Chapter VIII: A Port of Refuge

“That was a narrow squeak this morning,” said Armitage to Maurice, as they stood watching for the first sight of the heights of Hagiamavra in the evening.

“Why particularly? That fellow had no authority to turn us back, as there isn’t a blockade, and we could probably have dodged him in the night if he had tried it.”

“It’s not that. It’s what we have on board. If he had insisted on searching us!”

“Why, are you gun-running?” asked Maurice in surprise.

Armitage was surprised too. “Well, rifles and cartridges and a couple of machine-guns are rather an unusual cargo for a yacht, aren’t they?”

Maurice understood. “Ah, another of my wife’s little speculations?” he said, trying to keep out of his voice the bitterness he felt.

“Yes, and that’s given us an idea for getting them on shore. I’ve been talking it over with Waters, who’s an awfully knowing chap, and he told me the same thing had been puzzling him. You see, the risk is not all over when we have them and ourselves landed at Skandalo. Your precious subjects-that-are-to-be are quite capable of annexing the arms and kicking you out. What you want is to secure a defensive position in the middle of them before they realise what you’ve got. Wylie quite agrees with me.”

“The prospect is certainly a pleasant one,” said Maurice indifferently. Few people realised--his wife least of all--the disgust with which he was filled by the necessity of constantly putting himself forward, of forcing his claims upon an unwilling, or at best uninterested, people.

“The place for you is the Hagiamavra Monastery,” went on Armitage eagerly,--“in the heart of the insurgents’ position, defensible against any unsupported rush. It’s a good way from the sea, that’s the worst of it, and the paths through the hills are simply beastly; but once up there, there you are. If you stayed down at Skandalo, you’d always be exposed to attack from the sea, either a bombardment or a Roumi landing. At the monastery--well, I suppose the _Dreadnought’s_ guns could touch you, but nothing else that floats, and no Roumi force is likely to be able to force its way up in the face of opposition.”

“And what about provisions?”

“I can leave you a fair store, and then I’ll go off and forage. I think I can do better for you in that way than if I landed with part of the crew to help in the fighting. They were not engaged for war-service, you see, but anything like running a blockade will delight them.”

“I see.” Maurice saw more than Armitage intended, and guessed why he had given up his former plan of attaching himself through thick and thin to the party that included Zoe, but he did not say so. “I suppose you realise that you’re more than likely to lose the yacht?” he asked.

“Meaning that the Powers will sink her? Let ’em. She may as well leave her bones here as at the North Pole, though I hope she won’t do it till you’re well supplied. But about these guns and things. Waters has hit on an awfully neat dodge, and made use of it to keep the men from getting rusty while he was hanging about off Pentikosti. He has had canvas covers made for all the cases, with red braid on them--like the things you see old ladies with on their travels, you know--and initials stencilled on the tops,--most swagger luggage you ever saw. He’ll pad them up a little with waste, to disguise the shape and the sharp corners, and we’ll get them landed and up to the monastery as the ladies’ boxes.”

“Awfully neat!” said Maurice, laughing in spite of himself. “But what about the weight? And the case of a machine-gun must be a fair size, I should imagine.”

“Oh, don’t you know those things as big as a house, that some women lug about their ball-dresses in--all standing, so to speak? It can’t be bigger than that. And as to the weight--oh, we’ll stuff the insurgents about Byzantine robes, stiff with gold and jewels, and all that sort of thing, you know. They’ll take it as an awful compliment that the Princesses should have come prepared to hold a court.”

Maurice was hardly convinced, but Armitage was so fully persuaded of the feasibility of his plan that he offered no further objection. The yacht anchored off Skandalo that night, jealously scrutinised by fishing-boats, which drifted out of the darkness into the circle of her lights, asked a question or two, and faded into nothingness again, and with earliest daylight Armitage and Captain Waters went on shore to make judicious inquiries, lest the Roumis might, with unwonted energy, have occupied the little town. When they came off again, they brought with them one of the insurgent leaders, no other than Dr Afanasi Terminoff, who was exercising authority at Skandalo in the name of the Emathian Revolutionary Committee, the Roumi inhabitants having wisely effaced themselves on the invasion of the peninsula by a mixed multitude of patriots and refugees from Therma. It appeared that Professor Panagiotis had, as Armitage said, played up nobly. He had not been informed of the flight from Bashi Konak save by a note left to be delivered to him on the following morning, but on receiving it he had promptly waited upon the Prince of Dardania to inform him that Prince Theophanis and all his party had been laid low in the night with influenza, and would be unable to leave their rooms for some days. At the same time he had communicated with the insurgent headquarters,--by the historic method of fire-signals, Zoe suggested, but more probably by mere prosaic messages carried overland by returning delegates. The really ardent among these men had been stealing away from Bashi Konak one by one since the first news of the massacres at Therma, more anxious to take part in any fighting there might be than to consume additional time in theoretical negotiations, and their news travelled before them in some mysterious way.

The arrival of Prince Theophanis was expected, and Dr Terminoff had had time to prepare information and advice, with both of which he was overflowing. The state of things was not altogether propitious. The Hagiamavra peninsula was now affording standing-ground--accommodation it could hardly be called--for quite three times its ordinary population, even allowing for the expatriated Moslems. A certain proportion of the newcomers consisted of stalwart members of revolutionary bands from all parts of Emathia, who had obeyed the summons to concentrate for a great struggle, but the rest were a heterogeneous mob from Therma, among them a large number of men whose enthusiasm for freedom was of a wildly anarchistic character. These refugees were not amenable even to such limited authority as was possessed by the captains of bands over their followers, and led by any plausible talker among themselves who could gain their ear, they raided the houses and farms of the inhabitants in search of provisions, establishing a worse than Roumi tyranny in the peninsula. Some central authority, with sufficient power at its command to enforce its orders, was urgently needed, and it was equally necessary to devise some means of feeding not only the fighting men, but the troops of helpless women and children who had sought safety with them. Maurice and Wylie, as they listened, perceived that the task before them was much larger than they had anticipated, since it had not occurred to their minds that they would be called upon to combine the functions of a relief agency with those of a military dictatorship. To do this from a precarious foothold on the coast was obviously impossible, but Dr Terminoff was as anxious as Armitage to establish the whole party safely at the monastery. Besides the predatory hordes from Therma, who were spread over the lower hills immediately behind the town, there were the insurgent bands, hardly less truculent though better disciplined, occupying the heights in the interior, and only too likely to welcome an opportunity of returning to their wonted avocation of brigandage. Moreover, since the delegates who had accepted Maurice’s leadership at Bashi Konak had not had time to explain their action to their supporters, a strong republican spirit was prevalent, and might manifest itself in disagreeable ways.

In the face of a complicated emergency of this kind, Maurice was at his best. Prompt action was urgently necessary, not only in order to circumvent possible objectors, but that the yacht might unload her cargo and depart before the news of her presence could be carried to any of the European warships in these waters. Dr Terminoff was sent on shore again to requisition every available mule for the transport of the party and their “luggage,” and summon as many members of his own band as could be readily assembled to act as escort. Wylie accompanied him, with the idea of gaining an insight into the conditions prevailing on shore; while the important cases were being got up from the hold and enclosed in their innocent-seeming wrappers, and Armitage and his stewards despoiled the cabins of mattresses, cushions, carpets, and whatever else could add to the comfort of the ladies. Captain Waters proved himself a tower of strength when it came to improvising means of getting the cases transferred from the deck along the ruined stone pier which showed that Skandalo had once known more prosperous days, and Wylie, as transport officer without subordinates, exhibited a knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the Hagiamavran mule, and the best way of combating them, which was clearly the fruit of long and bitter experience in like circumstances. By the captain’s advice, the load was reduced by breaking open one case of rifles and one of cartridges, and distributing the contents among fifteen men of the yacht’s crew, who were to act as an additional escort under command of Armitage. By dint of herculean efforts, all the packs were adjusted by noon, Zoe and Eirene were mounted on improvised saddles on the quietest mules, Wylie appointed the bodyguard their stations, and the long line trickled through the narrow streets of the little town and up the hills behind.

A curious throng watched them from roofs and alleys, with much speculation, but with a notable and natural absence of enthusiasm. The inhabitants of the peninsula could hardly be expected to welcome the choice of their neighbourhood as the theatre of great events, however proud they might be in the distant future that it had been the scene of the freeing of Emathia. These newcomers looked as if they might be more profitable guests than the Therma refugees, but the fact that they were seeking quarters at once in the mountains, instead of demanding the best accommodation the town could produce, showed that there was something not quite right about them, and the haggard man with the blue eyes who regulated their march looked capable of making himself very unpleasant to honest people who only wished to lead a quiet life and decorate the caps of their daughters with as fine a show of piastres as possible.

The many-coloured crowd and the white houses once left behind, the track led up the hillside, covered with short grass, where the sweet-scented shrubs which should have clothed it had been rooted up for fuel. At the top of the ridge Zoe turned to take a last look at the yacht, the one remaining link with civilisation, but she was speedily taught that this was no moment for the indulgence of sentiment. In the hollow below the ridge a number of the Therma refugees were encamped, in holes grubbed out of the hillside or in wretched shelters made with blankets, and when the strangers came in sight there was a rush of ragged, half-starved creatures clamouring with piteous voices and outstretched hands. Mothers held up their wizened babies, old men exhibited roughly bandaged wounds, but even more terrible was the sight of those who had lost either the desire or the power to beg, and sat stolid in the apathy of helplessness. Eirene and Zoe emptied their purses and the lunch-basket, and entreated that the provisions which were being carried up to the monastery might be distributed here instead, but Wylie was adamant. The able-bodied men belonging to this party of refugees had been set to work improving the pier by Dr Terminoff, and would earn enough to keep their dependants for a day or two. After that he hoped it would be possible to make organised arrangements for relief, but it would be mere foolishness to sacrifice, on an impulse of pity, what might be of inestimable value to the Emathian cause in the future. Zoe relieved her feelings by abusing his hardness to Eirene as she rode on, but Eirene did not answer. Holding her boy closely to her, she was haunted, as with a foreboding of evil, by the thought that this misery was, in part at least, due to her ambition for him.

The uplands beyond the hollow were almost solitary, save for an occasional goatherd. Once Wylie left the rest to examine a deserted village, which had been inhabited hitherto, it seemed, by the vanished Moslems. Now the houses were roofless, the gardens destroyed, and the fruit-trees cut down, so that the hope he had entertained of settling some of the refugees there could not be fulfilled at present. He and Maurice were continually in converse on the many questions pressing for immediate solution, calling up now Armitage and now Dr Terminoff for consultation, and leaving to Prince Romanos the duty of attending on the ladies, which he performed with a very good grace.

“I am no student of social problems, I confess it,” he said airily. “I came here to fight, and fight I will as long as I can hold a sword, but place me face to face with that crowd of miserable objects back there, and what can I do but empty my purse and hurry away, covering ears and eyes?”

“But if you were responsible for them as their prince?” suggested Zoe.

He shrugged his shoulders. “My heart would perhaps grow harder, Princess. Certainly my purse would soon be exhausted. I fear I should take refuge in the philosophy of our Roumi friends, and find comfort in repeating that all was Kismet.”

“That would be very consoling to your poor people,” said Zoe.

He accepted the rebuke with surprising meekness. “Indeed, Princess, in my view the ideal government for Emathia would be a triumvirate composed of your brother, Colonel Wylie, and myself; but how could I say so publicly without seeming to undervalue my rights?”

“You to do the ornamental part, Maurice the practical, and Colonel Wylie the military and police?” said Zoe cruelly. “It would save Maurice a good deal of trouble--but then, you see, we don’t allow that you have any rights at all.”

“Naturally, Princess,” was all he could be induced to say, with his usual shrug.

The character of the scenery was now changing, the grassy downs being left behind for wilder and loftier hills. Sometimes a glimpse could be caught of the monastery itself, far above and beyond, like the Celestial City in old illustrations to the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ its tiled roofs clinging to the sides of a great rift in the rock, and then again it would be hidden by the intervening crags. This broken country was the chosen haunt of the bands from the mainland, whom it reminded of their own hills, and challenges rang from the rocky heights, to be answered with anxious explanations by Dr Terminoff, who did all he could to magnify the importance of the new recruits to the cause without revealing either their identity or the nature of the contribution they brought for the war-chest. His guarded answers excited much interest, and a gradually increasing crowd of insurgents attached itself to the travellers, betraying an unconcealed desire to know the contents of the luggage, which seemed so much heavier than it looked. This was the moment Wylie had feared, and the sailors and Dr Terminoff’s men were placed as a screen at the head and tail of the cavalcade. The sides could not be protected, nor was it indeed necessary, since the path was only wide enough for a mule and its driver. “It’s a blessing they haven’t had time to arrange an ambuscade with stones, or they would have cut the column in two,” said Wylie; “but I think we have taken them by surprise.”

As the long procession approached the monastery, an obvious excitement began to make itself felt among the hangers-on, a certain number of whom detached themselves and ran on to the gate, where they demanded entrance with much banging and many shouts. No response, however, came from within, and the self-appointed couriers rushed back with fervid zeal to complain that the never-to-be-sufficiently-execrated Patriarchist monks refused admission to the noble English visitors. With generous indignation the surrounding mob demanded that Wylie should lead them to force an entrance, and it was clear that between the monks and the mainlanders there existed a grudge as old as the latter’s first encampment on the hills ten days ago, when they had been excluded, as schismatics, from the sacred precincts. Such a revival of the feud between the Greek and Slav elements of Emathian society promised badly for the success of Maurice’s mission of unity, and he and Armitage went forward to call a parley, while Wylie prepared for action if necessary. For some time the frowning front of the monastery appeared utterly unresponsive to all the knocking and shouting that besieged it, but at length a high black cap and a venerable beard appeared on the top of the gateway, and a conversation ensued. Presently Maurice came back and summoned Wylie.

“They won’t let us in, because the Roumi Government has always treated them fairly well, and they are afraid what may happen when we come to smash,” he said.

“They must let us in,” said Wylie. “Otherwise we shall come to smash in less than ten minutes. We must break the gate down.”

“Then our Emathian friends will simply swarm in and loot the place. We shall be as badly off for accommodation as ever, and have to bear the everlasting stigma of having plundered an Orthodox monastery.”

“Oh, we must fake it somehow. Tell your venerable friend that we will save his face by technically forcing an entrance. Fifteen sailors with rifles which half of them can’t use look imposing enough to justify any man of peace in opening his door to them if they threaten to fire. Of course you will add that if this is not inducement enough we will let the Emathians loose on them, and then they need have no further anxiety about the Roumis.”

“All right. Get the mules as close up to the gate as possible, and let the sailors be ready to turn their rifles against the Emathians once it’s opened.”

“Your brother’s welcome from his subjects is even embarrassing in its warmth,” remarked Prince Romanos to Zoe, with a fine air of detachment.

“Oh, the monastery has seen many leaders of revolts,” replied Zoe airily. “How should the poor old monks know that Maurice is the leader of a revolution?”

“Ladies nearest the gate,” said Wylie’s voice. “Cartridges and machine-guns next, then the rifles. Terminoff, are your men to be trusted if one or two of them get inside?”

“If your sailors are there too,” was the not very encouraging reply.

Maurice turned and waved his hand. The sailors, instructed by Wylie in a stage whisper how to hold their rifles, were summoned to the front, and produced an awe-inspiring click at the word of command. Very slowly and heavily one of the gates creaked open, leaving just room for the passage of one mule at a time. At a word from Wylie, Prince Romanos took the bridle of Eirene’s mule and led it in, and Zoe’s followed, while the sailors turned to face the crowd instead of the gate. One by one the mules were dragged in, Maurice and Prince Romanos opening the second leaf of the door by main force to allow of the entrance of the cases, while Armitage and Wylie, last of all, facing outwards, kept back the mob that surged behind. The last and most obstreperous mule disappeared with a final flourish of heels, the double row of sailors on either side of the gate drew together and vanished two by two, and Wylie and Armitage retreated slowly backwards, each with a hand in his pocket, the crowd pressing round, but leaving a clear space in front of them. Armitage tripped over the threshold, but was dragged in, head first, by Maurice, and the sailors closed half the door while Wylie stood on guard. Then he also slipped within, and the remaining leaf was slammed and barred, while a howl of disappointment went up from the mob outside. Wylie smiled ironically.

“Before I do anything else,” he said, “I’ll put those machine-guns together, and mount one on the top of the gate, and the other just here to command it. They seem needed to save us from our friends.”