The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence by E. F. Benson
CHAPTER XII
THE SEARCH FOR SULEIMA
Half an hour after they had gone Nicholas had made his way down towhere he was told Abdul Achmet's house stood, mindful of his promise toMitsos. Two or three of the Argives, who had taken possession of it,and were ransacking the rooms for booty, stood at the door, and toldhim that the prize was theirs.
"Oh, man," said Nicholas, "I come not for booty; the gold is yours. Butthere is a Greek woman in the house; it is she whom I seek."
The men still seemed disposed to resent his entry, but they knew him,and, even in the face of all the disgrace the captains had charged,believed him clean-handed.
"Come," said he again, "I take nothing from the house, and when I goout you shall search me if you will. Only take me to where the womenare."
The women of the harem had been locked into the room overlooking thenarrow street by which Suleima had fled, while the men searched therest of the house; and Nicholas, hearing that the mayor, Demetri, wasof the party, told him what he wanted.
"Of course you can go in; friend," he said. "Here, one of you, take himto the room."
The women were sobbing and wailing together, and one cried out inTurkish as Nicholas entered:
"Kill us if you will, but be quick."
"I touch you not," said Nicholas. "Tell me, is there not a Greek womanamong you?"
Zuleika, for it was she who had spoken, stopped crying for amazement.
"She has gone," she said. "Oh, that I had gone with her. She would notstop within, but went down-stairs and out, I suppose. And in a fewdays, perhaps sooner, will her baby be born. Oh, what are you going todo with us?"
And she caught hold of him by the arm.
Nicholas disengaged her fingers, but gently.
"You are sure she has gone?" he said. Then to the soldiers who werewith him: "Will you allow me to search the other rooms; it is only shewhom I want?"
"And what should you want with her?" said one of them, gruffly. "Allthat is in the house is ours."
"Oh, man, do not be a fool," said Nicholas. "The woman is a free Greek,and free she shall be. She was carried off by this Turk years ago.Come, let me go into the other rooms to be sure she is not here, for ifshe is not I must seek her outside. It is a promise, and a promise tolittle Mitsos."
The other consented, still reluctantly, and Nicholas looked through thehouse from roof to cellar, but found her not. And "Ah, poor lad," hethought, "but this will be bitter news, for if she has gone into thestreets, God save her!"
It was now one hour past noon, and in the hot, breathless air alreadythe thick sour smell of blood hung about the street. The square was ashambles, neither more nor less, and the dead lay about in heaps. Withthe peasants from the country had come in hungry, half-wild dogs, andas Nicholas passed the square again, now deserted by the besiegers forthe great mass of the town which lay higher up the slope towards thecitadel, two or three of these slunk away with red dripping mouthsfrom their horrible banqueting; but one, hungrier or bolder than theothers, stood there over the body of a child snarling at him. The sightsickened him, and he shot the animal through the head. Black patches offlies swarmed in hundreds over the congealed pools of blood, and rosewith an unclean whir and buzz as he approached. The heat was stifling,and from the tower where he had planted it but four hours ago the flaghung in folds round its staff. The deadly taint of death was in theair, with the foul odors of flesh already putrefying. Nicholas feltsuddenly faint and weary, but seeing a stream of water running down oneof the gutters in the square all red and turbid, he followed it up andfound where it sprang from--a leaden pipe out of a lion's mouth in oneof the side streets. He drank deeply of it, and bathed his face andhands there, and feeling refreshed followed on towards where he knewthe Mainats would be. Mixed with the dead were not a few Greeks, and ashe passed up the street he saw with a sudden pang of horror three orfour bodies, apparently lifeless, stir, and from below there came outthe hand of a living man, striving to get hold of something by which hecould pull himself up. Nicholas turned the bodies off and found a Greeksoldier below, whom he carried into the shade, and fetched him water.The man was but slightly wounded in the arm, the gash was alreadybeginning to clot over, and Nicholas, having bound up the place with astrip of his fustanella, left him, for there was much work to be done.
Right and left from the houses in the street came cries and screams,and now and then a woman, with her clothes perhaps half torn off her,would steal out like a cat, and seeing Nicholas, either steal backagain or run from him. After each of these, he shouted some sentence inGreek, but got no response. Once a child ran up to him, howling withtears and pain, and showed him a horrible gash in its arm, wantonlyinflicted by one of his countrymen, babbling to him in Turkish thatit could not find its mother. Then Nicholas, despite his fierce vowsto have no pity on man, woman, or child for the wrong that had beendone to him and his by that pitiless race, waited ten minutes to bindup the wound, and--for what else could he do--bade the child get outof the town, for its mother was outside. On his way he passed severalGreek soldiers, one dragging a woman after him, another with hishands full of a pile of gold and silver, the smaller pieces of whichdropped through his fingers as he walked. Nicholas inquired where theMainats were, and was told he would find a number of them at a bigsquare house on the slope up to the citadel gate, which they had justentered. Fighting seemed to be going on in an upper story, and evenas he approached a group of men, Turks and Greeks mixed, appeared onthe house-top. Next moment two who were struggling together toppledand fell against the thin railing which lined the roof; it broke undertheir weight, and both men, still clutching at each other's throats,fell toppling over into the street with a horrid crash and sound ofbreaking. The Turk was living and moved feebly, but the head of theMainat was smashed like an egg.
At that moment Yanni appeared at the door of the house, his faceflushed, and the fire of fighting hot upon him.
"You here?" he cried to Nicholas. "We thought you must be dead. Oh,how wild Mitsos will be when he finds that he has been out of it!"
"It is of Mitsos, too, I am thinking," said Nicholas. "Oh, Yanni, comeand help me; there are butchers enough. Help me to find her."
Yanni stared at him a moment before he understood.
"Suleima," he cried, "God forgive us all! She in this town, and I hadforgotten, and the Mavromichales are gone mad! If she is there--oh,"and he threw down his knife, and looked stupid-like at his hands whichwere red and caked with blood and dust.
"Come and search for her, Yanni," said Nicholas again; "she is not inthe house of Abdul, and every moment that she is in the streets may beher last."
"She left the house! Are you sure?" asked Yanni. "Where is it? Let usrun there."
"I have been already," said Nicholas. "See, Yanni, you go one way andI another, and we will meet here again in an hour. Speak in Greek toevery woman you see."
"Yes, yes," said Yanni; "which way shall I go? Oh, Mitsos, poor littleMitsos, and I killed two women myself, for they had knives and tried tostab me."
"Here, go steady, and be sensible," said Nicholas, for the boy seemedhalf beside himself. "Pick up your knife again; you were going unarmed.Do not stop, even to kill. Walk about, go where you hear a womancry--God forgive us, but that is a task for a hundred--and speak to allin Greek. And be back here in an hour. Where is Petrobey?"
"In the house," said Yanni, and went off in the direction Nicholas hadtold him.
On that mad and ghastly day Petrobey was one of the few who hadkept his head, and getting together a few sensible men, he hadsystematically worked his way up the street, stopping only to killwhere there were signs of resistance. Open doors and men flyingunarmed he left alone; there were plenty to do work like that; but heforced door after door where barricades had been put up, and attackedbodies of soldiers, who still from time to time charged out of somehouse or other, trying to force their way out to one of the gates.Without him and a few resolute bands of men it is possible thatgreat slaughter would hav
"Stay with us and eat, dear cousin," he said to Nicholas, "for mencannot fight fasting. And, oh, Nicholas, but my life and all I have areyours, for you did not fail me when God and man forsook me!"
"Give me something, then, to take with me," said Nicholas, "for I havework before me. That girl of Mitsos' had left the house before I gotthere, and God knows where she is, alive or dead. I love the lad, andindeed we owe him a debt we can never repay for all he has done, and Ishould never forgive myself, nor hope for forgiveness, if I did not dowhat I could to find her."
Petrobey shook his head. "She may have taken refuge in some otherhouse," he said. "If not--"
"Why should she fly from one house to another? If she is alive sheis either somewhere in the streets, or it is just possible she hasescaped."
Petrobey shook his head again.
"One woman fly in the face of that mob? God be with your kind heart,Nicholas. Poor little Mitsos, poor lad!"
Nicholas tore off a crust of bread, and staying only to swallow adraught of wine, went out again into the blinding glare of the streets.Everywhere it was the same ghastly scene over again: heaps of bodies;gutters with slow, oily streams of blood flowing and congealing; here aTurk wounded and in the last agony of death; there some young countrylad shot through the heart, lying with open mouth and glazed eyes,which stared unblinkingly at the sun. Sometimes a woman lay across thepath, while a little baby, still living and unhurt, lay beside whereshe had fallen, and groped with feeble, automatic hands for her breast.By them all without stopping went Nicholas, peering about for any signof a living woman, but finding none. Very few apparently had been sodesperate as to run into the street like Suleima, and though he feltthe search wellnigh hopeless he went on. Once he came across a womanlying in the path, not yet dead, and as he bent over her she opened hereyes and spoke to him in Turkish. Nicholas questioned her in Greek, butshe did not understand, and he went on again. In a little more than anhour he was back and found Yanni waiting for him, but he too had seenno sign of her they had never seen but sought.
All that afternoon the work went on, and at sunset Petrobey set astrong watch at all the gates, and he with most of the men went tosleep in the camp outside, where the air was less stifling and thepoisonous breath from the murdered town came not. But Nicholas, whostill hoped against hope, would not leave the place; by night, hethought, if Suleima was in hiding somewhere in the town she might tryto steal back to the house, or attempt to escape by one of the gates;and he sat waiting in the doorway of Abdul Achmet's house till he fellasleep from sheer weariness, having seen naught but the dogs paddlingabout on their horrible errands. He woke early, before it was dawn,shivering and feeling ill; and thinking that his chill came only fromexposure to the night air, got up and walked about, waiting for day. Assoon as it was light he went out of the south gate to the Mainat camp,and had breakfast with Petrobey, who shook his head sadly over theabsence of news.
Some sort of order was restored in the camp that day, and a thirdpart of each of the four regular corps was stationed to blockade thecitadel, while the others, in a more orderly manner and under thecommand of officers, went on with the sack of the town. The rabblewho had passed in the day before were driven out of the place, anda watch set at each of the gates; but these measures were only halfsuccessful, for many took to hiding in the deserted houses, or, havingbeen ejected, climbed back again at the Argive tower, or at otherpoints of the walls where they could find entrance. Already many of theGreeks were ill with an ill-defined fever, which Petrobey put down tothe effects of the foul, pestilence-laden atmosphere, and he employeda number of men to cart the dead out of the city and burn them. Butthey were not able to keep pace with the massacring which went on allday, and that evening the fever took a more pronounced and violent formin many of the eases, and before the morning of the 7th fifty or moreGreeks, chiefly countrymen, who had slept two nights in the streets,were dead.
Just before dawn on the 7th a party of Turks made a sortie from thecitadel and broke through the Greek lines. The alarm was given at onceby the sentries, but the Turks were already among them before theywere able to make any resistance, and after not more than ten minutes'fighting, they had broken their way through, and were doubling downthe street towards the Argive gate. The guard there had sprung to armsat the sound of the disturbance above, and they engaged the Turks withsomewhat better success, but more than half the original number gotthrough and made straight for the unguarded hills between the plain andArgos.
Nicholas, who had passed a feverish, tossing night, feeling weak andweary, yet unable to sleep, had sprung up at once on the alarm, and wasamong the first to meet the charge. In the darkness the fighting waswild and random; they fought with shadows, and parrying a sword thrustaimed at his head, though he turned the blow aside, he felt the weaponwound him just below the shoulder, and the edge grate on the bone. Suchrough aid as could be given him was at once administered. His arm wastightly bound above the wound to stop the bleeding from the severedartery, and, after the rough but often effective surgery of the day,the severed ends of the artery were cauterized and bound up, and theedges of the wound were brought together. No serious consequences wereexpected, for the flow of blood was soon checked, but for the presentany further search for Suleima was out of the question. But a coupleof hours later he grew more feverish and restless, and by ten o'clockon the morning of the 8th he was delirious, down with that swift andterrible fever which during the past night had already claimed manyvictims.
At mid-day the remainder of the garrison in the citadel surrenderedunconditionally from want of water, for the whole supply had come fromthe lower town, and ten minutes later the Greek flag was flying fromthe tower. The shouts with which it was hailed roused Nicholas, whohad sunk into a heavy sort of stupor, and he found Yanni sitting by hisside.
"What is it?" he asked. "Have they found Suleima?"
"It is the citadel which has surrendered," said Yanni; "they havehoisted the flag on the tower."
Nicholas half raised himself. "Then the Morea is free from Corinth toMaina," he said. "O merciful and gracious Virgin! It only remains tofind Suleima."
Presently after, he sank back into a stupor again, though every now andthen he would stir and mutter something to himself.
"Why does not little Mitsos come?" he said, once; "tell him I want him.I did all I could to find her, but it was no use. Little Mitsos, therewill be no more fire-ships ... it was a devilish task to set you ...don't you see the flag is flying; Tripoli has fallen; the Turks andtheir lusts are over forever; we are free!"
Then suddenly, in the loud strong voice which Yanni knew so well: "TheLord is a man of war!" he cried.
The news had run about the camp that Nicholas was down with the fever,and for the moment all paused when they heard. As every man in theplace knew, his was the glory of the deed, and he the chief among thosefew to whose name honor, and nothing disgraceful, no weak deed orinfirm purpose, were written. They had moved him out of the town untothe higher ground of the citadel, and into the top room of the tower onwhich the flag was flying. A great north wind sprang up that afternoon,and from the room where he lay could be heard the flapping of the flag.Those of the men who had any knowledge of medicine came flocking up tothe citadel, begging to be allowed to see him, and suggesting a hundredremedies; and of these Petrobey chose one, who seemed to be sensible,and who it appeared had pulled a man through the worst of the fever,and he gave Nicholas such remedies as they could get.
That afternoon there was a division of the spoils taken, and in theevening, but not before a terrible and bloody deed had been done,three corps went back to their homes, the Mainats alone
It was, indeed, time to leave that pestilence-stricken town. During theday the fever had broken out with redoubled virulence among all thosewho had quartered themselves in the lower parts of the town, and theangel of death followed the victorious battalions into Arcadia, Argos,and Laconia, striking them right and left, and strewing the road withdying men. The judgment of God for those three ruthless days had comequickly. Mitsos' father, who had escaped unhurt, doing his quiet dutyin the ranks of the Argives from the first, saw Petrobey before he left.
"Tell Mitsos to come quickly," he said. "And did you know Father Andreahas not been seen since the first morning?"
Meantime, in the north, it was found that the rumor of the Turkishlanding was groundless, and Prince Demetrius was hurrying back toTripoli. Germanos had joined him; but two days' march off the town,news of its capture was brought to them, on which Mitsos obtainedpermission to go on ahead to report the prince's coming, and announcethat no landing of Turks had taken place. He travelled night and day,for his heart gave him wings, and late on the night of the 8th hereached Tripoli.
The unutterable stench in the streets struck him like death, and turnedconsciousness to a horrible dread. Shutting his eyes to the ghastlywreckage that strewed the ways, more horrible under the dim, filteringlight from the clear-swept sky than even in daylight, he went quicklyup to the citadel, where he supposed the troops would be. He waschallenged by the sentry at the gate, who, seeing who he was, admittedhim at once. He was taken straight to Petrobey's quarters, in the roomjust below where Nicholas lay.
The boy's voice was raised in eager question, but Petrobey hushed him.
"My poor lad," he said, "you must be brave, for we know you can bebrave. We have not found her, and in the room above Nicholas liesdying. He has been asking for you; go to him at once, little Mitsos. Iwill send your food there."
Mitsos gave one gasping sigh.
"She may yet be here," he said; "where are the women and the prisoners?"
"There are no women and there are no prisoners," said Petrobey.
Mitsos stood silent a moment, looking at the other with bright, dryeyes, and swaying a little as he stood.
"And Uncle Nicholas is dying and has asked for me," he said. "Let me goto him."