The schoolmaster slept well, close to the chest with his bridegroom’s outfit. Pelaja came into his dreams and he had no wish to wake up. But the grandfather did not close his eyes. He watched at the window impatiently for dawn to come. The black cock crowed, then the white, and the bright day had arrived.
The old man sprang up and gave Tityros a kick. “Wake up,” he called out, “the clothes are lying on the chest. May they bring you happiness! And bring that Frankish suit into the yard. I’m going to light a fire.”
He had always disliked the Franks. Now, after his grandson’s letter, they made him furious. He went downstairs. The women were not up yet. He lighted the fire. Then he went to wake Thrasaki, who slept in one of the big vats that was like a cradle. He shook him awake.
“Get up, Thrasaki! Come into the yard with me. We are going to burn Judas!”
The schoolmaster appeared, a Cretan from head to foot. He placed his old breeches, waistcoat, jacket, hat and shoes together in a pile in the middle of the yard. They poured petroleum over them, so that the devil might receive them that much sooner. The grandfather handed a piece of burning wood to his grandson and said:
“Come, my child, send ‘em to the devil! The Franks have burned us, now we’re burning them. Fire for fire! Wind for wind!”
Thrasaki grasped the burning wood and threw it onto the oil-soaked clothes. They flared up at once, lighting the three faces. The grandfather’s soles tickled him, and he wanted to dance. When the fire had done its work, he took a handful of ashes, opened the outer door, stood in the middle of the street, raised his hand and strewed the ashes in the air.
“You Franks,” he cried with passionate scorn, “may the eyes of my children or of my children’s ‘ hildren live to see the day when your houses and factories and kings’ palaces burn and dwindle into the air as ashes. As you have burned us, you Franks, may you too burn!”
Toward noon Mitros of Rumelia, sweating from the climb, arrived at the headquarters of Captain Michales. On the highest of the mountain plateaus about a hundred palikars were quartered in a dozen stone huts. Far below them stretched a plain ringed by mountains, on which the villages showed like white flocks. Two of them were burning, and in the stillness the smoke hung above them like some friendly, protecting cloud.
Captain Michales was standing high up on his lookout post, holding a pair of field glasses. These were a present from a Frank, a philhellene who had climbed up to the mountain camp a month before and had not had the heart to leave it.
“Where should I go?” he had said to Captain Michales. “Why should I go down to the towns again? I like it here. Nowhere have I eaten more delicious bread, nowhere ave I drunk more immortal water, nowhere have I seen men more like the Greeks of old! I shan’t call you Captain Michales, but Captain Achilles. My name’s Erikos.” He wore a domed hat, which resembled an ancient helmet. His pockets were full of paper and pencils. He carried on conversations with the Cretans in his modern Greek gibberish and eagerly and continuously made notes.
The Cretans laughed. “He’s cracked,” one said.
“He writes for the papers,” was another’s opinion.
“Hey, countryman, what do you think you’re doing in Crete without a weapon?” they asked him. “Where’s your gun?”
“Here!” he replied, pointing to his pencil. ; He had a fair, pointed beard, and his cheeks were rosy. Two of his front teeth were gold. On his head a thick tuft of hair stood on end, and when the Cretans heard that his name was Erikos the tuft made them twist it into “Kukurikos.”
One day when Captain Michales’ palikars gave battle to a band of Turkish soldiers on the plain below, he had accompanied them, yelling, “Forward, Captain Achilles!” He himself had no weapon. He stood up all the time and took notes furiously. A wild Cretan who was very fond of Kukurikos ran up to him bringing him as a present a Turk’s head, which he carried by the hair, while the blood dripped from it. When Kukurikos saw the head, he gave a cry and fell down in a faint.
The Cretans laughed. “What a cotton-wool bottom the man is!” they said, and flung a jugful of water over him to bring him to himself.
When Captain Michales came on the scene, he shouted at them, “Do you think all men are Cretans? Stop acting like fools!” He turned to Furogatos. “Help the poor fellow make the climb back.”
From that day Kukurikos had lain in a fever. He was pale and could not bring himself to eat meat. He had bad dreams. Life with the ancient Greeks no longer seemed rosy, and he decided to go. One gray, rainy morning he took leave of Captain Michales.
“The ancient Greeks are wonderful, Captain Achilles, but it’s difficult to live their life. I’m a professorthat’s to say, a schoolmastera good man but made of paper. You’re made of flesh and blood. I can’t stand up to you. Good-by, and take this to remember me by!”
He took from his neck the cord with the field glasses, and hung it around the neck of Captain Michales. “You’re a captain, so you must see further than your palikars.”
And now Captain Michales held these field glasses to his eyes and examined the plain. Behind the clouds of smoke over the burning villages he thought he could see the movement of red fezzes. Fresh troops had come from Megalokastro and were forming to attack the heights. “The dogs are short of nothing,” he muttered. “Our position’s weak, and there are only a few of us. And Captain Polyxigis keeps us waiting. I must send him another message.”
As he lowered the field glasses and was about to ask whether Vendusos was back from the coast, he beheld in front of him Mitros in his fustanella.
“Greetings, Captain. I’m from Captain Stefanes’ ship,” Mitros said, holding out the letter.
“Welcome, countryman,” said Captain Michales, shaking hands with him. “Go and join the other palikars, while I read the letter.”
Hastily he tore open the envelope. Inside he found an opened letter and a small piece of paper. On this he recognized his son’s handwriting, and his somber face lighted up for a moment. “I, ThrasaM, send you greetings, and here is a message from Granddad: ‘Read the letter, and do as God enlightens you. There is no hope for us, and this time too we are threshing empty straw. So take counsel with your heart and weigh your decision.’ “
He frowned, and drew his upper lip back so that his teeth were bared. “God forbid,” he growled, “I should; ake counsel with my heart. The world would be blown sky-high.”
He unfolded his nephew’s letter. Syllable by syllable he read on, moving from word to word as though he were climbing up a mountain. From time to time he paused and groaned; then he continued to read. When he reached the end, he tore the letter into a thousand pieces and put a match to it. “I alone must know this, nobody else,” he said, stamping on the ashes.
… No hope then! The motherland weak, the Franks treacherous, the Cretans too few. … No, in spite of everything, I’m not stirring from my post. I’m not giving up my eyrie! God cannot desert me and order, “Give it up!” I’m not giving it up!
He grasped the field glasses again and looked down. Still more red dots showed on the plain, and from the ravines more and more troops were emerging. The pasha had sworn to thrust Captain Michales’ band from the eagle’s nest where it had dug in its claws, into the abyss. Exhausted, wounded Crete was gradually returning to peace: only isolated shots were now heard, and only isolated blockheads still held their refuges above the precipices and refused obedience. The Sultan was angry. He sent the pasha a shipload of chains and ordered him to capture the rebel Cretans and send them in chains to Constantinople. If not, he might come in person and tackle them himself.
This command made the pasha’s blood race. He felt that his head was no longer firm on his shouders, and decided to give up his agreeable life in Megalokastro and lead his soldiers against Captain Michales. The Metropolitan heard, and sent a secret message to the captain: “Escape! Take ship and escape! The pasha has sworn your downfall.”
But Captain Michales stiffened in his defiance. I’m no
t escaping, he thought. There’s heavy guilt weighing on my neck. There’s a monastery burning day and night in my heart. I must pay for my guilt. Even if all the others leave, I’m staying here on the cliffs, and I’d rather pour il over my clothes and hair, to burn as you did, Christ the Lord!
He swept the plain with his field glasses. On the slopes more Christian villages were beginning to burn.
“Captain Polyxigis is late,” he said again, examining one mountain path after another. “He’ll come, all the same. He’s given his word. This is war, and in war I trust him.”
Since the terrible moment when he had plunged his knife into the Circassian woman’s heart, Captain Michales had felt the old friendship returning. He now thought of Captain Polyxigis without hostilityindeed, with compassion. The villages had echoed with the funeral, and Polyxigis’ friends had had to prevent him from killing himself. He now went everywhere dressed from head to foot in black. Wherever there was fighting, he flung himself on the Turks blindly, seeHng death. He was convinced that the Turks had killed Emine to prevent her baptism, and he had sworn to build a tower of Turkish corpses upon her grave.
With joy Captain Michales heard voices and the hoofbeats of mules. He bounded from rock to rock down to the plateau, and reached it just as Vendusos and his ten booty-laden palikars arrived. Everyone fell on the mules and unloaded them. Fires were lighted. For days the men haoV lived on dry bread, and they were longing for a hot meal. They stowed the supplies away safely in their chiefs stone hut.
“Thank our Mother,” cried Vendusos, firing a pistol shot into the air, “thank our beggar Mother, who’s hungry herself and sends us food!”
“Vendusos,” shouted the captain, “don’t waste your bullets. Come here. I want you to do something.”
The lyre player went over to him and listened intently to what he said. Then he balanced on tiptoe, ready to run off.
“D’you understand, Vendusos? It’s very urgent! And take care they don’t kill you on the way there! On the way back it doesn’t matter so much.”
“I shan’t give you that pleasure,” said Vendusos with a laugh. “Not even on the way back. By the Virgin with the bunch of grapes, I’ve still got a lot of casks to drink dry. And drink them dry I will.”
He started off toward the valley. Furogatos caught hold of him by the breeches as he came by.
“Brother Vendusos, did you see my friend Bertodulos? What’s the poor chap doing? Do you know, I think more about him than about my wife? Extraordinary, isn’t it?”
“He’s all right. Hasn’t any worries. I saw him at old Sefakas’. He stays with the women and will soon be wearing a skirt.”
“What’s become of our drinking parties in Captain Michales’ cellar, Vendusos? Did I only dream them?”
But Vendusos had already hurried on.
Bent over the slate, old Sefakas held the chalk as loosely as he could, so as not to break it, and anxiously wrote the letters, one after the other. In the last few days he had felt a strange weakness, as if his strength were leaving him and flowing back to the earth. He had grown pale, he could not sleep, and his knees trembled.
I must hurry if I want to learn in time, he thought. And now he used all his strength to force the reluctant hand to move. In spite of the difficulties he formed fine, clear capitals.
“I don’t need the small letters,” he told his master Thrasaki, who wanted to push him on to fresh efforts. “My work can be done with the capitals.”
Grandfather and grandson sat on the threshold.
“Today, Thrasaki,” said the old man, “you’re not going to scold me. I’ve got my lesson at my fingers’ ends. Look here!”
With pride he displayed the slate full of capitals.
“The whole alphabet,” boasted the grandfather, “from Alpha to Omega.”
“Bravo, Granddad! You get high marks today! How did you manage to learn it all so suddenly?”
“I haven’t much time now, Thrasaki, so I took myself in hand. And now the time has come. Listen, and I’ll tell you my secret. Do you think I wanted to learn to read at my age? Why should I? With my hundred years, I know everything and I know nothing.”
“What did you want then, Granddad?”
“I simply wanted to learn to write one thing, Thrasaki, before I die.”
“What?”
“A Cretan saying. Put your hand on my hand and guide it. Only three words.” And now he whispered, “Freedom or death.”
“Oh,” cried Thrasaki, “that’s it! Now I understand.” “You don’t understand yet, my Thrasaki. Don’t be in too much of a hurry for that… . Now guide my chalk.” With both hands the’child grasped the grandfather’s hard, callused hand and guided it slowly and patiently, until on the slate in large letters there stood the words: FREEDOM OR DEATH
CHAPTER 11
ICY WINDS WERE BLOWING from the snow-covered peaks. Crete froze. On the slope of Selena, below Captain Michales’ camp, there was a large cave, filled to overflowing with women and children. It was here that the Christian women had taken refuge in all the risings, to escape the knives of the Turks. In the 1821 rising the Turkish soldiers had flung burning branches into the cave and suffocated those who were crowded inside. Their bones still glimmered in the damp and frosty air of the cave; and now, once more, women and children tretched themselves out on these same old bones, shiv-f firing with hunger and cold and in danger of being [ killed by the Turks, to leave their bones too to whiten ‘here. By day they would go out to gather a handful of grasses, and roots and acorns; they lived on these like cattle. To give themselves courage they kept glancing up at the cliffs where Captain Michales was entrenched. As long as he held out, they were not afraid.
Yet already Turkish soldiers had climbed up the slope and were nearing the narrow ravine which led to the cave. Alerted by the shrieks of the women, Captain Michales came down from his eyrie. In the bitter battle that followed, some of the women had the courage to rush to the help of the men with knives and clubs. The rest knelt wailing in the cave and cried out to God.
The Christians were outnumbered and starving, while more and more Turkish soldiers came up from the plain, driven on by the raging pasha. He had sworn to send the head of Captain Michales, embalmed and wrapped in a turban, to Constantinople as a present to the Sultan.
Toward afternoon the Christians began to waver. The Turks gave a howl of delight that drowned the wailing of the women.
But God intervened. To the rear of the Turk& appeared Captain Polyxigis with his men, to spread confusion among the red-hats. Some were already fleeing to the plain. Together the two leaders hunted the enemy on their mares. In the heat of the slaughter neither noticed that he was wounded. In the evening they went back to their citadel and had their wounds bandaged. They felt their hunger more violently than their wounds. The palikars opened the newly received treasure: bread, olives, onions, cheeses.
In the stone hut over which Captain Michales’ banner waved, the two captains sat side by side on the floor, feasting. Through the holes in the rude walls a cutting wind whistled its way in. Snow was whirling outside. Thodores entered with an armful of brushwood. He lighted a fire for the two wounded and freezing men.
Then he went out again, to leave them alone. From the few words of their conversation that his ear had caught, he felt certain they wanted no one else present.
“Blessings on you, Captain Polyxigis,” said Captain Michales. “God sent you. The dogs already had us by the throat.”
As he spoke he gazed at his comrade with pity and affection. Captain Polyxigis, dressed in black and with a black cloth wound round his head, appeared suddenly aged and pale. He ate but his thoughts were elsewhere.
“Your health, Captain Polyxigis,” said Captain Michales, raising the bottle to his mouth.
“Yours, Captain Michales. Mine’s gone___”
Captain Michales’ heart contracted. Not for the sake of the woman he had killed. She had had to be killed, so as not to divide the two men. Sin
ce the night of the murder his heart had been lightened. He was no longer ashamed when he was alone. His spirit had shaken free of the Circassian, and he fought for Crete single-mindedly. He was sorry only for the good palikar, who was pining away for the loss of a woman.
“Captain Polyxigis,” he began, “I have something to say to you. Forgive me, but it is shameful to be thinking of a woman white Crete swims in blood. I tell you, on my honor, if a woman stood in the way of my fulfilling my duty, I would kill her with my own hand.”
“Captain Michales, you’re a wild beast. I’m a man,” answered Captain Polyxigis, and threw away the piece of bread he had been holding in his hand. He felt as if his throat were in a noose. He turned to look at his friend. He felt ice-cold.
The two huddled over the fire, gazing silently into the flames. Thodores came in again, added some brushwood and tiptoed out.
The voice of Captain Michales broke the silence, choking, hollow, as though from a long distance. “Do you know who killed her?”
He was overcome by the desire to stake all on one throw: heads or tails.Captain Polyxigis stared at him. He had not the strength to answer. He waited. “Do you know who?” the voice asked again. “Doyowknow?” “Yes.”
Captain Polyxigis seized Captain Michales by the arm. “Who?”
“Not so fast. Don’t go wild! You can’t hurt a hair on his head! He is beyond death.” “Who?”
“Wait, I tell you. First I must reveal to you a secreta bitter one. Listen quietly. And when you’ve heard it, you’ll be ashamed, I swear, and not think of women any more, or of their murderers, or of yourself either.”
“Who?” the other asked again, with burning eyes.
“I’ve received a letterwhich I’ve torn up and burnedfrom my nephew Kosmas. Captain Polyxigis, our labor is once more in vain, our blood will have been shed senselessly. This time too Crete will not see freedom. Greece is weak, the Franks have no honor, the Sultan has the power.”
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