The Capsina: An Historical NovelBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
History
The Capsina: An Historical Novel
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Greece -- History -- War of Independence, 1821-1829 -- Fiction
The longer this traffic went on the better were both sides pleased. For
the Turks, every day brought the arrival of relief forces nearer, and
every day the captains reaped a golden harvest. There would be time,
so thought Kolocotrones, to see about getting the ships when the new
army drew nearer, and in any case the treaty of capitulation held, for
the Turks, when the ships were ready, were bound to deliver over the
fortress, their arms, and two-thirds of their movable property. And
again the captains licked their lips.
Meantime the end of Rhamazan had come, and Kanaris, who with the
Capsina had joined the Greek fleet in the eastern sea, had paid the
Turks a visit which should cause them always to remember Rhamazan,
1822. The Greek fleet under the Admiral Miaulis had encountered the
enemy off Chios, and the latter had retreated to the Gulf of Smyrna.
There they had engaged the Greek in a desultory and ineffectual
cannonade for a day or two, the Greeks not venturing in under the guns
of the fort which protected the fleet, and the Turks not caring to sail
out and give battle in earnest. Eventually the Greeks retreated to
Psara, and the Turks again anchored off Chios, some six miles from the
entrance to the Gulf of Smyrna.
All the last day of Rhamazan gala preparations went forward on board
the ships for the solemn celebration of Bairam, and before night fell
watchers were stationed on the main-tops of all the fleet to look for
the first appearance of the new moon, which was the beginning of the
feast. As the sun went down lines of bright-colored lanterns designed
with their light the rigging of all the ships, the more conspicuous
and the most bedecked being the eighty-gun ship of the captain, Pasha
Kara Ali, who entertained for the feast the chief officers of the
fleet. The deck was a house of Syrian tents and awnings, and troops
of dancing-girls were in waiting to amuse the guests. As a salute to
the end of the Rhamazan, ten minutes before sunset all the guns of the
fleet volleyed again and again, till the air was thick with the smoke
of the firing. Then, as the last echo died away, for a space there was
silence, while all waited for the word. Suddenly, from the mast-heads,
it was cried, "The moon, the moon of Bairam!" and the jubilant cry,
wailing and mournful to western ears, was taken up by every throat.
On board the flag-ship of Kara Ali all waited, standing at their
places at the tables till the word was cried, and at that they reclined
themselves, and the feast began.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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