The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

"Little, who is little? I have a cousin smaller than I. Well, for my story."

And Mitsos told him of his journey, of his expedition to Patras and the monastery, and of the coming of the soldiers to Panitza.

"And for the rest," he concluded, "we shall have to ask Uncle Nicholas and your father. There are not many things in the world of which I am certain, Yanni, but one is that we shall find them safe and sound on Taygetus."

Yanni pulled up a handful of sweet-smelling thyme and buried his face in it for a moment.

"Ah, but it is good to be on the hills again, Mitsos," he said, "and to be with you. I shall not forget the Mother of God. My story is very short; I am glad it has not been longer."

"Tell me," said Mitsos.

"Well, for a week, or perhaps a fortnight, I ate and slept, and one day was like another. I saw Mehemet Salik not more than once or twice, and he used always to ask me if I was comfortable and had all that I wished for. It is true that I wished for the hills and for you, but they were things which he would not have given me, so I always said I wanted nothing. Then for another week or so he would come and see me oftener, and asked me about my father and the clan, and whether Nicholas had been seen there again. And I, you may be sure, always told him that the clan were good men and quiet livers, who worked hard in the fields, and thanked God every day that their masters, the Turks, were kind and just to them. That, it seems, was a mistake, for he smiled – these Turks know not how to laugh, Mitsos, not with an open mouth – and said it was very interesting to hear that from one of the clan themselves. And about Nicholas, I said I had seen him when I was little."

"You were never otherwise," remarked Mitsos.

"Oh, cousin," said Yanni, "but your mother bore a silly loon. Am I not to go on with my story, then?"

"Go on, big Yanni," said Mitsos.

"And so it went till but five or six days ago. And then on one morning," said Yanni, suddenly flushing with anger, "he came in looking white and cunning, with an evil face. The Turk who was my guardian followed him – he is a good man, Mitsos, save that he comes of the accursed race – and Mehemet said to me, 'So the clan are good men and quiet, and they thank their God that they have such kind masters. And you, Yanni, who are of the clan, you think they do wisely?'

"I don't think I answered him, for it seemed to me he wished for no answer. And at that his anger suddenly flared up, and he said, 'Answer me, you dog, or I will have your hide flayed off you.' And I noticed it as curious, Mitsos, that his face grew white as he got angry, whereas when a proper man is angry his face is as a sunset. But he did not give me time to answer, for he went on, 'You are dogs, though you are handsome dogs, you Greeks. But it is necessary to tie dogs up sometimes. Thank God you have such a kind master, Yanni, and let your hands be tied behind you quietly.'

"'Why should you do this?' I asked.

"'Be wise,' he said; 'I do not threaten twice.'

"So as there was none to help me, I let it be done."

Mitsos gave a great gulp.

"Oh, Yanni, by a cross-legged Turk!" he said.

"What was I to do? Would it have helped me to fight, and afterwards to be beaten? But Mehemet, I saw, was more at his ease when it was done, and drew his chair a little closer.

"'We shall soon teach you to be quiet and obedient like the rest of your clan,' he said. 'And now for what I came to say. You will soon see Nicholas again, for I have sent for him and for your father. If they come, well and good; I do not really care whether they come or not – for barking dogs hurt nobody. However, they have been barking too loud. And if they do not come, my little Yanni, we shall have to think what to do with you. I have not decided yet' – and the devil came closer to me, Mitsos, and looked at me as a man looks at the fowls and sheep in the market. 'Perhaps there will be a rope for that big brown neck of yours; and yet I do not know, for you are a handsome boy, and I should like to see you about the house, perhaps to hand the rose-water after dinner. Let us see, we would dress you in a blue waistcoat with silver braid, and a red kaftan, I think, and red leggings, with yellow shoes; but I think we would give you no knife or pistol in your belt, for I fancy you have a temper of your own. It is a pity that a handsome boy like you should be so fierce. Perhaps we might even arrange that you were fitted to attend on the women-folk. In any case you will be mine – you will belong to your good, kind masters.'"

Yanni's voice had risen, and he spoke quickly, with a red-hot anger vibrating and growing.

"He said it to me!" he cried, rising to his feet. "To me – free-born of the clan, who have never had any dealings with the accursed race, except to spit at them as they went by! And I – I sat there and said nothing, but for this reason, Mitsos, that I remembered the oath of the clan you had sworn, and I believed, as I believe that the holy Mother of God hears me, that you would come, be it soon or late, and that he should eat his words with a sauce of death to them – the black curse of her who mocked at Christ upon him!"

"Steady, Yanni!" said Mitsos, looking up at his blazing eyes. "Sit down and tell the rest."

"What, Mitsos," cried Yanni, "are you a block of stone or a log, you who are of blood with us?"

"You know I am not. But Mehemet Salik is not on this hill-side. Tell me the rest. If he was here he should never more return to the bestialities of his daily life."

Yanni sat down again.

"Even so. Then day after day he would come in all white and cursing as before, and say, 'The time is drawing near, my little Yanni. They will be here to-morrow or the next day,' as it might be. And yesterday morning he said, 'They will be here to-night.' And I – for I never doubted you, Mitsos – I thought to myself, 'Then I shall not be here to-night'; and as for them, I knew that they would never sit in the house of a Turk. And – and that is all, I think."

There was a short silence, and Yanni stretched out his hand to Mitsos:

"So to you, dearest of all," he said, "I owe my life – once at the mill, and now, once again, life and honor and freedom. Yet is the debt no burden to me, because I love you. But still I would it were the other way. I have no skill of speech, Mitsos, but I know certainly that gladly would I give my eye or my right hand for you, and this is no figure of talk only."

Mitsos took the hand held out to him and shut it between his, looking at Yanni with a serious mouth, but a smile in his dark eyes.

"God send me tears for water and salt for bread," he said, again quoting the oath of the clan, "if I fail you in your need, or love not those who love you and hate not those who hate you."

The sun was already declining to the western hills, and presently after they went down to the spring to eat and drink before they began the tramp through the night. Neither of them had been over this ground before, but it was likely that they would soon come into some path leading from the Arcadian plain to one or other of the villages near the Langarda pass; in any case, even though there were a night's plunging through the heather undergrowth before them, it could scarcely be more than a twelve-hours' journey. Thus, starting at six, they would be at the place by dawn; and, after stowing the remains of their provisions in their pockets, they began the ascent.

Upward they went out of the day into the sunset, and through the sunset into moonrise, and from moonrise into the declining of the moon. The air, warm below, soon grew colder, and their breath, as they walked, hung frostily in the still night. Now and then a whiff of some sweet-smelling shrub streamed across them, or again a roosting pigeon, with a bold noise of its uprising, started still sleepy from its perch in among the whispers of the fir, or a hawk, more cautious, slid into the air. To Yanni, born on the mountain and bred in the open, the spell of the sounds and scents that wander along the hill-side at night was unutterably sweet, and sweet the comradeship of the incomparable cousin. In Mitsos, too, the feeling towards the friend he had saved from death, and worse than death, was father to a very tender affection, for it was a gentle heart that beat so boldly at the hint of danger, and the sweetness of self-sacrifice made him most content. The child within him spoke to his spirit of Suleima, but the boy found his wants fulfilled in the comradeship of Yanni, and made answer with talk of brave adventures done in part and more to do.

About midnight they halted, and already they could see the heights no long distance above them, dappled with snow, and Mitsos, observing this, knew that they had come as high as they had need to go, for the beacon-ground, he remembered, was itself just below the line where the fresh snow lay. They had, an hour before, struck a sort of sheep-track which led in the right direction, but they found that here it went still upward, and leaving it to climb by itself, they struck off to the right, after eating the remains of their food, to follow the contour of the mountain through tracts of pines and open places, and across the scolding streams that rattled down from the snows above, and round deep-cut ravines that broadened out into the larger valleys. By degrees the stars paled at the approach of day, and the dark velvet-blue of the Southern night brightened to dove-color; a few birds awoke in the bushes with sleepy, half-tuned twitterings, and then the sun, great and bold, looked up over the rim of the mountain.

"Look, it is day," said Yanni. "Are we nearly there?"

"Yes," said Mitsos, "there is the beacon-hill. And who is that?"

Swiftly down the hill-side towards them came a great man, leaping and running like a boy.

"Oh, quick, down with you," said Mitsos. "I think there is but one man who can go like that; but it is best. Ah, I thought so; show him we can run, too."

And in two minutes Nicholas, with a face as welcome as morning, was with them.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MESSAGE OF FIRE

The Greek camp which was being formed here, nestled airily on the unfrequented side of Taygetus, was square, half of it lying on each side of a rattling stream (loud at this time from the melting snows) which flowed down a steep ravine into the plain of Kalamata. It lay about five hundred yards below the site of the beacon, a conspicuous and stony plateau on the top of an isolated hill, separated on all sides by steep, narrow gullies from the main mass of the mountain. It was Nicholas who had chosen the spot, and chosen wisely, for while the camp itself lay concealed and sheltered from the northern winds, the top of the hill just above it, from which a man could run down in two minutes to headquarters, was an eyry for observation. On the north it commanded the Arcadian plain, the corner of which Mitsos and Yanni had just crossed; on the west, the whole valley of Messenia, with its capital, Kalamata, lay unfurled like a map; and directly under it to the south wound the Langarda pass over Taygetus from Messenia to Sparta.

The camp was walled with a robust barrier of brushwood and peopled with small huts, built on a framework of poles, between which were interwoven branches of fir and heather, and roofed with reeds or furze. In the centre, just on the right of the stream, stood the hut shared by Petrobey and Nicholas, built in exactly the same manner as the others, and only distinguished by a blue-and-white flag which floated over it, bearing prophetically the cross of Greece risen above the crescent of Turkey. Towards the top of the enclosure had stood a belt of pines, most of which had been felled for building purposes, one here and there only having been left to give support to a structure of much more solid and weather-proof workmanship. It was divided inside into two chambers, in one of which were stored powder and ammunition; in the other the rifles and swords. Additional protection was given to the powder-magazine by a coat of felt which was nailed on above the boards of its roof.

The camp was all alive and humming like a hive of bees when the three arrived, for a train of mules from the district round which Yanni and Mitsos had made their first journey had just come in, bringing the secret grindings of the mills from Kalyvia and Tsimova. This was the first consignment of powder which had arrived, and Petrobey was superintending its stowage in the magazine. Elsewhere the thin blue smoke of wood fires, over which men were cooking their coffee for breakfast, rose up straight into the air, and the flicking and flashing of axes in the morning sun showed others still at work on pine-felling. During the last two nights many parties of the clan and the patriots from the villages round had been arriving with their arms and provisions, and a herd of sheep and goats were browsing on the scrub-clad sides of the ravine below the camp. Already there were not fewer than two hundred men there, and before three days Petrobey hoped that the whole depot, consisting of eight hundred men with arms and ammunition, would be assembled. Farther along the sides of the mountain there were three similar camps, and thus the total number of men who would march down from Taygetus onto Kalamata would be a tale of over three thousand. These were all drawn from Laconia, Argolis, and the south of Arcadia, and the number would be raised to close on five thousand by additions from the populous Messenian plain. The patriots in the north of Greece would, at the beacon-signal, rise simultaneously in Achaia as soon as the camps all contained their complement of men.

In the camp discipline and organization were thoroughly ordered and carried out. A body of the younger and more active were stationed on the top of the hill with instructions to report at once any movement they might observe in the country round, and to stop vi et armis any Turk who was seen going up the pass from Messenia into Sparta, for fear of news being taken to Tripoli of the assembling of the patriots. This danger, however, was inconsiderable. All the camps were nestled away from view in hollows of the unvisited mountain-sides, and the only circumstance of suspicion was that within a few days many Greeks had left their villages with laden mules, and with their flocks. Even this was not unusual at the spring-time of the year, for it was common, when April opened up the hills, to drive the flocks higher up to the juicier mountain pasture, where the shepherds would spend weeks at a time cutting down pines and burning them for charcoal. But this flight of Petrobey and Nicholas and the escape of Yanni might easily have become a signal of warning to the Turks, and until all was ready it was most important that no communication of alarm should pass from Kalamata to Tripoli. For the last few weeks the fortification of Tripoli had been undergoing repair, and it was evidently expected that if a rising took place the first attack would be directed there; or at any rate the Turks thought it was safer to have some fortress in a fairly central position, where the families of their countrymen scattered about the country could take refuge from local disturbances.

All the cattle, all the arms, the mules and horses brought to the camp, were put under the disposal of Petrobey. As he was the head of the clan of Mavromichales, of whom the camp was chiefly composed, Nicholas had felt it better that he should have absolute supremacy in all matters, and, as he had said to Priketes, all that he asked for himself was the right to serve. Petrobey was loath to take advantage of his generosity, and only did so on condition that Nicholas would promise to give him advice and counsel on all points, dissent from him freely and promptly where his judgment did not coincide with his own, and at the wish of his men be willing himself to take over the sole command. Meantime, would he take in charge the outposts and messenger corps of the camp, on which devolved the duty of watching the roads and of carrying news from one camp to another?

Nicholas's company had been relieved at the watch on the beacon-station when the two boys arrived, and the three went together to Petrobey. He was busy with the unlading of the powder-carrying mules when they came up, but as they drew near he saw them and ran towards them.

"Now the Blessed Virgin be praised," he cried, "that you have come! We expected you earlier. How was it you did not come before? Ah, Yanni, but your father has wearied for you! Is it a long bill we have with Mehemet? Oh, admirable little Mitsos, the Holy Father reward you for bringing him safe. We will breakfast together when I have finished this job. Get you to my tent with Nicholas."

The unlading of the powder was an operation in which, so Petrobey thought, no caution would be superfluous. It arrived in big mule panniers, covered over with charcoal or some country produce, and the panniers were taken off and carried singly by men barefoot into the magazine. Here others were stationed, whose duty it was to take off the stuff under which the powder was concealed and empty it into small skin bottles, which could be carried by a man, and held more than the ordinary powder-flasks. There were eight hundred of these, one for each man in the camp, and when they were full the remainder were to be stored in light wooden boxes of handier shapes than the panniers for transport on the ammunition mules.

All day fresh bands of men in eights and tens from the Maina country arrived in camp, and news was passed from the other stations along the mountain-side that they, too, were filling rapidly. Among others fifty men had joined the patriots from Nauplia and the plain of Argos, one of whom was Father Andréa, an incarnated vengeance more than priest, and another was Mitsos' father. Mitsos himself, however, was to remain in the camp of the Mavromichales, acting as aide-de-camp to Nicholas, but otherwise the disposition of the men was strictly geographical, since Petrobey's experience told him that men who have known each other fight best side by side. Each camp was organized on the pattern of the Mavromichales, and the captains of each had voluntarily put themselves under the supreme command of Petrobey, for the dissensions which subsequently broke out in the army had not yet appeared. Moreover, the Hetairist Club, since the flight of Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, had given express orders that the direction of affairs in the south was to be in the hands of some local chieftain, suggesting for that office either Petrobey or Nicholas.

A week passed, and the camps were all nearly full, and Petrobey waited impatiently for the completion of his preparations. Partly by extreme caution, and partly by good luck, there had as yet been no collision with the Turks, and apparently no uneasiness felt in Kalamata. A report had come in a couple of days before that two Turkish ships of war had been ordered there for the defence of the town, and to carry off the Turkish inhabitants in case of an outbreak; but, though the bay was carefully watched by those on the beacon-point, no sign of them had been seen. But about mid-day on the 2d of April a scout from the beacon came into the camp, saying that a small band of Turks, twelve in number, under arms, and followed by a train of baggage-mules, were coming up the pass from Kalamata. Petrobey's answer was short and decisive: "Stop them!" and some twenty men were sent out to reinforce the outpost at the beacon. From the camp nothing could be seen of the road, but a dozen more men were told off to hold themselves in readiness. Then after a long pause, in which each man's eyes sought the eyes of his fellow in a fever of expectation, shots were heard, and in half an hour's time the message came back to Petrobey and Nicholas, who were at dinner, that they had been stopped.