CHAPTER II
MITSOS AND YANNI FIND A HORSE
It was a morning to make the blood go blithely. There had been a slight frost during the night, und the rongh grass in the ditches was stiff and sprinkled with the powdered cold, and the air was brisk in the nostrils. To the right the ground fell away sheerly to the outlying hills bordering the plain, which lay unrolled beneath them like a colored map, with extraordinary clearness, in counties of yellow-green, where the corn was already springing, alternating with territories of good red earth, showing where the leafless vineyards stood. Beyond again lay the dim, dark blue of the sea, and across that, more guessed at than seen, the stencilled shapes of the hills beyond the gulf. Their path, a cobbled Turkish road, ascended steadily, skirting about the edges of the deep ravines, and making detours round the acuter slopes which rose above them to the top of the mountain ridge; and the mules ambled slowly along with their panniers of oranges on either side, while Mitsos and Yanni walked behind, dressed in their roughest peasant clothes, talking of the thonsand things of which boys talk. It took them nearly three hours to reach the foot of the last slope on which the village stood, and here they halted for half an hour to eat and drink, in order that they might pass straight through without waiting after giving the message.
Yanni, who knew the village, soon recognized the house to which they were going, which stoad somewhat apart from the others, and had a low outlying building a stone's-throw below it.
"That is the house," he said, "and that shed near is the mill. There is a big stream coming down from the mountains there which turns the wheel."
"They should grind quickly, then. Shall we go on?"
The house in question they found was entered from a yard, the door of which was closed, and their knocking only seemed to rouse a dog inside to the top pitch of fury. But at last a woman came out on the wooden balcony overlooking the street, and asked them what they wanted.
"We want Yorgi Gregoriou," shouted Yanni. "Ah, do you not remember me?"
The woman took up a piece of wood and threw it, as a man throws with force and precision, at the dog inside. The barking broke off short in a staccato howl, and Mitsos guessed that she had hit.
"Yanni Mavromichales, is it not?" asked the woman.
"Surely."
She disappeared into the house, and in a moment her step was heard across the yard. As soon as the door was opened the dog flew out like a cork from a bottle, only to find himself between the devil and the deep sea—his mistress, an authentic terror, standing on one side, and Mitsos' whip flirting out at him like the tongue of a snake on the other. So he scuffled away to a safe distance and barked himself out of all shape.
"Come in, Yanni," said Gregoriou's wife. "What brings you here?"
"A message from Petrobey to Gregoriou."
The woman's eye travelled slowly up to Mitsos' face, as if she could only take him in by sections.
"And the giant?" she asked. "Is he from a fair?"
Yanni shouted with laughter.
"No; it is my cousin. But we are in a hurry, as we go far to-day. Where shall we find Gregoriou?"
"He is at the mill. You will find him there, and then come back and drink a glass of wine."
The stream that worked the mill was confined within a masonry-laid bed for a hundred yards above the house, to narrow its course and concentrate its energy. From the end of the yard ran out a tall, stout-built wall; along the top of this the water was conducted to a wooden shoot, below which was the mill-wheel. The mill seemed to be in full working order, for an ear-filling booming came from within, shaking the rickety door on its hinges. The two tried the latch, but found it locked, and it was not till Yanni had shonted his name that it was cautiously opened.
"Yanni Mavromichales?" queried a voice from inside.
"No other."
"What do you want?"
"This only. Are you grinding corn?"
There was a pause, but the door was still held ajar only.
"Corn for the hungry, or corn for the Turk?" asked the voice.
"Black corn for the Turk."
The door was opened and a little wizened man appeared on the threshold. He had a white beard, cut close and pointed, and a pair of heavy eyebrows. His face was a map of minute wrinkles, as the sea is covered with ripples under the land-breeze, and two suspicious eyes peered narrowly out from under their overhanging brows.
159, Mitsos was standing close to the door, and this grotesque little apparition, as he opened it, gave a shrill squeal of dismay, and would have shut it again had not Yanni prevented him.
"Who is that?" asked the little man, pointing to Mitsos.
"My cousin," said Yanni, "who comes with me on the business of the corn. Oh, all our necks are in one noose. Do not be afraid."
The little old man seemed strangely reassured at this brutality of frankness, and setting the deor wide—"Come in, both of you," he said, shortly.
Inside the noise of the mill was almost deafening, but Gregoriou pinned the wheel, the two stones stopped grinding, and only the water splashed hissing down the channel.
"Black corn, did you say; black corn for the Turk?" stid the little eld man, peering into Yanni's face, with blinking eyes, like a noonday owl. "I grind corn all day, for there will be many hungry mouths. Look you, I am no fighting man; I leave that to those who are taller than the pillars in the church, like this cousin of yours; but where would the fighting be without such as I? But, lad, don't give hint of this to the woman-folk, else I shall have the clan of them a-sereaming round me like the east gale in the mountains."
He rubbed his hands together and broke ont into a screeching cackle of a laugh, which showed a row of discolored, irregular teeth.
"Look here," he said, opening a bin behind the door, "is not this good, strong corn? I have ground it all myself. None but I have ground it."
His face took an expression of diabolical cunning.
"They have promised to buy it of me, all at a sound price," he said; "but it is not that so much that makes my heart go singing—it is that I want it to do its work well, and give the Turk an indigestion of lead. This is good business for me. I will be a rich man, and I shall have brought death to many devils."
He slipped back to the lever that brought the wheel undor the stream, and as the stones began to turn again, from their lips there dribbled out a black powder, which he scooped up in a wooden ladle and emptied into a cask. Then, seeing that the door was still open, he gave another shrill animal cry of fright and sprang to lock it. "Charcoal!" he shouted to them across the rumbling din of the stone, "charcoal ground fine, for so it ts the more nourishing. And here are the sulphur and saltpetre. Tonight I shall mix them carefully—oh, so carefully—and I shall be glutted with the thought that there will be a red death for every stroke in the mixing."
And then he got him back to the stones and fed them tenderly with fresh lumps of charcoal, as one would feed a sick dog.
Mitsos and Yanni were in a hurry to take the road again, and so they left him absorbed in the grinding, and heard the key grate in the lock as soon as they got outside.
From Kalyvia their road topped the watershed of the mountain, and thereafter descended in leaps and strides, almost due west, down to the plain which skirts the bay of Kalamata. They got to Platsz, where they were to sleep that night, an hour before dark, and for the sake of appearances drove their mules to the market-place, and made a display of selling their cargo of oranges. The khan where they put up consisted of two rooms, one occupied by the owner and his family, the other being the café of the village. They sat up smoking and talking till it emptied, and then made themselves beds of their blankets and saddle-bags. The village was inclined to inquisitiveness, but Mitsos told them that they had come from Sparta with oranges und were going home to Tsimova—a possible, and even a plausible, explanation of their presence; and with that the village must be content.
They descended next day onto the coast and into the warm fresh air of the Greek lowlands in winter, and Mitsos called the hierarchy of Heaven to witness that only the shrewdest pinch of cold would drive him again into foul khans while there were trees to sleep under and good grass beds for the limbs. If rooms untenanted by the grosser vermin were. supposed to be beyond the reach of orange-sellers, he would have no room at all, but only God's out-door inn.
Mid-day brought them to Prastion, and to the delivery of the second message. They had no trouble in finding the recipient, for he was the mayor of the village, and was known to be in his vineyard hoeing vines. Yanni waited with the mules in the strect, while Mitsos went to seek him. He looked up as the lad came striding towards him across the hollowed vine-beds.
"You are Zaravenos?" asked he.
Zaravenos assented slowly and suspiciously, as if he would sooner have boen some one else.
"Are you grinding corn?"
The man put down his mattock and looked round suddenly to see that there was no one within hearing.
"Yes, yes," he said, quickly. "But of what corn do you speak—corn for the hungry, or corn for the Turk?"
"Black corn for the Turk."
"Praise the Virgin. But is the time come? Tell me who sent you; was it Nicholas, whom I know well?"
Mitsos thought of Petrobey's injunctions.
"Nicholas? Who is Nicholas?" he said. "But this I have to tell you: if you have not begun, begin, and grind quickly. That is all."
The man looked at him again.
"Surely you are Mitsos," he said. "Nicholas teld me about a mountain of a Mitsos, whom perhaps he would send to us. Why do you not tell me? I have no better friend than Nicholas. He was here a month ago. Where is he now? Is he safe?"
But Mitsos shook his head.
"I do not knew whom you mean," he said, though his heartstrings thrummed within him.
For six days the two went on travelling in a northerly direction, sometimes keeping close to the coast, sometimes visiting strange, gaunt little villages perched high on the flanks of Taygetus. They travelled for the most part at night, trying if possible to come by daybreak within a mile or two of the village whither they were bound. They would then turn off into some wood, or, if they were close to the coast, down onto the beach, and, after tethering and feeding their mules, would breakfast and sleep till about mid-day, when they entered the village, delivered their message, and passed on. Sometimes it would he received eagerly and with shining eyes, and the news would spread at once that the time for which they were waiting had come. Sometimes, if there were Turks about, it would be taken and answered with guardedness and caution, and once the man to whom they had been sent shook his head and said he knew nought of the matter. This was beyond doubt an occasion when running away was necessary, and little time was lost in running.
They reached Kalamata on the seventh day—little did Mitsos think how or when he would see it again—and after spending two nights there (for they had been instructed not only to give messages to three leading Greeks, but also to inquire of the strength of the Turkish garrison, and see to the truth of the report which had reached Petrobey that the fortifications there, as well as at Tripoli, were being repaired), took a boat down the coast to the port of Tsimova, whence their road lay southward through Maina, and then castward back to Panitza, and it was in this district that red-handed adventure met them.
They had now been twelve days from home, and Yanni remarked discontentedly that there were only four more to come. He had never spent more enchanting days than these in the company of Mitsos, with whom in a healthy, boyish manner he had fallen completely in love. Mitsos never lost his temper, and maintained an immense, great serenity under the most disquieting conditions; as, for instanee, when they lost one of the mules during their morning's sleep the day before, when they were up on the spurs of Taygetus, and had to hunt it high and low in a blinding snow blizzard, and came back to find that the other mule had made use of his solitude in rolling himself in some thorn bushes while they were away, conyerting their blankets into one prickly fricassee. The splendid consin had gazed at them ruefully a moment, and "I would I were a tortoise" was his only comment.
Mitsos had fully responded to the frankness of his cousin's adoration, and had confided to him his interrupted love-story, which raised him in Yanni's eyes to hero rank. Besides, he was big and strong and entirely magnificent.
Mitsos had just awakened Yanni on this particular morning, reminding him that it was after mid-day and they had along tramp ahead of them that afternoon. Nymphia, the next village to which they had a message, lay below them on the plain, a mile or two distant. But Yanni refused to go before he had eaten somewhat, and as remonstrance was vain, they fished out bread and meat from the saddle-bags and made a meal, They were sitting thus some thirty yards from the path, which lay through the heart of an upland pine forest, when they heard the going of four-footed steps, and Yanni got up to see if either of their mules had slipped its tether and was preparing to give them another hunt. But it proved only te be a Turkish soldier riding down in the direction of the village to which they were bound. He asked the bush-bowered Yanni what was his business there, and Yanni, who had a wholesome dislike of all Turks, very rudely replied, "Breakfasting, pig," went back to Mitsos, and thought no more of the matter.
The soldier rode quickly on through the village and turned into a house that lay some half-mile below. He found no one there, and tying his horse up went down across a couple of fields to a low, huddled building, beside which stood a mill-wall. He knocked at the door and was admitted at once.
"Krinos," he said to the man who opened it, "I passed a boy on the road through the wood, whom I am sure I saw yesterday at Kyta, and two days ago at Akia, only before there were two of them. It is worth while waiting to see if he comes with a message to you."
"But if there are two of them," said Krinos (for God had made a coward), "there are only two of us."
"Nonsense; admit one only; and this is a boy, and we are men. Besides, there is no time to send to the village, and whom should we find there? They are all Greek of the Greeks. And the boy may be here in a few minutes. Remember, he is not to be killed yet. He has to speak first."
"If is a Mavromichales he will never speak," said Krinos.
"That is yet to be seen. I will stand behind the door, seize him as he enters, and if there are two of them, lock the door behind the first."
Now from Pigadia, where the boys had delivered the message to aman who said he knew nought of the matter, they had been quite right to go on their way as quickly as they could. The Turks had set spies ail over the country, since the rumors of an approaching outbreak had reached them, who were instructed to affect sympathy and cooperation with the revolutionists, and give information at headquarters of all they could learn. The day after Mitsos and Yanni had left Pigadia, still going northward towards Kalamata, this spy had had occasion to make a journey southward. At Tsimova he had inquired whether the boys had been seen, and hearing they had not, for they were then at Kalamata, gave information to the Turkish magistrate, and went on his way. At Nymphia he visited Krinos, who was also in Turkish pay, and told him to extract any information he could if they came his way. From there he had taken ship and gone on to Gythium, which was out of the boys' route.
The magistrate at Tsimova, with characteristic Turkish indolence, holding a clew in one hand, would scareely trouble to move the other in prrsuit. He just let the soldiers of the place know that there would be some small reward given to any of them who appreliended either of the boys; and one of them, the same who had seen Yanni on the wooded path, being anxious that no other should bite at his cherry, had obtained leave of absence and went a-hunting alone. He had seen Yanni on the previous days at Kyta and Akia, and thought it worth while to follow him on to Nymphia, where, as he knew, there was a Greck whom his countrymen supposed to be a revolutionist, but who was really in Turkish pay.
So the soldier hid behind the door, and Krinos went on grinding powder, which he intended to sell eventually—not to the Greeks, but to the Turks. The trap was neaily laid, and smelled of success.
Krinos's mill was of an old-fashioned type, consisting not of two stones, but of one, which was hung with its axle horizontal to the floor, in size and shape resembling a stone-roller, and underneath it ran the long tray in which the corn or charcoal was ground. The tray could be withdrawn for the emptying and filling, and he had just slid if out, as the charcoal was already sufficiently powdered, when the interruption for which he and the soldier had been waiting came. Krinos had not time to put it back, and the stone remained revolving about eight inches from the ground.
Yanni and Mitsos had gone cheerily down the hillside ten minutes after the Turk into the village, where Yanni met a slightly intoxicated cousin, who grinned, and queried "Black corn?"
Yanni looked so important and mysterious at this that Mitsos burst out laughing, and they all three stood in the road and langhed together for no reason, except that one was drunk and two were of a merry mind. Yanni went so far as to explain that they were in a hurry, but no more; and, having inquired where Krinos lived, they passed through the village and out towards the house.
Just below Krinos's house the ground sloped sharply away, so that from the door only the roof of his mill could be seen. This prevented Krinos, who was peering out of the mill-door to learn whether there were two of them, from seeing either till they should pass the house and begin to descend towards the mill. Mitsos tapped at the house door, then knocked, and then shouted; but there was no answer. Yanni followed, and in the courtyard saw a horse tied up. Mitsos had given up the attempt to make any one hear, and he said to Yanni:
"He's not in. What are we to do?"
Yanni scratched his head thoughtfully.
"There's another building farther down which looks like a mill," he said; "we will go there. But wait a minute, cousin; there is a thought in my head."
"Out with it, then."
"Have you in your mind how that when we were breakfasting we heard a horse on the path, and I went to see if it was either of our mules? You remember it turned out to be a Turkish soldier; and this is the horse, or my mother did not bear me."
Mitsos' eye brightened.
"Let us think a moment," he said. "What do you make of it?"
Yanni put his head on one side, like an intelligent but puzzled collie dog.
"Tt is a nice horse," he said, vaguely, "and that is why I noticed it. It would be rather amusing if—hush, I can hear the mill going! Krinos must be there, and—and I shouldn't at all wonder if the Turk was there also!"
Mitsos smiled serenely.
"It is a little trap," he said; "very pretty. What shall we do? What a devil Krinos must be."
"It isn't certain," said Yanni; "but we'll make sure. This is the way. The Turk saw only me, therefore I will go down there alone. I wonder if there are any windows this side. Wait a minnte while I see."
He stole out to the edge of the hill, and reconnoitred from behind a bush.
Krinos was standing at the door, and even as Yanni looked, a head wearing a red soldier's fez popped out and back again, and he crept back with suppressed excitement in his eyes.
"They are both there," he said; "two of them and two of us. Oh, Mitsos, this is very good! You see, we must go to deliver our message, otherwise we should he doing better to run away now; but there is the message to deliver, and that is the first order. This is what I will do: Tie up your mule here, and get behind that bush. Then I will walk down to the mill with my mule, and I expect when Krinos sees me he will go back into the mill and wait; if he does, run down ever so quickly and quietly—there are no windows this side—and hide behind the corner of the house. Then will I come and knock at the door, and I expect that when I give the message Krinos will let me in, and if you hear me shout, in with you. There will be no running away."
"It won't go," said Mitsos; "there will be two of them. They may kill you before I can get in."
"O best and biggest of fools!" whispered Yanni, excitedly; "this is no time for talk. They will not want to kill me, for what would that profit them? They will wish to take me to the Turks—and be damned to all Turks!"
"You are right; come on."
Mitsos crept to his post behind the bush, after tethering his mule well out of sight, and Yanni went unconcernedly down the hillside. As he had expected, as soon as Krinos saw him he strolled back into the mill and shut the door. Yanni waited a moment, and beckoned to Mitsos, who strode noiselessly down and stood behind the corner of the wall, while Yanni came slowly on, reached the mill, and tapped at the door. A voice from inside answered him.
"Who is that?" it asked.
"It matters not," said Yanni. "Are you grinding corn?"
"Corn for the hungry, or corn for the Turk?"
"Black corn for the Turk."
The door was thrown open and Yanni entered. The moment after it was flung to again, and a half-muffled shout came from inside. Mitsos sprang out and threw himself against the door, and went reeling in.
Yanni was struggling in the grasp of two men, the Greek and the Turk, and Mitsos, without losing a moment, flung himself onto Krinos, who was nearest him, and dragged him off with a throttling grip. Krinos dropped his hold on Yanni and turned round to grapple with his new assailant, whom, to his dismay, he saw towering half a head above him. At that moment all Mitsos' cheerfulness and good spirits were transformed into a white anger at the treachery of the man, and, tightening his hold, he wrestled for his life. His extra four inches were counterbalanced by Krinos's extra ten years of hardened bone and knitted muscle, and for the first few seconds they toppled wildly about, and either might have won the fall. But then Mitsos' height began to tell he heard, with a fierce joy, the cracking of some bone in its joint, and knew it came not from him.
Then, for a moment, he felt his adversary's right arm slacken, and knew that his hand was fumbling at his belt, whether for a knife or pistol he could not tell. His own pistol was in his belt, but tumbling, as he had, headlong into the middle of the fight, he had forgotten to take it out. But there was no doubt what that fum_p195.jpg)
"YANNI WAS STRUGGLING IN THE GRASP OF TWO MEN, THE GREEK AND THE TURK"
bling at the belt meant, and, throwing all his force into one effort, he lifted his opponent off his feet and threw him. Krinos's left hand, with which, alone, he was holding Mitsos, lost its grasp, and the man went head over heels backward, and Mitsos, by the force of his own throw, fell forward half across him. Just in front of them the millstone was turning with a slow relentlessness, and for a moment Mitsos thought his own head was going to strike it; but he fell free. Not so the other; there was a moment's cessation of the noise; then came a hoarse cry of agony, a horrid crack, and the stone began to turn again. Krinos's head had fallen right beneath it, and it was cracked as a nut may be cracked in a hinge.
There was no time for exultation. Mitsos picked himself up and gained his feet just as Yanni and the Turk, who were still struggling together, fell—the Turk uppermost. Mitsos saw him reach his hand to the butt of his pistol and draw it, keeping his knee on Yanni while he cocked it with the other hand. But in a moment he had done the same, and the two reports were almost simultaneous. Just above Yanni's head there appeared on the wooden floor a raking furrow, as if some wild beast's claw had struck and torn it; but the Turk fell back, shot through the head.
The smoke cleared away, and Mitsos pulled Yanni from under the soldier; he lay quite still, and the edge of his black curls was singed and burned. Mitsos propped him up against the wall, and ran to get water from the millstream outside. When he came back Yanni's eyes were open, and he was looking about in a dazed, confused way. Mitsos poured a draught of it down his throat and sluiced his head, whereat Yanni looked up and smiled at him.
"Did I not say it would be very good?" he murmured. "Oh, Mitsos, the black devils!"
He sat up and looked round, then pointed at the dead body of the Turk.
"I think I was stunned by the fall," he continued. "I remember falling and hitting my head an awful bang. So you shot him. Where is the other?"
He staggered to his feet and looked round at the millstone; it was streaked and clotted with something dark and oily, and its edges dripped with the same. Krinos's fingers, though he had been dead two minutes at the least, still opened and shut, like seaweed under the suck of a ground-swell, and the nails scratched impotently on the rough-splintered floor.
"We fell—he fell there," said Mitgos. "Come outside, Yanni. It is not good to stop here. Here, let me put my arm round you; you are unsteady yet."
Mitsos looked anxiously round as they got out, but no one was in sight. Yanni's mule had strayed into the field; und, after depositing his cousin against the wall, Mitsos went after it, and, muffling its bell with grass, led it round to the back of the mill, where Yanni was siiting. The latter was quickly recovering, but he felt his head ruefully.
"An awful bang!" he said. "Did he fire at me? My hair is burned."
"Yes," sald Mitsos, "and I at him. Fancy a soldier so bad a shot; but he was made silly at the sight of my pistol, I think. If he hadn't been a fool of a man he would have first fired at me; for, indeed, he had you safe. But I suppose there was no time to think."
"That was well for me," said Yanni.
Mitsos spat thoughtfully.
"Yanni," he said, "we must think very hard what we are to do next. If Uncle Nicholas was only here! No one seems to have heard the shots, and we must get away as quickly as we can. Are we just to leave things as they are and go? Oh, do think, Yanni, and think quickly! My head is just one buzzing."
"The black devils!" snarled Yanni. "Treacherous, black devils!"
"Oh, never mind them," cried Mitsos; "they are in hell. What are we to do?"
Yanni's eye brightened.
"This will we do," he said. "There is much powder here. Blow wp the whole place. If we leave it as it is they will find those dead things. Yes, Mitsos, that is the way."
Yanni got up.
"Come inside," he said, "and see if there is plenty of powder."
The two went back and stopped the miliwheel, for it was a blood-curdling thing to see its shredded burden carried round and round. Mitsos dragged the headless wreck away and laid it by the Turk in the centre of the room, while Yanni searched for the powder.
"Look," he said, at last, "here is a whole barrel. That will do our work. I know how to make a train, I have done it at home to blow up rocks. We must waste no time. Go back to the house, Mitsos, and bring your mule—oh yes—and the Turk's horse, too; it will not do to leave that, and take the lot into the woods above the path, lower down there. Then come back here. I shall be ready. I will make a train that will give us about three minutes."
Mitsos ran up to the house, as Yanni suggested, and led the two animals down. He stopped at the mill to tie Yanni's mule to his own, and then struck straight off the path into the trees, and tethered them all some three hundred yards off where the trees grew thick. Then he went back to Yanni.
Yanni had laid a train from the centre of the room, where the bedies were, out under the door, making it of moist powder wrapped in thick paper. He had waited for Mitsos to lift the barrel, for he was still weak and unsteady, and they bored a hole through it, so that the dry powder ran out into the end of the train, and then closed the lid tight to increase the force of the explosion. Mitsos put the barrel in the centre of the room, laid the two bodies on it, and placed over it all the loose articles he could find.
"I will fire it," said he, "because it will be best to tun, and you can't run just now. Come out, Yanni, and I will show you where the horses are. Look; do you see that big white trunk at the edge of the wood? Walk there and keep straight on; you will find them two hundred yards inside. Now go."
Mitsos waited till Yanni had disappeared, and then, locking the door and pushing the key underneath it, fired the end of the train and ran as hard as his legs would move after Yanni. He found him with the beasts, having taken from the Turk's horse the trappings and paddle, which bere the star and crescent, and thrown them into a thick bush. A few moments afterwards a great quiver and roar came to them from the direction of the village, and they knew that the powder had done its work.
Mitsos made Yanni mount the Turk's horse, and they hurried off through the trees, meaning to make a long détour and come down upon the next village from the far side.