The enthusiasm of the brigands became tremendous. These poems, unlike those of the Armateloi and Kleftai, are written in pure Greek, not in the Laïk language, and naturally they belong to the educated classes rather than to the people. My brother egged me on to recite, in a way foreign to his nature.
"Tell them the 'Chani of Gravia,'" he cried.
This poem is one of the finest of modern Greek poems. It relates a fight which took place in an inn, during the Revolution, between a handful of Greeks and a Turkish army. In the middle of the night, during a lull in the fighting, the leader tells his men that death is certain, and that the only thing left them is to cover death with glory. It describes how, each seizing his arms, they burst forth upon their sleeping foes, and by the miracle that sometimes attends on noble courage cut their way through, and every man escaped.
In part, the poem may be apocryphal, but it is founded on fact, and thrills us to the marrow of our bones. It substantiates our claim to be descendants of the old, heroic Greeks. As I recited to them the "Chani of Gravia," the brigands fell under its spell; and some of the love they felt for that glorious fight fell upon me too. I became a small part of that poem into which I was initiating them.
After I had finished, one of them called hoarsely:
