The Vintage/Part 1/Chapter 9

by Edward Frederic Benson

CHAPTER IX

THE SINGER FROM THE DARKNESS

November went out with a fortnight of cold showers and biting winds, and the woodcock came down in hundreds to the plain of Nauplia. Often when the curtain of cloud which veiled Mount Elias day by day was rent raggedly in two by some blast in the upper air, the higher slope of the mountain, it could be seen, was sprinkled with snow. Then the peak would again wrap itself in folds of tattered vapors as a beggar throws his torn cloak over his shoulder, and perhaps would not peer through the mists again for a couple of days. Down in the plain scudding showers swept across from north to south and east to west, and the earth, still thirsty from the long dronght of the summer, drank them in feverishly as a sick man drains the glass by his bedside and turns to sleep again.

Mitsos had many round oaths for this horrible weather, but like a wise lad cursed and had done with it. The bay and the sweet possibilities of the bay were only in the range of thought, but the woodcock were more accessible, and with something of the air of a martyr he would pass a long day on the uplands towards Epidaurus, and come back, after the fall of dark, with a leash of woodcock, and an appetite which bordered on the grotesque, singing and contented. But later in the evening he would be twitched by an eagor restlessness, and make many journeys to the door to see if the weather had cleared, or showed signs of clearing, only to be met by a buifeting clap of windy rain in the face, which made him close it again quickly, for where was the use, he argued, of lying rolling and rocking off the white wall if he was to be alone there? Once or twice during this fortnight he had sailed by it, but his wages were only a wetting. Constantine was somewhat puzzled and perplexed at Mitsos' behavior about this time, but he took it all with his habitual serenity of tolerance, and likened him in his own mind to a colt who is just beginning to find out that he is a horse, and, knowing his own strength and learning his needs, whinnies and kicks up his heels. He kuew that it would be useless to try to extract unyolunteered information out of Mitsos, and he guessed more nearly to the truth than he knew, that Mitsos' somewhat spasmodic moods were merely the natural results of his budding manhood, and were as inexplicable to him as they were to his father. Meantime, though they had neither heard nor seen anything more of Nicholas, Constantine felt that Mitsos was growing in the way he would have him grow, and was increasing in self-reliance and surefootedness of mind just as he was increasing in bodily strength and stature.

But Mitsos was exercising more self-control than his father gave him credit for. That acquaintance with Suleima, the Greek girl in the harem of the Turk, begun so strangely, had ripened no less strangely. He had sat below the wall night after night and talked to her from his boat, rocking gently in the swell, or standing still and steady in the calm water, till with a sign she motioned him away, seeing some other woman of the harem or one of the servants come out into the garden.

Then Suleima had made a confidante of one of the elder women; who, seeing Mitsos' handsome, laughing face, had given her sympathy, and, what was better, a practical exhibition of it, and had promised to watch in the garden so that they might talk without fear of interruption; stipulating, however, through Suleima as interpreter, half laughing, yet half in carnest, that Mitsos should give her a kiss for every time she watched for them. Suleima had felt herself flushing as she interpreted this into Greek, but Mitsos' tone reassured her as he answered,

"She might as well do it for nothing. Oh, don't translate that, but say we are very much obliged. Payday is long in the house of a Turk."

Then there came an evening, only just before the weather had broken, when Mitsos took down to the boat a little rope ladder. Suleima had told him that he was to come there late, not before midnight, and she would have gone to her room early, saying she was not well. Then, if possible, she would come out to him, and they would go for a sail together.

It was an evening to be remembered—to be lived over again in memory. Her reluctance and eagerness to come; the terrorizing risk of discovery, which none the less was a whetstone to her enjoyment; her delight at getting out, though only for an hour or two; her half-frightened, childish exclamations of dismay as Mitsos put about, when the water began to curl back from the forefoot of the boat as they went hissing out to sea before the wind; her face looking as if it was made of ebony and ivory beneath the moonlight, with its thin, black eyebrows, and long, black eyelashes; her sense of innocent wickedness, as in response to Mitsos' entreaties she unveiled it altogether; her curious, fantastic story of how she was carried off years ago by a Turk, and had forgotten all about her home, except that her father was a tall man with a long, black dress; her pretty, hesitating pronunciation of Greek; her bewildering treatment of himself as if he was a boy, as he was, and she a person of mature experience, as she was not, being a year younger than he; the view which she took of this moonlight sail as just a childish freak, heavily paid for if discovered, and to be repeated if not, while to him it was the opening of heaven. Then, as he still remained serious, looking at her with wide eyes of shy adoration, she too became just a little serious as they turned homewards, and said that she liked him very much, and that old Abdul Achmet was a fat pig. Then in answer to him—Oh, no, she was quite content where she was, except when Abdul was in a bad temper or the eunuch beat her. There was plenty to eat, nothing to do, and they were all much less strictly looked after than in other harems, for Abdul was old and only cared for one of them. For herself she was a favorite servant of his chief wife, and not really in the harem, It was not very exciting, but if Mitsos would come again now and then and take her for sails she would he quite happy. Finally, it was useless for him to come except when it was fine, for the harem was always locked up in wet weather, and she would not be able to got into the garden. Also, she hated rain like a cat.

Then intervened the fortnight when the climate of Nauplia, which for the most part is that of the valley of Avilion, gave way to the angry moods of a child—to screaming, sobbing, and steady weeping. The surface of the bay was churned up by the rain and streaked with foam by the wind, and the big poplar-tree, under which Maria had slept, shook itself free of its summer foliage and stood forth in naked, gnarled appeal to the elements, For a fortnight the deluge continued,, but on the night of the 1st of December, Mitsos, waking at that strange moment when the earth turns in her sleep, and cattle and horses stand up and graze for a moment before lying down again, saw with half an eye the shadow of the bar of his window cast sharply onto the floor of his bedroom by the slip of the crescent moon, which rode high in a starry sky, and when he woke again it was to see a heaven of unsullied blue washed clean by the rain.

Half the day he spent dreaming and dozing in the veranda, for he meant to be out on the bay that night, and after his mid-day dinner he went down to overhaul the boat, taking with him his fishing-net and a bag of resin. He had wrapped up in the centre of the net the pillow from his bed, for Suleima had said that the net on which she sat before smelled fishy. But after supper that night he found himself beset by a strange perplexity, the like of which he had never felt. His fustanella was old and darned; it was hardly suitable. It did very well before, but somehow now—and the moon would be larger to-night. The perplexity gained on him, and eventually he took out and put on his new clothes, only worn on festa days, which were thoroughly unsuitable for rough fishing by night. He brushed his hair with extreme care, and wished it was sleek and smooth like Yanko's, instead of growing in crisp, strong curls, put his red cap rakishly on the side of his head, and laced up his brown cloth leggings to the very top. All this was done with the greatest precision and seriousness, and he went downstairs on tiptoe for fear of wakening his father, who was already abed, and had left injunctions with him to lock the door and take the key with him if he was likely to be late.

It was about half-past ten when he set off, and the moon had risen, It took him an hour or more to reach the dim, white wall, for the breeze was yet but light and variable. As he neared it he began to feel his heart pulsing in his throat, as it had done one night before when he passed the scene of the hanging by the wayside, but somehow differently, and he peered out anxiously into the darkness to see if there was any one there. Something white glimmered on the wall, down went his sail, and a few minutes later the nose of his boat grated against the stone-work.

She gave a little chuckling laugh.

"I thought you would come," she said, "on the first night of stars. They are all in bed. I listened at Mohammed's door; he was Mohammed no more—only a grunt and a snore."

Mitsos said nothing, but threw the ladder and rope on the wall and sprang up himself.

"Yes, I have come," he said. "Ah, how I have been cursing this rain—may the saints forgive me!—but I cared not, and cursed."

Suleima looked at him a moment.

"Why, how smart you are!" she said. "Is it the Greek use that a man goes fishing in his best clothes? Oh, my clean fustanella!" she cried, looking sideways on him.

Mitsos smiled. The best clothes had been a good thought, in spite of a momentary confusion.

"Hush!" he whispered, "we will talk in the boat. I will hold the ladder. There, it is quite steady."

The girl stepped lightly down the rungs, and Mitsos, directing her to sit still, threw the ladder and rope back and let himself down onto the side of the boat.

"Where shall we go to-night?" he asked.

The girl laughed gently—the echo, as it were, of a laugh.

"Oh, out, out to sea," she said; "right away from this horrible place. Where shall I sit?"

Mitsos took the pillow out of the net and put it for her at the stern of the boat.

"See," he said. "I remembered that you said the net smelled fishy, and I have brought you my pillow to sit on. There—is there a more comfortable seat in all Greece?"

She sat down, and the boy busied himself with the boat for a few minutes. He had to row ont a dozen strokes or so until they got from under the lee of the wall, and the wind, catching the sail, slowly bulged it out taut; the boat dipped and bowed a moment and then began to move quickly forward towards the mouth of the bay. He stood a few seconds irresolute until Suleima spoke.

"Well, have you finished?" she asked,

"Yes, We shall run straight before the wind as far as you like."

She pointed with her hand to the seat beside her.

"Come and sit by me," she said.

There was silence between them for several minutes—she with a smile hiding in the depths of her dark eyes; he, serious and tongue-tied. The air was full of the freshness of the night and of the sea, but across that there came to him some faint odor from her—a warm smell of a live thing, too delicate to describe. Then she drew from her pocket a small box und opened it.

"See what I have brought you," she said—"Rahat-la-koom. How do you call it in Greece? Sweets, anyhow. Do you like sweets?"

She took a lump of the sticky, fragrant stuff out of the box and offered it to Mitsos as a child offers sweets to another child.

"Do you like it?" she asked again, "Abdul gave me the stuff last night. I was afraid when he gave it to me, but he did not stop. As I told you, I am not of the harem."

Mitsos flushed. Suloima spoke with the naïveté of a child, and yet somehow it made him ashamed to think that even he was sitting alone with her, aud furious at the thought that that fat Turk, whom he had seen at Nauplia only a few days before, should dare to give her sweets.

"How silent you are, Mitsos!" she went on. "Tell me what you have been doing all this time. For me, I have done nothing—nothing—nothing. I have never been so dull."

Mitsos looked up suddenly.

"Are you less dull now?" he said. "Do you care to come out like this with me?"

"Surely, or else I shonld not come. I think I have even missed you, whieh is odd, for I never missed any one before. I care for none of those in the house, and some I hate."

Mitsos took her hand in his.

"Promise you will never hate me," he said.

Suleima laughed.

"That is a big thing to promise," she said, "for 'never' is the greatest of all words, greater even than 'always'; but I don't feel as if I should ever hate you. I liked you since the first, even before I had ever seen you, when you sang that song out of the darkness. It was very rash and foolish of you, for Abdul would make nothing of having a sailor-boy shot. Supposing I had been—well, some one else—I should have told Abdul, and thus there would have been no more songs for Mitsos."

"But because it was you, you did not?" asked Mitsos, awkwardly. "Yet if it had not been you, I should not have sung to you."

The girl's hand still rested in his, but suddenly she disengaged it.

"You are talking nonsense," she said, quickly, yet finding nonsense somehow delightful; "of course, if you had not sung to me you would not have sung to me. By the way, Zuleika—"

She stopped suddenly.

"Who is Zuleika?" said Mitsos; "and what of her?"

"Oh, nothing. Zuleika is the woman who watched to see that no one came while we talked. She's quite old, you know, though not as old as Abdul. Well, why shouldn't I tell you? Zuleika is getting impatient for her payment. She watched four times, she said, but I am sure it was only three. Won't you pay her?"

Mitsos got up and stood in front of her.

"Zuleika, what is Zuleika to me?" he said again,

The girl stared at him for a moment. "Are you angry, Mitsos? Why should you be angry? But—but—"

Mitsos turned away impatiently.

"Why are you angry?" repeated the girl. "Is it becanse of what Zuleika said? I told you because I thought it would please you. Most men, I think, would like to hear that sort of thing. Zuleika says you are the handsomest boy she ever saw, and she is pretty herself—at least I suppose she is pretty."

Mitsos had the most admirable temper, and though it had been touched in a quarter where he could not have anticipated attack, he regained it in a moment.

"Never mind Znleika," he said, sitting down again; "go on talking to me. I like to hear you talk, and give me your hand again. Put it in mine; it is so soft and white. I never saw a hand like yours!"

Suleima laughed.

"There you are, then. Oh, Mitsos, don't squeeze it so; you hurt me! What shall I talk about? I have nothing to talk about. Nothing ever happened to me. Zuleika—"

"Don't talk about Zuloika " said Mitsos, between his teeth.

"Well, you told me to talk. I don't want to talk about Zuleika. Oh, Mitsos, look héw far we are out! There is Nauplia behind us. We must go back!"

"No, not yet."

"But we must! It will take us an hour or more to get back! Please let us go back, Mitsos?"

Mitsos sat still a moment.

"Tell me you don't want to go back," he said, in a whisper.

"Of course I don't; why should I tell you that? I should like to be thus with you always, you alone, and no other."

Mitsos sprang up.

"I'll put about," he said.

There were two or three moments of confusion, as the heavy sail flapped and shook. The wind had veered a point towards the east, and they could get back in a couple of tacks. Mitsos stood up till the boat had settled down on the homeward journey, and then, with the tiller in one hand, he sat down again by Suleima's side.

"It will be fine weather now," he said, "and will you come out with me again? You tell me you like it."

Suleima nestled a little closer to him. "Yes, I like it," she said, "but we must not go too often. But if you care to, you can come to the wall in fine weather always, and I will tell you whether it is possible. And, Mitsos, next time we go out bring your spear and resin, and let me see you fish. I should like to see you do that. Do you catch many?"

"The devil fly away with the fish!" said Mitsos. "I would sooner talk to you."

"How funny! I would sooner you fished; and, you see, we can talk, too. Will you let me help?"

Mitsos took up one of her hands again.

"It would be a heavy net you could draw in!" he said. "You have never felt the tug of a shoal."

"A whole shoal?" asked Sulecima. "How many fish go to the shoal?"

Mitgos laughed. "Fifty for each of your fingers," he said, "and a hundred to spare. Sometimes they all swim together against the net, and though they are very little, many of them are strong, and pull like a horse. I cut my finger to the bone once against the net-rope. Look, here is the mark."

He held up his great brown hand, and Suleima traced with her little finger a white scar running up to the second joint of his forefinger.

"How horrid!" she said, concernedly, still drawing her finger up and down his. "Did it bleed much?"

"Half a bucketful. I must put the boat on the other tack. Take care; the sail will come across again."

The air struck cold as they went more into the wind, and Suleima wrapped her black bernouse more closely round her and nestled under shelter of the lad.

"You are cold?" he asked, suddenly.

"No, Mitsos, not if you sit like that. But isn't it ice to you? Have another piece of Rahat-la-koom?"

"SHE KISSED HIM LIGHTLY ON THE FOREHEAD"

Mitsos grinned, showing his white teeth. "That will keep ont the cold finely," he said. "Give it me yourself!"

They were rapidly approaching the wall, and in ten minutes more Mitsos stood up and took in the sail. The speed slackened, and, standing at the bows, he leaned forward, and, thrusting out with the pole, he brought the boat alongside. Then, springing up again, with the rope in his hand, he told Suleima to throw him up the end of the ladder. This he held down with his foot on the far side of the wall while she climbed up, pleasantly feeling the muscles of his leg strain as she stepped onto the rope.

The ground on the inside was a foot or two below the top of the wall, and, standing on the top moment before stepping down, she suddenly bent her head down to him, and, brushing back his curls with her hand, kissed him lightly on the forehead.

"Good-night, little Mitsos," she whispered.

Then all in a flash her face flushed. "Mitsos," she said, quickly, and with a curious shyness, "promise me you will never kiss Zuleika; she is an old witch!" and without waiting for his reply she ran across to the dark house.

Mitsos sat perfectly still, tingling and alert, and he felt the blood throb and beat in his temples. He half started from his place to run after her, und half raised his yoice to call, but remembered in time that he was close to the Turk's honse. Something which let the two sit together like children was dead, but something had takon its place, and his heart sang to him.

He dropped down again into the boat, and for half an hour more he sat there without stirring, hearing the ripples tap against the side, and seeing them break in dim phosphorescent gleams of light. Then, with wonder on his lips and a smile in his eyes, he went silently home through the still night.

It was the night of the 1st of January, 1821, and Mitsos and Suleima were again sailing across the bay; this time, however, not out to sea, but to the shelving bays underneath the Tripoli hills, the scene of the fishing with Nicholas. It was the first time the two had been able to go out together since the night last recorded, for on that occasion Suleima had been caught by the eunuch coming in from the garden. Luckily for them both, Mitsos had not been seen, and her excuse was that she had a headache and could not sleep, so had sat in the garden for a while. Nothing more could be got out of her, and Zuleika, for one reason or another, had been loyal enough to preserve silence. But Suleima got beaten, and she judged it more prudent not to have any more headaches for a time. But as the fate that watches over wooings would have it, one night a fortnight afterwards the eunuch was found drunk, a particularly heinous crime, and, to one of his religion, blasphemous; and he was, therefore, dismissed. Suleima was sedulous to note the habits of his successor, and observed with much approval that he went to bed early and slept soundly, and at length she ventured to resume her excursions. She had more leisure than usual after her detection, for she was solitary behind lock and key; she had no sweets to cat, and her thoughts were ever with Mitsos. She, who had hardly seen a man, and had certainly never in the last ten years spoken to one except to the black, thick-lipped eunuch and Abdul Achmet, whose small, sensual eyes looked at her like a mole's about his fat, pendulous checks, could hardly believe that they and Mitsos, with his sun-browned, boyish face and fit, slender limbs, were creatures of the same race. From the first time that she had seen him only dimly as he sat in his boat, swaying regularly and gracefully to its motion, and heard him singing the old song which she remembered from her childhood, she had thought how charming if would be to live on his pattern, as free as the spring swallows, wholesomely and cleanly in the open air. Surely he had caught something, indefinable perhaps, but none the less certain, from wind and sun—a something which reminded her of a clear, light summer morning, when it was so pleasant to come ont of the close, perfumed house, to have a breath of a more airy fragrance thrown at her by the sea-breeze, and feel with a cool shock a few dew-drops from the great climbing rose abont the door shaken onto the bare flesh by the wind; for, unlike the Turks, she came of an outdoor race, and the inherited instinct had not heen altogether eradicated by her hot-house, enclosed life.

Then by degrees this feeling had grown less general, but more personal. It was doubly delightful to be able to talk confidentially and naturally, as one child talks to another, to some one of her own age. She liked talking to Zuleika, but she preferred talking to Mitsos; it was a pleasure to make him laugh and show the milkiness of his white teeth, and she could always make him laugh. Zuleika had hideous teeth; one was all black and discolored, and for whole days together she would sit, a sloppy, dishevelled object, by the fire, saying it ached. She felt quite sure that Mitsos' teeth never ached, and for herself she did not know what aching meant. Again, when Abdul Achmet laughed, his checks wrinkled up till his eyes were nearly closed, and two queerest little dimples were dug one on each side of his mouth. What would happen, she had thought once, if she made him langh and then held his eyes open so that they could not shut? She would have liked to try.

Then Mitsos—she felt it in her bones—evidently liked her very much, in quite a different way from which any one had liked her before. Zuleika liked her in a tepid, intermittent manner; but when her tooth ached she ignored her altogether, and had once slapped her in the face for a too obtrusive sympathy. And when Abdul came and took her chin between his fingers and turned up her face to his, and told her that she was getting very pretty, she turned cold all over. It reminded her of the way he had pointed at one of the turkeys in the yard and said is was becoming beautifully fat. Again, it had been quite unaccountably delightful to sit close to Mitsos and shelter under him from the wind, to be close to him and know him near. Finally, when they parted that night, and she had brushed back the curls from his forehead and kissed him, her feeling had been more unaccountable still. She had done it unthinkingly, but the moment it was done a whole mill-race of thoughts went bubbling unbidden through her head. She wanted to do it again, she wanted him to take her in his arms and press her close to him—she would not mind if it hurt. She hated Zuleika. She understood in a moment why, if Mitsos knew the least part of what she felt, he should have been angry when she told him what Zuleika said, and the next words had come out of her month outstripping, so it seemed, her thought. Then she had fel suddenly shy and frightened; she longed to stop where, she was, for surely Mitsos understood what was so intimate to her. And so, being a woman, she instantly ran away, and never looked behind.

To-night she had sat by the wall for half an hour before he came, and the thought that perhaps he would not come had brought into her eyes silent, childish tears. He must come; she could not do without him. For herself she would have sat on the wall every night for months to go out with him; surely he could not be tired in a week or two of coming and not finding her there. But with the rising of the moon she had seen a sail far away that got nearer, and at last the boat grated gently against the wall.

"Is it you, Mitsos?" she whispered, and for answer the rope was flung up to her, and her young, black-eyed lover sprang to her side. She descended the ladder silently and stood in the stern; while he joined her, and with a vigorous push they were floating again alone in the centre of the vast, dim immensity, He set the sail and came and stood in front of her.

"Suleima," he whispered, "last time you kissed me. Will you let me kiss you?"

"Yes, Mitsos," she said, with a great, shy, bold joy in her heart, and put her face up, and he would have kissed her lightly on the forehead as she had kissed him. But suddenly that was impossible; they were no longer children, but lovers, and the next moment his arms were flung round her neck, her mouth pressed close to his, and each kiss left them hungrier for the next.

The wind was straight behind them, and they sat where they had sat before, and talked in low voices as if in fear of tho jealousy of the stars and the night. Mitsos had got his fishing-spear and bag of resin on board, and after awhile, at Sulcima's suggestion, they went straight before the wind to the bay, where Mitsos said he could catch fish if she cared to see him. Half an hour's sail brought them across, and, grounding the boat by a bush of blackthorn that grew thick on the top of the rocks on the edge of the tideless sea, he took Suleima in his arms and waded through the shallow water to the head of the bay where he would fish, to save her the tramp through the undergrowth, which was thick and soaked with the night dews. She was but a feather's weight in his strong arms, her head lay on his shoulder, and she threw one arm round his neck for greater security. He made her a nest under a clump of rushes that grew on the edge of the dry sand, and then went back for his fishing things. To carry Suleima to land, he had only the shallowest water at the edge of the sea to walk through, and he had just turned up the bottom of his trousers; but where he was going to fish it would be deeper, and, as usual, he slipped them off, buckling his shirt, which reached to his knees, round his waist. He then lit his flare, and, stepping off into the deeper water, which was half-thigh deep, he went slowly along, peoring cautiously at the bright circle of light cast by the resin.

Fish were plentiful, and Suleima, from her nest near, clapped her hands and langhed delightedly when Mitsos speared one larger than usual, and held it up flapping and wriggling to show her. She got so excited in his proceedings that she left her seat, and walked along the edge of the sand parallel with him, observing with the keenest interest what he did. Then, whon she got tired of watching, Mitsos declared he was tired of fishing, and waded to shore with a creel full of fish.

Suleima had brought with her some Turkish tobacco, which she had taken from the house, and gave it to Mitsos to smoke. The other women of the harem all smoked, she said; for herself she had tried it once, but thought it horrid to the taste. But Mitsos might smoke it—yes, she would even light his pipe for him; and with a little pout of disgust she lit it at the flare and handed it to him, and he smoked it while they looked the fish over.

It was a night for the great lovers of romance to be abroad in; the air was of a wonderful briskness, making the pulse go quick, yet gentle and soft; the moon had set behind the hills to the west, and they sat close together beneath the wonderful twilight of stars, in a little sheltered nook beneath a great clump of fall, singing rushes. On the ground, in front, lay the resin flare, already burning low; but as Mitsos would fish no more that night he did not replenish it. Lower and lower it burned, but now and then it would shoot up with a sudden leap of flame, revealing each to the other, and Suleima would smile at Mitsos; but before she could see his month smile in answer, the flame would die down again into a flickering spot on the glowing, bubbling ash. But in the darkness she knew he smiled back at her; a whispered word would pass from one to the other, and the last flicker of flame showed a lover to the sight of each. Then drawing closer in the darkness, as if by some law which was moving each equally, their lips met again in the kiss that seemed to have never ceased between them. And the wind sang gently in the rushes, while before them spread the broad waters of the bay, just curdied over by the breeze; above, the austere stars burned down on them; behind, rose the empty-wooded hills, where once the soft armies of Dionysus reyelled in love and wine, rising into the peaks above Tripoli.

The wind dropped for a moment, the rushes were silent, and in the lull Mitsos heard a mule bell behind them no great way off. He sat up and peered across the vine-grown strip of plain which lay between them and the mountain, but the skeins of night mist hung opaque aud pearly gray above it.

In a few minutes, however, the sound got sensibly nearer, aud the two rose and moved a score of yards farther down the beach, for a footpath round the head of the buy to Nauplia led across the top of it. Then across the sound of the bell they could hear the pattering footsteps of the mule, and in a few minutes more it and its rider emerged from the path which lay through the vineyards onto the open ground at the head of the beach. Just then the rider checked his beast, dismounted, and tied some grass round the tongue of the bell in order to muffle it, and struck a light with a flint and steel which he caught in tinder, and blew it gently till it sufficed to light his short chibouk. His face was towards them, and in the glow of the kindled tobacco it stood out vividly from the dark. It was Nicholas.

He mounted again and rode on, but Mitsos sat still, breathing hard and vacantly, and seeing only Nicholas's face standing out like a ghost in the darkness. Suleima touched him gently on the arm.

"Who was it?" she said. "He did not see us."

"It was my uncle," said Mitsos, in a dry voice. "No, he did not see us."

Then his self-control gave way, and he flung himself back on the gronnd,

"I am afraid," he said—"I do not know what is going to happen. He has come for me. I know it."

"For you?" asked Suleima. "What do you mean?"

"I shall have to go," said Mitsos. "Holy Virgin, but I cannot. I know nothing about what he wants me to do. I only know that I may—that I shall have to go away; that I shall have to leave you and perhaps never see you aguin. Oh," he cried, "I cannot, I cannot!"

Suleima was frightened.

"Mitsos, do not talk like that," she said, half sobbing; "do not be so unkind."

Mitsos recovered himself and felt ashamed.

"Oh, dearest of all and littlest," he said, soothingly, "I am a stupid brute to frighten you. Everything will be all right—I will come back—it is sure that I will come back. Only I promised him to do what he told me, and help him in something—it does not matter what—and I expect he has come to tell me he wants my help."

"Will not you tell me what it is?" asked Suleima, willing to be comforted.

"No, I promised I would keep it secret. But this I may tell you. You know they say—never repeat this—that the Greeks are going to rise against the Turks and turn them out, There may be fighting and bloodshed. But you hate the Turks as much as I do, darling, so you will be as glad as I if this comes true. Perhaps it might even happen that Abdul's house may be attacked, but you are quite safe if you will only do one thing. If ever it is attacked do not be afraid, but call out in Greek that you are a Greek and no Turk. And, oh, Suleima, pray to the Virgin and the Blessed Child that that day may come soon, for it will be thus and then that we shall be able to go together always."

"Is it abont that you are going away?" said Suleima, with a sudden intuition.

Mitsos longed to tell her, but his promise to Nicholas kept him dumb, Then, as he had to answer, he lied boldly and unreservedly.

"It has nothing whatever to do with it," he said. "But oh, Suleima, forgive me for so frightening you—I did not mean what I said. And will yon come to the wall again as often as you can? I may have to go away—indeed, I am afraid that is sure, but I do not know for how long. The first night I am back I shall come again to the wall, the dear white wall where we first met."

Suleima felt quite comforted. She was sure that nothing could go really wrong us long as Mitsos drew breath, and she bent down his head and kissed him.

"Yes, Mitsos, I will come to the wall whenever I can, hoping only that you may be there, because, you know, I care for you more than all the rest of the world. And now carry me back to the boat, strong-armed one. It is time I went back."

Mitsos stooped and lifted her up. As his hands were full, he hung the creel round his neck, and Suleima carried the extinguished flare. His heart was a dead weight within him, for he felt certain why Nicholas had come; but he was apparently his old cheery self, and Suleima forgot about the rather disquieting moments just after Nicholas had passed. What he should do he could not form the least idea; at present it seemed to him impossible that he should go away and leaye her. He felt willing to throw to the winds all he had promised Nicholas. Nicholas had told him that he should be one of the foremost of his country's avengers. He shrugged his shoulders, for just now the desire for vengeance on Turks was less than the memory of a dream. Were there not plenty of others to avenge Greece? Why should he give up all that was dearest to him, this dear burden that was his, and go out on an undesired adventure?

But as long as Suleima was with him he stifled all these thoughts, while the boat skimmed seawards on the outward tack. They put about opposite the island and ran straight for the wall. The wind had freshened, and to Mitsos the boat seemed to be going terribly fast, for he grudged cach moment. But he had qnite lulled Suleima's disquietude, if not his own, and she lay with her head on his shoulder, half asleep, looking up now and then into his wide-open eyes, and pressing her arm more closely round his neck. He had to rouse her when he must get up to take in the sail, and she smiled at him sleepily like a child just wakened.

Then he fixed the ladder, and she climbed up, clung to him for a moment without words, for there was no need of speech between them, and went quickly and silently across the garden.

It was after two when Mitsos landed opposite his house, and he saw with some surprise that there were lights still burning. He opened the door, and, bending his head to pass under the low jamb, entered. Constantine and Nicholas were sitting there, Constantine silent, Nicholas talking eagerly, and Mitsos observed that he held his pipe unlit in his hand. His uncle sprang up when he came in.

"Ah, he is here! Mitsos, the time has come. You must go at once."

Mitsos looked at him a moment steadily and silently—their eyes were on a level—and then he turned aside and put down the fishing-creel in the corner. His decision, though the result of years, was the deed of only a moment.

Then he faced Nicholas again.

"I am ready," he said; "tell me what I have to do."