The Capsina. An Historical Novel. Benson Edward Frederic
nor obey the infidels who are the enemies of God and of His Christ, and of the blessed mother of Christ, and from this day we declare that we will make ourselves a free people of the realm of Greece. In the support of this resolve it will be our duty to fight for our wives, our children, our country, and we will fight till the death without counting the cost, and giving whatever we possess – our goods, our obedience, and our lives – to our country's cause. May He who is the Giver of Victory and has already given us the will to fight, strengthen our arms and deliver His foes and ours into our hands."
By the first week in May, such was the frenzy of expedition among the men, the Hydriot contingent, numbering twenty sail, was ready to go to sea. The eight brigs from Spetzas which had sailed to Melos to capture the Turkish conscription ships had put in at Hydra, uniting themselves with Tombazes' fleet, and reported complete success. The credit of the capture however belonged, as they acknowledged, to a strange ship that sailed as if by magic, and which no one knew. For as they were nearing Melos, intending to get inside the harbor where they knew the Turks were, and capture them before the Melian contingent got on board, and while they were still a couple of miles out to sea, the wind, which so far had been favorable, dropped, and the airs became so light and variable that they lay for two days like painted ships, taken back rather than making ground.
At this point, Tombazes, to whom the Spetziot captain was telling his tale, got up from his chair and waved his arms wildly.
"It was she – I know it was she! Thank God it was she," he cried. "Go on, man."
Captain Yassos looked at him a moment in surprised wonder.
"It certainly was a she," he said. "How did you know?"
"The spirit of prophecy was upon me!" cried Tombazes. "Finish your tale."
"It was our desire to take the ships, you will understand," he said, "before the Melian folk got aboard, while if we failed, they ran risk of being murdered by the Turks, for fear of their helping us. But it would seem God willed it otherwise, for He sent us no wind except as it were the breath of a man cooling his broth. A little mist, too, was rising seaward and spreading towards us, and when we who knew the sea saw that, we thought it impossible we could get ten miles in time, for the mist means a calm and windlessness."
"Oh, am I a boy who would be a sailor, that you tell me the alphabet of things?" exclaimed Tombazes.
"You will see it all makes the thing more marvellous," said the other, smiling, "so be patient with me. Well, we were cursing at the calm when suddenly, on our starboard quarter – my ship being to starboard of all the others – there came it seemed the shadow of a ship, white and huge, with all sails spread and coming towards us. Dimitri, my son, who was with me, said, 'Look, father, look!' and crossed himself, and I did the same. Now I am no left-handed man at ship sailing, but when I saw that ship moving slowly but steadily towards us while we lay like logs, I thought it no canny thing. She passed half a cable's length from us, and I saw her guns looking through the open ports, new so they seemed to me; and on her topmast, and I blessed the Virgin when I saw that, was the flag of Greece. One man stood at the tiller whose face seemed familiar to me, and by him stood a woman, tall, and like the morning, somehow, to look upon. In that still air I heard her say to him, 'A point more to starboard,' so it seemed that she was the captain, and as she passed us she waved her hand, and cried, 'Do you not wish a share in this, or am I to go alone? Come, comrades, follow, follow. I bring you the wind.'
"On her word the wind awoke, the slack ropes began to run through the blocks, and in a few seconds the sail was full. Up went our helm, and we followed. But it was like following a hare on the mountains to follow that great white ship. She swam from us as a fish swims from a man in the water, and before we had turned the cape behind which lies the harbor we heard her guns. Twice before we came up she had sailed round the largest of the three ships, pouring in broadside after broadside, the other replying clumsily and hardly touching her, and just as I, who was ahead of the rest, fired at one of the others, the ship she was battering struck its colors, and anchoring, she let down the boats, and with two boat-loads of her crew she put off to board them. Then those treacherous devils of hell under the flag of truce, you mind, again opened fire on her. But it seems she had calculated on that, and on the instant her ship blazed again, firing over their heads and raking the deck where the Turks were. This time, as I could see, they fired red-hot ball, and one, I suppose, struck the powder-magazine, for it was as if the end of the world came, and a moment after the Turk sank. The boarding party was not far from the ship, and the explosion showered boards and wreckage round them, but thereat they turned and rowed back again, their work being done for them. For me, I had my own affairs ready, and for ten minutes we blazed and banged at each other, but before it was over I looked round once, and saw already at the harbor's mouth the ship which had come out of the mist beating out to sea again. Now, father, you seem to know who that woman was; who was it?"
"Glory be to God!" said Tombazes. Then, "But, man, you are an ignorant fool. Who could it be but the Capsina of Hydra? But where has she gone? Why is she not with you?"
"I know not: she was gone before we had finished with the others."
With the combined squadron from Spetzas and Hydra had joined nine ships from Psara. There was half a day's trouble with them, for they refused at first to recognize the command of Tombazes, and said it was fitter that the three islands should cast lots, and let the choice of the admiral go with the winner. They had, they said, a most wary man of the sea among them, who had worked with the Russians and knew the use of the fire-ship. But the Spetziots had accepted Tombazes as commander of the two islands, and the Psariots were told that they might do the same or leave the squadron, and they chose the former, though ill-content.
They cruised northward, for knowing that news of the revolution had reached Constantinople and that the Sultan Mahmud was preparing to send a fleet to the refractory islands, they hoped to intercept this, and thus prevent punishment reaching their homes or fresh supplies putting into ports on the mainland. Several times they sighted Turkish ships, and thus two or three small prizes were taken. For ten days they met none but single ships, which, without exception, surrendered, often without the exchange of a shot; the crews were taken and sent back to Hydra or Spetzas, where they were prisoners; but these vessels being for the most part trading brigs of the poorer class, there was little booty to be divided among the captors.
The tenth day of the cruise saw the squadron off Cape Sunium, at the extreme south end of Attica. The day before they had run before a strong south wind, hoping to clear the promontory before night and get through the dangerous straits to the north of it by daylight. Until evening the heavens had been clear, but the night came on cloudy, starless, and calm, and fearing to pass the straits in so uncertain a light, for they were full of reefs, orders had been given to lie to and wait for day. But the currents of that shifting sea rendered it impossible to maintain position. The greater part of the squadron was caught by the racing flow of water that runs up northwest towards Peiraeus, and drifted safely but swiftly up the gulf. Of the remainder, all but two weathered Sunium and lay for shelter under Zea, where they remained till morning. But these two, finding themselves dangerously near the rocky south headland of Sunium, beat out to sea again before the breeze dropped, and by morning lay far out to the east of the others.
Day broke windless and calm, with an oily sea, big, but not broken, coming in from the south. The ships in the gulf had to wait for the land breeze to spring up: those off Zea who had passed Sunium lay to till the others joined them, but the two to the east, Hydriot ships, out of shelter of the land, had a moderate breeze from the north.
For two hours after daybreak they waited, but the others, out of reach of their wind, made no sign, and about nine o'clock they were aware of a Turkish ship coming from the north, and sailing, as they supposed, to the islands or to some Peloponnesian port. The two Greek ships were lying close together, it may be a cable's distance apart, and it was immediately clear to each that the Turk must be stopped, for the purpose of their squadron was none other than this. The admiral's ship, far away to the west, it was impossible to signal, and even if possible, ineffectual, for nought but a miracle would have brought up a land breeze at nine in the morning. So as in duty bound the two brigs, like sea swallows, put about, and hoisting the Greek flag went in pursuit of the Turk.
As they neared her it was evident that a day's work was