CHAPTER IV
YANNI PAYS A VISIT TO THE TURK
Their last day's journey to Panitza was no more than a five hours' going, and by mid-day the two boys had crossed the ridge of mountain which toppled above it, and saw it nestled in a hollow below them. There, too, they found Petrobey himself, who had ridden out to meet them, both to give them news and take theirs. After they had eaten, Mitsos told their story, at which the soul of Petrobey was lifted high within him, and he was filled with an exceeding joy when he heard of the fate of Krinos.
"But all this spying and suspicion among the Turks make the next order the more necessary," he said, when Mitsos had finished. "Yanni, lad, I am very sorry, but it is Tripoli for you and Nauplia for Mitsos."
Yanni looked up at Mitsos.
"Oh, lucky one!" he said, below his breath, "see that Suleima has forgotten you not."
Then aloud:
"When shall I have to go to that kennel, father?" he said.
"You can stay here two days or three, and then you and Mitsos will go together. That Mehemet Salik has a sharp nose; but you shall be red herring to him, Yanni, and he will smell no farther afield."
Yanni wrinkled up his face with an expression of pungent disgust.
"I want no Turk smelling round me," he said. "It is the devil's business. How long must I be there, think you?"
"Not long, I hope. A month, perhaps. It will be an experience worth paying for, even for you. They will treat you royally, for they have no desire to make enemies among the clan. I want Mitsos to go with you as your servant for a day or two, so that he too may have free access to the governor's house and know where you will be in case they get more alarmed and keep you close, so that when the time comes for your escape he may easily find you."
"That will be a fine day for me," said Yanni.
"And what for me," asked Mitsos, "after I leave Yanni there?"
"You go to Nauplia with a letter from me for Nicholas, but I expect you will stay there just as long as the gull when he dips in the sea and out again. There will then be another journey for you northward to Patras to speak with Germanos, However, Nicholas will tell you all that."
Yanni sat up and pulled Mitsos' hair.
"O lazy dog," he said, "is it for this I pay you wages, that you should lie in the grass by your master"—and he felt in his pouch and found his tobacco gone—"and, by the Virgin! take his tobacco, and then not be able to fill a pipe fit for a Turk to smoke?"
"Fill it for me, Yanni," said the other, returning the tobacco, "and let go my hair before there is trouble for a little cousin of mine."
"You shall brush my clothes and sew my buttons," continued Yanni, "and lay my supper, and eat of my leavings. It isa fine thing to have a good strong servant. There's your pipe."
Mitsos reached out a huge hand, plucked Yanni's pipe from his mouth, and lit his own at it.
"There is a good clean smell abroad to-day," he said. "It is the first of spring. Just think; last year only I went out picking flowers with the little boys and girls on this day, and here am I now a man of war. It was good to sleep under the pines and wake to them whispering; was it not, Yanni? Perhaps that will come again when the kennel-work is over."
"Easter candles give I to the Mother of God," said Yanni, "for the days that are gone, and a candle more for every day we journey together, Mitsos,"
"The Blessed Mother of God will have a brave lighting up one night, then," said Petrobey, "if things go well with us. There's many a tramp for you both yet. And who will be paying for the candles, little Yanni?"
The third day after, the two set out for Tripoli, Yanni trinketed out in his best clothes, as was fit for the son of a great chief, and going forward on a fine gray horse, Mitsos behind him on his own pony, in the dress of a servant, leading the baggage-mule. Four days' travelling, for they rode but short hours, being in no way very eager to get to the "kennel-work," as Mitsos called it, brought them to Tripoli, where Yanni went straight to the governor's house, leaving Mitsos outside in the square with the beasts.
The house stood on one side of the square, but to those outside showed only a bald face of wall, pierced here and there with a few iron gratings. As Mitsos waited he saw a woman's face thickly veiled peering out from one of these, and guessed rightly that here were the women's quarters. An arched gateway leading into the garden and closed by a heavy door, which had been opened to Yanni by the porter, and shut again immediately after he had entered, alone gave access to the premises, After waiting a few minutes the door was again opened, and a Turkish servant came out to help him to carry in the luggage. But the luggage was but light and Mitsos carried it all in himself, while the porter, leaning on his long stick, and resplendent in his embroidered waistcoat and red gaiters trimmed with gold, looked at him with indolent insolence, playing with the silver-chased handle of his long dagger. Behind the gate stood a small room for the porter, and on the left, as he entered, the side of the block of building he had seen from the street, A door was pierced in the middle of it, but the windows, as outside, were narrowly barred. The path was bordered on each side by a strip of gay garden-bed, and following the porter's directions he went straight on and past the corner of the main block, from the end of which ran out another narrow building right up to the bounding wall away from the strect. In front of this lay a square garden planted with orange-trees and flowering shrubs, the house itself running from the square to the bounding wall at the back.
This second block of narrow buildings was two-storied, the upper story being faced by a balcony which was reached from below by an outside staircase. Four rooms opened onto this, and, still following his directions, he knocked at the first of the doors and a young Turk came out, who, seeing Mitsos with the luggage, reached down a key and proceeded to open the doors of the next two rooms. These, he said to Mitsos, were his master's rooms, and the end room was a slip of a place where he could sleop if his master wished to have him near. So Mitsos, as Yanni did not appear, unpacked his luggage and waited for him.
Yanni came up presently, accompanied by the porter, and was shown into his rooms, where Mitsos was busy arranging things. He shut the door hastily, and, waiting till the steps of the porter had creaked away down the balcony steps, broke out with an oath.
"The very devil, Mitsos," he said; "but this is no good job we are on. Here am I, and from within this kennel-place I may not stir, I sleep and am fed, and for exercise I may walk in that pocket-handkerchief of a garden and pick a flower to smell, but out of these walls I don't move."
Mitsos whistled.
"It is then good that I came," he said. "I suppose this Turk next door is your keeper. Oh, Yanni, but we shall have bitter dealings with him before you get out of this. I shall stop here to-night—there is a room I may use next this—and you inside and I outside must just examine the lie of things. I will go out now, round to the stables to see if the horses are properly cared for, and before I come back I will have gone round the outside of this place and seen what is beyond these walls. And you look about inside."
Mitsos returned in about an hour. "It wasn't good," he said, "but it might have been worse." From the square it was impossible to get into the place, except through the gate, and equally impossible to get out. To the right of the gate stood the corner house of the square, and next to it a row of houses opening ont on the street leading from the square, and there was no getting in that way. On the left the long wall of the back of the house looked out blankly into another corresponding street running into the square, but farther down things were not hopeless; for the house next Mehemet's stood back from the street in the middle of its garden, and was enclosed by an eight-foot wall, "None so high," quoth Mitsos, "but that a bigger man than you could get up." Standing on the top of the wall, it would be possible to get onto the roof of the block of buildings in which they were, and from there down onto the balcony, which was covered in and supported by pillars, one of which stood in front of Yanni's door. "And where a man has come, there may two go," said Mitsos, in conclusion; "so do not look as if the marrow had left your bones, Yanni."
"It's all very good for you," said Yanni, mournfully; "but here am I cooped up like a tame hen for a month, or it may be more, in this devil-kennel place, with a garden to walk in and an orange to suck. Eh, Mitsos, but it will be a gay life for me sitting here im this scented town. A fat-bellied, slow-footed cousin will you find when you come for me. I doubt not I shall be sitting cross-legged on the floor with a narghilé, and a string of beads, and a flower in my hair."
"Oh, you'll soon get fit again on the mountains," said Mitsos, cheerfully. "I expect it will be quick going when I come to fetch you out of this."
Yanni nodded his head towards the Turk's room next door.
"Some night when you come tramping on the roof overhead," he said, "will he not wake and pluck you by the two heels as you come down onto the balcony?"
Mitsos grinned.
"There will be fine doings that night," he said. "If only you looked into the street we could arrange that you should be at the windew every night, and I could whistle you a signal; but here, bad luck to it! I could whistle till my-lips were in rags and you would not hear. I shall have to come in myself."
Mitsos stopped in Tripoli two days, and before he left Yanni had plucked up heart again concerning the future. However much the Turks might in their hearts distrust the scornful clan, they could not afford to bring that nest of hornets about their ears without grave reason. Yanni had but to ask for a thing and he had it; it was only not allowed him to set foot outside the house and garden. About his ultimate safety he had no shadow of doubt. Mitsos had examined the wall again, and declared confidently that he would not find the slightest difficulty in getting in, and that their exit, with the help of a bit of rope, was in the alphabet of the use of limbs. The Turk who was Yanni's keeper was the only other occupant of that part of the house, the story below being kitchens and washing-places not tenanted at night. "And for the Turk," said Yanni, "we will make gags and other arrangements." In the mean time he announced his intention of being a model of discretion and peacefulness, so that no suspicion might be aroused.
Mitsos was to start on the third day, and it was still the grayness that precedes sunrise when he came into Yanni's room equipped for going. Yanni had told Mehemet Salik that his father could not spare him longer, and that he was to go home at once; whereat Mehemet had very courteously offered to put another Turkish servant at his disposal, a proposition which Yanni declined with some alacrity, as such au arrangement would mean another Turk in that block of building.
"And, O little Mitsos," said Yanni, "come for me as quick as may be. I shall be weary for a sight of you. Dear consin, we have had good days together, and may we have more soon, for I have a great love for you."
Mitsos kissed him,
"Yes, Yanni," he said, "as soon as I can come I will, and nothing, not Suleima herself, shall make me tarry for an hour till you are out again."
"Ah! you have Suleima," said Yanni; "but for me, Mitsos, there is none like you. So, good-bye, cousin; forget me not, but come quickly."
And Mitsos swore the oath of the clan to him that neither man, woman, nor child, nor riches, nor honor, should make him tarry as soon as it was possible for him to come again, and gave him his hand on it, and then went down to sadde his pony with a blithe heavy-heartedness about him, for on one side he was leaving an excellent good comrade, but on in front there was waiting Suleima.
All day he travelled, and the moon which rose about midnight showed him the bay just beneath him, all smooth and ashine with light. He had taken a more roundabout path, so as to avoid passing through Argos at night, and another hour of quick going brought him down to the head of the sandy beach where he had fished with Suleima, and when he saw it his heart sang to him. A southerly breeze whistled among the rushes, and set tiny razor-edged ripples prattling on the pebbles, and sweet was the well-remembered freshness of the sea, and sweet, but with how exquisite a spice of bitterness, the remembrance of one night three weeks ago. Then on again down the narrow path, where blackthorn and olive brushed him as he passed, by the great white house with the sea-wall he knew well, and into the road just opposite his father's house. The dog rushed out from the veranda intent on slaughter of this midnight intruder, but at Mitsos' whispered word he jumped up fawning on his hand, and in a couple of minutes more Nicholas, who was a light sleeper, and had been awakened by the bark, unfastened the door.
"Mitsos, is it little Mitsos?" said the well-known voice.
"Yes, Uncle Nicholas," he said, "I have come back."
Mitsos slept late the next morning, and Nicholas, though he waited impatiently enough for his waking, let him have his sleep out, for though he despised the necessities of life, such as eating and drinking, he had the utmost respect for the simpler luxuries, such as the fill of sleep and washing, and it was not till after nine that Mitsos stirred and awoke with a great lazy strength lying in him, Nicholas had had the great wooden tub filled for his bath, and while he dressed made him coffee and boiled his eggs, for times had gone hard with Constantine, and he could no longer keep a servant. And as soon as Mitsos had finished breakfast he and Nicholas fell to talk.
First Mitsos deseribed his adventure down to his parting with Yanni, and the man of few words spoke not till he had finished. Then he said—and his words were milk and honey to the boy:
"It could not have been better done, little Mitsos. Now for Petrobey's letter."
He read it out to Mitsos:
"Dear Cousin,—This will Mitsos bring you, and I desire no better messenger. He will tell you what he has been doing; and I could hear that story many times without being tired. Yanni, poor lad, is kennelled in Tripoli, and in this matter some precision will be needed, for now we are already being rung to the feast ['Petrobey will not stick to home-brewed words,' remarked Nicholas], and my poor lad must remain in Tripoli till the nick of the moment. Once he is safe out we will fall to, and he must not be out till the last possible moment. Oh, Nicholas, be very careful and tender for the boy. Again, the meeting of primates is summoned for early in March. Moles and owls may not see what this means. Some excuse must be found so that they go not; therefore, cousin, lay hands on that weaving brain of yours until it answers wisely ['What a riddling fellow this is!' growled the reader], and talk with Germanos through the mouth of Mitsos. A further news for you. The monks of Ithome have turned warmly to their country, so there will be no lack of hands in the south, and they from Megaspelaion had better keep to their own country, and outbreak at the same time as we at Kalamata, so shall then be the more magnificent confusion, and from the north as well as the south will the dogs run into Tripoli. Some signal will be needed, so that on the day that we rise in the south they too may make trouble in the north; some device of fiery beacons, I should say."
Here Petrobey's epistolary styie broke down and he finished in good colloquial Greek:
"Oh, cousin, but a feast day is coming, and there will be a yelp and a howl from Kalamata to Patras. By God! I'd have given fifty brace of woodcock, though they are scarce this year, to see that barbarian nephew of yours throw Krinos under the millstone; and my boy Yanni has the cunning of an old grandfather. I think Mitsos can tell you all else. Come here yourself as soon as you safely may. The mother of God and your name-saint protect you!
"Tell Mitsos about the deviil-ships. There will not be much time afterwards."
Nicholas thumped the letter as it lay on the table.
"Now, Mitsos," he said, "tell me all that you have to do. Yes, take a pipe and give yourself a few minutes to think."
Mitsos smoked in silence a few minutes, and then turned to Nicholas.
"This is it," he said. "First of all, I go to Patras—no, first I shall go to Megaspelaion to tell the monks that they will be wanted in the north and not the south, and arrange some signals, so that we from Taygetus or Panitza or Kalamata can communicate with them. Then I go to Patras, bearing some message from you to Germanos, whereby he shall excuse himself from going to Tripoli with all the primates, for that is a trap to get them into the power of the Turk. Then there is some business about devil-ships which I do not understand, and at the last I have to got Yanni safely out of Tripoli, But before that I imagine you will have gone te my cousin Petrobey."
Nicholas nodded approvingly.
"You have a clear head for so large a boy," he said, "though apparently you are not so crafty as Yanni. Now what we have to do, now this moment, is to invent some excuse whereby Germanos and the primates will find means to disobey Mehemet Salik when he summons them to Tripoli. Oh, Mitsos, but it is a wise man's thoughts that we want."
Mitsos knitted his forehead.
"Can't they go there and then escape, as Yanni is to do?" he said, precipitately.
Nicholas shook his head in reproof.
"Fifty cassocked primates climbing over a town wall! Little Mitsos, you are no more than a fool."
Mitsos laughed.
"So Yanni often told me," he said. "I'm afraid it's true."
"Try and be a shade more sensible. Think of all the impossible ways of doing it, and then see what is left, for that will be the right way. Now first, they must either refuse to go point-blank or seem to be obeying. Certainly they must not refuse outright to go; so that leaves us with them seeming to obey."
"Well, they mustn't get there," said Mitsos; "so they must stop on the way."
"That is true. Why should they stop on the way? We will go slow here."
"There must be something that stops them," said Mitsos, with extreme caution.
"Yes, you are going very slow indeed, but it is a fault on the right side. Something must stop them, which even in the eyes of the Turks will seem reasonable and enable them all to disperse again, for they will all go together from Patras. Oh, why did my mother give birth to a fool?"
Mitsos suddenly got up and held his finger in the air.
"Wait a minute," he cried, "don't speak to me, Uncle Nicholas.… Ah, this is it. We will imagine there is a Turk in Tripoli friendly to Germanos. We will imagine he sends a letter of warning to Germanos. Do you see? Germanos reads the letter aloud to the fathers, and they send to Tripoli demanding assurance of their safety, and so disperse. Quick, Uncle Nicholas, write a letter from the friendly Turk in Tripoli to Germanos, which he will read the fathers on the journey."
Nicholas stared at Mitsos in sheer astonishment for a moment.
"Out of the mouth of big babes and sucklings!" he ejaculated. "Oh, Mitsos, but it is no less than a grand idea. Tell me again."
Mitsos was flushed with excitement.
"Oh, Uncle Nicholas, but it's plainer than the sun," he cried. "I go to Patras, and before now the summons for the primates and bishops will have come. I take to Germanos your instructions that they assemble as if to go, and make a day's journey or two days' journey. Then one morning there comes to Germanos a letter from Tripoli, from a Turk to whom he has been a friend. 'Do not go,' it says, 'without an assurance of your safety, for the Turks are treacherous.' So Germanos sends back a messenger to Tripoli to ask for an assurance of safety, and meantime they all disperse again, and by the time the Turks can bring them together with an assurance of safety or what not, why the feast, as my cousin Petroboy says, will be ready."
Nicholas sat silent a moment.
"Little Mitsos," he said, at length, "but you are no fool. I was one to say so."
Mitsos langhed.
"Will it do then?"
"It is of the best," said Nicholas,
The more Nicholas thought it over, the more incomparable did Mitsos' scheme appear. It was amazingly simple, and, as far as he could see, without a flaw. It seemed to solve every difficulty, and made the whole action of the primates as planned inevitable, It would be impossible for them to go to Tripoli, and by the time the demand for safety had reached Mehemet Salik, and been granted, they would have dispersed.
The second piece of business was to let them know at the monastery that their arms and men would not be needed, as Nicholas had expected, in the south, but fora simnitaneous ontbreak in the north; and there was also to be arranged some code of signals that could travel in an hour or two from ene end of the Peloponnesus to the other. The simplest system, that of beacon-fires, seemed to be the best, and was peculiarly well suited to a country like the Peloponnesus, where there were several ranges of mountains which overtopped the long intervening tracts of hills and valleys, and were clearly visible from one another. From Taygetus three intermediate beacons could probably carry news to the hills above Megaspelaion, and two beacons more to Patras.
There were, then, two messages to be conveyed to Megaspelaion—the first, that their arms would be required in the north, so that there was no need of their beginning to make depots of them southward, as Nicholas had suggested in his last visit there; and the second, to arrange a system of beacons with them. It was not necessary that Mitsos should give the first message himself, as Nicholas had told them to be ready to receive a messenger—man, woman, or child—who spoke of black corn for the Turk, though it must be delivered at once; but for the second it were better that he carried with him not only a letter from Nicholas, but also one from Germanos, with whom they would have to arrange the beacons between Patras and the monastery. Also, he wished Mitsos to take a message to Corinth, and go from there to Patras, where he would see Germanos, and thence return by Megaspelaion, not to Nauplia, for Nicholas would already have joined Petrobey, but back to Panitza.
Mitsos nodded.
"But who will take the first message to Megaspelaion?" he asked.
Nicholas turned to Constantine.
"Whom do we know there? Stay, did not one Yanko Vilachos, with his wife Maria, move on to monastery land a month or two ago?"
"Maria?" said Mitsos. "Maria is a very good woman. But I doubt if Vlachos is any use. He is a wine-bibbing mule."
"Where does he live?" asked Nicholas.
"At Goura, a day's journey from Nemea."
"Goura? There are plenty of good folk there. You had better go out of your way at Nemea, Mitsos, spend the night with Yanko, and arrange for the measage being taken; and then go back next day to Nemea, and so to Corinth, where you will take ship. Pay him horse-hire and wage for four days, if it is wanted. I will give you letters to Priketes and Germanos. What else is there?" "Only the business of the devil-ships, of which I know nothing; and to get Yanni out of the kennel."
"The devil-ships can wait till Panitza. When will you be ready to start?"
Mitsos thought of the white wall, and his heartstrings throbbed within him.
"I could go to-morrow," he said. "The pony will need a day to rest."
Nicholas rose from the table and walked up and down once or twice.
"I don't want Yanni to stop at the house of that Turk longer than is necessary," he said. "It was a bold move and a clever one of Petrobey's, but it may become dangerous."
Mitsos said nothing, for it was a hard moment. Had not the thought of this evening—the white wail, the dark house on the bay with Suleima—been honey in the mouth for days past, and become ineffable sweetness as the time drew nearer? Yet, on the other hand, had he not sworn to Yanni the oath of the clan—that neither man, woman, nor child should make him tarry? He desired definite assurance on one point.
"Uncle Nicholas," he said, at length, "if I went today would Yanni get out of Tripoli a day sooner?"
Nicholas turned round briskly.
"Why, surely," he said; "when this business is put through there is still but little more to do, but until it is all done Yanni is clapped in his kennel. The moment it is over he is out."
Mitsos sat still a moment longer,
"I will start to-day," he said. "It is only a short day's journey to Nemea. Write your letter, please, Uncle Nicholas, and then I will go."
"I don't know whether it really matters if you go day or to-morrow," said Nicholas, seeing that the boy for some reason wished to stop.
"No, no," broke out Mitsos. "You think it is better for me to go to-day. The sooner the business is over the sooner Yanni comes out. You said so."
Nicholas raised his eyebrows at this outburst. He did not understand it in the least.
"I will write, then, at once," he said. "It is true that the sooner Yanni comes out the better."
Mitsos stood with his back to him, looking out of the window, and two great tears rose in his eyes. He was giving up more than any one knew.
Nicholas saw that something was wrong, but as Mitsos did not care to enlighten him, it was none of his business. But he had a great affection for the lad, and as he passed he laid his hand on his shoulder.
"You are a good little Mitsos," he said. "The letters will be ready in an hour. You will have dinner here, will you not, and set out afterwards? You cannot go farther than Nemea to-night."
So after dinner Mitsos set out again, and it seemed to him as he went that the heart within him was being torn up as the weeds in a vineyard are rooted for the burning. And on this journey there was no thought that he would soon come back. He was to return, Nicholas told him, not to Nauplia, but to Panitza, where there would be work for him to do until the time came for him to get Yanni out of Tripoli. By then everything would be ready, the beacons would flare across the Peloponnesus, and simultaneously in the north and at Kalamata the outbreak would begin. The reason for this was twofold. The Greek forces were not yet sufficiently organized to conduct the siege of Tripoli, which was strongly fortified, well watered, and heavily garrisoned. Kalamata, however, was a more pregnable place, the water supply was bad inside the citadel, and the garrison not numerous. Again, it was a port, and by getting possession of the harbor, which was not defended, and separate from the citadel, they would drive those who escaped inland to Tripoli. The movements in the north, too, would hare the same effect. Tripoli was the strongest fortress in the Peloponnesus, and by the autumn, when, as Nicholas hoped, the Greeks would be sufficiently organized to undertake the siege, it would be the only refuge left for the Turks who were still in the country. Then it would be that the great blow would be struck which would free the whole Peloponnesus. In the interval the plan was as far as possible to cut the country off from the rest of the world by a fleet which was being organized in the islands, and by means of the fire-ships which should destroy the Turkish vessels seeking to leave it, and prevent others from coming into the ports. For practical purposes there were only four ports—at Corinth, Patras, Nauplia, and Kalamata. The first two would be the care of the leaders of the revolution in the north; for Kalamata and Nauplia, Nicholas and Petrobey had arrangements in hand.
That night Mitsos slept at Nemea, and all next day travelled across the great inland plain where lie the lakes. Through the length and breadth of that delectable country the spirit of spring was abroad—crocuses and the early anemones burned in the thickets, and the dim purple iris cradled bees in a chalice of gold. Brimming streams crossed the path, and the sunlight lay on their pebbly beds in a diaper of amber and stencilled shadow, and Mitsos' pony at the mid-day halt ate his fll of the young, juicy grass. But in the lad's heart the spring woke no echo; he went heavily, and the glorious adventure to which he had sacrificed his new-found manhood, fully indeed and without a murmur, seemed to him a thing of little profit. And if he had known what hard days were waiting for him, and the blank agonies and bitterness through which he was to fulfil his destiny, he would, it is to be feared, have turned his pony's head round and said that an impossible thing was asked of him. But he knew nothing beyond this two-week task now set him, and to this he was committed, not only by his promise to Nicholas—and, to do him justice, his own self-respect—but by the oath of the clan, which rather than fail in he would have sooner died.
The second evening a little before sunset he saw Goura close before him, standing free and roomily on a breezy hill-side, and ringed with vineyards, Behind lay the great giants of the mountain range—Helmos cowled in snow, and Cyllene all sunset-flushed. Yanko's house proved to be at the top of the village, and there he found Maria with a face all smiles for his welcoming. Yanko was still in the fields, and Mitsos and Maria talked themselves up to date with each other till he came home.
Oh yes, he was a good husband, said Maria, and he earned a fine wage. He was as strong as a horse, and when he let the wine-shop alone he did the work of two men. "And I am strong too," said she, "and when he doesn't come home by ten in the evening it will be no rare thing for me to bring him back with a clout over the head for his foolishness. And why are you here, Mitsos?"
"Business," he said; "business for Nicholas. It is Yanko who can do it for us. I may tell yon about it, Maria, for so Nicholas said. He is wanted to take a message to the monastery. Four days' horse-hire, if he wishes, will be paid, and he will be doing a good work for many."
"On business against the Turk?" asked Maria.
"Surely."
Maria shook her head doubtfally.
"Yanko is a good man," she said, "but he is a man of the belly. So long as there is food in plenty, and plenty of wine, he does not care. But he will not be long; you shall ask him. It is so good to see you again, Mitsos. Do you remember our treading the grapes together in the autumn? How you have grown since then! Your height is two of Yanko, but then Yanko is very fat."
Maria looked at him approvingly with her head on one side; she distinctly felt a little sentimental. Mitsos reminded her of Nauplia, aud of the days when she was so proud of being engaged to Yanko while still only seventeen, and of having Mitsos, whom she had always thought wonderfully good-looking and pleasant, if not at her feet, at any rate interested in her. She had been more than half disposed, as far as her personal inclination had gone, to put Yanko off for a bit and try her chance with the other; but she was safe with Yanko, and he did quite well. But it both hurt her and pleased her to see Mitsos again—he was better looking than ever, and he had a wonderful way with him, an air of breeding—Maria did not analyze closely, but this is what she meant—to which the estimable Yanko was qnite a stranger. And this brave adventure of his, of which he teld her the main outlines; his kinship to, and rapturous adoption by, the great Mavromichales' clan, lent him a new and powerful attraction. And when Yanko's heavy step was heard outside Maria turned away with a sigh and thought he seemed earlier and fatter than usual.
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"AFTER SUPPER MITSOS EXPOUNDED"
Yanko, always sleek, had grown rather gross, and his red, shiny face and small, boiled-looking eyes presented a strong contrast to Mitsos' thin, bronzed cheeks and clear iris. But the husband seemed glad to see him, and agreed that Mitsos' errand had best wait till after supper.
So after supper Mitsos expounded, and Yanko shifted from one foot to the other, and seemed uncomfortable. "And," said Mitsos, in conclusion, "I can give you horse-hire for four days."
Yanko sat silent for a while, then abruptly told his wife to draw another jug of wine. Maria had a sharp tongue when her views were dissentient from his, and he would speak more easily if she were not there. Maria, who had listened to Mitsos with wide, eager eyes and a heightened color, went off quickly and returned in equal haste, anxious not to lose anything.
"It's like this," Yanko was saying. "What with this and that I've a lot of farm work on my hands, and, to tell the truth, but little wish to mix myself up in the affair; and as for four days' horse-hire, it will pay my way, but where's my profit?"
Mitsos frowned.
"You won't go?" he said, half rising; "then I mustn't wait, but find some one else."
At this Maria burst out:
"Shame, Yanko!" she said. "I have a mule-man for a husband. It is that you think of nothing but piastres, and are afraid of taking on yourself for two days such work as Mitsos spends his months in. Am I to sit here and see you drinking and eating and sleeping, and never lift a hand for the sake of any but yourself? Ah, if I was a man I would not have chosen a wife with as little spirit as my husband has."
Maria banged the wine-jug down on tho table, and cast a scornful look at Yanko. Then she crossed over to Mitsos and took his glass to fill it, filling her own at the same time.
"This to you," she said, clinking her glass at his, "and to the health of all brave men."
Then with another scowl at Yanko:
"Can't you even drink to those who are made different to yourself, if they are of a finer bake?" she said; "or is there not spirit in you for that? I should have been a mile on the way by this time," she said to Mitsos, "if it had pleased the good God to make me a man and send you with such a message to me."
"You, Maria?" said Mitsos, suddenly.
"Yes, and how many days of horse-hire does Yanko think I should have asked for my pains? Nay, I should have lit candies to the Virgin in the joy of having such work given me to do, if I had had to beg my way."
Mitsos remembered Nicholas's directions.
"Will you go?" he said. "You would do it as well as any man. It is just Father Priketes you have to ask for, and give the message."
"Nonsense, Maria," said Yanko; "a woman can't do a thing like that."
Maria's indignant speeches had a touch of the high rhetorical about them, but Yanko's remark just stamped them into earnestness.
"You'll be drawing your own wine for yourself the next few days," she said, "and I shall be over the hills doing what you were afraid of. I'm blithe to go," she said to Mitsos, "and to-morrow daybreak will see me on the way."
Yanko, on the whole, was relieved; it would have been a poor thing to send Mitsos to another house in quest of a sturdier patriot than he, and Maria's offer had obviated this without entailing the journey on himself. Poor Yanko had been born of a meek and quiet spirit, and the possession of the earth in company with like-minded men would have seemed to him a sufficiently beatified prospect. He had no desire for brave and boisterous adventure, new experiences held for him no ecstasy; even in the matter of drinking, which was the chiefest pleasure of his life, he maintained a certain formula of moderation, never passing beyond the stage of a slightly fuddled head; and a wholesome fear of Maria—not acute, but steady—as a rule, drove him home while he was still perfectly capable of getting there. The rule of his life was a certain sordid mean, which has been the subject for praise in the mouth of poets, who have even gone so far as to call it golden, and is strikingly exemplified in the lives of cows and other ruminating animals. He was possessed of certain admirable qualities, a capacity for hard work and a real affection for his eminent wife being among them, but he was surely cast in no heroic mould. He had no fine, heady virtues which carry their own reward in the constant admiration they excite, but of the more inglorious excellences he had an average share.
Mitsos arrived at Corinth next night after a very long day, and found a caique starting in an hour or two for Patras. He had just time to leave Nicholas's message to the mayor of the town, get food, and bargain for a passage to Patras for himself and his pony. The wind was but light and variable through the night, but next day brought a fine singing breeze from the east, and about the time that he landed at Patras Maria saw below her from the top of a pass the roof of the monastery ashine with the evening sun from a squall of rain which had crossed the hills that afternoon.
Her little pinch-eared mule went gayly down through the sweet-smelling pine forest which clothed the upper slope below which the monastery stood, and every now and then she passed one or two of the monks engaged on their work—some burning charcoal; some cleaning out the channels which led from the snow-water stream, all milky and hurrying, after a day of sun, down to the vineyards; others, with their cassocks kilted up for going, piloting timber-laden mules down home, and all gave Maria a "Good-day" and a "Good journey."
Outside the gate a score or so of the elder men were enjoying the last hour of sunlight, sitting on the stone benches by the fountain, smoking and talking together. One of these, tall and white-bearded, let his glance rest on Maria as she rode jauntily down the path; but when, instead of passing by on the road, she turned her mule aside up the terrace in front of the gate, he got up quickly with a kindled eye and spoke to the brother next him.
"Has it come," he said, "even as Nicholas told us it might?" and he went to meet Maria.
"God bless your journey, my daughter!" he said, "and what need you of us?"
Maria glanced round a little nervously.
"I want to speak to Father Priketes, my father," she said.
"You speak to him."
"Have you corn, father?" she said.
A curious hush had fallen on the others, and Maria's words were audible to them all. At her question they rose to their feet and came a little nearer, and a buzzing whisper rose and died away again.
"Corn for the needy or corn for the Turk?" asked Priketes, while round there was a silence that could have been cut with a knife.
"Black corn for the Turk. Let there be no famine, and have fifteen hundred men ready to carry it when the signal comes, and that will be soon. Not far will they have to go. It will he needed here, at Kalavryta."
Maria slipped down from her mule and spoke low to Priketes.
"And oh, father, there is something more, but I cannot remember the words I was to use; but I know what it means, for Mitsos, the nephew of Nicholas, told me."
Father Priketes smiled.
"Say it then, my daughter."
"It is this: if you have guns stored in readiness southward, get them back. It will not happen just as Nicholas expected. You will want all your men and arms hore."
"It is well, What will the signal be?"
"I know not; but in a few days Mitsos will come from Patras. Oh, you will know him when you see him—as tall as a pillar, and a face like a spring morning or a wind on the hill—and to see him dees a body good. He knows and will tell you."
"I will expect Mitsos, then," said Priketes. "You will stay here to-night; there shall be made ready for you the great guest-room—for you are an honored guest—the room where the daughter of an emperor once lodged."
Maria hesitated.
"I could get back to some village to-night," she said. "I ought not to delay longer than I need."
"And shame our hospitality?" said Priketes, "Besides, you are a conspirator now, my daughter, and you must use the circumspection of one. What manner of return would you make at dead of night to where you slept before, with no cause to give? To-morrow you shall go back, and say how pleased your novice brother was to see you—and the lie be laid to the account of the Turk, who fill our mouths perforce with these things—and how you had honor of the monks. Give your mule to the lad, my danghter. It shall be well cared for."
So Maria had her chance, and took it. An adventure and a quest for the good of her country were offered her, and she embraced them, For the moment she rose to the rank of those who work personally for the good of countries and great communities, and then passed back into her level peasant life again. Goura, as it turned out, took no part in the deeds that were coming. Its land was land of the monastery, and the Turks never visited its sequestered valley with cruelty, oppression, or their lustful appetites. Yet the great swelling news that came to the inhabitants of that little mountain village, only as in the ears of children a sea-shell speaks of remotely breaking waves, had to Maria a reality and a nearness that it lacked to others, and her life was crowned with the knowledge that she had for a moment laid her finger harmoniously on the harp which made that glorious symphony.
Mitsos' work at Patras was easily done. Germanos was delighted with the idea of the forged letter from the Turk, and was frankly surprised to hear that the notion was born of the boy's brain, Being something of a scholar, he quoted very elegantly the kindred notion of Athene, who was wisdom, springing full-grown from the brain of Zeus, for Mitsos' idea, so he was pleased to say, was complete in itself, mature from its birth. Mitsos did not know the legend to which the primate referred, and so he merely expressed his gratification that the scheme was considered satisfactory. The affair of the beacons took more time, for Mitsos on his journey south back to Panitza would have to make arrangements for their kindling, and it was thus necessary that their situation should be accessible to villages where Nicholas was known, and where the boy could find some one to undertake to fire the beacon as soon as the next beacon south was kindled. Furthermore, though Germanos knew the country well, it would be best for Mitsos to verify the suitability of the places chosen, "for," as the archbishop said, "you might burn down all the pincwoods on Taygetus, and little should we reck of it if Taygetus did not happen to be visible from Lycaon; but we should stand here like children with toy swords till the good black corn grew damp and the hair whitened on our temples."
As at present arranged, Mitsos would be back at Panitza on the 10th of March, after which, as Nicholas had told him, there would be more work to do before he could go for Yanni at Tripoli. It was, therefore, certain—taking the shortest estimate—that the beacon signal could not possibly occur till March 20th, but that on that evening and every evening after the signalmen must be at their posts waiting for the flame to spring up on Taygetus. For the beacons between Patras and Megaspelaion there would be no difficulty; two at high points on the mountains would send the message all the way, and the only doubiful point was where to put the beacon which should be intermediate between that on Taygetus and that on Helmos, which latter could signal to one directly above the monastery. Germanos was inclined to think that a certain spur of Lycaon, lying off the path to the right, some four miles from Andritsaena, and standing directly above an old temple, which would serve Mitsos as a guiding point, would answer the purpose. If so, it could be worked from Andritsaena, and the priest there, at whose house Mitsos would find a warm welcome if he stayed for the night, would certainly undertake it.
Mitsos went off again the next day, with the solemn blessing of the archbishop in his ears and the tonch of kindly hands in his, and reached Megaspelaion in two days. Here he had news of Maria's safe arrival. "And a brave lass she is," said Father Priketes. The business of the beacons was soon explaincd, and next morning Father Priketes himself accompanied Mitsos on his journey to the top of the pass above the monastery, in order to satisfy himself that from there both the points fixed upon—that on the spur of Helmos, and also that towards Patras——were visible.
Their way lay through the pine-woods where Maria had come three days before, and a hundred little streams ran bubbling down through the glens, and the thick lush grass of the spring-time was starred with primroscs and sweet-smelling violets. Above that lay an upland valley, all in cultivation, and beyond a large, bleak plateau of rock, on the top of which the beacon was to burn. Another half-hour's climb saw them there, a strange, unfriendly place, with long parallel strata of gray rock, tipped by some primeval convulsion onto their side, and lying like a row of razors. In the hollows of the rocks the snow was still lying, but the place was alive with the whisper of new-born streams. A few pine-trees only were scattered over these gaunt surfaces, but in the shelter of them sprang scarlet wind-flowers and harebells, which shivered on their springlike stalks.
A few minutes' inspection was enough to show that the place was well chosen—to the south rose the great mass of Helios, and they could clearly see a sugarcone rock, the proposed beacon site, standing rather apart from the main mountain, some fifteen miles to the south, just below which lay the village of Leondari, whither Mitsos was bound, and towards Patras the contorted crag above Mavromati. Here, so Priketes promised, should a well-trusted monk watch every evening from March 20th onward, and as soon as he saw tho blaze on Helmos, he would light his own beacon, waiting only to see it echoed above Mavromati, and go straight back with the news to the monastery. And the Turks at Kalavryta, so said Priketes—for if was on Kalavryta that the first blow was to descend—should have cause to remember the vengeance of the sword of God which His sons should wield.