So the Turkish fire ceased, and as it was proved to satiety that the smaller guns of the island fort were no more than a summer rain to the fortification of the town, Hastings ceased his fire too, and with Hane made a detailed examination of the fort, with a view to strengthening the walls, and enabling them to stand the concussion from the heavier guns. With a little pulling down, a little patching, and a rubble buttress or two, it seemed easily possible to strengthen one bastion which held two of the 68-pounders, so that they might fire without the risk of bringing down the walls on their own heads. But that afternoon a message arrived from the captain, Poniropoulos: their firing had ceased, the guns produced no impression on the fortifications. The Greeks were infinitely obliged to them, but they must not hope to share in the plunder from Nauplia, nor would rations be any longer supplied to them. For the present it was not the intention of the commanders to continue this gun practice. Dramali's army had gone; the fleet had not come; they would sit down and wait the inevitable end. Hastings chucked this note into the sea. "There is no answer," he said to the boatman who had brought it. He turned to Hane. "It is no use waiting here if we are not to use the guns," he said. "They say we need not expect plunder from Nauplia. Do they think we are all like the old man in the brass helmet?" CHAPTER XIV Mitsos returned home after the destruction of Dramali's army, arriving there the day after the Capsina had left. Suleima met him at the gate. "Oh, welcome, Mitsos!" she cried, in a hurry. "And I, too, have seen her. She has been here." "I seem of little account," said Mitsos; "but who may 'she' be?" "When you talk of 'she,' do I not know whom you mean? You are less wise than I. And she saved my life and that of the littlest." "The Capsina?" cried Mitsos. "Yes, slow one." And Suleima told him how she had fled to Tiryns, and how the Capsina had concealed her and the little one till the Turks had been routed; only she did not tell that which it was not for Mitsos to know. "So come in now, Mitsos, and you shall eat and wash--and indeed you are as dusty as a hen--and in the evening you shall go to Nauplia, and thank her, if so be you are pleased at what she did." Suleima went to the bedroom and laid out for him a clean fustanella and shirt, the one on which the Capsina had used her unaccustomed needle, and went out smiling to herself. In a little while came Mitsos's voice, calling her, and back she went very grave. He held out a ragged sleeve, with stitches loose and large. "I have a fine housewife," said he, very sarcastically. Suleima examined the shirt. "Indeed, it was torn much," she said; "but it does not seem to me badly mended." Mitsos shrugged his shoulders hugely. "It is as I have always said," he remarked; "a woman cannot even mend a shirt." "Who mends your things when you are cruising, Mitsos?" she asked.