The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

"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 shouted 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. 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 door 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?" said the little old 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-screaming round me like the east gale in the mountains."

He rubbed his hands together and broke out 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 under 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 is the more nourishing. And here are the sulphur and saltpetre. To-night 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 Platsa, 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 and 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 street, 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 been 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 told 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 know 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 be 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 eastward 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 instance, 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, converting their blankets into one prickly fricassee. The splendid cousin 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 a long 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 to 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.