostas laughed to see that a man popped quickly out, thinking, perhaps, that it was a bullet from above. At the head of this ravine, close to the citadel walls, rose a tall pinnacle of loose, shaly rock. This, too, Kostas had noticed.