The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence by E. F. Benson
CHAPTER V
THE VISION AT BASSAE
From the village of Leondari, held in a half-circle of the foothillsof Helmos, where was to be the second link in the chain of beacons,it was impossible to see Andritsaena; but the mass of Mount Lycaonstood up fine and clear behind where Andritsaena was, and a series ofsmaller peaks a little to the west would prove, so Mitsos hoped, to bethe hills above the temple. He and his host climbed the beacon-hilland took very sedulous note of these, and next morning the lad setoff at daybreak to Andritsaena, which he reached in a day and a half.The country through which he travelled, an unkind and naked tract,was not suspected by the Turks to be tinged with any disaffection totheir benignant rule, and his going was made without difficulty oraccident. He found welcome at the house of the priest to whom Germanoshad given him a letter, and after dinner the two rode off, on a fair,cloudless afternoon, to the hills above the temple, to verify itsvisibility from Taygetus on the south and the crag of Helmos on thenorth. An Englishman, whom the priest described as a "tall man coveredwith straps and machines," had been there a year or two before makingwonderful drawings of the place, and had told them it was a temple toApollo, and that the ancient Greek name for it was Bassae. "Yet I likenot the place," said Father Zervas.
An hour or so after their departure, fleecy clouds began to spinthemselves in the sky, and as they went higher they found themselvesinvolved in the folds of a white fabric of mist, which lay as thickas a blanket over the hill-side, and through which the sun seemed tohang white and unluminous, like a china plate. This promised but illfor the profit of their ride, but Zervas said it was worth while topush on; those mists would be scattered in a moment if the wind got up;he had seen them roll away as the housewife rolls up the bed-linen.But as they got higher the mist seemed to thicken, and the sun wasexpunged, and when, by the priest's computation, they must be near thetemple, they could scarcely see ten yards before them, and the gaunt,contorted oak-trees marched swiftly into their narrow field of vision,and out again, like ghosts in torment. Shoulder after shoulder ofgray hill-side sank beneath them, dripping with the cold, thick mist,and unutterably waste, when, after moving ten minutes or more acrossa featureless flank of hill, gigantic shadows peered at them from infront, a great range of columns faced them, and they were there.
Mitsos' pony, tired with the four days' journey, was lagging behind,and Mitsos had got off to relieve it on the steeper part of the ascent,when suddenly there came from out of the chill, blank fog a scream likethat of a lost soul. For one moment a superstitious fear clutched atthe boy, and his pony, startled, went off at a nimbler pace to join theother, and Mitsos had to break into a run to keep up. Then suddenlythe sun stared whitely through the mists, and in five seconds more thewind, which had screamed so shrilly, was upon them. In a moment thehill-side was covered with flying wreaths of vapor, which the wind toresmaller and smaller till there was nothing left of them; it rippedoff ribbons from the skirts of the larger clouds, which it drove likeherded sheep down the valleys, and as Mitsos gained the ridge where thetemple stood, a brilliant sun sat in cloudless blue, looking down uponthe great gray columns. At their feet in every direction new valleys,a moment before muffled in mist, were being carved out among thehill-sides, and already far to the south the plain of Kalamata, rimmedwith a dim, dark sea, sparkled green through thirty miles of crispair. Down in the valley through which they had come some conflictingcurrent of air tilted the mist up in a tall column of whirling vapor,as if from some great stewing-pot below, and as it streamed up into thehigher air it melted and dissolved away, and in five minutes the wholeland--north, south, east, and west--was naked to the incomparable blue.
Mitsos gazed in wonder at the gray columns, which seemed more to havegrown out of the hill than to have been built by the hands of men; butthe priest hurried him on.
"It is as I hoped," said he; "the wind has driven the clouds off; butthey may come back. We must go quickly to the top of the hill."
The lad left his pony grazing by the columns and ran up the brow ofthe hill some two hundred feet above the end of the temple. NorthwardHelmos lifted a snowy finger into the sky, and clean as a cameo on itssouth-eastern face stood the cone above Leondari, as if when the hillswere set upon the earth by the stir of the forces of its morning it hadbeen placed there for their purpose. Then looking southward they sawTaygetus rise shoulder above shoulder into the blue, offering a dozenvantage points. But Father Zervas was a cautious man.
"It seems clear enough, Mitsos," he said; "but Taygetus is a bigplace. This will I do for greater safety. You go straight south, yousay, and will be at Kalamata two evenings from now, and on the thirdnight you will sleep at some village on the pass crossing Taygetus overto Sparta. On that night directly after sundown I will kindle a beaconhere, and keep it kindled for two hours, and in that time you will beable to choose a well-seen place for the blaze on Taygetus. Look, itis even as I said, the mists gather again; but the winds of God havefavored us, and our work is done."
Even as he spoke a long tongue of mist shot up from the valleybelow, and came licking up the hill like the spent water of a waveon a level beach, and Mitsos ran down quickly in order to find hispony in case it had strayed even thirty or forty yards, before theclouds swallowed them up again. But he found it where he had left it,browsing contentedly on the spicy tufts of thyme and sweet mountaingrass, and for a couple of minutes more, before the earth and sky wereblotted out, he stared amazedly at the tall gray ruins which stoodthere crowning the silence and strength of the hills, still unknown toall but a few travellers and to the shepherds that fed their flocksin summer on the hill-tops--a memorial of the life and death of theworship of beauty, and the god of sunlight and health and imperishableyouth.
He waited there till the priest joined him, and was surprised to seehim cross himself as he passed by the door into the temple, and askedwhy he did so.
"It is a story of a devil," he said, "which folks tell about here.Whether I believe it or no, I know not, and so I am careful. We willmake haste down this valley, for it is not good to be here after night."
The mists had risen again over the whole hill-side, but not thickly,and as they turned to go Mitsos looking back saw a strange shaft oflight streaming directly out of the ruined door of the temple--theeffect, no doubt, of the sun, which was near its setting, strikingthrough some thin layer of cloud.
"Look," he said to the priest, "one might almost think the temple waslit from within."
Father Zervas looked round, and when he saw it dropped lamentablyoff his horse and onto his knees on the ground, and began mutteringprayers, crossing himself the while.
Mitsos looked at him in surprise, and saw that his face was deadlypale, and a strangling anguish gripped at the muscles of his throat.The light cast through the temple door meantime had been choked by thegathering mists, and when Father Zervas looked up from his prayers itwas gone.
"Quick, quick!" he cried to Mitsos; "it is not good to be here," andmounting on his pony he fairly clattered down the hill-side, and didnot draw bridle till they had reached the main road from Andritsaena.
Mitsos followed, half amused, but conscious of a lurking fear in hismind, a fear bred by the memory of the winter evenings of his childhoodwhen he used to hear strange stories of shapes larger than human, whichhad been seen floating like leaves in the wind round the old temples onthe Acropolis, and cries that came from the hills of AEgina, where stoodthe house of the god, but no human habitation, at the sound of whichthe villagers in the hamlets below would bolt their doors and crouchfearfully round the fire, "making the house good," as they said, by thereiterated sign of the cross. Then as he grew older his familiaritywith morning and evening and night in lonely places had caused thesestories to be half forgotten, or remembered only as he rememberedthe other terrors and pains of childhood--the general distrust of thedark, and the storms that came swooping down from the gaunt hillsabove Nauplia. But now when he saw the flying skirts of Father Zervaswaving dimly from the mist in f
"Ah, ah!" he gasped, "but it is a sore trial the Lord has sent me, forI am no braver than a hare when it comes to dealings with that which isno human thing. It is even as Demetri said, for the evil one is there,the one whom he saw under the form of a young man, very fair to lookupon, but evil altogether, a son of the devil."
And he wiped a dew of horror from his brow.
Mitsos must have felt disposed to laugh had not the man's terror beenso real.
"But what did you see, father?" he asked. "For me I saw naught but alight shining through the door."
"That was it, that was it," said Zervas, "and I--I have promisedGermanos to see to the beacon business, and on that hill shall I haveto watch while perhaps the young man, evil and fair, watches for mebelow. I cannot pass this way, for my heart is cold water at thethought. I shall have to climb up from the other valley, so that I passnot the place; and then, perhaps, with the holy cross on my breast andthe image of the Crucified in my hand, I shall go unhurt."
"But what was it Demetri saw?" asked Mitsos.
"It was this way," said Father Zervas, who was growing a little morecollected as they attained a greater distance from the temple. "Oneevening, a spring evening, as it might be to-day, Demetri, of ourvillage, whom I know, was driving his sheep down from the hill abovethe temple, where the beacon will be; and, being later than he knew,the sun had set ere he came down to where the temple stands; therefore,as he could not herd the sheep in the dark down the glen, he bethoughthimself to encamp there, for the night was warm and he had food enoughwith him and wine for two men. Inside, the temple is of two rooms, andinto the hindermost of these he penned the sheep, and in the otherhe lit a sparkle of fire and sat himself down to eat his supper. Andhaving finished his supper he lay down to sleep, but no wink of sleepcame near him, and feeling restless, he sat up and smoked awhile. Buthis unrest gained on him, twitching at his limbs and bidding him go; soout he fared on the hill-side to see if he could find sleep there--or,at any rate, get air--for it seemed to him that the temple had grownunseasonably warm, and that it was filled with some sweet and subtleperfume. Outside it was cooler, and so, laying himself in a hollow ofthe hill opposite the temple gate, he nestled down among the grassesand again tried to sleep.
"IN THE CENTRE OF THE GREAT CHAMBER STOOD ONE WHOM ITDAZZLED HIS EYES TO LOOK UPON"]
"But it seemed to him that from below there came dim songs such asmen sing on feast-days, and looking down to see whence such voicescame, he saw, even as you saw and I, a strong great light shining outof the temple door, and next moment came a clattering and patteringof feet, and out through the door rushed his sheep, which must haveleaped the barrier of boughs he had put up, and ran, scattering, dumb,and frightened, in all directions. He got up and hurried down to stopany that were left, for as for herding those that were gone he mightas well have tried to herd the moon-beams, for the night was dark butfor the space illuminated by that great light that shone out from thetemple. So down he ran, but at the temple door he stopped, for inthe centre of the great chamber stood one whom it dazzled his eyes tolook upon. Fair was he and young, and lithe as a deer on the mountains,and from his face there shone a beauty and a glory which belong not tomortal man; and the lines of his body were soft with the graciousnessof youth, but firm with the strength of a man. Over one shoulder wasslung a quiver of gold, and his left hand held a golden bow; goldensandals were on his feet, and on his head a wreath of wild laurel. Forthe rest, he was as naked as the night of full moon in May, and asglorious. Two fingers of the hand which held the bow were rested onthe head of one of Demetri's rams, the father of the flock, and thebeast stood there quiet and not afraid. No other light was there inthe temple, but all the splendor which turned the place to a summernoonday sprang from him. Only in front of the youth still smoulderedthe fire by which Demetri had eaten his supper, and that seemed in theblaze that filled the temple to have burned low and dim, like a candlein the sunlight, and a little blue smoke from it came towards him, fullof some wonderful sweet perfume. The sheep, frightened, had collectedagain round him, and in that light he could see to right and left scoreupon score of their white heads and twitching ears; they stood closeto him and huddled, yet all looked at that immortal thing within thetemple. And as he stood there, stricken to stone, marvelling at thebeauty of the youth, and forgetting in his wonder to be afraid, thegod--yet no god was he, but only evil," said Zervas, hastily, againcrossing himself--"raised his eyes to him and said:
"'Thou that makest a sheep-pen of my sanctuary, art thou not afraid todo this thing?
"But he spoke, so said Demetri, not harshly, and in the lustre of hiseyes there was something so matchless and beyond compare that he kneltdown and said:
"'Forgive me, Lord, for I knew not that it was thine.'
"Then said the other:
"'For penalty and yet for thine honor this ram is mine,' and he struckthe beast lightly on the head, at which it sank down and moved no more.Then said the god again:
"'It is long since I have looked on your race; not so fair are theynow as they were in the olden days'--and in truth Demetri is anugly loon--'but this shalt thou learn of me, how joy is better thanself-sacrifice, and beauty than wisdom or the fear of God. Look at meonly, the proof is here.'
"And at this he held out his hand to him, but Demetri was suddenlysmitten by the knowledge that this beautiful youth was more evil thanthe beasts of the field, and in wild despair he bethought himself ofhis only safety, and made in the air, though feebly, for his heartwas nigh surrendered, the sign of the cross. With that a shudderingblackness came over his spirit and his eyes, and when he came tohimself he was lying on the dew-drenched pavement of the temple, andclose to him the ram, dead, but with no violent mark upon him; andlooking in at the temple door, but coming not in, the rest of theflock, of which none was missing; and morning was red in the east. Thatis ten years ago, but Demetri will scarce speak of it even to-day, andI had half thought before that it was an idle tale; but when I saw thelight shining out through the temple door an hour ago, it was freshlyborne to me that it was true, albeit one of the dark things of theworld at which we cannot even guess. Yet, as Christ protected Demetri,He will surely protect me when I go on the beacon work, for it is Hiswork; but lest I tempt God, I will climb up that hill on the other sideand keep my eyes away from the temple, and plant the holy cross betweenme and it."
Mitsos knew not what to make of all this. The fact that Demetri had,in Zervas's phrase, wine for two men with him might have explained thesignificance of what he had seen; but, being a Greek, his mind wasfruitful soil for all things ghostly and superstitious.
"It is very strange," he said; "yet, father, you will not go back fromthe work?"
"I will do it faithfully," said Zervas, "for thus I shall be in thehands of the Lord."