Chapter V (2)

Once in the bay, the face of the squall reached them not so violently, for they were under shelter of the promontory close to which they had passed; but the Capsina ran on some half-mile before putting about. Of the Turkish ships they could see that the middle one, lying too close to the one on the leeward of it, had, in trying to put out to sea, fouled the other, and Kanaris observing this, hauled up his halyards, beat up a little way against the wind, and then, turning, fired a broadside into them. Meantime, the ship first attacked, whose foremast had been shot in two by the Capsina's broadside, had cut away the wreck and was making for the open sea, and seeing this the _Revenge_ was put about, and making a wide tack to eastward, passed near the two which had fouled each other, and got in two rounds, with only the reply of one. Kanaris, whose business it was to stop any of them getting away, instantly put about to head the escaping ship, but the other slipped by him, and the two beat out to sea together.

The Capsina saw this.

"He will overhaul her in two miles," she said to Mitsos; "and now to our work again," and her face was grimmer than death and hell.

The other two ships were now free; but they saw at once that the one which had received the fire both of the _Revenge_ and Kanaris was already doomed, and from minute to minute as they overhauled them she was visibly settling down with a cant to leeward. There was no doubt that she had been struck by one or the other below the water-line, and, indeed, as they neared her they could see the pumps vomiting water down her sides. She still carried sail, for they seemed to hope to get near the land before she foundered, but her sails dragged her farther over, until from the deck of the _Revenge_, now some three hundred yards distant, they could see both lines of bulwarks, with a strip of deck in between. Then they saw them begin to lower the boats, and at that the Capsina gave the word to fire, and Mitsos, thinking on the deeds of the day before, felt his heart laugh within him. At that range the heavy guns of the brig were the sentence of destruction, and their whole broadside went home, sweeping the decks and tearing fresh holes in her side. Already the list was so great that she could no longer reply, and as they neared her the Capsina again gave the command to fire.

Then was seen a disgraceful thing; for the second ship, still untouched, put about, leaving her companion a wreck at the mercy of the _Revenge_. But indeed there was little to be saved, and the Capsina, seeing the tactics of the other and not wishing to waste shot now the work was done, put down her helm and, passing by the bows of the disabled ship, went in pursuit. The other carried two stern guns, and she opened fire, but both balls hummed by harmlessly--the one missing altogether, the other just carrying off a few splinters from the starboard bulwarks; and in answer the _Revenge_ sheered off a moment into the wind, which was still shifting to the north, and replied with the three starboard guns of the upper deck. One shot went wide, but of the two others the bow gun made a raking gash in the stern of the chase, and that amidships, which fired a little after, took the rudder, smashing the rudder-post below the juncture with the tiller, leaving her simply in the hand of the wind. In a moment she swung round from her course and pointed straight across the bows of the _Revenge_.

On the instant the Capsina saw her chance, for in a second or two she would cross close.

"Let go the helm!" she shrieked; "get ready to fire starboard guns."

The tiller banged against the side, and the _Revenge_ swung round into the wind, while every moment the two ships got closer to each other, and at a distance of not more than a hundred yards they were broadside to broadside. Then:

"Fire!" she cried.

For a moment they neither saw nor heard anything through the wreaths of their own smoke. Then, as the wind dispersed it, they saw the great ship a wreck on the water. She heeled over till the yard-arms dipped and the sails trailed in the water. The deck, they could see, was covered with men holding on, as if to prolong the bitterness of death, to whatever they could catch. Some climbed up the mast, others clung to the bulwarks, some jumped overboard. But the Capsina scanned it all with hungry eyes, and, as if unwilling to leave the feast, gave an order to shorten sail, and in the slackening speed ran to the stern of the _Revenge_ to look her last on the drowning men.

Then she turned to Mitsos.

"We may leave them, I think," she said; "they are more than a mile from land."

Kanaris and his charge were out of sight, and the _Revenge_ put about to the ship she had left before. She was sinking fast, but they saw that the crew had manned some half-dozen boats, which were rowing to land, and the Capsina called Dimitri.

"Sink all," she said.

The hindermost boat was not more than two hundred yards ahead, but the Capsina delayed her fire. Then, as they got within fifty yards of it, she walked slowly and calmly to the side of the ship, and spoke in Turkish.

"We are more merciful than those who crucify," she cried. And then, "Fire!"

The other boats seeing what had happened, and resolving, if possible, to sell their lives more dearly, got ready their muskets. But the Capsina saw this, and while they were out of musket range:

"The bow guns for the rest," she said. "It is good target practice."

Five out of the six boats had been sunk, and they were already preparing to fire on the sixth when a sudden pity came over Mitsos.

"Look," he said, "there are women in that boat!"

The Capsina shaded her eyes for a moment against the glare of the water.

"Turkish women only," she said.

"But women!" cried Mitsos, with who knows what memories of one who had lived in a Turkish house.

"There were women in Elatina," said the Capsina. "Fire!" Then turning to Mitsos: "Are you a woman, too?" she said--and suddenly her voice failed as she looked at him. "Mitsos, little Mitsos!"

And he looked at her, biting his lip to check the trembling of his mouth.

"Even so," he said, and turned away.

The first squall had blown over, and an hour of checkered sunshine succeeded; but in the west again the clouds were coming up in wind-tormented ribbons, and they had only just cleared the bay when a second hurricane was on them. For some three-quarters of an hour the wind had been slowly shifting into the north, and the wreckage of the ship they had sunk at the mouth of the bay had drifted a little out to sea, and they cut between drift-wood and masts and here and there a man still afloat. Where Kanaris and the third ship were they had no certain idea, but it was impossible for the clumsy Turkish ships to tack against a violent wind without having the masts crack above their heads, and this one, as they knew, was without its foremast, and must have sailed nearly down wind. The second squall was even more violent than the first, and the _Revenge_ scudded out to sea with only jib and halyards flying. As they got farther from the funnel of land down which the wind came, the force of it decreased a little, and they hoisted the upper yards on the mainmast. But for an hour or more they raced across a choppy and following sea, obscured by driving squalls of rain, before they sighted either. All this time the Capsina had hardly spoken, and Mitsos, standing by her, was as silent. But as they came in sight of the two ships, both running before the wind, she stamped on the bridge.

"Hoist this foresail!" she cried.

Mitsos looked up: the ship, he knew, was carrying as much sail as she could.

"You will lose your mast," he said.

The Capsina turned on him furiously.

"Let us lose it, then!" she cried.

"And you will go none the faster," he said. "More sail will only stop the ship."

"That is what they say," she remarked. "They say it pulls a ship over, and makes the bows dip. What do you advise, little Mitsos?"

"By no means hoist the foresail. Even if the ship can carry it you will go the slower," he said. "Is it an order?"

"Yes."

Then suddenly she turned to him.

"Do not judge me," she said, "for indeed I am not myself. When this is over, if God wills, I shall be myself again. Oh, lad!" she cried, "have you water or milk in your veins? Do you forget what we saw yesterday?"

Mitsos looked at her a moment, and caught something of the burning hate in her eye.

"I do not forget," he said. "But the women--oh, think of it!"

"I too am a woman," said Sophia.

Then, after a pause: "Ah, but look; is not the ship worthy of its name? See how she gains on them! Oh, Mitsos, go below if you will, and take no part in this. But I must do what I must do. Surely God is with us. Do you forget what you saw in the church? You do not. Neither do I forget the house of my mother."

Again the rain came on, a cold scourge of water, and in the lashing fury of the downpour both ships were again lost for a while.

Then there followed a raking gleam of sunshine, which struck the gray of the sea, turning it to one superb blue, and already they could see the figures of men on the ships. Kanaris was on the port side, trying evidently to head the Turk, and if she came on to give her a broadside, or if she declined to drive her back. The sea was rising every minute, and the three ships rolled scuppers under, and it was evidently out of the question for him, in such a sea and at the distance they were apart, to fire at her.

The Turk had made a good start against Kanaris, and though the _Sophia_ was overhauling her, it was clear that she was no tub, and as they were both running before the wind, it was more a question of which ship could carry most sail than of seacraft; and for another mile or more they ran on, the two pursuing ships gradually gaining on the enemy, but not very rapidly. It was evident that she was making for some port on the southern side of the gulf, perhaps where she expected the second trio of Turkish ships, and it was this the Capsina wished to prevent. But the Turk saw that both were gaining on her, and knowing that the opposite coast must be at least nine miles off, hoisted the mainsail. The Capsina started in amazement as she saw the great canvas go up; the mast bent like a whip for a moment, but stood the strain, and she scudded off.

"It is desperate," she said to Mitsos; "she cannot stand it. In ten minutes she will be ours."

The Capsina was right; only a temporary lull could have let them get the sail up, and before many minutes the squall came down on them again; the mainmast bent, and then, with a crash they could hear from their ship, broke, and a great heap of canvas encumbered the deck.

"Two points to starboard!" said the Capsina. "Get ready to fire port guns!"

More rapidly than ever the distance diminished; the _Revenge_ creeping up on the starboard side, the _Sophia_ holding her course to port, until at length the doomed ship was nearly between them, and on the moment the Capsina gave the word to fire, and the broadside crashed into the Turk. A moment after Kanaris fired, and the Turk replied with a broadside to each. The Capsina did not wait to reply again, but sailed past her, and then put the helm hard to port, risking masts and sails, so that the ship swung round with her broadside to the Turk's bows some five hundred yards off. Kanaris, who kept his distance, fired again, and section by section, slowly and with deliberate aim, the Capsina volleyed at her bows. Steady shooting was impossible on such a sea, but some of the shot they saw went home, one hitting the bowsprit, and several others crashing through the bulwarks and raking the ship lengthways. No fire answered them, but her broadside replied twice or thrice to Kanaris, doing some damage.

The Turk was now practically a log on the water, and the Capsina, knowing there was time and to spare, made a wide tack off into the northeast, and returning on the opposite tack again closed up with the Turk from behind, putting a broadside into her stern.

At that there was only silence from the Turk, and the Capsina closed in again on the starboard quarter, signalling Kanaris to do the same on the port side, and as they approached they saw that the decks were strewn with dead. A company of men were marshalled forward with muskets, who separated into two companies, and manned the bulwarks on each side, waiting for the ships to come to a closer range.

But the Capsina laughed scornfully.

"I would not waste the life of a man on my ship over those dogs," she said. "Train the bow guns on them and do not sink the ship. Kill the men only."

The wind was abating and the sea falling, and in a quarter of an hour of the eighty or a hundred men who had been left they could only see sixteen or twenty. But these continued firing their muskets coolly and without hurry at the approaching ships, and a couple of men on the _Revenge_ were wounded and one killed.

"I should not have thought Turks were so brave," said the Capsina. "Be ready with the grappling-irons! Port the helm! And be quick when we get in. Fifty men with muskets man the port side. Keep up the fire! Keep under shelter of the bulwarks all of you!"

The _Revenge_ slid up to the Turk's starboard quarter, and as they got within a hundred yards the Capsina gave orders to furl all sail; as the distance lessened, the irons were thrown, the ropes were pulled home, and the two ships brought up side by side.

A dozen Turks or so were still gathered in the bows, but as the crew of the _Revenge_ swarmed the deck, they laid down their muskets and stood with arms folded. One of them, in an officer's uniform, was sitting in a chair smoking.

He got up with an air of indolent fatigue, still holding the mouth-piece of his pipe.

"I surrender," he said, in Greek. "Where is your captain?"

The men made way for the Capsina, and she walked up the deck between their lines.

"I am the captain," she said.

The man raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed!" and he laughed softly to himself. "You are too handsome for the trade," he said. "You are better looking than any of my harem, and there are several Greeks among them. Well, I surrender."

"For that word," said the Capsina, "you hang. Otherwise perhaps I should have done you the honor to shoot you."

The man blanched a little, and his teeth showed in a sort of snarl.

"You do not understand," he said. "I surrender."

"You do not understand," she replied. "I hang you. For my mother was of Elatina."

She came a step nearer him.

"If it were not that I hold the cross a sacred thing," she said, "I would crucify you, very tenderly, that you might live long. Oh, man," and she burst out with a great gust of fury, "it is you and what you did in Elatina that has made a demon of me! I curse you for it. There, take him, two of you, and hang him from the mizzen yards. Do not speak to me," she cried to the captain, "or I will smite you on the mouth! It is a woman you are dealing with, not a thing from the harem."

In a moment two men had bound his legs and pinioned his arms, and, with the help of two more, they carried him like a sack up the rigging and set him on the yard. Then they made fast one end of the rope to the mast and noosed the other round his neck, while the Capsina stood on the deck, unflinching, an image of vengeance. And at a sign from her they pushed him off into the empty air.

Mitsos gave one short gasp, for though he would have killed a man, laughing and singing as he drove the knife home, in fight, his blood revolted at the coldness of this, and he turned to the Capsina.

"You say you are a woman!" he cried. "Is that a woman's deed?" and he pointed to the dangling burden.

"He insulted me," said the Capsina, "and I repay insults. As for the rest, shoot them," and she turned on her heel, with her back to Mitsos, and he could not see that her lip was trembling.

But it was not at the hanging or the shooting that she trembled. She had sworn she would avenge the death of those in Elatina--for to her these were not prisoners of war, but murderers of women--and that she did without flinching. But Mitsos's words recalled her to herself, and thinking inwardly of the child's-play on the ship with him, she wondered if it were possible that this stone which seemed to be her heart could ever be moved again to tears or laughter, or that Mitsos could smile again or jest with so cold and cruel a girl. And at that thought she turned to him piteously.

"Oh, Mitsos, it is not me, indeed it is not!" she cried, passionately. "Take me as I am now out of your remembrance, for pity's sake, and think of me only as I was before. I will be the same again; I will be the same. Ah, you don't understand!"