The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Then with a flash the horrible possibility became a certainty to his mind. The house was empty and deserted; Abdul and the household had fled; a ship was now at Nauplia to carry away the fugitives; that ship he was going to destroy, consigning all on it to a death among flames from which there was no escape. Abdul was surely there, and with Abdul and his household…

Mitsos stood there a long minute with wide, unseeing eyes; for a moment the horror of his position drowned his consciousness as a blow stuns the brain. Then as his reason came back to him he realized that he could not, that he was physically unable, to carry out his orders. The fire-ship should not start – no, it must start, for there was Yanni with him, who knew about it, and he cursed himself for having taken Yanni. But so be it; it should start, but something should go wrong – he would forget to take kindling for it, or, setting light to it, it should only drift by the other and not harm her. For it was no question of choice; he could not do this thing.

Thus thought poor Mitsos as he sailed home again. It seemed to him that nothing in the world mattered except Suleima, and by the bitter irony of fate the man in the world whom he most loved and respected had told him to destroy with all on board the ship in which Suleima was. On the one hand stood Nicholas, his father, Petrobey, Yanni, and the whole clan of those dear, warm-hearted cousins who had treated him as a brother, yet half divine; on the other, Suleima, and Suleima was more to him than them all; Suleima was part of himself, dearer than his hand or his eye, and besides – besides…

Yanni was having dinner when he entered the house, but there was that in Mitsos' face which made him spring up.

"Mitsos," he said, "little Mitsos, what is the matter?"

Mitsos looked at him a moment in silence, but that craving of the human spirit for sympathy in trouble, whether the sympathy is given by man or beast, overpowered him. Though in his own mind he had settled that he could not destroy this ship, the trouble of his struggle was sore upon him.

"Yanni," he whispered, "there will be no fire-ship. Abdul has gone, has fled with all the household, with Suleima among them. Where has he fled but onto the ship we are to destroy? I cannot do it."

Yanni sank down again in his chair.

"Oh, Mitsos," he said, "poor Mitsos! God forgive us all."

Mitsos glanced at him, frowning.

"'Poor Mitsos!'" he cried; "why do you say 'poor Mitsos'? Do you think I am going to do this?"

"You are not going to do it?"

"No!" shouted Mitsos. "It is not I who choose. There is no choice. I cannot!"

"But the clan, the oath to obey – "

"There are bigger things than clans or oaths. To hell with my oath, to hell with the clan," cried Mitsos.

Yanni sat silent, and Mitsos suddenly flared up again.

"How dare you sit there," he cried, "and let your silence blame me? You, whom I rescued from the house of Mehemet; who but for me would have been rotting in the ground, or worse than that; you, whom I saved when a cross-legged Turk had you down on the ground – "

"Mitsos!" said Yanni, looking at him without fear or anger, but stung intolerably.

For a moment or two Mitsos sat still, but then the blessed relief of tears came.

"What have I said to you, Yanni?" he sobbed. "O God, forgive me, for I know not what I said; yet – yet how can I do this? Oh, of course you are right, and I – I – Yanni, is it not hard? What was it I said to you? Something devilish, I know. Don't give me up, Yanni; there is none – there will soon be none who loves me as you do."

Yanni's great black eyes grew soft with tears, and he put his arm round Mitsos' neck as his head lay on the table.

"Oh, Mitsos! poor little Mitsos!" he said again. "What is to be done? If only Nicholas or my father knew; and yet you could not and cannot tell them. Perhaps she is not on the ship, you know."

"Perhaps, perhaps – oh, perhaps she is!" cried Mitsos.

The two sat there in silence for a time, stricken almost out of consciousness by this appalling thing. At last Mitsos raised his head.

"There is nothing more to be said," he muttered. "I have no idea what I shall do. Either to do the thing or not to do it is impossible, and yet by to-morrow it will be done or left undone. But, Yanni, just tell me you forgive me for what I said just now and make indulgence, for this is a hard, weary day for me."

Yanni smiled.

"Forgiveness is no word from me to you, dear Mitsos," he said. "There is nothing you could do or say to me for which you need ask that."

Mitsos looked up at him with dumb, dry eyes and a quivering mouth.

"Forget it, too, Yanni, and tell me it will make no change between us, for, in truth, I do not know what I said."

"There, there," said Yanni, soothingly. "The thing is not, it never has been."

The hours went on slowly and silently. Mitsos said nothing, but lay in the veranda like some suffering animal that has crept away to die alone of a mortal wound, and Yanni was wise enough to leave him quite to himself, for his struggle was one that had to be wrestled out alone without help or sympathy from others. But gradually and very slowly the mist of irresolution passed away from Mitsos' brain, and he felt that he would decide one way or the other. Meantime the sun had sunk to its setting, and Yanni prepared food and took some with wine out to Mitsos.

"Eat, drink," he said. "You have not eaten since morning."

"I am not hungry," said Mitsos, listlessly.

For answer Yanni took up the glass of wine and held it to him.

"Drink it quickly, Mitsos; you are faint for something," he said, "and then I will take it and fill it again."

Mitsos obeyed like a sick child, and Yanni took the glass and brought it back full. This time he waited a moment, and then said:

"You must make up your mind, Mitsos. If you settle to do nothing, tell me, and I must think for myself."

Mitsos nodded.

"I will come in in half an hour and tell you," he said. "That will be time enough. Please leave me alone again, Yanni; it is better so."

Yanni went back into the house. His warm-hearted nature, and his intense love for Mitsos, made him suffer to the complement of his capacity of suffering. He would willingly have changed places with Mitsos had it been possible, for he felt he could not suffer more, but so the other would suffer less. Oh, poor Mitsos, whose strength and habit of laughter availed him nothing!

It was less than half an hour later when Mitsos came in. His face was drawn and white, and he felt deadly tired. He did not look at Yanni, but merely stood in the doorway, his eyes cast down.

"Come, Yanni," he said, "it is time we should start. Where are the cans of turpentine and the wood?"

"In the boat; I put them there."

Mitsos looked up at him sharply.

"So you meant to do it yourself if I did not?"

"I meant to try."

Men walk firmly to the scaffold when they are to die for a good cause, and martyrs have seen their wives and children tortured or burned before their eyes and wavered not, and it was this courage of absolute conviction which nerved the poor lad now. With his whole heart he believed in the right of this exterminating war against the Turk; he had put himself unreservedly at the service of its leaders, and there was an order laid on him. He had made of himself a part of a machine, and should a jarring axle speak to the driver and say it would go no farther, or bid him stop the whole gear? Thus it was that, with a firm step and with no tenderness, but only despair and conviction clutching at a cold heart, he walked down with Yanni to the beach, and, having looked over all the apparatus and seen that nothing was wanting, pushed off, and, helping him to set the sail, took his place at the helm.

The enterprise they were embarked upon was dangerous. The caique in which they sat was piled with inflammable materials and a cargo of brushwood, and carried four large cans of turpentine, with which they would presently soak the sails. They were to run up to the Turkish ship, tie their boat up to it, or entangle it in the rigging, set fire to it, and jump into the small boat they towed behind them and row off. The flames would spread like lightning over the boat, giving them hardly a second to escape, and they might easily be seen and shot at while they were lighting her before they could row off; and this element of danger, perhaps, was a help to poor Mitsos.

The night at least was favorable to their adventure, being thickly clouded and with a fine fresh breeze, thus enabling them to come up quickly, and also under cover of darkness. Otherwise the moon, which was nearly full, would have doubled their peril. The wind was from the east of north, so that the ship would probably run straight before it for a mile or so before turning south out of the gulf, and the time to attack her would be just when she turned, for she would then be far enough from the shore to render her destruction inevitable, and the moment of slack speed as she put about would enable them to run into her the more easily. At present they would approach within about a quarter of a mile, and lie there waiting for her to put out.

There was still plenty of time, and when Mitsos let the boat run before the wind instead of going straight to Nauplia, Yanni had no need to ask him why, for he knew where he was going, and kept his eyes away, for he could not bear to see Mitsos' agony. For a little while the hardness and conviction had left him, and the hour of his agony was on him again. And as they neared the white wall, which glimmered faintly under the cloudy night, he thought his heart would break within him. They passed it quickly under the ever-freshening breeze, and Mitsos looked at it as a man looks on the dead form of his dearest, the house which she had inhabited in life. To him Suleima was dead, a memory only insufferably sweet, ineffably bitter, and when the wall faded again into the blackness he felt as if he had buried her whom he had loved and murdered. Then putting about, they ran past the island and saw the lights of Nauplia grow nearer and larger.