Now at that time Kolocotrones was absent from Nauplia with a large band of his irregular troops, and in his absence, since nothing whatever had previously occurred during the siege which demanded strength in the hand or thought in the head, Hypsilantes had always been given a supremacy of courtesy, in virtue of his original mission from the Hetairia, and that this business should have occurred while Kolocotrones was away--though without doubt if, when the latter came back, he found fault with what Hypsilantes had done he would revoke his acts--was honey to the prince, who still clutched at the show of power. So calling together the other chiefs and members of the national assembly, he intimated to them what had happened, in beautiful language, and Mitsos was forthwith sent with a flag of truce in his hand to conduct Selim to Hypsilantes. Selim was a brisk, lively little person, who conducted conversation, you would say, more by a series of birdlike, intelligible chirrupings than by human talk, and, more abstemious in his ordinary life than his countrymen, he had suffered less from the sparing rations they had been on for the last fortnight. The gate was opened as soon as Mitsos approached it, and Selim came trotting out, as pleased with his flag of truce as a child with a new toy, and twittered away to Mitsos, as they went back to Hypsilantes' quarters, with the utmost vivacity in rather imperfect Greek. "And it's pleasant indeed," he said, "just to take a walk down these streets again, even if his highness and I can come to no terms and I am sent back like a hen into that infernal cage, though indeed it's little fattening we get there. And how old may you be, and how long have you been a rebel to his majesty?" He looked up sharp and quick in Mitsos's face like a canary, and the lad smiled at him. "Ever since the beginning of the war," said he; "and, indeed, you may have seen a fine blaze my cousin and I made not so far from here?" "What, the ship that was burned going out of the harbor?" asked Selim. "You did that, Mishallah? If we meet again, not under the flag of truce, there will be high blows." And, as Mitsos laughed outright, "Do not be so merry," he said. "I could reach up as far as that big chest of yours and send the sword home." "And what should I be doing the while?" asked Mitsos, "whistling a tune and looking the other way?" The little man frowned. "Maybe you would have had a poke at me, too. No, I'm not denying it."