The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

"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!

    "Petros Mavromichales.

"Tell Mitsos about the devil-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 get Yanni safely out of Tripoli. But before that I imagine you will have gone to 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 Petrobey 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 laughed.

"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 for a simultaneous outbreak in the north; and there was also to be arranged some code of signals that could travel in an hour or two from one 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 Vlachos, 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 message 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 wall, 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 to-day would Yanni get out of Tripoli a day sooner?"