Chapter IX: Arts of Peace

The expedition had reached port, but this was all that could be said. The quiet fore-court of the monastery was filled with kicking mules, vociferating drivers, and curious sailors, while two or three agitated monks bewailed the invasion with uplifted hands. The strangers had brought women within the sacred gates, and were further polluting the precincts with the presence of schismatics and of weapons of war. The glory of Hagiamavra had departed, for the stain could never be removed. Leaving Wylie to arrange measures of defence, Maurice set himself to soothe the feelings of the distracted hosts. A little diplomacy induced them to confess that the monastery had on one former occasion in its history given shelter to the abhorred sex, in the shape of a number of women and children from Skandalo seeking refuge on account of the visit of a Roumi fleet, but then these suppliants had asked no more than to crouch on the bare stones of the courtyard. However, in answer to a tactful question or two, the Hegoumenos, or Abbot, owned that the number of monks was now so much reduced as to occupy only the innermost cells, those which clustered round the church, in the narrowest part of the rift, thus leaving the buildings near the gateway free for the accommodation of the visitors. A promise from Maurice that the ladies would make no attempt to penetrate farther than the fore-court contributed still more to smooth matters, and the Hegoumenos volunteered to send a couple of lay brethren to sweep out the rooms and to provide firewood.

Returning to the rest, Maurice found that Wylie had got one of the guns unpacked and set up to protect the entrance, but was in doubt whether to carry out the rest of his plan and mount the other upon the gateway itself. The idea was opposed vehemently by Dr Terminoff, who urged that since the monastery had so fortunately been reached without the shedding of a drop of blood, there was every hope of coming to a happy understanding with the insurgents, but that this would be grievously imperilled by any show of distrust. At his earnest request Maurice allowed the insurgent leader to go up to the gateway and address the crowd outside, which he did with much effect. A marked and somewhat awestruck silence succeeded the din which had hitherto prevailed, and the various chiefs who were present requested Dr Terminoff to convey their assurances of friendship to the English visitors. As he descended from the gateway, the English visitors seized upon him.

“What was that you told them about Roumi troops being on their way here?” demanded Maurice.

“It is quite true. Five battalions are already embarked, we understand, and others are on the point of departure.”

“But how have you heard it up here?” cried Wylie.

“Oh, I heard it at Skandalo. A messenger from Therma--one of the men who work for Professor Panagiotis--came in this morning.”

“And why in the world didn’t you tell us at once?”

“Because I thought you would go away in your ship without landing if I did,” was the ingenuous reply.

“Oh, look here!” cried Armitage indignantly, “this is a little too much! We must get the ladies back to the yacht as soon as possible--to-night, if they are not too tired.”

“Why?” asked Maurice. “You surely didn’t think the Roumis would not send troops? We have known all along that we should probably have to face them. You can do much more good by bringing up supplies, Armitage, as we arranged.”

“But I can’t take my men away, and leave you and the ladies at the mercy of these fellows outside. The Roumis couldn’t be worse.”

“These men are Christians--patriots,” said Dr Terminoff with indignation. “In their holy war they welcome the aid of Prince Theophanis and his friends. To-morrow, in full assembly, the conditions of alliance will be settled, and the defence of the peninsula will be entrusted to the illustrious Colonel Wylie. Our patriots are brave as lions, but they know little of discipline, and just now there was no time to enter into explanations. But having heard the truth, they will freely allow the passage of the Milordo and his men.”

“I’m not afraid of that!” cried Armitage, flushing angrily. “It is that I don’t think the Prince and his family are safe.”

“Sir, you throw doubts on the patriots of Emathia?” Dr Terminoff was bristling with rage, but Wylie interposed.

“He doesn’t know them as we do, and their behaviour this afternoon has been calculated to prejudice a stranger rather unfavourably. Leave the ladies to us, Armitage, and ransack the Mediterranean for supplies and ammunition. Not rifles,--we have enough for the men who have none,--but cartridges to fit our Mausers, in packages small enough to be carried by one man. With anything like an adequate supply, we might hold that country we passed through to-day for months. You had better arrange for a further consignment to be sent out from England to meet you at some safe place, but just now you must pick up what you can get, and hurry back before the Roumis appear.”

“But they may be here to-morrow!” cried Armitage.

“Not they. Roumi troops are not kept ready for service at a moment’s notice, and transports are not to be had for nothing. The five battalions are probably in the first agonies of mobilising at this moment, and the Jews of Czarigrad are chartering all the condemned tramps they can hear of to carry them, so you will just have time to make a foraging trip and get back. And by the bye, if the Princess will let you make use of her letters of credit, bring us a good supply of small change,--any currency will do. We don’t want to have to add a mint to the other activities before us, and our New Model army will require to be paid.”

Taken aback, alike by the nature of Wylie’s calculations and their ultra-practical character, Armitage allowed himself to be dismissed with his sailors after a hasty meal. They were mounted on the Skandalo mules, and escorted in triumphal procession by the repentant insurgents outside, who were now only anxious to embrace the men for whose blood they had previously been thirsting. A code of signals had been arranged, by means of which Armitage, on sighting a precipitous headland not far from Skandalo, might know whether it was safe for the yacht to approach the land, and where she was to disembark her stores.

The accommodation provided by the monastery was not luxurious, though the steward of the yacht had done what he could to make the bare cells, hollowed out in the rock and opening in front into wooden galleries, habitable. He had been left at Hagiamavra to act as cook, since the Greek retainer of Prince Romanos, who would not make himself useful for any one but his master, was the only servant with the party. Dr Terminoff chose out six members of his band, guaranteed to be trustworthy, to serve as guards, and they camped round a fire in the fore-court. At the head of the shallow steps leading to the lowest gallery, from which all the others were approached, Wylie had built up the cases of arms into a breastwork, on which he mounted the machine-gun he had unpacked, not caring to leave it exposed to the active curiosity of the guards in the court. Thus the position was as safe as it was possible to make it, and the adventurers talked and laughed round the inadequate brazier provided for their comfort, with a determination not to let things flag which suggested inevitably a certain amount of effort. Their reception at Hagiamavra had not been quite what they expected, but they were resolved to make the best of things.

With the morning came the necessity of meeting the insurgent chiefs in full assembly, as Dr Terminoff had promised, and it was an assembly that lasted for three days. Wylie excused himself after the first morning, for the assembly appeared to be possessed of unlimited powers of talk, and to be determined to exercise them. It seemed to be the custom that every man should have the opportunity of addressing his fellows if he desired it, and there were few sufficiently merciful or retiring to waive the privilege. Hour after hour Maurice and Prince Romanos sat side by side listening to the flow of like sentiments delivered in different dialects and with varying gestures by the highlanders from the mainland, the cosmopolitan refugees from Therma, and the Greek fishermen and artisans from the coast districts. The speeches all began in the same way, with a declaration of the speaker’s theoretical preference for a republic on the American--Wylie unkindly suggested the South American--model, but nearly all of them came to the lame conclusion that in view of the dislike felt by some of the Powers for republican institutions, and the benefits certain to be conferred upon the cause by the adhesion to it of the Theophanis family, it would be well to recognise their pretensions. The returning delegates from Bashi Konak had now had time to make their influence felt, and the imminent peril of a Roumi invasion in force inclined Greek and Slav for once to lay aside their differences and agree to postpone the actual choice of a Prince until the danger was over. In the presence of the assembly, Maurice swore on the head of his little son, and Prince Romanos on the sacred relics, brought with great pomp and precaution from the monastery, to fight side by side as brothers-in-arms, and submit their respective claims to the judgment of the Emathian people when success should have brought peace. Upon this the gathering resolved, only a few austere republicans dissenting, to change its name from the Revolutionary to the Constitutional Assembly, and an intimation of the fact, together with the information that Emathia had determined to choose a ruler from among the descendants of the Theophanis Emperors, was sent to Professor Panagiotis for dissemination by the usual channels.

While Maurice was thus establishing his position by patient endurance of dilatory declamation, Wylie was hard at work. At his request Dr Terminoff picked out for him each day twenty men from among the most intelligent and adaptable of the insurgents, and they accompanied him in a survey of the coasts of the peninsula. They found that their new leader (Glaukos, or Glafko, was the name they gave him among themselves) had an eye for country as good as their own, and a conception of military tactics which went far beyond their crude idea of firing from ambush until their retreat was seriously threatened, and then retiring with all speed to take up a new position to the rear. The few precarious landing-places which broke the line of the precipitous cliffs were noted, and the fishermen living near them enrolled as scouts, while a ledge of rock here, and a sheltered hollow there, were marked as the site of rough fortifications from which the port might be defended. There was much interest as to Wylie’s plans for defending the narrow isthmus which united the peninsula with the mainland, and considerable disappointment, and even murmurs of treachery, when he refused to requisition the services of the inhabitants _en masse_ for the purpose of digging a ditch and erecting a rampart across it. He took no notice of the grumbling, but when, after much consultation among themselves, a deputation of his followers inquired the reason for his inaction, he pointed out to them that nothing better could be desired than that the Roumis should attack Hagiamavra by land. The broken ground of the interior continued as far as the isthmus, which was not traversed by any road, and an army making its way painfully into the hills would be subject to perpetual attacks from an active enemy well posted and knowing the country. Since the insurgents were so much in love with digging, he promised them plenty of it in making shelter-trenches, but if they wanted to help in something really large and important, he could only advise them to offer their services in making the strong earthwork above Skandalo, which had been undertaken by Dr Terminoff partly in response to the demands of the inhabitants, and partly to provide relief employment for the refugees. In the face of ships’ guns it would be untenable, and only draw destruction upon the place, but the townspeople were loud in demanding protection, and a landing in boats might be prevented by rifle-fire from its shelter.

While Wylie was regaining his own health in the hard open-air life, and attaching to himself the men whom he destined as the nucleus of a disciplined force, Zoe and Eirene had found work of their own. Time threatened at first to hang heavy on their hands, for they were forbidden to move about inside the monastery, or to go outside it without an escort, which every one was too busy to supply. But on the second morning, to Zoe’s astonishment, Eirene broke in upon her in her impulsive way.

“Zoe, I want to do something for those poor wretched women--the people from Therma. Maurice has arranged that those who can work shall be fed, but some of them were ill, and there are the babies. I can’t bear to think of them with no proper shelter.”

Zoe had been assuring herself that if she proposed doing anything for the refugees, Eirene would throw cold water on the suggestion, and she assented with surprise and some remorse. The guards, who were grumbling at their enforced detention in the courtyard, remote alike from the deliberations of the Assembly and from Wylie’s explorations, were despatched to find mules, and welcomed the break in the monotony of their lot. The reception at the refugee camp, after the toilsome journey necessary to reach it, was not equally encouraging. The women seemed to have only one idea of bettering their condition, and that was by begging, and the most strenuous efforts, enforced by personal example, were needed to induce them to set to work. Zoe, longing in vain for her invaluable maid, Linton of the strong arm and caustic tongue, felt herself shamed by Eirene, who seemed to find no work too hard, no task too degrading. Only Eirene herself knew that she was undertaking the care of these people as in some sort an expiation. Their present plight was largely due to her; what if the punishment should fall on the dearly loved boy for whose future she planned and plotted night and day? If any humiliation or exertion of hers could turn away the danger from him, it should not be wanting. Thus she and Zoe toiled to induce the women to improve their temporary habitations, and make at least an effort to keep them clean, and to separate the fever-stricken from the rest, gathering them into a makeshift hospital. Some people might think, said Zoe, after various trying experiences with some of the more active elderly women who had been chosen as nurses, that philanthropic work among Emathian refugees was romantic; whereas workhouse nursing at home was instinct with romance in comparison. The medical officer would naturally have been Dr Terminoff, but he was already fully occupied with his duties as a leader of revolt. However, since his liege ladies gave him no peace, and he was anxious to impress upon his followers the necessity of deference to Maurice and his family, he unearthed two medical students who had run away from their studies at Bellaviste to join one of the bands, and appointed them to hospital posts. Their consent was not asked, and they proved, unfortunately, to be the only two men in the peninsula who positively yearned for drill, so that they were invariably missing whenever Wylie was working at the raw material of his army.

Notwithstanding all the drawbacks, Armitage found a distinct improvement in the condition of the insurgent forces when he returned at the end of a fortnight. By dint of a lavish expenditure of money, he had got together a good cargo of provisions, but no efforts seemed effectual in securing satisfactory ammunition. At one port, where he thought he had the promise of a large quantity of cartridges, it proved necessary to get the cases on board in tremendous haste owing to the suspicions of the harbour authorities and an alarm as to the arrival of a British warship, and on being opened they turned out to be largely filled with scrap-metal, while such cartridges as they did contain were of all sorts and kinds. He brought good news, however, in the positive assurance that, owing to the representations of the Powers at Czarigrad, the projected despatch of Roumi troops had been abandoned. The massacres at Therma had touched the conscience of Europe--or perhaps, as Wylie said, the devastation of so important a commercial centre had touched its pocket; in any case, the Roumis were not to have a free hand in Hagiamavra. Such troops as Jalal-ud-din Pasha already possessed in and around Therma he might employ against the insurgents, but they were not to be swept out of existence by overwhelming force.

The news produced a profound impression upon the insurgents, who came by bands solemnly to congratulate Maurice, and thank him for his efforts in their cause. Not until an indiscreet remark of Dr Terminoff let the cat out of the bag did he and Armitage understand why he was supposed to be responsible for the action of the Powers.

“You know, and I know,” said the Emathian, “that you had nothing to do with the Czarigrad negotiations, since the Powers are not even aware of your presence here, so well has Professor Panagiotis manipulated the press. But it is very well for the people to believe that this success is due to you.”

“I don’t want them to believe anything that isn’t true,” said Maurice. “What are you hinting at?”

“The Professor has only allowed it to become known that the Assembly has addressed a hearty request to any prince of the house of Theophanis to place himself at their head, and achieve the deliverance of Emathia,” was the reply. “This the reactionary Powers fear above all things, and therefore they will not allow Roum to attempt to crush the Emathians, lest Western sympathy should be roused and autonomy demanded for them. The Powers will act in concert, wasting time and effecting nothing, but prolonging the present state of affairs until Scythia and Pannonia are ready for action. Then the wretched troublesome country will be gladly handed over to them.”

“You mean that though the Roumis are forbidden to crush us, the Powers will do it for them?” said Armitage.

Dr Terminoff nodded. “Yes, and that is why it is well for the Prince that the people should believe the Powers are acting in his support. Nilischeff and the anti-dynastic party are hiding their heads at present, but if they knew that the Prince would be disowned by the country of his birth, they would urge that his presence here was merely a danger to the cause, and he ought to be given up.”

“Cheerful prospect for the immediate future!” said Maurice. “Wylie would hardly let those fellows of his make the row they are doing if he knew how mistaken their rejoicing was.”

With dramatic propriety Wylie appeared at the moment from the direction of the extemporised drill-ground.

“More news!” he said. “One of my fishermen scouts brought it, and thought fit to announce it to the whole army as well as to me. Last night he spoke a Therma boat which told him that several ironclads were leaving this morning for these waters, and by the description it must be a division of the British Mediterranean Fleet. My beauties down there are mad with joy, anticipating a triumphal procession to Therma, and Jalal-ud-din’s head on a charger.”

“We must make them understand that the fleet is much more likely to act against us than with us,” said Maurice.

“You cannot, sir,” said Dr Terminoff. “They would only ascribe your denials to diplomacy. Many years of disappointment have not been able to destroy their confidence in the goodwill of England, and they believe that she has just given a superlative proof of it at Czarigrad. Only the personal assurance of the British Admiral will convince them.”

“Backed by a shell or two, I suppose?” said Maurice. “Well, Armitage, it’s very clear that you must be off at once. It isn’t only that you mustn’t be caught at Skandalo, but we don’t want to give them a chance to recognise the yacht if they meet her again.”

“The ironclads will have to lie about a mile out,” said Armitage reflectively. “We must hug the shore to the southward and slip round them. There will just be time.”

“And when you come back,” said Maurice, “bring provisions, whatever you have to leave behind. We find that the Skandalo people have been turning an honest penny by shipping all their spare supplies to Therma, where prices are enormous, of course, while we have been at our wits’ end to feed our refugees. We shall have to establish an embargo if it goes on, for it’s almost certain that news leaks out as well; but it would be horribly difficult to enforce, and make a fearful amount of ill-feeling.”

“Our recruits are not a success as police,” explained Wylie, as they returned to the monastery. “They are most zealous in hunting evil-doers, but then I have to hunt the police. Just wait till I get my Sikhs, though!”

“I say, you know,” said Armitage, “you fellows have really done a lot in this short time. You’ve got the beginnings of an army, and public works, and a judicial system, and you’re contemplating tariff reform!”

“Until the British fleet comes and blows the peninsula out of the water,” said Maurice. “Well, I never expected to fight against the Union Jack, nor did you, Wylie, I’m sure,--but we mean to stick to this job unless we’re turned out. To have got Greeks and Slavs to drill shoulder to shoulder is a bigger thing than it looks.”