"We can hold the place, I think, but we are short of food." And Yanni answered: "Oh, fat cousin, we bring much food. Where shall we make the attempt?" "From the back, between where you are standing and me. It is steep, but quite possible for those not old and fat. It is where you see no Turkish tents. Who is in command?" "Hypsilantes." "I am laughing," waved Mitsos, "for I see his big sword tripping him up. Go very silently. If the alarm is given, and the Turks attack you, we will help from above. Good-bye, Yanni; it is dinner-time, and the littlest dinner you ever saw." Yanni put on his shirt again, and, seeing that Kolocotrones' outpost was not more than two hundred feet above him, though concealed from where he stood by a spur of rock, he bethought himself to go up there and get a drink of wine before he began his downward journey--for his throat was as dust and ashes--and also give notice of the intended relief. He found that Kolocotrones was there himself, and was taken to him. That brave and avaricious man was short of stature, but of very strong make, and gnarled and knotted like an oak trunk; his face was burned to a shrivelled being by the sun, and he wore his fine brass helmet. Unlike Petrobey, who was scrupulously fastidious in the matter of clothes, cleanliness, and food, he cared not at all for the things of the body, and was holding a mutton-bone in the manner of a flute to his mouth, gnawing pieces off it, when Yanni entered. The old chief remembered him at Tripoli, and though he was on the most distant terms with the clan, who regarded him with embarrassing frankness as a successful brigand, he nodded kindly to the boy. "Eat and drink," he said; "talk will come afterwards," and he would have torn him a shred of meat off the flute. "Surely I will drink," said Yanni, seating himself, "for indeed it is thirsty work to stand in the sun. No, nothing to eat, thank you." Kolocotrones poured him out wine into rather a dirty glass and when the boy had drank, "What is forward?" he asked. "Are you of Maina come?" "A thousand of us. To-night we are sending a relief force to those in the citadel. I have been signalling to Mitsos with my shirt from the hill-side." Now when money was not in the question, Kolocotrones was the most enthusiastic of patriots. There was certainly nothing to be got from the citadel, and he dropped his mutton flute and struck the table a great blow with his hand.