The hours went on through the suffocating calm of mid-day, when no breeze stirs the still and stifling air, and the Greek camp at Lerna, lying against the mountain-side, was a bakehouse of heat. In the low, marshy ground below, among the vineyards and melon-patches which stretched down to the bay, they could see companies of Turkish soldiers, guarded by their cavalry, picking the grape-leaves as fodder for their horses, while the men gathered the only half-ripe fruit for themselves. Once a band of some fifty approached to within five hundred yards of the outworks which had been thrown up round the mills where the Greeks lay, and the Mainats on guard snarled and grumbled like caged lions who long to smite and crack the heads of those who look through their prison-bars. But the cavalry were too close to risk an attack, which must have ended in trampled flight and knifing, and they could only store up their hate for future use. On the other hand, the Greeks were equally secure, for the broken ground near the camp, intersected by channels and banks for irrigation, and further defended by the steep water-eaten banks of the torrent-bed of the Erastinus, now summer-dry, rendered the approach of the Turkish cavalry impossible, and a combined attack of Dramali's infantry would have been necessary to drive them out of their secure position. Such an attack Dramali could not afford to make: the object of his expedition was the relief of Nauplia, and until that was effected he dared not risk defeat. Several small skirmishes had indeed taken place, but Petrobey, pursuing his policy of keeping his men out of the reach of cavalry, had always forbade them to follow retreating Turks into open ground. Furthermore, the two Greek vessels moored not far off covered the open space which was near the bay across which the Turks must advance, and, in case of any massed attack, were ready to open fire on them. Meantime Petrobey, though burning to be at work, found a certain shrewd comfort in watching the Turks eating the unripe melons. "They are cool for the mouth," he said, "but burning fire in the bowels." And, indeed, before many days a sort of dysentery broke out among the Turkish troops, which added to the difficulties and hazards in which, as Dramali was soon to find, he had placed his army.