THE VINTAGE
"Well?"
"It is this," said Nicholas. "It is no gallant and polite war we want; we do not want to make terms, or treaties, or threats. We want to strike and have done with it; to exterminate. I should prefer, if possible, striking the first blow either at Kalamata or Nauplia. Then the dogs from all round would run yelping into Tripoli, as it is their strongest place, and so at the end there would he none left."
"Exterminate is no Christian word, Nicholas. The women and the children—"
"The women and children," said Nicholas, rising and pacing up and down the room; "what are they to me? Once when I was an outlaw I spared them—yes, and spared the men, too, only sending them riding back face to the horse's tail. But did they spare my wife and my child? If there is a God in heaven I will show them the mercy they showed me "
Germanos was silent a few moments, and waited till Nicholas had sat down again.
"Will you drink more wine?" he asked; "if not, we will sit on the balcony; it is hot to-night. I think you are right about striking the first blow somewhere in the south, so that they shall go to Tripoli. I had thought before that it would be better to strike at the centre. But your plan seems to me the wiser. Come outside, Nicholas."
Germanos's house stood just out of the town, high up on the hill, which was crowned by the castle, and from his balcony they could see the twinkling lights in the fort below like holes bored in the dark, and beyond the stretch of starlit water, and dimly on the other side of the gulf the hill above Missolonghi shouldering itself up in the faint black distance, Before long the moon
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