The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

The muttering sank down again into silence, and the eyelids drooped wearily. Mitsos, kneeling there, felt that the life was leaving him. Suleima dead, Nicholas dying, there was but little left of the Mitsos he knew. Dry-eyed he knelt there in the blank, black despair of a hopeless anguish. If only it was he who was lying there! There was nothing to live for; everything was gone in this moment of victory, when his heart should have been larklike, soaring with song.

Petrobey brought him in food and wine.

"Drink, little Mitsos," he said; "it is very good wine."

But Mitsos would not even look at it.

"Leave me alone," was all he said; "I will call you if he wants you. Oh, go, man," he repeated, in a shrill whisper, and with a sudden burst of childish, impotent anger, which gave Petrobey a more pitiful moment than he had ever known; "may not my heart break in peace?"

It had been past midnight when Mitsos came in, and already the stars were beginning to pale in the east when Nicholas stirred and woke. He saw Mitsos by him, and knew him and smiled to him. He spoke slowly and faintly.

"Ah, little Mitsos," he said, "so you have come at last, but not much too soon. My poor lad, you know I did all I could; Yanni and I looked for her everywhere, but found her not. Oh, little Mitsos, my heart is bleeding for you. Tell me you know I did all I could."

At the sound of that dear voice, obeying again the will and the brain of the man he loved, no longer wandering idly as a thing apart, Mitsos broke down utterly, forgetting all but the dear, dying uncle.

"Oh, you will break my heart if you speak like that," he sobbed. "I know – how can I but know? – that you did all the best and noblest of men could do. Oh, uncle, I cannot do without you. Oh, come back, come back."

Nicholas's hand gently stroked the boy's head as he knelt with his face buried in the bed-covering.

"Why, Mitsos, Mitsos," he said, "what is this? We are behaving as but poor weak folk – I, whom the merciful God is taking, and you, who He wills shall live and go on with the work we have begun. A man's life is but short, but, God knows, mine has been partly very sweet; and out of what was bitter He has given us a wonderful victory. From Corinth to Maina, little one, a free people thanks Him. But that is not all. From Thermopylæ to Corinth must those thanks go up, and it is you, first among all the first, for whom that work is waiting. Promise me, little one, you will not fail. For this was the oath you swore, and already, oh, my dearest lad, you have kept it well."

"I promise, oh, I promise," sobbed Mitsos; "but what am I without you?"

"God is with you, little Mitsos," said Nicholas, "and He will be with you, as He has been with you till now. Tell me, is Ypsilanti coming back here?"

"He is on his way, and Germanos with him."

Nicholas frowned and raised his voice a little.

"I will not die with a lie on my lips," he said. "He is a bad man; I forgive him not, and see that you do not trust him."

"Oh, uncle," said Mitsos; "what does it matter now? Think of him not at all, then. This is no time for little things."

Nicholas lay silent a moment, still stroking Mitsos' hair.

"After all, what does it matter?" he said. "The man has failed; that is enough. He shall not poison these few minutes. Oh yes, I forgive him, little one. I do really; tell him so when he comes. If he were here I would take his hand. But" – and a faint smile came round his mouth – "do not trust him too far, all the same."

His face was growing very white and tired in the pale gray morning before the dawn, and Mitsos, at his request, gave him water and put out the lamp.

"There is but little more to say," he whispered, "and it is a selfish thing; yet, as you love me, I think you will hear it gladly. Little Mitsos, I am happier than the kings of the earth. I am dying, but dying in the shout of victory. Oh, I am happy on this morning. But, poor lad, whom I love so, it is hard – "

His face flushed suddenly.

"Victory! freedom!" he said, raising his voice again with tremulous excitement; "that is the singing bird in my heart, that and you and the clan, and Catharine and the little one. Ah! merciful God, but I am a happy man. Where is Petrobey? Call him in, him and the dear clan. Kiss me first and for the last time, and then bring them all in, as many as can stand in the room."

Mitsos hurried out to fetch them, and found Petrobey's room full of men waiting for news from the sick bed, watching faithfully through the night, and he beckoned them silently up. The sun had just risen, and the first ray clean and bright fell full on the bed where the dying man lay. By an effort he raised himself on his elbow, and looked at them with bright, shining eyes as they trooped in. At that sudden movement his wound broke out afresh, and a great gush of blood poured down.

Then suddenly he sprang to his feet.

"Shout, shout," he cried, "for the freedom of Greece! Ah, Catharine, I am coming; I am coming very quickly."

On the word a great shout arose from the men crowded into the room, and in the glory of that triumphant cry, standing there in the dawn of the newly-risen day, he fell forward, and his strong soul went forth free from the death that had no terror for him.

They took his body up to the Turkish mosque which crowned the citadel, and at the east erected a tall, rough, wooden cross, and there he lay all day, and the clan came and looked their last on the man they had loved. The hawklike, eager eyes were closed, the eager nostrils were still, and the dignity of death gave the face a wonderful sweet seriousness, and a tranquillity which it had seldom worn in life. The prince and Germanos arrived before noon, knowing only that Tripoli was taken, and Petrobey, to whom Mitsos had told what Nicholas had said, found words which were a humbling and an awe to that proud man, and together the two went to where he lay. Then said Germanos:

"I never did him honor, God forgive me, in life; but you will let me do him honor, now?"

The funeral was fixed for sunset, and he was to be buried just outside the mosque on the highest ground of the citadel. The first part of the service would be in the mosque, the remainder at the grave, and Mitsos, returning just before sunset from his finished and hopeless quest, went straight there. All day, first in the town and then in that valley of death behind Trikorpha, he had sought among the heaps of the dead, longing rather to know and see the worst, to look once more on her face, than to carry about with him this load of torturing uncertainty. He prayed that he might find her undisfigured, that her face might be quiet and calm like Nicholas's, for he felt that it would be a thing of consolation to know she had died quickly. One thought only sustained him through those terrible hours, and that the remembrance of the words Nicholas had spoken. He had bargained to sacrifice himself and all that he held dear for that which was already won, and in the very flush and presence of victory he would not give way to the desolation and despair which beset him. All day beneath a burning and malignant sun he moved among the heaps of the slain, turning over body after body, only to find more beneath. The kites and preying hawks chid shrilly over his head, but he heeded not and worked on, and a little before sunset only had he finished, and sat down on the hill-side for a moment to eat, for he remembered that he had not eaten that day, and he felt suddenly faint with hunger. Then rising he went back to the town and up to the mosque.

The sun was just setting, and before they left the mosque it was already twilight; but the men had a number of pitch torches, and the procession went out to the grave, headed by thirty Mainats, who carried these, and stood round the newly dug grave, while the body, with its face uncovered, according to the Greek use, and dressed in soldier's clothes, was placed in the coffin and lowered. At the head of the grave stood Germanos, and at the foot Petrobey with Mitsos. Many of the clan who stood round were weeping unrestrainedly and without shame; but Mitsos was perfectly quiet and calm. Only once when the first spadefuls of earth rattled on the rough coffin lid did he move, and ran forward a step to the edge of the grave with one sob so piteous and broken that Petrobey clinched his teeth to prevent himself, too, sobbing aloud. But after that he was quite quiet again, and Germanos, who had read the service, stepped forward and gave the address at the grave.

"This day," he said, "is the birthday of a new-born people, and it is so that Nicholas would have you think of it. To all of us has come a great and wonderful victory, and to all has come a terrible loss; but I pray God, clan of the Mavromichales, to none of you such an unavailing regret as is mine. Of myself I would not speak to you, but for this, that before Nicholas died he forgave the cruel wrong I had done him, and it is that forgiveness of his alone which gives me any right to be here. You knew him, he was of the same blood as you, and it is for you all to lament not nor wail, but think only that God in His infinite kindness has let him see the dawn of this day, and then, while the flood of joy burst his heart, has taken him to Himself. To work for a great cause, as Nicholas worked, and as none but he, was a great reward; to see the fruit of his labors and so die, in the very flush of victory, is what comes to but few. By his rank and his work his was among the highest places in all Greece; but how did he die? As a common soldier, serving in the ranks, and by his own choice. And to me that appears – though the cause for it is a bitterness and regret of which I cannot speak – a wonderful and an appropriate thing. Nicholas – the victory of the people."

The darkness had completely fallen while he spoke, and overhead, through the sombre smoke of the torches, the stars peered out of an infinite depth of blue. In front of Germanos rose the mould of freshly raised earth, for they had filled up the grave before he began speaking, and the wooden cross from the mosque had been fetched out and planted on the top of it. Round in dense ranks stood the Mainats, the flickering glare of the torches striking strong light and shadows on their brown faces. But by degrees the torches planted on long stakes round the grave began to burn low; now and then one would shoot up with a sudden flare and die out again, and in a few minutes more they had all burned down, and only smouldering red cores of glowing ash remained. From the darkness Germanos's voice came slow and solemn at first, but as he went on he gained force and vigor.

"The birthday of the people – think of this day thus, and then of him whom you loved – the victory of the people. This is no time for lamentations nor weeping, for how did he take leave of you? Not with a wail, nor with any regret, but with a shout. Think of him, then, as he took farewell; happier, as he said to one of you, than the kings of the earth; mourn if you will for those who mourn, but rejoice with those who rejoice. And he went from us strong and with but one thought, which overmastered all. Thus it is no night nor valley of death he has gone into – or so it appeared not to him – but the dawning of the fresh day. Then, turning his brave eyes forward from dawn to dawn, what eyes should meet his, or what name should be on his lips? You heard it yourselves. And is there any cause for sorrow there? Do we weep and wail when the bridegroom meets the bride, or when after some long journey a faithful man goes home to her he loves? Ours is but a selfish grief if we look at it rightly. Let, then, this thought make you strong, and because you loved him turn from yourselves, who, God knows, have cause enough for grief, and think of him and the shout and rapture of his passing. Out of the day he has passed to the day, out of life into life, a faithful man made perfect. Call to him, then, once more, let him hear the shout which he led; let him hear again, for so we believe, the voices he knew, the shout of the men he loved and loves. The freedom of Greece, and Nicholas – the victory of the people!"

From the darkness the shout was taken up and repeated till it seemed to shake and split the darkness. As from one throat, it burst up thrice repeated, and then together they called Nicholas's name aloud, and went in silence back to their quarters. Mitsos returned with Petrobey, feeling somehow strangely strengthened. All he had been trying to feel all day had been said for him, and all that was brave within him – and of that there was much – rose and caught at it triumphantly, and he clung to it with conviction and courage in his heart.

The Mainats were to leave next morning, but Mitsos dreaded any hour spent in inaction, and he decided to go himself at once and again travel through the night. To stop here was only to talk of Nicholas, or to grow feverish again with the hopeless, impossible hope that Suleima was still somewhere in the town. With a good horse he could reach Nauplia next day soon after dawn, and he longed with the longing of a child in some distant land for the familiar places. Here all that spoke to him of Suleima spoke in words of blood and cruelty, which stabbed and stung him into a sense of maddened rage and regret. There, perhaps, with the thrill of home about him, his anguish would change to something less terrible, and not so discordant to the image his heart held of her. Even now, when so few hours had passed, he seemed to have lived with the sorrow for a lifetime, and realized that it was for a lifetime it would abide with him. The place where he had lost all he loved had a brooding horror over it; he could not think of her as he wished to think; but by the cool bay, the dark headlands, and that beach, with its whispering reeds, surely he would find an aspect of sorrow different to this, instinct with the bitterness of something which had once been infinitely sweet, instead of with the bitterness of horror and hatred. Above all, he dreaded the moment of waking next morning, and though many morrows stretched away before him, each with its cup of remembrance coming with the light at the end of sleep, yet it would be something over to get rid of this one, to have another four-and-twenty hours with his sorrow, which perhaps might help to prepare him for the pangs of that first moment of the waking to consciousness again, and the dead weight of grief which would have to be taken up anew. Then his father was there, and oh, how Mitsos longed for that quiet, protective presence. Here, it is true, were the dear clan; but the clan, though the best of companions, gave not the fellowship he wanted now. He wanted to be alone, and yet to have some one who loved him present with silent sympathy that needed no words. Even the companionship of Yanni, who followed him with the eyes of some dumb creature that knows its master is suffering, yet cannot console him, was irksome. None understood this better than poor Yanni himself; and though he tried to keep away he could not, and followed Mitsos, unable to say a word to him, and yet unable to leave him.

Mitsos rose from where he had been sitting in Petrobey's room and walked across to him.

"I think I shall go home at once," he said. "It will be better that I should be there."

"But not to-night, dear lad," said Petrobey, "and not alone. We are all coming to set you on your way to-morrow."

Poor Mitsos nearly broke down again at this. Somehow, a kindness reached the seat of tears, while his sorrow passed it by.

"No, I will go alone and now," he cried. "Oh, I cannot say what I think. You are all so good to me; but I want to be alone. Say good-bye to them all for me; I should not be able to tell them myself – and good-bye. Before long, I doubt not, we shall meet again; for I promised him always to be ready, and I shall always be ready."

Petrobey kissed the boy.

"Little Mitsos," he said, "we are not men of many words; but you know, you know. God keep you."

Yanni was watching Mitsos with hungry eyes, and he turned from Petrobey and went to him.

"Come out with me, Yanni," said Mitsos, "while I get my horse. Come as far as the gate, if you will."

Mitsos' horse was stabled below, and in silence the two went out together. Then, as they turned to walk down the deserted street to the gate, Mitsos passed one arm through the bridle and put the other round Yanni's neck.

"Yanni," he said, "you do not think me unkind? But it is this way with me: that somehow or other I must get used to these awful things, and I am best alone. We have had merry times together, have we not? and, please God! we shall be together many times yet; and, though I see not how, perhaps merry times will come again. I want to be alone with myself to-night and then alone with my father, for with him it is different. But of all others in the world – why need I tell you? – it is you I would choose to be with. You understand, do you not?"

"Yes, dear Mitsos," said Yanni, rather chokedly, "and if ever you want me, either come, or I will come to you. For, oh, Mitsos, I'm so sorry for you that I don't know what to do or say; and I owe all to you, and yet I can do nothing."

And with that he fairly burst out crying.

They walked on in silence to the Argive gate, and then Mitsos stopped.

"So let us do as Nicholas would have us do," said he, smiling at the other, "and think only of this wonderful birthday of the people, as Germanos said. And now I am going. So good-bye, Yanni, dear Yanni!"

"Oh, Mitsos, let me come!" cried Yanni. "No, no; I did not mean that. Good-bye and God speed!"

And he turned quickly and walked back into the town without another word or look.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HOUSE ON THE ROAD TO NAUPLIA

The horse Mitsos rode had been stabled all day, and coming out fresh into the cool night air kept him busy for a time snuffing uneasily at the wafts of foul air that blew from the town, and shying right and left at shapes that lay on the road-side. Once a dead body was stretched straight across the path, and the brute wheeled round, nearly unseating Mitsos, and tried to bolt back to Tripoli again. But by-and-by, as it got used to the night, and the steadiness of the lad's hand gave it confidence, it went more soberly, and settled down into a gentle trot up the road leading from the plain over the mountain. As they left the town behind the air grew fresher, and soon came pure and cool from the north. The night was clear, but for a few wisps of cloud that drifted southward in wavering lines of delicate pearly gray, so thin that the starlight suffused them and turned them into a luminous haze. The path lay low between bold rocks that climbed up on each side, and to the right, among oleanders, a stream talked idly, as in sleep. Above, the stars burned bright and close, set in the blue velvet of the sky; and to the east the blue was tinged with dove color, showing that the moon was nigh to its rising. From some shepherd's hut on the hills came the sharp bark of a dog, sounding faint yet curiously distinct in the alert air, as in the north sounds come sharp-cut and ringing on a frosty night. As he went higher the dry smell of the summer-scorched vegetation was changed for something fresher, coming from the upland pastures, and while his horse, now requiring no attention, went with straining shoulders and drooped head up from slope to slope, Mitsos knew that he had been right to come alone. Since those nights he had spent with Suleima between sea and sky, the loneliness and quietude of night, and the setting of the secret hours he had spent with her, had always woke in him an undefined, incommunicable thrill, a calling up of those dear ghosts of the past. To be alone at night was nearest to being with her, and often in these last weeks he had stolen out of his hut when the camp was still and night at its midmost to conjure up that same feeling, which the sight of objects associated with some one loved brings with it. Infinitely dear as she had been to him, there lingered round the remembrance of her a something dim, something in common with starlight, and great vague stretches of silent sea, and the pearliness of the sky before the imminent moonrise. It was that complexion of his sorrow he wished to recapture. Tripoli was like dreaming of her through the horrible distortion of a nightmare; this the serener bitterness of a quieter vision. Round his thoughts of Nicholas there hovered a splendid halo; the glory of his life and the triumph of his death made the heart bow down in a kind of thankful wonder, drowning regret. For if he, as Germanos had said, had gone like the bridegroom to the bride, should those who loved him mourn? Strangely mixed had come the boon for which Nicholas, for which Suleima, had died, and at present he was too stunned to be able to picture it, or the price paid, with clearness of focus, for this limited mind within us is soon drowned by shocks like these coming in spate together, and we do not realize them till the first turbid flood has passed.

The moon had risen before he reached the top of the pass, and, following a strange but overwhelming desire, he pushed on quickly, for he longed to look on the bay again by night. Another hour's quick riding brought him to the head of a ravine which ran straight down to the sea, and at the bottom, lying like the clipping from a silver nail, was the farther edge of the bay, ashine with the risen moon; and when Mitsos saw it his heart was all athirst for home. Gradually, as he went down, the lower hills marched like shadows to the right and left, and between moonsetting and sunrise he stood on the edge of the shelving cove again, where he had brought the fish to land one night, and once again all was still but for a whisper in the dry-tongued reeds and the lisp of sand-quenched ripples. But never again would he and one beside him sit there filled through and through with love, and never again would the man he had loved pass by like the shadow of a hawk on one of those swift, secret errands. Yet, as he had hoped, there still lingered round the place a sweetness of sorrow. Horror had come not here, nor any bloodshed, nor crash of war, and none knew the message the spot held for him, its garnered store on which his heart had fed. Then leaving it, still rounded by the infinite night, he passed on by the white house at the head of the bay, whose sea-wall had been to him the gates of love flung open, and just after sunrise he struck the road on the other side of the water, and three hundred yards off were the whistling poplars by the fountain, and his father's house and the garden-gate, and the grave and memory of his boyhood. The risen sun spun mists out of the night dews and webs of sweet smell from the damp earth. It struck a galaxy of stars from the burnished surface of the bay, and from the heart of some bush-bowered bird it drew forth an inimitable song.

So he was come to the gate, where he tied up his horse while he should go inside, yearning to see his father; but as he walked up the path, raising his eyes he saw him already out and working in the vineyard beyond, and he would have passed by and gone to him there when, of a sudden, he stopped, and his heart stopped too.

For the house door was open, and from inside – it seemed at first only his own thoughts made audible – came a voice singing, and it sang:

"Dig we deep among the vines,Give the sweet spring showers a home."

Then came a little feeble cry as from some young thing, and the singing stopped, and a mother's voice, so it seemed, cooed soothing to her baby; and with that Mitsos passed not on to the vineyard, but went in.

Suleima, busied with the child – the "littlest Mitsos," so she told herself – heard not his step till he was in the doorway, but then looked up, thinking it was her father, though earlier than his wont. And with a choking cry, hands outstretched, and a voice from a bursting heart:

"Suleima!" cried Mitsos.

THE END