The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Bite the dust through me."

CHAPTER VI

THE ENTRY OF GERMANOS

Petrobey was not slow to follow up his advantage. By them in their mountain nests the Ottoman force now in Tripoli was evidently not to be feared in the offensive, nor could it dislodge the Greeks from the positions they had taken up upon the high and hilly ground. On the other hand, the Greeks were not capable of meeting cavalry, and they must at present keep to the hills, and not attempt to blockade the town closely, for in so doing they would have to leave their heights for the plain in which the fortress stood, and expose themselves to the horse. But with the ever-increasing numbers that were e flocking to the Greek standard, the camp at Valtetzi was rapidly getting insufficient in accommodation, and at the same time any additional position on the hills would be another link in the iron chain which was being forged round the town; and now, when it was unlikely that the Turks would risk a further engagement at once, was the moment for advancing another step.

Exactly to the west of Tripoli, and within rifle-shot of its walls, stood three steep spurs of hill, known as Trikorpha. The same stir of primeval forces which threw up the crag on which Valtetzi stood, must have cast them up bubbling and basaltic through some volcanic vent-hole, long after the great range behind was fixed. They were like the ragged peaks of slag cast out by a gaseous coal consuming in the fire, and, standing some four hundred feet above the plain, were yet most conveniently near the town. Nearly at the top gushed out a riotous cold stream from the dark lips of the rocks, fringed with shivering maidenhair and dripping moss, and behind on the mountain was good pasturage for flocks. Lower down, where the stream-bed widened, burst a luxuriant patch of oleanders and stiff cushions of cistus and spina sacra; but the heights themselves, save for the water-course, were barren. The three peaks were joined to each other by a sharp rocky ridge, but all were isolated from the mountains on one side and the plain on the other.

Petrobey set about securing this position without delay, though, in truth, the Turks were in no temper to prevent him, and the work sped apace. The place was nigh impregnable, and the walls, of rough blocks of stone gathered from the peaks, were made as much with a view to clearing the ground for the soldiers' huts as to providing the place with a defensible wall. From here, too, by night they could push their devastating raids right under the walls of Tripoli itself, for it was but a stone-cast to the foot of their eyry; and early in June the larger part of the men encamped at Valtetzi took up their quarters in this new nest, swarming there as in spring the overfull hive sends out its colonists. The Argive corps remained in the old nest, under the command of Demetri, who the year before had been mayor of Nauplia, while in the new position the Mainats, under Petrobey, occupied the northernmost of the three peaks; Nicholas, with a regiment chiefly of Arcadian troops, the southernmost; and in the centre a smaller body from the parts about Sparta, under the command of a local chieftain, whom they had followed, one Poniropoulos, a man as crooked in mind and morality as a warped vine-stem, but who, as he was chosen leader by his contingent, was of necessity in command.

Meantime from every part of the country was coming in news no longer of butchery of unarmed Turks in defenceless farm-houses, but of regular sieges of Turkish towns, sometimes successful, sometimes still protracted and of uncertain issue. Several of the Greek islands, notably Psara, Spetzas, and Hydra, had risen, and had already sent out that which was so sorely needed – a fleet to watch the coasts and destroy Turkish ships – thus preventing them from bringing men, provisions, or ammunition into the Peloponnesus. Already during May had this fleet performed some notable exploits, chief among which was the destruction of a Turkish frigate bringing arms and men from a port in Asia Minor. She was caught just outside Nauplia, and, after a desperate resistance, boarded and taken. Only two days later two Hydriot brigs overtook a vessel sailing from Constantinople to Egypt with rich presents on board from the Sultan Mahmud to Mehemet Ali, a cargo which caused shame and dishonor to the captors. All on board were ruthlessly murdered, the persons of women were searched for treasure, which they might have concealed about them, and the sailors, disregarding the convention under which they sailed, whereby one-half of the prize taken was appropriated to the conduct of the war, seized on the whole and divided it up, and, fired by the lust of wealth so easily gotten, became privateers rather than fellow-workers in a war for liberty. Returning to Hydra, they found embroilments of all sorts going on between the primates and the captains of their fleet, and throwing in their lot with the former, they cemented the alliance with a sufficient share of their booty and prepared for sea again, each man thinking for naught but his own coffers. Yet there were tales of exploits and great heroisms also, and notable among them the deeds of the Capsina, a girl of Hydra, and head of the clan of Capsas, who sailed her own ship, working havoc among the Turks. There was something strangely inspiriting in the tale, for it seemed she took nothing for herself, but gave all her prizes to the war fund; also, she was more beautiful than morning, and dazzled the eyes of men.

On the second cruise three ships from Spetzas crossed straight over to the Peloponnesus to assist in the blockade of Monemvasia, which was besieged on the land side by a freshly enrolled body of men from the southern peninsula, chiefly from Sparta and the outlying portions of Argos. The town was known to be very wealthy, and the commander of the Greeks, finding that until communication by sea was intercepted it was impossible to starve the town out, while his own force was inadequate to storm it, had invited the co-operation of the fleet, stipulating that a third of the spoil taken should go to the soldiers, one-third to the fleet, and one-third to the national treasury. But scarcely had the ships arrived when quarrels began to break out between the fleet and the army; a spirit of mutual mistrust and suspicion was abroad; and the soldiers, on one hand, accused the fleet of making a private contract with the besieged, to the effect that their lives would be spared and themselves conveyed to Asia Minor in ships on the surrender of their property; while the sailors brought a counter-accusation that there was a plot on foot among the infantry to attempt to storm the town and carry off the booty before they could claim their share. Every one looked after his own interest, and the only matter that was quite disregarded was the interest of the nation. But to the soldiers more intolerable than all was the conduct of three primates from Spetzas, who took upon themselves the airs and dignities which the Greeks had been accustomed to see worn by Turkish officials; and though to a great extent this war was a religious war, yet the peasants had no mind to see the places their masters had occupied tenanted anew by any one.

This example of the island primates was to a certain extent followed by their brethren on the main-land. There had sprung into existence, in the last month or so, two great powers in Greece, the army and the church, still in that time the mistress of men's souls; and the primates, who before the Turkish supremacy had been temporal as well as spiritual princes, wished to see themselves reinstated in the positions they had held. Many of them too, such as Germanos, at Patras, had worked with a true and simple purpose for the liberation of their country; and now that the people were beginning to reap the fruits of their labors, they looked to receive their due, and their demands, on the whole, were just. But never were demands made at so unseasonable an opportunity, for while the military leaders shrugged their shoulders, saying "This is our work as yet," they obtained but a divided allegiance, for the people were devoted to their church. The result was a most unhappy distrust and suspicion between the two parties. The primates openly said that the object of the military leaders was their own aggrandizement to the detriment of other interests, the military leaders that their reverend friends were interfering in concerns outside of their province. Even greater complications ensued when the primates themselves, as in the case of Germanos, were men who fought with earthly weapons, and he, taking strongly the side of the church as against the army, was the cause of much seditious feeling.

The personal ascendency of Petrobey and Nicholas was a large mitigation of these evils in the army at Tripoli, but both felt that their position was unsettled, depending only on popular favor, and matters came to a crisis when Germanos himself came to the camp from Patras with an armed following. To do the man justice, it was jealousy for the church, not the personal greed of power, which inspired him; as a prince of that body and a vicar of Christ, he had invested himself with the insignia of his position. But it was the royalty of his Master and not His humility which he would fain represent, and if he had remembered the entry of One into His chosen city, meek and sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of an ass, his heart would have been better turned to the spirit of the King of kings.

Not as such entered Germanos into the camp. Before him went a body of armed men, followed by six acolytes swinging censers, then the cross-bearer, holding high his glittering silver symbol wrought but lately, on which Germanos had lavished the greater part of the booty which had been his at the taking of Kalavryta, and then borne in a chair on the shoulders of four monks the archbishop himself. His head was bare, for in his hands he carried the gold vessels of the sacrament, those which the Emperor Palæologus had given to the monastery at Megaspelaion, and over his shoulders flowed his thick, black hair, just touched with gray. His cope, another priceless treasure from his own sacristy, was fastened round in front of his neck with a gold clasp, set with one huge, ancient emerald. It covered him from shoulder almost to foot, all shimmering white of woven silk, with a border wrought with crimson and gold pomegranates, and thinly below showed the white line of the alb and the ends of his embroidered stole. Of his other vestments, seven in all, the girdle was a rope of gold thread, the knee-piece hanging below it was embroidered with the three Levitical colors, the cuffs were of lace from Kalabaka, and the chasuble was of cambric, close fitting and sleeved according to the use of Metropolitans. Behind came another priest carrying the office of the church, bound in crimson leather with gold clasps, and the remainder of his armed guard followed – in all, three hundred men.

It was an act of inconceivable folly, but a folly of a certain magnificent sort, for in Germanos's mind the only thought had been the glory of the church. He had travelled five days from Kalavryta, and so far he had been received by the posts of the Greek army with reverence and respect. But his reception here, he knew, was the touchstone of the success of his party, for the scornful Mainats looked askance on clergy, and left them to do their praying alone. But he had come, so he believed, to demand the vassalage of the people to the King of kings, and that duty, so he thought, admitted neither delay nor compromise.

Yanni, who was lounging on the wall with Mitsos in the afternoon sun, preparatory to starting on a night raid down in the plains, saw him coming and whistled ominously.

"There will be mischief," he said, softly, to Mitsos. "Germanos is a good man and true, but these little primates are not all like him."

"I wish they would leave us alone," grumbled Mitsos; "that little monkey-faced Charalambes is doing a peck of harm. He tells the men that all the fighting is for the glory of God. I dare say it is, but there are blows to be struck, and a paper man would strike as well as he. Oh, Yanni, but Germanos has got all his fine clothes on. Would I had been born an archbishop!"

The procession was now passing close under them, and, looking closer, Yanni saw what Germanos carried, and got down and stood uncovered, crossing himself. Mitsos saw too and followed his example, but frowning the while. It struck him somehow that this was not fair play.

Petrobey received the archbishop with the greatest respect, and had erected for him another hut next his own. An order went round the camp that every man was to attend mass, which would be celebrated at daybreak the following day; but after supper that night Petrobey, Nicholas, and the archbishop talked long together. Mitsos, to his great delight, was put in command of some twenty young Mainats, who were to prowl about and do damage, along with other parties, and Germanos, who looked on the boy with peculiar favor, gave him his blessing before he set out.

"You were ever a man who could deal with men," he said to Nicholas, as the boy went out, "and you have trained the finest lad in Greece. But we have other things to talk of, and let us shake hands first, for I know not whether what I have to say will find favor with you. For we are friends, are we not?"

Nicholas smiled.

"Old friends, surely," he said. "May we long be so!"

"That is well," said Germanos, seating himself; "but first I have to tell you news which I hope may bind us even closer together, though with a tie of horror and amazement. Our patriarch, Gregorios, whom I think you knew, Nicholas, was executed at Constantinople on Easter Day, by order of the Sultan!"

Nicholas and Petrobey sprang from their seats.

"Gregorios!" they exclaimed in whispered horror.

"Executed, dying the most shameful death, hanged at the gate of the Patriarchate. Ah, but the vengeance of God is swift and sure, and the blood of another martyr cries from the ground. Oh, let this bind us together; hanged, the death of a dog; he, the holiest of men."

Germanos bowed his head and there was silence for a moment.

"That was not enough," he continued, his voice trembling with a passionate emotion. "For three days he hung there, and the street dogs leaped up to bite at the body. Then it was given to the Jews, and I would sooner have seen it devoured by the dogs than cast into the hands of those beasts; and they dragged it through the streets and threw it into the sea. But pious men watched it and took it to Odessa, where it was given burial such as befits the body of one of the saints of God. And though dead, he works, for on the ship that took it there was a woman stricken with paralysis, and they brought her to touch the body, and she went away whole."

Nicholas was sitting with his face in his hands, but at this he looked up.

"Glory to God!" he cried, "for in heaven His martyr now pleads for us."

Petrobey crossed himself.

"Glory to God!" he repeated. "But tell us more, father; what was the cause of this?"

"He died for us," said Germanos; "for the liberty of the Greeks. As you know, he was in the secrets of the patriots, and one of the agents of the club which supplied funds for the war was found to have letters from the patriarch, which showed his complicity. Immediately after the execution the election for a new patriarch took place, and Eugenios, of Pisidia, was chosen, and his election ratified by Gregorios's murderer."

Nicholas struck the table with his fist.

"I give no allegiance there," said he. "Is the church a toy in that devil's hands, and shall we bow to his puppets?"

Germanos looked up quickly.

"I wanted to know your opinion on that," he said, "and you, Petrobey, go with your cousin? But in the mean time we have no head."

"But at the death of a patriarch," asked Nicholas, "what is the usual course?"

Germanos hesitated.

"You will see," he said, "why I paused, for it is in the canon of the church that till the next patriarch is appointed the supremacy of the church is in the hands of the senior archbishop."

Nicholas rose.

"There is none so fit as yourself," he said, "and here and now I give you my allegiance, and I promise to obey you in all matters within your jurisdiction, and for the glory of God."

Germanos gave them his blessing, and both kissed his hand; and when they had seated themselves again he bent forward, and began to speak with greater earnestness.

"And that, in part, is why I am here," he said, "to accept in the name of the church the allegiance of the Greek army. We must not forget among these night attacks and skirmishes and sieges that for which we work – the liberty of Greece, it is true, but the purpose of her liberty – to let a free people serve the God of their fathers, and pull under no infidel yoke to the lash of unbelievers. Believe me, my friends, how deeply unworthy I feel of the high office which has thus come upon my shoulders, but help me to bear it, though in that the flesh is weak I would in weakness shrink from it. But much lies in your power and active help, for I know what deep influence both of you, and deservedly, have with these men. Yet since to every man is his part appointed by God Himself, I would not recoil from the task and heavy responsibility which are on me as head of this people, who are fighting for their liberty; and though I am not jealous for myself, as some would maliciously count me, I am very jealous for Him with whose authority I, all unworthy, have been invested."

Germanos paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on the ground, and Nicholas, looking across at Petrobey, half began to speak, but the other by an almost imperceptible gesture silenced him. But Germanos paused only for a moment and went on, speaking a little quicker, but weighing his words.

"For who is the general we all fight under, but One? Who is the giver of victory, but He alone? And I – I speak in a sort of proud humility – I am the head of His bride, the church, and the shepherd of His flock, this people. Do not misunderstand me, for I speak not for myself, but for Him. Already dangers, not those from our enemies the Turks, but from friends more deadly than they, compass us about on all sides, and are with us when we sit down to eat and take our rest, and if we are not careful they will poison all we do. Already at Kalavryta, whence I am come – already, as I hear, at Monemvasia; but not, as I hope and trust, here – are there greedy and wicked men, who, raised to power for which they have no fitness, having no self-control, and being therefore incapable of controlling others, save in the way of inflaming their lusts by example like beasts of the fields, already have many such, finding themselves in command of some small local following, led their men on by hopes of gain and promises of reward. They are becoming no better than brigands, despoiling the defenceless, and each man pocketing his gains."

Petrobey here looked up.

"Pardon me," he said, "though such conduct has taken place on certain ships, I think that there has been none among the soldiers. Half the booty taken is put aside for the purpose of the war; half, as is right, is shared among those who acquire it."

Germanos looked at him keenly, and went on with growing eloquence.

"You have hit the very point," he said, "towards which I have been making. Half, as you say, is put away for the purposes of the war, and though I think that is too large a proportion, still the question is only one of degree, and we will pass it over. Half again, as you say, is shared among those who acquire it. There is the blot, the defect of the whole system. What are we fighting for? For wealth or for liberty? Surely for liberty and the glory of God! To fight in such a cause, and to fall in such a cause, is surely an exceeding reward. But what of the glory of God? Is it not to Him that this, no niggardly tithe, but half the goods we possess, should be given? Is it not He who has given us the strength to fight, and the will before which even now the Turk is crumpling as a ship crumples the waves? And for this shall we give Him nothing? Shall every peasant possess his hoard taken from the Turk, and the church of God go begging? Have we not given our lives to His service, without hope of reward indeed, but very jealous for His honor? And how shall we serve Him as we ought, when our churches stand half ruined to the winds of heaven, and our monks, to support themselves, must needs hoe in the fields and vineyards, and bring but a tired frame to the blessed service of the church? Is it not there this should be bestowed – on the church, on the priests and the primates, on the heads and princes of the church, to be used by them for the glory of their Master? Some of us, I know, would wish to endow a king to rule over a free people, in royal obedience, for so they phrase it, to a people's will. Is it not enough to have for our king, our Master, our tender Friend, the King of kings? This only is the kingdom whose citizenship I covet, for it is beyond price, and it is but a dubious love for Him that is ours, if we give Him, as we fondly tell ourselves, our hearts, and withhold from Him our gold and silver. Not in such manner worshipped the kings of the East. Long was their journey, and yet we who fight are not more footsore than they; but did they come empty-handed to worship? Gold and frankincense and myrrh they gave, their costliest and their best. Heart worship let us give, and lip worship too, and let our hands be open in giving; it is in giving that we show, poorly indeed, but in the best and only way, the sincerity of our hearts. Ah, it is no pale spiritual kingdom only that God requires, but the pledge of it in a glorious liberality, the fruits of His bounty given to Him again. Let there be a splendor in our service to Him, riches, wealth, all that is beautiful, poured out freely; it is our duty to give – yes, and our privilege."

Petrobey and Nicholas both listened in dead silence, for they respected the man, and they revered his office. Of the honesty and integrity of his words, too, neither felt any question; but when in the history of warfare had ears ever heard so impracticable a piece of rhetoric? Did Germanos really suppose that these soldiers of theirs were risking life, possessions, all that they had, for the sake of the heads of the church? Already the primates had done infinite harm by their pretentious meddling, giving themselves the airs of deposed monarchs, for whom it was a privilege to fight, and encouraging seditious talk among the men by hinting openly that the military leaders were in league with the Turks, making conventions with them by which their lives should be spared on the sacrifice of their property. Germanos himself, as they knew, was a man of far different nature; this scheme of his, by which half the booty should be placed unreservedly in the hands of the heads of the church, to be used for the glory of God, was as sunshine is to midnight compared to the vile slanderings of his inferiors. But how would the army receive it? Was Petrobey, as commander-in-chief, or Germanos, as head of this people of God, to go to them, saying, "You have risked your lives, and it is your privilege to have done so for the glory of God; risk them to-morrow and the next day and the next day, and when the war is over, and unless you lie on the battlefield, you creep back to your dismantled homes, account it a privilege that you have been permitted to give to the primates and priests the fruits of your toil"?

Yet, though Germanos was accounted a man of integrity both by Petrobey and Nicholas, how could there but be a background to the picture he had drawn? He was a man to whom power and the exercise of power had become a habit, and the habit almost a passion. Though this scheme, by which the church would be restored to its old splendor and magnificence, the glory of those days when from Constantinople came the emperor humbly and suppliantly with great gifts, had for its object the glory of God, yet inasmuch as he was a man of dominant nature he could not be unaware nor disregardful of what it would mean to him personally. What a position! The chances were ten to one that he would be chosen to fill the places of the martyred patriarch, instead of the Bishop Eugenios, well known to the Greeks as a middle-minded man, who strove to keep well with both Ottoman and Greek. For, in truth, this was no time for diplomatic attitudes; each man must take one side or the other, and now to consent to take from the hands of the Sultan the insignia of his victim was to declare one's self no patriot. Greece would certainly repudiate the appointment and choose a supreme head for itself, and among all the primates and bishops there was none who was so powerful with his own class, and so popular among the people, as Germanos. As every one knew, he had thrown himself heart and soul into the revolution; he had raised the northern army, he had headed the attempt on the citadel of Patras in person. The chosen head of a new and splendid church, rising glorious in the dawn of liberty, sanctified by suffering, proved by its steadfastness to endure, a church for which blood had been shed, and, as he had said, no pale spiritual kingdom only, but a power on earth as in heaven! It was not in the nature of the man to be able to shut his eyes to that; it could not but be that so splendid a possibility should be without weight to him. His next words showed it.