The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Nicholas paused a moment, and then laughed gently to himself.

"Never in my life shall I forget when we took Mohammed Bey – a fat-belly man, Mitsos, and a devil, with a paunch for two men and a woman's skin. To see him tied on his mule, crying out to Allah and Mohammed to rescue him and his dinner from the infidels, as if Mohammed had nothing better to do than look after such swine! I told him that he would only spend a day or two with us in the mountains until his friends ransomed him, adding that we would do our best to make him comfortable. But he wept tears of pure oil and said that Mohammed would avenge him, which, as yet, the Prophet has omitted to do. But there is one drawback to that sort of life, little Mitsos – one cannot keep clean. Sometimes, if one is travelling or being pursued, one has to go a whole day, or more, without water to drink, much less to wash in. Once, I remember, we had been all day without water, and could not find any when we stopped for the night; but there was a heavy dew, and, though it was a cold night, we all sat without our shirts for an hour, laying them on the ground until they were wet with dew, and then wrung them out into our mouths. Ah, horrible! horrible!"

Nicholas spat over the side of the boat at the thought, and then went on.

"For the most part we lived up in the mountains to the north of Arcadia, but somehow or other when summer came we all began to head southward again. We never spoke to each other of where we were going, for we all knew. And one evening, just before sunset, we were on the brow of a big wooded hill above Dimitzana and looked at our homes again. Homesickness and want of water – these were the two things which made me suffer, and I would drink the wringings of a shirt sooner than be sick for home.

"All next day we stopped there, sitting on that spur of wooded hill looking at home as if our eyes would start from our heads. Now one of us and then another would roll over, burying his face in his hands, and the rest of us would pretend not to notice. I cannot say for certain what the others did when they buried their faces like that; for myself I can only say that I sobbed – for some had wives there, and some children. And it hurts a man to sob unless he is a Turk, for Turks sob if the coffee is not to their taste.

"That evening I could not bear it any longer, and I said to the others, 'I must go down and see my house again.' They tried to stop me, for it is a foolish thing for an outlaw to go home when there is a price on his head; but I would not listen to them.

"And I went down to the village and walked up the street, past the fountain and past the church. I met many Greeks whom I knew, but I made signs to them that they should not recognize me. Luckily for me the garrison of Turks had been changed, and though I passed several soldiers in the street, they stared at me, being a stranger, but did not know who I was.

"Then I went up past the big plane-tree and saw my house. The windows were all broken and the door was down, for that, too, had the Turks done in their malicious anger at not finding me there. And on the door-step my father was sitting. He was very old, eighty or near it, and he was playing with a doll that had belonged to my daughter."

Nicholas paused a moment.

"Mitsos," he went on, "you do not know what it is to feel keen, passionate joy and sorrow mixed together like that, ludicrously. It is not right that a man should have to bear such a thing, for when I saw my father sitting there nursing the doll I could not have contained myself, not if ten companies of angels had been withstanding me or twenty of devils; and I ran up to him and sat down by him, and kissed him, and said, 'Father, don't you know me?' But he did not say anything. He only looked at me in a puzzled sort of way, and went on nursing his doll.

"It is odd that one remembers these little things, but the stupid face of the doll, somehow, I remember better than I remember the face of my father.

"I stopped in the village for an hour, perhaps more, and I swore an oath which I have never yet forgotten and which I will never forget. In the church we have a shrine to the blessed Jesus and another to His mother, and one to St. George, and to each of them I lit tapers and prayed to them that they would help me to accomplish my oath. They have helped me and they will help me, and you, Mitsos, can help me, too."

The boy looked up.

"What was your oath, Uncle Nicholas," he said, "and how can I help you?"

He laid his hand on Nicholas's knee, and Nicholas felt it trembling. The story was going home.

"I will tell you," he said; "but, first, I must tell you how it was I became an outlaw. This was the way of it:

"You never knew my wife: she died before you were born. She was the most beautiful and the best-loved of women. That you will not understand. You do not know yet what a woman is to a man, and your cousin Helen, to whom the doll belonged, would have been as beautiful as her mother. A fortnight before I became an outlaw there came a new officer to command the garrison at Dimitzana. He was a pleasant-seeming man, and to me, being the mayor of the village, he paid much attention. He would sit with us all in the garden after dinner. Sometimes I asked him to take his dinner with us; sometimes he asked me to dine with him. But Catharine always disliked him; often she was barely civil to him. He had been in the place nearly a fortnight when I had to go away for a night, or perhaps two, to Andritsaena for the election of the mayor, for I had some little property there, and therefore a vote in the matter. I left about midday, but I had not gone more than four hours from the town when I met a man from Andritsaena, who told me that the election would be an affair of form only, as one of the two candidates had resigned. So I turned my horse round and went home.

"It was dark before I got to the village, and I noticed that there was no light in my house. However, I supposed that Catharine was spending the evening with some friend, and I suspected nothing. But it got later and ever later and she did not come, so at last I went out and called at all the houses where she was likely to be. She was not at any of them, and no one had seen her. Then unwillingly, and with a heart grown somehow suddenly cold, I determined to go to the officer's quarters and ask if he had seen her. There was a light burning in one of the upper windows, but the door was locked.

"It was when I found that the door was locked that I drew my pistol from my belt and loaded it, and then I waited a moment. In that moment I heard the sound of a woman sobbing and crying from inside the house, and the next minute I had burst the door open. The room inside was dark, but a staircase led up from it through the floor of the room above, and I made two jumps of it. Helen – she was only seven years old – ran across the room, perhaps knowing my step, crying 'Father, father!' and as my head appeared the officer fired. He missed me, and shot Helen dead.

"Before he could fire again I fired at him. He fell with a rattling, broken sound across the floor, and never spoke nor moved. Catharine was there, and she came slowly across the room to me.

"'Ah, you have come,' she said; 'you are too late.'

"I sat down on the bed, and my throat was as dry as a sirocco wind, and laid the double-barrelled pistol, still smoking, by me. Neither of us, I am sure, gave one thought to the man who was lying there, perhaps hardly to Helen, for dishonor is worse than death; and for me I could say no word, but sat there like a thing broken.

"'You are too late,' she repeated; 'and for me this is the only way.'

"And before I could stop her she had taken up the pistol and shot herself through the head.

"The shots had aroused the soldiers, and two or three burst in up the stairs. With the officer's pistol, for I had no time to reload mine, I killed the first, and he went bumping down the stairs, knocking one man over. Then I opened the window and dropped. It was not more than ten feet from the ground, and I had only a few feet to fall."

He paused a moment and stood up, letting go of the rudder and raising his hands.

"God, to whom vengeance belongs," he cried, "and blessed Mother of Jesus, and holy Nicholas, my patron, help me to keep my vow."

He stood there for a moment in silence.

"And my vow – " he said to Mitsos.

"Your vow – your vow!" cried Mitsos. "The foul devils – your vow is to root out the Turk, and to-morrow I, too, will light tapers to the holy saints and make the vow you made. Christ Jesus, the devils! And you must show me how to keep it."

"Amen to that," said Nicholas. "Enough for to-night, we will speak of it no more."

He sat down again and took the rudder, and for five minutes or so there was silence, broken only by the steady hiss of the water round the boat, and then Mitsos, still in silence and trembling with a strange excitement, put about on the second tack. Nicholas did not speak, but sat with wide eyes staring into the darkness, seemingly unconscious of the boy.

This second tack brought them up close under the sea-wall of Abdul Achmet, and the white house gleamed brightly in the moonlight. Then, as Mitsos was putting about again on the tack which would take them home, Nicholas looked up at it and spoke for the first time.

"That is a new house, is it not?" he said.

"Yes, it is the house of that pig Achmet," said Mitsos.

"Why is he a pig above all other Turks?"

"Because he took our vineyard away and said he would pay a fair price for it. Not a piastre has he paid. Look, there are a couple of women on the terrace."

Two women of the house were leaning over the wall. Just as they went about Nicholas saw a man, probably one of the eunuchs, come up out of the shadow, and as he got up to them he struck the nearer one on the face. The woman cried out and said to him, "What is that for?"

Nicholas started and looked eagerly towards them. "Did you hear, Mitsos?" he said, "she spoke in Greek."

"One of those women?" said Mitsos. "And why not?"

"How do you suppose she knows Greek?"

"Yes, it is strange. We shall not get home in this tack."

CHAPTER IV

THE MIDNIGHT ORDEAL

For the next two days Nicholas devoted himself to the education of Mitsos. He took the boy out shooting with him and taught him how to stand as still as a rock or a tree, how to take advantage of the slightest cover in approaching game, and how, if there was no cover, to wriggle snake-wise along the ground so that the coarse tall grass and heather concealed him. There were plenty of mountain hares and roe-deer on the hills outside Nauplia towards Epidaurus, and they had two days' excellent shooting.

They were walking home together after sunset on the second day, and slung over the pony's back were two roe-deer, one of which Mitsos had shot himself, and several hares which Nicholas, with a skill that appeared almost superhuman to the boy, had killed running. The pony was tired and hung back on the bridle, and Mitsos, with the rope over his shoulder, was pulling more than leading it.

"And if," Nicholas was saying to him, "if you can approach a roe-deer as you approached that one to-day, Mitsos, without being seen, you can also approach a man in the same way, for in things like these the most stupid of beasts is man. And it is very important when you are hunting man, or being hunted by him, which is quite as exciting and much less pleasant, that you should be able to approach him, or pass by him unseen. After two days I shall be going away, but I shall leave this gun behind for you."

"For me, Uncle Nicholas?" said Mitsos, scarcely believing his ears.

"Yes, but it shall be no toy-thing to you. For the present you must go out every day shooting, but you must take the sport as a matter concerning your life or death, instead of the life and death of a piece of meat. Stalk every roe as if it were a man whose purpose is to kill you, and if ever it sees you before you get a shot you must cry shame on yourself for having wasted your time and my gift to you. But go fishing, too, and treat that seriously. Do not go mooning in the boat just to amuse yourself, or only for the catching of fish. Before you start settle how you are to make your course, in two tacks it may be, or three, and do so. Practise taking advantage of a wind which blows no stronger than a man whistling."

"I can sail a boat against any one in Nauplia," said Mitsos, proudly.

"And Nauplia is a very small place, little Mitsos. For instance, we ought to have got back from our fishing in two tacks, not three. And study the winds – know what wind to expect in the morning, and know exactly when the land breeze springs up. Go outside the harbor, too; know the shapes of the capes and inlets of the gulf outside as you know the shape of your own hand."

"But how can I shoot and fish, and also look after the vines and get work in other vineyards in the autumn?"

"That will be otherwise seen to. Obey your father absolutely. I have spoken to him. Also, you stop at home too much in the evenings. Go and sit at the cafés in the town and play cards and draughts after dinner, yet not only for the sake of playing. Keep your ears always open, and remember all you hear said about these Turks. When I come back you must be able to tell me, if I ask you, who are good Greeks, who would risk something for the sake of their wives and children, and who are the mules, who care for nothing but to drink their sour wine and live pig-lives. Above all, remember that you haven't seen me for a year – for two, if you like."

Mitsos laughed.

"Let it not be a year before you come again, uncle."

"It may be more; I cannot tell. You are full young, but – but – well, we shall see when I come back. Here we are on the plain again. Give me that lazy brute's bridle. Are you tired, little one?"

"Hungry, chiefly."

"And I also. But, luckily, it is a small thing whether one is hungry or not. You will learn some day what it is to be dead beat – so hungry that you cannot eat, so tired that you cannot sleep. And when that day comes, for come it will, God send you a friend to be by your side, or at least a drain of brandy; but never drink brandy unless you feel you will be better for it. Well, that is counsel enough for now. If you remember it all, and act by it, it will be a fine man we shall make of the little one."

Nicholas went to see the mayor of Nauplia the next day, and told Mitsos he had to put on his best clothes and come with him. His best clothes were, of course, Albanian, consisting of a frilled shirt, an embroidered jacket, fustanella, gaiters, and red shoes with tassels. To say that he abhorred best clothes as coverings for the skin would be a weak way of stating the twitching discomfort they produced in him; but somehow, when Nicholas was there, it seemed to him natural to wish to look smart, and he found himself regretting that his fustanella had not been very freshly washed, and that it was getting ingloriously short for his long legs.

The mayor received Nicholas with great respect, and ordered his wife to bring in coffee and spirits for them. He looked at Mitsos with interest as he came in, and, as Mitsos thought, nodded to Nicholas as if there was some understanding between them.

When coffee had come and the woman had left the room, Nicholas drew his chair up closer, and beckoned Mitsos to come to him.

"This is the young wolf," he said. "He is learning to prowl for himself."

"So that he may prowl for others?" said Demetri.

"Exactly. Now, friend, I go to-morrow, and while I am away I want you to be as quiet as a hunting cat. I have done all I wanted to do here, and it is for you to keep very quiet till we are ready. There has been much harm done in Athens by men who cannot hold their tongues. As you know, the patriots there are collecting money and men, but they are so proud of their subscriptions, which are very large, that they simply behave like cocks at sunrise on the house-roofs. Here let there be no talking. When the time comes Father Andréa will speak; he will put the simmering-pot on the fire. I would give five years of my life to be able to talk as he can talk."

"The next five years?" asked Demetri.

Nicholas smiled.

"Well, no, not the next five years. I would not give them up for fifty thousand years of heaven, I think. Have you any corn?"

"Black corn for the Turk?"

"Surely."

Demetri glanced at Mitsos, and raised his eyebrows. "Even now the mills are grinding," he said.

"Let there be no famine."

Mitsos, of course, understood no word of this, and his uncle did not think fit to enlighten him.

"You will hear more about the black corn," he said to him. "It makes good bread. At present forget that you have heard of it at all. Have you got these men for me?" he asked, turning again to Demetri.

"Yes; do you want them to-day?"

"No. Mitsos will go with me as far as Nemea, and they had better join me there to-morrow night. Turkish dress will be safer."

He rose, leaving the brandy untasted.

"Will you not drink?" asked Demetri.

"No, thanks. I never drink spirits."

Nicholas left next day after sunset, for a half-moon would be rising by ten of the night, and during the day the plain was no better than a grilling-rack. Already also it was safer for Greeks to travel by night, for it was known or suspected among the Turks that some movement of no friendly sort was on foot among them, and it had several times happened before now that an attack had been made upon countrymen, who were waylaid and stopped in solitary mountain paths by bands of Turkish soldiers. They were questioned about the suspected designs of their nation, on which subject they for the most part were entirely ignorant, as the plans of their leaders were at present but sparingly known, and the interview often ended with a shot or a dangling body. But through the incredible indolence and laziness of the Turks, while they feared and suspected what was going on, they contented themselves with stopping and questioning travellers whom they chanced on, and made no increase in the local garrisons, and kept no watch upon the roads at night. Nicholas, of course, knew this, and when, as now, he was making a long journey into a disaffected part of the country, where his presence would at once have aroused suspicion – and indeed, as he had told Mitsos, there had been a price put on his head twenty years ago – he travelled by night, reaching the village where he was to stay before daybreak, and not moving again till after dark.

Accordingly he and Mitsos set off after sunset across the plain towards Corinth. The main road led through Argos, which they avoided, keeping well to the right of the river bed. Their horses were fresh, and stepped out at an amble, which covered the ground nearly as quickly as a trot. By ten o'clock the moon was swung high in a bare heaven, and they saw in front of them a blot of huddled houses in the white light, the village of Phyctia. Again they made a detour to the right, in order to avoid it, for a garrison of Turks was stationed there, turning off half a mile before its outlying farms began, so as not even to run the risk of awakening the dogs. Their way lay close under the walls of the ancient Mycenæ, where it was reported that an antique treasure of curious gold had lately been found, and as they were in plenty of time to reach Nemea by midnight, Nicholas halted here for a few minutes, and he and Mitsos looked wonderingly at the great walls of the citadel.

"They say the kings of Greece are buried here, little Mitsos," said he; "and perhaps your beard will scarce be grown before there are kings of Greece once more."

Beyond Mycenæ they followed a mountain path leading through the woods, which joined a few miles farther up the main road from Corinth to Argos, and as it was now late, and the ways were quiet, Nicholas saw no reason for not taking this road as soon as they struck it, and they wound their way up along the steep narrow path towards it.

The moon had cleared the top of Mount Elias behind them – the moon of midsummer southern nights – and shone with a great light as clear as running water, and turning everything to ebony and gleaming cream-colored ivory. Mitsos was riding first, more than half asleep, and letting his pony pick its own way among the big stones and bowlders which strewed the rough path, when suddenly it shied violently, nearly unseating him, and wheeled sheer round. He woke with a start and grasped at the rope bridle, which he had tied to the wooden pommel on the saddle-board, to check it. Nicholas's pony had shied too, but he was the first to head it round again, and Mitsos, who had been carried past him, dismounted and led his pony, trembling and restive, up to the other. Nicholas had dismounted too, and was standing at the point where the bridle-path led into the main road when Mitsos came up.

"What did they shy at?" Mitsos began, when suddenly he saw that which stopped the words on his tongue.

From a tree at the juncture of the paths, in the full, white blaze of the moonlight, hung the figure of a man. His arms were dropped limply by his side, and his feet dangled some two feet from the ground. On his shoulder was a deep gash, speaking of a struggle before he was secured, and blood in black clots was sprinkled on the front of his white linen tunic. Above the strangling line which went round his neck the muscles were thick and swollen and the glands of the throat congested into monstrous lumps.

But Nicholas only stopped the space of a deep-drawn breath, and then, throwing his bridle to Mitsos, drew his knife and cut the rope. The two horses shied so violently as Nicholas staggered forward with his murdered burden that Mitsos, unable to hold them both, let go of his own and clung with both hands to the bridle of Nicholas's horse, while his own animal clattered off down the path homeward. Then soothing its terror from the other, he led it past into the main road, where he tied it up to a tree some twenty yards on, and himself returned to where Nicholas was kneeling over the body.

He looked up and spoke with a deadly calm. "We are too late," he said; "he is quite dead."

And suddenly, after the hot-blooded, warm-hearted nature of his race, this strong man, who had lived half his life with blood and death and murder to be the companions of his days and nights, burst into tears.

Mitsos was awed and silent.

"Do you know him, Uncle Nicholas?" he asked, at length.

"No, I do not know him, but he is one of my unhappy race, whom this brood of devils oppresses and treats as it would not treat a dog. Mitsos," he said, with a gesture of fire, "swear that you will never forget this! Look here, look here!" he cried. "Look how they have made of him an offence to the light; look how they killed him by a disgraceful death, and why? For no reason but because he was a Greek. Look at his face; force yourself to look at it. The lips are purple; the eyes, as dead as grapes, start from his head. He was killed like a dog. If they catch you alone in such a place they will do the same to you, to you whose only offence is, as this poor burden's has been, that you are Greek. Look at his neck, swollen in his death struggle. Do you know how the accursed men killed Katzantones and his brother? They beat them to death with wooden hammers, sparing the head only, so that they might live the longer. Katzantones was ill and weak, and cried out with the pain; but Yorgi, as he lay on the ground, with arms and legs and ankles and hands broken, and lying out of semblance of a man, only laughed, and told them they could not kill a fly with such puny blows."

The boy suddenly turned away.

"Enough, enough!" he said. "I do not wish to look. It is too horrible. Why do you make it more frightful to me?"

Nicholas did not seem to hear what he said, and went on, in a sort of savage frenzy.

"Look, look, I tell you!" he cried, "and then swear in the name of God, remembering also what I told you of my wife and child, that you will have no pity on the race that has done this – on neither man, woman, nor child; not even on the poor, weak women, for they are the mothers of monsters who do these things. This is the work of the men they bear – this and outrage and infamous lust, and the sins of the cities which God destroyed."

He was silent a moment, and then spoke more calmly.