By the evening the ships were ready, and in perfect order the famine-stricken procession left the town. Five hundred men embarked on the _Cambrian_, the rest on the Greek ships. The quay was thronged with sailors from the Greek fleet, and with soldiers only waiting for the departure of the Turks. There they stood, eager yet patient, until the last boatload left the land; then, with a rush, they poured up into the citadel. Kolocotrones and the others reaped the well-earned fruit of their avarice. The booty was large; the inefficiency of the chiefs supreme. Poniropoulos, maddened with the thought that he would get nothing, fought and scrambled with the rest. Kolocotrones, a little more dignified, sat in his tent empty-handed. And at last Nauplia was in the hands of the Greeks. CHAPTER XVIII Suleima and the Capsina were sitting in the veranda of the white house a few days after this, and the adorable one was pulling Michael's tail with gurglings of glee and apparent impunity. From inside came Mitsos's voice, singing. "So do not think thus," said Suleima, "for indeed I would have him go. What should I think of a man who loafed his days in a house with womenfolk? Such a man I should never have cared for, nor you either, so I believe." She laughed. "It was that I cared about first in Mitsos," she went on, "at the time I have told you of. I was pent in the perfumed house. It seemed better to live as he lived, half in the sea and all in the air; the sea-gull, Zuleika and I used to call him. So take him again. Indeed, I doubt if he would stop even if I bade it, and I do not bid it. But bring him back to me safe, Capsina; bring him yourself." The girl sat silent, and Suleima, with a woman's tact, rose and spoke of other things. "It is a day taken from summer," she said, "and yet in a week it will be Noël. By the New Year, or soon after, you will be back. Oh, littlest one, Michael will surely open his mouth at you and take you down at one gulp like a fig, if you are so bold with him. How would you like to have a great man, as strong as you, pull your tail?" She picked the baby up and brought it to the Capsina. "Was ever such a fighter seen?" she said. "He fights all the creatures of God. First he fought the frogs, and then the hens and chickens, then the cat; now it is Michael. Soon he will be fighting the boys, and come home with a blacker eye than he has already, and after that, pray God, he will fight the Turks. If there are any left to fight, oh, pray God, he will be a good fighter against the Turks." "He will surely find none in Greece," said the Capsina. "Oh, the day is not far when not one will be left. You will see it yourself, and if I am not with you on that day, Suleima, think of me and account me happy." Suleima looked at her out of the depths of her great eyes.