The Capsina. E. F. Benson
looked up and judged the distance with a half-closed eye.
"I think not," he said. "It cannot be brought up in one tack."
The Capsina felt strangely interested in it.
"I wager you a Turkish pound it can and will," she cried. "Oh, Kanaris! you and I have something to learn from him who sails it."
The Capsina won her pound, to her great delight, and the boat drew up below them at the steps. It was quite close under the wall, so that they could only see the upper part of its masts, but from it there came a voice singing very pleasantly, with an echo, it seemed, of the sea in it, and it sang a verse of the song of the vine-diggers.
Up the steps came the singer, from the sea and the sun. His stature was so tall as to make by-standers seem puny. His black hair was all tousled and wet. He was quite young, for his chin and cheek were smooth, and the line of mustache on his upper lip was yet but faintly pencilled. Over his shoulder he carried a great basket of fish, supporting it freshly, you would say, and without effort, and the lad stood straight under a burden for two men. His shirt was open at the neck, showing a skin browned with the wind and the glare of the water, and the muscles stood out like a breastplate over the bone. His feet were bare and his linen trousers tucked up to his knees. And it was good also to look at his face, for the eyes smiled and the mouth smiled—you would have said his face was a smile.
The Capsina drew a long, deep breath. All the wonderful happiness of the day gathered itself to a point and was crowned.
"Who is that?" she asked the Naupliot, who was sitting with her.
"That? Do you not know? Who but the little Mitsos? Hi lad, what luck?"
Mitsos looked round a moment, but did not stop.
"My luck," he said. "But I must go first to Dimitri. I am late, and he wants his fish. For to-day I am not a free man, but a hireling. But I will be back presently, Anastasi, and remember me by this."
And with one hand he picked out a small mullet from his basket, threw it with a swift and certain aim at Anastasi's face, and ran laughing off.
So Mitsos ran laughing off, and a moment afterwards Anastasi got up too.
"We had better go," he said to Kanaris, "or the market will be closed, and you want provisions you say."
"Ah, yes," said the Capsina, "it is good that I have you to think for me, Kanaris, for I declare the thing had gone from my mind. Let them be on board to-night, so that we can sail with day."
The two went off together towards the town, and Sophia was alone.
"Some one from the sun and the sea"—her own words to Michael came back to her—"and you shall be his, and the ship shall be his, and I shall be his." The dog was lying at her feet, and she touched him gently with her toe.
"And will you be his, Michael? Will you be Mitsos's?" she said. "And what of me?"
Surely this was the one from the sun and the sea, of whom she had not dreamed, but of whom she could imagine she had dreamed, he who had gone at night and burned that great ship from Kalamata, returning, perhaps, as he had returned this evening, laughing with a jest for a friend and a ready aim, of whose deed the people sang. She had wondered a hundred times what Mitsos was like, but never had she connected him with the one of whom she spoke to Michael.
She rose from her seat and went to lean over the quay wall. She was convinced not in thought—for just now she did not think, but only feel beyond the shadow of doubt—that Mitsos was … was, not he whom she looked for, her feeling lacked that definiteness, but he for whom she would wait all her life. He was satisfying, wholly, utterly; the stir and rapture of glorious adventure had seized him as it had seized her; the aims of their lives were one, and was not that already a bond between them? He was a man of his arm, and his arm was strong; a man of his people, and a man not of houses but of the out-of-doors. She had taken him in at one glance, and knew him from head to heel: black hair, black eyes, a face one smile, but which could surely be stern and fiery; for any face so wholly frank as that would mirror the soul as still water mirrors the sky, the long line of arm bare to the shoulder, trousers all stained, as was meet, with salt and sailing gear, the long, swelling line of calf down to feet which were firm and fit to run—surely this was he for whom she had been designed and built, and she was one, she knew, at whom men looked more than once. And her heart broke into song, soaring. …
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