The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Then Petrobey rose, and his gray eye was fire.

"At last, at last!" he cried. "Oh, Nicholas, the vintage is ripe!"

He waited no longer. Yanni, who was his aide-de-camp, was despatched at top speed to the next station, with orders that an hour before sunset the army was to start on its march to Kalamata, and all the afternoon the stir of going was shrill. The clan were half wild with excitement and eagerness; but all were absolutely in control, and went about their duties methodically and in perfect order, and the work of lading and marshalling the ammunition and baggage-mules was finished by four o'clock. Meanwhile another party had carried up to the top of the hill the fuel for the beacon, which Petrobey had arranged was to be the signal, not only across to the hill above Bassae, but to the patriots collected lower down in the villages of the Messenian plain. Mitsos, who was charged with the lighting of it, was to let loose the tongue of fire which should shout the word all over Greece as soon as dark fell, and then follow straight down the hill-side after the main body. The whole disposition of the force round Kalamata, and the routes by which, converging as they went, they were to march there, had been already arranged, and by five o'clock the clan set out, spreading themselves in open order over the hill-side, the mules alone following the road of the pass, so as to prevent any one leaving the town by other mountain-paths over Taygetus.

As soon as the clan had started, Mitsos, left to himself, ate his supper, and sat down to wait till the darkness of the birthnight of Greece should fall. It had been a hot, sultry day, with a heavy air, and he had packed up and sent on with the mules a heavy woollen cloak, which Nicholas had given him to replace the one he had left behind in his race to Tripoli, and was dressed only in his linen trousers, shirt, and open Albanian jacket. The still air hung like a blanket on the mountain-side, but he saw that clouds had gathered on the top of Taygetus and were moving down westward in the direction of the camp. But they remained as yet high, and though before sunset they had stretched right over from the mountain-top behind to the peak of Ithome in the west, a gray floor of mottled marble, flushed here and there, where they were thinner, with the reflected fire of an angry sunset, the northern heaven was still clear, and his beacon-point close above him stood out black and sharp-cut. Long before dark fell he had already been up to the beacon, in order to arrange the brushwood and firing most handily; the lighter and drier wood he put on the windward side, so that such breeze as there was might drive the flames inward against the larger bushes, which would take the flame less easily. He also tore a quantity of dry moss from the sides of a couple of plane-trees, which grew to the leeward of the hill, and made a core of this within the brushwood, adding a train, in the manner of a fuse, leading outward to where he would apply the light. He had just finished this to his satisfaction, and was about to return to the camp to fetch up the burning lumps of charcoal which he had fed during the afternoon, and which in this wind that had sprung up would soon kindle the moss into flame, when a few large raindrops fell splashing on the ground, and he hurriedly covered the dry, tinder-like furze with thick branches of pine, in order to keep it protected; then for a few moments the rain ceased again, but Mitsos, looking up, saw that the clouds had grown black and swollen with an imminent downpour, and that the storm might break any minute. His next thought was for the burning charcoal below, and he ran quickly down the hill-side in order to carry it under cover of the ammunition magazine; but before he had gone fifty yards the storm broke in a sheet of hissing rain, driven a little aslant in the wind – but for heaviness a shower of lead. However, in hopes of saving the charcoal, he ran on, and raking about in the embers of his fire, already turning to a black slush under the volleying rain, he found a lump of charcoal not yet extinguished. Then sheltering it in his cap, he nursed it tenderly, and carried it into the ammunition magazine. There he sat for half an hour, and from it managed to kindle a few more lumps, while the noise of the rain continued as of musketry on the resounding roof. Then looking out he saw that night had come, heavy and lowering.

The position was sufficiently critical. The beacon fuel would be soaked, and the dry kindling in the centre, he thought, would be insufficient to start a blaze. Then he remembered a flask of spirits which Petrobey had told him to keep with him in case of emergency, and he ran across to fetch it from his hut. The clouds had lifted a little, though the downpour was still heavy; but, looking up, he still saw the outline of the beacon-hill a shade blacker than the sky, showing that it was clear, at any rate, of mists. He groped about the walls of the hut for some little time before finding the flask, and just as he put his hand on it the wind fell dead, the rain stopped as when a tap is turned back, and in the stillness he heard the sound of the footstep of some man unfamiliarly stumbling up the stony hill-side just below. At that he stopped, and then creeping cautiously to the entrance of the hut, peered out. He could see nothing; but the step still advanced, drawing nearer.

Who could it be? It was hardly possible, though still just possible, that this man was some Greek of the clan – yet such would surely have shouted to him – coming from Petrobey with a message, or it might be some benighted peasant; yet, again, for fear it might be a Turk he must needs go carefully, and with redoubled caution he crept out of the hut, still keeping in the shadow, and looked round the corner. Whether it was the rustle of his moving in the dead silence, or the faint shimmering of his white trousers in the darkness, that betrayed him, was only a thing for conjecture, but the next moment, from some fifty yards in front, he saw the flash of a gun, and a bullet sang viciously by him, cracking in half one of the upright posts which bound the sides of the hut together. Mitsos stood up, as he knew he was seen, and called out, cocking his pistol, yet seeing no one, "Speak, or I fire," and in answer he heard the sound of another charge being rammed home. At that he bolted back round the corner of the tent and waited. The steps advanced closer; clearly the man, whoever he was, finding that he did not fire, concluded that he had no arms – the truth, however, being that Mitsos, having seen nothing but the flash of the gun, thought it more prudent to wait until he had a more localized target. But presently the steps paused, and after a moment he heard them retreating with doubled quickness up the hill towards the pass. Then a solution flashed upon him – this could be no patriot, nor would a wandering peasant have fired at him; it could only be some Turk who had seen the Greek army advancing, had somehow eluded them, and was going hotfoot to Sparta with the news. He must be stopped at all costs, and next moment Mitsos was stretched in pursuit up the hill after him, keeping as much as possible in the cover of the trees. Clearly the man had missed his way in the darkness, and had come unexpectedly upon the Greek camp, and seeing some one there had fired.

In three minutes or so Mitsos' long legs had gained considerably on him, and he now saw him, though duskily, with his gun on his shoulder still making up the hill. Another minute saw them within about fifty yards of each other; but Mitsos had the advantage of position, for while he was running between scattered trees the other was in the open. He apparently recognized this, and changed his course towards the belt of wood; but then suddenly, seeing Mitsos so near, he halted and fired, and Mitsos felt the bullet just graze his arm. On that he ran forward, while the man still stayed reloading his piece, and sent a pistol bullet at him. The shot went wide, and Mitsos with a grunt of rage ran desperately on to close with him. But the other, while he was still some yards distant, finished loading, and his gun was already on the way to his shoulder, when Mitsos, partly in mere animal fury at the imminence of death, but in part with reasonable aim, took hold of his heavy pistol by the barrel and flung it with all his force in the Turk's face. He reeled for a moment, and, the blood, like the red of morning, streaming over his face in a torrent that blinded him, Mitsos was on him and had closed with him. When it came to mere physical strength the odds were vastly in his favor, and in a moment, in the blind gust of the fury of fighting, he wrested the man's gun from him and, without thinking of firing, had banged him over the head with the butt end. He fell with a sound of breaking, and Mitsos, still drunk and beside himself with the lust of slaughter, laughed loud and hit him again with his full force as he lay on the ground. There was a crack, and a spurt of something warm and thick came out in a jet against his trousers and over his hand. He paused only one moment to make sure that this was a Turk he had killed, and then without giving him another thought, or waiting to brush the clotted mess off his clothes, he ran down again to set about the beacon.

The wound on his arm was but slight, though it bled profusely and smarted like a burn, and only stopping to tear off a piece from his shirt-sleeve, which he bound tightly round it, tying the knot with his teeth and his right hand, he again put the charcoal, which was burning well, into his cap, and with the flask of brandy set off for the top of the hill. The rain had come on again, hissing down in torrents, and Mitsos, knowing that the fear of failure strode faster every moment, tore the cover of boughs off from the core of moss and furze, but found to his dismay it was quite damp and would not light. It was necessary to get a flame somehow; the spirits and the moss would do the rest if once he could get that; and to get a flame, he must have something dry, though it were but a twig. There was no time to waste; already a big raindrop had made an ominous black spot on the middle of the glowing charcoal, and meantime everything was getting rapidly wetter. In a moment of hopelessness he clutched at his hair despairingly; the thing seemed an impossibility.

Then suddenly an idea struck him, and, tearing off his jacket, he removed his shirt, which had been kept quite dry, and kneeling down with his back bare to the cold, scourging rain put the two lumps of charcoal in the folds of it and blew on them. For a couple of seconds the linen smouldered only, but then – and no Angel Gabriel would have been a gladder sight to him – a little tongue of flame shot up. Mitsos took the brandy bottle, and with the utmost care shook out a few drops onto the edge of the flame. These it licked up, burning brighter, and soon the whole of the back of the shirt took the fire. He crammed it under the thick core of moss and brushwood, and feeding them plentifully with brandy coaxed the flame into the driest part of the stuff. Now and then a little spark would go running like some fiery insect through the fibres, leaving a gray path of ash behind, only to perish when it reached the damper stuff, and once even the flame seemed to die down altogether; but meantime it had penetrated into the centre of the pile, and suddenly a yellow blade of smoky fire leaped out and licked the dripping branches of fir outside. These only fumed and cracked, and Mitsos pulled them off, for they were but choking the flames; and, running down to the edge of the wood, he tore up great handfuls of undergrowth, which had been partially protected from the rain by the trees, and threw them on. Then the fire began to take hold in earnest, and through the thick volumes of stinging smoke, which were streaming away westward, shot lurid gleams of flame. Now and then with a great crash and puff of vapor some thicker branch of timber would split and break, throwing out a cloud of ignited fragments, or again there would rise up a hissing and simmering of damp leaves, like the sound of a great stewing over a hot fire. The place where he had first lit the beacon was all consumed, and only a heap of white frothy ash, every now and then flushing red again with half-consumed particles as some breeze fanned it, remained, and from the fir branches which Mitsos had taken off ten minutes ago, but now replaced, as every moment the hold of the fire grew steadier, there were bursting little fan-shaped bouquets of flame.

Meantime, with the skin of his chest down to the band of his trousers reddened and scorched by the heat, his back cold and dripping, and lashed with the heavy whisp of rain which had so belabored him in those first few moments of struggle between fire and water, his hair tangled and steaming with heat and shower, his eyes blackened and burned with the firing, Mitsos worked like a man struggling for life; now pushing a half-burned branch back into the fire; now lifting a new bundle of fuel (as much as he could carry in both arms), which pricked and scratched the scorched and bleeding skin of his chest; now glancing northward to see whether Bassae had answered him. With the savage frenzy of his haste, the excitement of the deed, and the fury and madness of the blood he had shed dancing in his black eyes, he looked more like some ancient Greek spirit of the mountains than the lover of Suleima and the boy who was so tender for Yanni.

In ten minutes more the rain had stopped, but Mitsos still labored on until the heat of the beacon was so great that he could scarcely approach to throw on the fresh fuel. The flames leaped higher and higher, and the wind dropping a shower of red-hot pieces of half-burned leaves and bark was continually carried upward, peopling the night with fiery sparks and falling round him in blackened particles, or floating away a feathery white ash like motes in a sunbeam. And as he stood there, grimy and panting, scorched and chilled, throwing new bundles of fuel onto the furnace, and seeing them smoke and fizz and then break out flaring, the glory and the splendor of the deeds he was helping in burst in upon him with one blinding flash that banished other memories, and for the moment even Suleima was but the shadow of a shadow. The beacon he had kindled seemed to illuminate the depths of his soul, and he saw by its light the cruelty and accursed lusts of the hated race and the greatness of the freedom that was coming. Then, blackened and burned and sodden and drenched, he sat down for a few moments to the north of the beacon to get his breath and scoured the night. Was that a star burning so low on the horizon? Surely it was too red for a star, and on such a night what stars could pierce the clouds? Besides, was not that a mountain which stood up dimly behind it? Then presently after it grew and glowed; it was no star, but the fiery mouth of message shouting north and south. Bessae had answered.

There was still a little spirits left, and between his wetting and his scorching Mitsos felt that he would be none the worse for it, and he left his jacket to dry by the beacon while he went back to where the body of the Turkish soldier lay to look for his pistol, which he had till then forgotten. He searched about for some little while without finding it, for it had fallen in a tangle of undergrowth; and taking it and the man's gun, which might come in useful, he turned to go. Then for the first time a sudden feeling of compassion came over him, and he broke off an armful of branches from the trees round, and threw them over the body in order to cover it from the marauding feeders of the mountain; and then crossing himself, as the Greeks do in the presence of the dead, he turned away; and going once more up to the beacon to fetch his jacket, which had grown dry and almost singed in that fierce heat, he ran off down the hill to join the clan.

They had gone but slowly, for they did not wish to reach Kalamata till an hour before daybreak, and had, when Mitsos came up, halted at the bottom of the range where the foot-hills begin to rise towards Taygetus. He was challenged by one of the sentries, and for reply shouted his own name to them; and finding Demetri was his challenger, stopped to tell him of the success of the beacon and the answer flared back from Bassae, and then went on to seek for Nicholas or Petrobey to report his return.

Petrobey was sitting by a camp-fire when he came up, talking earnestly to Nicholas and Father Andréa, who had come in from the Nauplia contingent, and only smiled at Mitsos as he entered.

"That is the order, father," he was saying; "we want to take the place at all costs, but the less it costs us the better. I should prefer if it capitulated, and not waste lives which we can ill spare over it. All the Turks inside the walls will be our prisoners, and them – "

"Yes?"

"Perhaps the moon will devour them," said Petrobey. "I shall make no conditions about surrender. Good-night, father. And now, little Mitsos; the beacon, we know, got lit. How in the name of the Virgin did you manage to do it?"

Mitsos unbuttoned his jacket and showed the sore and reddened skin beneath.

"There is much in a shirt," he said, laughing, and told his story.

When he had finished Petrobey looked at Nicholas with wonder and something like awe in his eye.

"Surely the blessing of the Holy Saints is on the lad," he said, in a low voice.

Part III

THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES

CHAPTER I

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS

During the night the wind swept the floor of heaven clean of clouds, and an hour of clear starlight and setting moon preceded dawn. Before starting, after an hour's halt about midnight, Petrobey called together the captains of the other three camps and gave them their final instructions. Three companies, those from Maina, Argolis, and Laconia, were to besiege the citadel, while the company from Arcadia was to join the two from Messenia, which would meet them on the plain, and invest the harbor, destroy all the shipping except three or four light-built boats which were to be kept in readiness for other purposes, and watch for the coming of the two Turkish ships-of-war. The Messenians, with a loyal and patriotic spirit, had asked Petrobey to name them a captain for the three companies which would be employed on this work, instead of pressing a local candidate; and in order to prevent jealousy or dissent among them, he nominated one Niketas, of Sparta, who was well known to most of the men, popular, and had seen service on an English ship, where he had worked for two years abroad, for a price had been placed on his head by the Turks for supposed brigandage. He had returned to his country a month ago from the Ionian Isles, and had hastened to put himself in the service of the patriots.

The citadel of Kalamata stood on rising ground about a mile from the harbor, but it was small, and a large, unfortified suburb, chiefly employed in commerce and the silk industry, had spread out southward from its base, making a continuous street between harbor and citadel. The latter was defended by a complete circuit of wall, and on three sides out of the four the rocks on the edge of which the walls stood were precipitous for some thirty feet. Under the western of these, and directly below the wall, ran a torrent-bed, bringing down the streams from the mountains to the north – dry in summer, but now flowing full and turbid with the melting of the winter snows on the heights. On this side the town was impregnable to the Greeks, who at present had no field-pieces or arms of any kind larger than the ordinary muskets then in use, and similarly it would have been waste of time and lives to attack it either on the north or east. On the north, however, was a picket-gate in the wall, communicating with a steep flight of steps cut in the rock. Petrobey's plan, therefore, was to take possession at once of the lower undefended town and blockade the citadel from that side, for thus with a body of men to guard the northern picket, the east and west sides being impassable both from within and without, the blockade would be complete. Meantime the three companies, consisting of Messenians and Arcadians, would cut off the harbor from the town, leaving the Mainats, Argives, and Laconians to deal with the citadel itself.

When day broke the secrecy of their advance was favored by a thick mist, which rose some ten feet high from the plain, and under cover of this, manoeuvring in some fields about a mile eastward from the town, the army split in two, and one half marched straight down to the shore of the bay, and from there, turning along the coast, ranged itself along the harbor shore and on the breakwater, made of large rough blocks of stone, which sheltered the harbor from southerly winds, and the other three, leaving the citadel on their right hand, went straight for the lower town. Half an hour afterwards the heat of the sun began to disperse the morning mists, and as they got to the outskirts of the town the vast vapor was rolled away, and the sentries on the citadel looking out southward saw three companies of soldiers not half a mile off. The alarm was given at once and spread through the lower town like fire. From all the houses rushed out men, women, and children, some still half clad or just awakened from their morning sleep, mothers with babies in their arms, and old men almost as helpless, who ran this way and that in the first panic terror, but gradually settled down into two steady streams – the one up to the citadel to find refuge there, the other to the harbor to seek means of flight. But the army came on in silence, making its way slowly up the narrow streets towards the citadel, without being attacked by the terrified and unarmed inhabitants, and in its turn neither striking a blow nor firing a shot. Two companies only had entered the town, the third remaining on the outskirts to the east, acting like a "stop" in cover-shooting, to drive the inhabitants back again, lest any should convey the alarm to Tripoli.

From the west of the town a bridge led over the torrent, and here Petrobey stationed some hundred men to prevent any one leaving the town across the river; but before long, wishing to concentrate all his forces in the town, Yanni was sent to the party picketed there with orders to destroy the bridge. This was made of wood, but preparations were in hand for replacing it with one of iron, and several girders were lying about on the bank for the approaching work. With one of these as a lever, and twenty men to work it, it was an affair of ten minutes only to prize up some half-dozen planks of the wooden structure, and after that to saw in half a couple of the timber poles on which it rested. The bridge thus weakened drooped towards the water, and soon was caught by the swift stream below. Then, as some monstrous fish plucks at a swimmer's limbs, it twitched and fretted against the remaining portion, and soon with a rush and swirl of timbers and planks it tore away a gap of some twenty feet across, sufficient to stop any would-be fugitives.

Here and there in their passage up the town a house was shut and barred against them, but for the most part the inhabitants streamed out like ants when their hill is disturbed. Once only was resistance offered, when from the upper window of a house a Turk fired upon the soldiers, killing one man; and Petrobey, heading a charge himself, burst in the door, and a couple of shots were heard from inside. Then, without a word, he and the three others who had gone in with him took their places again, and the column moved forward up the street.

The square of the lower town stood just at the base of the rising ground leading up to the citadel, and on its north side was built a row of big silk-mills, all of which had been deserted by their owners on the first alarm, and in these the Maina division took up its quarters. As soon as they and the Argives had made their passage through the town, driving the inhabitants up into the citadel, or down to the harbor, where they were taken by the Messenian division, Petrobey sent to the Laconian corps, who had been acting as a "stop" on the east to prevent the people escaping into the country, and brought them up on the right to complete the line which they had drawn along the south front of the citadel. The Argive corps, meantime, had been divided into two, one-half of which blockaded the picket-gate on the north, while the other was drawn up on the left of the Mainats, between them and the river. This done, the blockade of the citadel was complete; on the west the besieged were hemmed in by their own impregnable rock, below which ran the current; on the south and southeast by the Greek army; on the east again by the precipitous crags; and on the north their escape through the picket-gate was impracticable, owing to the detachment of Argives guarding it.

Three courses were open to them: to make a sortie as soon as the expected Turkish ships would appear and regain communication with the sea; or, by engaging and defeating the Greeks, establish connection with Tripoli; or to support the siege until help came. In the utter confusion and panic caused by the sudden appearance of the Greeks the inhabitants had simply fled like a quail-flock, and the citadel was crammed with a crowd of unarmed civilians. Each thought only for himself and his own personal protection. Mixed in this crowd of fugitives had been hundreds of Greek residents – some of whom, possessed merely by the wild force of panic and without waiting to think what this army was, had rushed blindly with the others into the citadel; but the larger number had joined their countrymen – men, women, and children together – imploring protection with horrible tales of outrage and cruelty on their lips. All those who were fit for active service and willing Petrobey enlisted, and employed them in making a more careful search through the town for any Turks who might remain in hiding. These were not to be killed or ill-treated, but merely kept as prisoners. But the wild vengeance of those who had so long been slaves burst all bounds when they saw their masters in their power, and all who were found were secretly put to death.

The weakness of the citadel lay in its bad water supply. There was only one well in the place, and that was not nearly sufficient for the wants of the crowds who had taken refuge within it. But about mid-day Demetri, the mayor of Nauplia, who was in charge of the division on the north, observed buckets being let down from the top of the citadel wall into the river and drawn up again full. The rocks here overhung a little, and, taking with him some ten men, they dashed right under the walls and to the corner abutting on the river. At that moment two more buckets appeared close in front of them, and he and another, taking hold of them, quietly undid the knots which tied them to the rope. The grim humor of this amused him, and in half an hour there was a row of some twenty buckets, which they had untied or cut. The besieged then attempted to get water farther down, but the rocks there being not so precipitous and sloping outward, the buckets stuck on some projection of rock before reaching the water.

Meantime a column of smoke, rising from the harbor, showed that the Messenians were at their work. One corps had deployed along the shore and took in hand the work of burning all the shipping, while the other was employed in making prisoners of the fugitives from the lower town, who hoped to escape by sea. A few of these, striking eastward across the plain, tried to get into the mountains, and were shot, but the majority, finding themselves between two divisions of the army, cut off from the citadel by Petrobey's division and from the sea by the Messenians, and also being unarmed, surrendered to Niketas, who, knowing no Turkish, but being proud of his English, merely said "All-a-right" to their entreaties and prayers, and had them incontinently stowed away in batches in the harbor buildings. The Arcadians, meantime, had ranged themselves along the breakwater, where they kept watch for the Turkish ships, and, having no work to hand, spent the morning in smoking and singing.

About two in the afternoon word was brought to the captain of the troops within the citadel – one Ali Aga – that two Turkish ships had been seen in the offing approaching Kalamata. A steady south breeze was blowing, and a couple of hours would see their arrival. Ali had watched, in white, contemptuous anger that morning, the destruction of the shipping by the Greeks. The ammunition within the walls was very scanty, and the water supply for this irruption of fugitives was wholly inadequate. Indeed, unless news of their straits was already on the road to Tripoli – and this he could scarce hope, so swift and complete had been the beleaguer – unless a relief expedition was even now imminently starting, he saw that the only chance of saving the town lay in concerted action with the approaching ships, and thus making an attack on the Greek lines from both sides – the citadel and the sea. Thus he determined to wait until the ships came up and engaged the detachment of Greeks on the shore.

The wind still holding, in half an hour the Arcadian contingent on the breakwater could see even from the beach the hulls of the approaching ships, beyond all doubt Turkish men-of-war. The breakwater along which the Greeks were ranged was still only half completed, and masses of rough masonry lay piled and tumbled on the seaward end. Niketas rubbed his hands gleefully as he made the dispositions for their welcome, and exclaimed many times "This is very all-a-right"; then, relapsing into Greek, he gave his orders, and mingled with them a chuckling homily.

"The Turk made the breakwater," he said, "but God and the holy saints, having the Greeks in mind, were the designers. Hide yourselves ever so thickly among these beautiful great stones, like anchovies in a barrel, and when the ship turns into the harbor we will all talk loud to it together. The water is very deep here; they will sail close to our anchovy barrel, and they will see none of us till they turn the corner, for the breakwater which God planned hides us from the sea."

He called up one division of Messenians to join the Arcadian corps, leaving the other to guard the beach, and the sixteen hundred men ranged themselves among the blocks of masonry along the inside of the breakwater, so that until the ships turned the corner not one could be seen, but once round they would be exposed to a broadside of muskets at close range from marksmen concealed by the stones. Niketas himself – for the foremost ship was now not more than a few hundred yards out – crawled with infinite precaution to the end of the breakwater, and smilingly watched its unsuspicious approach. It carried, he saw, many heavy guns; but that was a small matter.

The wind was now light, and the ship was nearly opposite the end of the breakwater when she began to take in sail, and a moment afterwards her helm was put hard aport, and she slowly swung round, crumpling the smooth water beneath her bow, and came straight alongside the wall at a distance of not more than fifty yards. Niketas had told the men to fire exactly when the ship came opposite them. She would pass slowly down the line, and would be raked fore and aft again and again as she went along.

Sixteen hundred men were crowded like swarming bees among the lumps of tumbled stone. As many muskets waited hungrily. Overhead, above the shelter of the breakwater, hummed the breeze; the little wavelets tapped on the edge of the masonry; the stage was ready.

Tall and beautiful she came slowly on till her whole length appeared opposite the ambush. Her decks and rigging were alive with the sailors, who were swarming over the masts and furling sail, or stood ready to drop the anchor on the word of command. On the bridge stood the captain with two other officers, and, marshalled in rows on the aft deck, about two hundred soldiers, carrying arms. Simultaneously through the ambushed Greeks the same thought ran, "The soldiers first," and as the great ship glided steadily past the end of the breakwater the fire of a hundred men broke out, and they went down like ninepins. The ship moved on, and, like the echo of the first volley, a second swept the decks, and close on the second a third. The captain fell and two officers with him, and a panic seized the crew. They ran hither and thither, some seeking refuge below, some jumping overboard, some standing where they were, wide-eyed and terror-stricken. A few of the soldiers only retained their presence of mind, and with perfect calmness, as if they were practising at some sham-fight, brought a gun into position and proceeded to load it. But again and again they were mowed down by the deadly short-range fire of the Greeks, while others took up the ramrods and charge from their clinched hands, only to deliver it up from their death-grip to others. But still the great ship went on, running the gauntlet of the whole ambush, while every moment its decks grew more populous with a ghastly crew of death. The well-directed and low fire of the Greeks had left the half-furled sails untouched, and the wind still blew steadily. But in a few moments more there were none left to take the helm, and, swinging round to the wind, she changed her course and went straight for the low, sandy beach on the other side of the harbor. There, fifty yards off the shore, she grounded heavily, with a slight list to starboard, striking a sand-bank on the port side; and there, all the afternoon, she stood, white and stately, with sails bulging with the wind, but moving not, like some painted or phantom ship with wings that feel not wind nor any gale.

Not till then did Niketas, nor indeed any of his ambushed party, give a thought to the other ship, but when the first ship with its crew of dead turned in the wind and sailed ashore he looked round the corner for the other. It was still some quarter of a mile away, but there seemed to be some commotion on deck, and he was uncertain for a moment whether they were preparing to bring their big gun into play. But he was not left long in doubt, for in a couple of minutes more the ship swung round and beat out to sea again. This disgraceful piece of cowardice raised from the Greeks a howl, partly of derision and partly of rage at being balked of their prey, and a few discharged their muskets at the fleeing enemy until Niketas stopped them, telling them not to waste good powder on runaway dogs. On the first ship the body of soldiers had literally been destroyed, and of two hundred not more than thirty remained. But these, with a courageous despair, after the first few minutes of wild confusion were over, had sheltered themselves at different points behind the bulwarks and furniture of the ship, and were returning the fire coolly, while others began preparing the big gun for action. But these were an easy mark for the Greeks, for they were unprotected, and after five or six more men had been shot down they abandoned the attempt and confined themselves to their muskets. They were, however, fighting with cruel odds against them, for the men on whom they were firing were sheltered by the blocks of masonry on the pier, and hardly more could be seen than a bristling row of gun-barrels. Hardly any of those who had flung themselves into the sea lived to reach the shore, for they also were shot down as they swam, and all over the bay were stains of crimson blood and clothes which they had flung off into the water. One man, indeed, landed two hundred yards away, but even as he stood there wringing the water out of his clothes, which would clog his running, he was shot dead, and fell back into the water again.

Meantime, from the citadel Ali Aga had watched the destruction of one ship and the flight of the other. At the moment when the first had entered the harbor he had opened fire on the Mainat corps; but they, obeying Petrobey's direction, merely sheltered behind the mills, and did not even take the trouble to return it. Encouraged by this, and seeing heavy fighting going on below, Ali was just preparing to make a dash for the harbor with some half of the troops, in order to establish communication, when the firing on the shore suddenly slackened, and he saw one ship sail off without firing a shot, while the other drifted with half-furled sails across the bay, and then grounded. At that he resolved again to wait, for he had no intention of going to the rescue of those who should have rescued him, and indeed, without co-operation from the ship, the attempt would have been madness.

At dusk the firing below ceased altogether, for a boat had put off from the ship bearing the white flag of surrender, and all those who were left on board were removed, their arms taken from them, and they were put into custody. Niketas, who boarded the ship, felt a sudden unwilling admiration for the man who had gone on fighting against such fearful odds. The deck presented a fearful sight – it was a shambles, nothing less. The list of the ship as she struck had drained the blood in oily, half-congealed streams through the scuppers, and it was dripping sullenly into the sea. The small-arms and powder the Greeks transferred in boats to the land, where they were added to the stock, and they made several unsuccessful attempts to get out one or two of the larger guns, which might prove useful if Kalamata refused to capitulate. But all their efforts, in the absence of fit tackling and lifting apparatus, were useless, and after emptying the ship of all that could be of service to them, including a sum of five hundred Turkish pounds, which was found in the captain's cabin, they set light to it for fear it should be got off by its sister ship and so return into the enemy's fleet. All night long the hull blazed, and about midnight it was a pillar of fire, for the sails caught and the flames went roaring upward, mast high. And thus ended the first day of the siege.

All next day the blockade continued without incident, and no attempt was made on the part of the Turks to deliver an attack, nor on that of the besiegers to force their way into the citadel. The pass from Arcadia and that over Taygetus, across either of which any relief expedition from Tripoli must march, were carefully watched, and before such appeared Petrobey declined to make an attack, which must be expensive to the Greek army, when simply waiting would do their work for them; while Ali on his side would sooner capitulate, if the worst came to the worst, than with his fifteen hundred men, ill-supplied with ammunition, engage these six regiments of wolves; for such an engagement, as he knew, would only end in his utter defeat, and the massacre in all probability of all the Turks in the town.

Early on the third morning it was clear that help was not coming from Tripoli, or, at any rate, that it would come too late. The water supply had entirely given out and famine as well was beginning to make itself felt. For two days and nights the citadel had been packed like a crate of figs with defenceless and civilian humanity, more than half of whom had to lie out under the cold of the spring night exposed to the dews and the sun, some of them barely half clad, just as they had been awakened from their sleep when they had fled panic-stricken to the citadel. Below in the Greek army the utmost content and harmony still reigned. The men were well quartered and had all the supplies of the town in their hands, and a considerable amount of booty had been taken, half of which was divided between the men and half reserved by Petrobey for a war fund.

The first bugle had sounded half an hour, and they were preparing their breakfast when a white flag was hoisted on the corner tower, the gate opened, and Ali Aga, alone and unattended, except for a page who carried his chibouk, walked down into the camp. Some Greeks, who had lived under him and had felt his cruel and outrageous rule, saw him coming and surrounded him, spitting at him and reviling him; but here the devilish coolness of the man came to the front, a matter for admiration, and turning round on them he cursed at them so fiercely, calling them dogs and sons of dogs, that they fell back. By the side of the road was sitting a blind Greek, begging. Ali, with splendid unconcern, paused, threw open his red cloak trimmed with the fur of the yellow fox, which he had wrapped closely about him against the chill of the morning, and taking his pistol and string of amber beads out of his belt, felt in the corners of it for some small coins, which he gave the man and passed deliberately on, adjusting his fez with one hand. Once again before he reached Petrobey's quarters he paused, this time to take off one of his red shoes and shake a pebble out of it. Had he blanched or wavered for a moment his life would have been forfeit a dozen times before he reached Petrobey's quarters, but he treated the howling crowd as a man treats snarling curs, and he silently commanded one of the loudest-mouthed to show him the way to their commander.

Petrobey had seen Ali coming, and was sitting outside the house where he had taken up his quarters, and when the Turk appeared he arose and saluted him, telling a servant to bring a pipe for him; but Ali did not return the salute, and merely indicated with one hand that he had brought his own pipe with him, an insult of the most potent nature. To him the Greeks were "all of one bake," and he looked at Petrobey and spoke as if he were speaking to one of his own slaves.

"I find it necessary for me to capitulate," he said, in excellent Greek, "and I am here to settle the conditions."

Petrobey flushed angrily. He was not a meek man, and had no stomach for insults; so he sat down again, leaving Ali standing, and crossed one leg over the other.