The Capsina. An Historical Novel

It was a little after sunrise next morning that the Capsina went down to the custom-house, as was arranged, to breakfast with Mitsos. Day had dawned with an incomparable loveliness; it was the feast of Noël, and an extraordinary blitheness of soul was hers. The day before Mitsos had asked her what gift of the season he should bring her; six months ago she would not have wagered on her answer; now she had answered him with who knows what quiet and childish memories in her mind? Her thoughts flew like a honey-bee from one pleasant thing to another, gathering sweetness from all. Now it was the vision of Suleima, busy with the child and her household cares, which fed them; now the little Sophia, still asleep under that gray house-roof; now the harbor of Hydra; and now the sunlight, falling on a patch of hoar-covered grass, was a pleasant resting-place for the mind.

And Mitsos was up and waiting for her; he had even already made coffee, and from afar off she saw him standing bareheaded in the door of the custom-house, smoking the earliest pipe. He was forever smoking. She would speak to him about it, for Tombazes had said that perpetual smoking was death to the lung-pipes, whatever lung-pipes might be. Yet death seemed very remote from the image of Mitsos. She met him smiling, and they exchanged the old greeting, "May your Noël be peaceful and full of laughter," and, as if in instant fulfilment, the childish words set them both laughing.

"Breakfast is ready," said Mitsos, "and I have been waiting, oh, ever so long. Oh, Michael, may your Noël be peaceful at least, since you know not how to laugh. Come, Capsina."

Coffee and eggs were ready, and they sat and ate. The early sunlight threw a great yellow splash through the door on to the planks of the flooring. Michael occupied the whole of it.

"The Revenge is yet a mile out," said the Capsina, between mouthfuls. "I could see them rowing her; I wonder they should be so hurried. Yet perhaps they would keep Noël with us all together. I love the lads, all of them, every one."

"Then I will fight them, all of them, every one," remarked Mitsos.

"For what cause?"

"Because, Capsina, you belong to Suleima and the little one and me, particularly the little one, so I think."

The Capsina laughed.

"Oh, little Mitsos, what will cure you of saying nonsense things? Hark! What is that?"

The report of a gun had come from seaward, and Mitsos, running out, saw the smoke still hanging round the Revenge. While he still looked another flash leaped from the side of her, and again the report followed. It seemed they were signalling. In the camp close by, the men were already astir; but they, too, had paused on the sound, not knowing what it was. One ran up to the top of the incline, where the wall ended, to look out, and in a moment, from closer at hand, the sharp firing of a musket-shot rang out, and he dropped. At that Mitsos waited no longer.

"Arm, all!" he cried; and then, turning to the Capsina, "It is the Turks," he said, "and the best of days to meet Turks on."

The girl sprang up.

"Wait here, Michael," she said, "on guard here. Little Mitsos, I am with you."

And she ran close behind him to his hut. He had not seen she was with him, but the moment after he had entered she appeared at the door.

"Quick, little Mitsos!" she cried, "Give me anything you do not want, pistol, or musket, or knife."

He turned.

"Oh, get back!" he said; "get back to the town! For the love of God, go; there is time yet. Who knows what is coming?"

"Have we not fought together before," she said, "and shall we not fight together now?"

"You will not go?"

"Not I, little Mitsos."

By this time the men had turned out under arms; and Mitsos gave the order to stand ready. The words were hardly spoken when some sixty Turkish cavalry appeared suddenly in sight over the brow of the hill. Now on such broken and uneven ground cavalry were by far less formidable than on the level, and Mitsos rapidly gave the order.

"Into cover of the huts," he cried, "and fire!"

It was so rapidly done that the enemy had hardly come a dozen strides down the hill when a scattering volley met them. They fired back, and then wheeled their horses round, and topped the hill again. The Greeks had not time to reload and fire before they disappeared, leaving some dozen, however, dead, and a riderless horse or two charging wildly right and left. On one a man still hung depended from the stirrup, and Mitsos gave a great giggle as he saw the man's head dashed to a crashed egg-shell on the corner of the unfinished wall.

But the position was still sufficiently hazardous. They had no kind of guess as to what this sudden appearance of cavalry and their withdrawal might mean. But there was no time for consideration. Next moment there appeared a quick uprising of fezzes above the ridge, and the infantry charged down on them. And Mitsos drew a little sigh of relief, for he thought he knew how the Turkish soldiers fought.

"Charge!" he cried. "Form as you can, and charge!"

On right and left out rushed the men from shelter of the huts. The line was irregular, but overpowering. The two met at about the line of the wall, and Mitsos's heart was joyful. At the corner of the wall there was a tight-huddled mass of men, the Greeks pressing upward, the Turks downward. It was more than hand to hand; it was elbow to elbow, and shoulder to shoulder. On his left was the Capsina, with the breath half crushed out of her body like the rest; on the right, Dimitri, who, as Mitsos noticed, was whistling. For a moment there was a deadlock; then Mitsos, taking advantage of his height, shook his great shoulders free of the crowd, and down flicked his knife through cheek and jaw of a Turk who was just in front. Such was the crush that the dead thing could not even drop, but stood straight up, half the face gone, and snarling.

Again his knife was raised; but on the moment, from his left, there licked out, like a whiplash, a curved Turkish scimitar. He saw it would strike him, and, his left arm being jammed to his side, he had not means of stopping the blow. But before it fell, from his left came up an arm with a pistol in the hand; the blow fell, but it did not touch him.

He could not even look round, for in front the knives were flickering like the reflection of the sun on water; but he called out: "Thanks, Capsina," and down came his knife again.

There was no answer, not even the answer of a laugh, but next moment a sudden swirl of men bore them towards the right; those who were at the corner were swept round in front of him, and he looked for the girl. She was still at his side, but her face was pale, and a crimson stream of blood poured over her arm.

"You are wounded," he said; "lean on me. So. In a moment we shall be out of this."

From the left the Greeks poured round the angle of the wall, and before many seconds had passed Mitsos, with his arm round the girl, was left in a little backwater of men, and he forced his way out.

He tugged at the sleeve of his shirt till the stitches, those fine great stitches which the Capsina had sewn there, gave way. The wound was in the fore-arm, not very deep, and he bandaged it in two places: one over the wound, the other round the armpit to stop the flow of blood, in case an artery was severed. The girl smiled at him and nodded her thanks.

Then, without a word, he lifted her bodily up and carried her back to the custom-house. Michael was still there, and still on the floor smouldered Mitsos's pipe, only half burned out, as he had thrown it down on the alarm. The remains of the breakfast were on the log table. The girl had recovered her color.

"It is nothing, Mitsos; indeed it is nothing," she said. "Leave me here with Michael, and get you back. It was lucky, little Mitsos, that I could get my arm free."

She stood up, smiling.

"Indeed it is nothing," she said again.

"I owe you all," said Mitsos, "but I have owed you much so long. Are you safe here, think you?"

"Surely, if you get back and drive those devils away. They were already breaking. Get you gone."

With a sudden impulse, Mitsos bent and kissed her hand.

"They are already breaking," he said; "in ten minutes I shall be back. It is better, is it not, I should be with the men?"

He went out and ran across the hundred yards which separated him from the others. As the Capsina had said, they were already breaking, and in three minutes more the Greeks had gained the top of the slope and were pursuing them in all directions. Mitsos had shoved his way to the fore as well as he could, and just as he gained the top he looked round. Through the open gap which had been made for the new wall to the battery by the sea another body of Turks was pouring, taking them in the rear between them and the custom-house where the Capsina was.

"Back, back!" he cried; "fight your way back. She is there."

From the door of the custom-house the Capsina had seen what had happened. In a moment she knew that her last fight was fought, and that brave spirit of hers, in the greatness and awe of what was assuredly coming to her, swept away from itself all that was unworthy of her best. For one moment the bitterness of her unrequited passion touched her, the next it was gone, and she stood sweet and clean for her last look at the dear loved earth, fit and ready for the change. Michael was with her; with her, too, was Mitsos's pipe, still alight. She put it to her lips and drew at it several times, till the core of tobacco was bright and burning. Then, "Michael," she said, "go, go, boy."

The great dog looked out, then back at her, and came to her feet with head down and furtively wagging his tail, as if in apology for his disobedience.

"Be it so, then," said the Capsina. "Here, come with me; we go together, as always, old Michael."

She went through the unfinished battery, with the pipe still in her hand, and followed by Michael, into the powder-magazine. Eight or ten sacks full lay there, and, with Mitsos's knife slitting the sides of two, she emptied them on the floor and stood just behind the pile. From outside the tramp of men came closer. She knelt down on the floor, the knife in one hand and in the other Mitsos's pipe.

"O blessed Virgin!" she said, "my whole heart thanks thee that thou hast given me the strength not to tell him; it thanks thee for the many beautiful days that have been given it. And, O most pitiful, intercede for me, for thou, too, wast a woman, and I have tried – "

Half a dozen men burst into the custom-house suspecting an ambuscade there; next moment one caught sight of her, and cried to the others:

"A woman only! Take her alive!"

The Capsina laughed, and Michael, with teeth bared and hackles raised at the intruders, yet wagged his tail in sympathy with his mistress. Four of the men rushed up the little passage from the custom-house to the magazine as another party poured in at the outer door.

"Thus!" said the Capsina, and she shook out the burning ash from Mitsos's pipe onto the heap of powder.

Mitsos from outside, for a second blinded and deafened by the explosion, saw and knew. For one moment he stood quite still; then: "Revenge her! revenge her!" he cried aloud, but with a trembling voice, and led the charge against the Turks, still pouring through the breach which led to the new battery.

There had passed scarce a quarter of an hour since the first alarm was given, and by now the townspeople had come out to aid. Step by step the Turks were driven back, and every moment a stab and a fallen heap of nerveless limbs revenged the Capsina; and by the time the church bells rang for the mass of Noël the Greeks were again in their camp, the wreckage of men lay round, and only a small body of cavalry were spurring back to Lepanto, saying these were not men, but fiends.

Mitsos was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, when the bell began, but the sound caused him to look up.

"Come, lads," he said, "we go to pray for the soul of the Capsina, and to give thanks to God for her" – and he clinched his teeth hard for a moment – "to give thanks to God for her great deeds and her splendid and shining life."

That afternoon the Revenge came into port, and two days after Mitsos was landed at Corinth. From there he went across to Nauplia, and sunset saw him at the white house, and Suleima's hands were raised in amaze at so quick a return.

"You have not brought the Capsina with you?" she asked.

Mitsos looked at her a moment, the hasp of the garden-gate in his hand, out of eyes drooping and heavy.

"No, I have not brought the Capsina," he cried, in a hard, dry tone, but at the word his voice broke suddenly, and he leaned on the gate and was shaken from head to foot with the tumult of his grief.

That night they talked long together, and their tears were mingled. At last, and not long before the dawning of the winter's day, Suleima came closer to Mitsos, and lay with her arm cast round his neck.

"She loved you, Mitsos," she said, "and I love her for it."