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
He awoke before dawn next morning to a haunting sense of horror and
excitement, to which by degrees awakening memory gave form, and only
throwing on his coat, went up. A thick white mist hung over the bay
higher than where he stood on the deck, but it seemed to be not
very thick, and strangely luminous. So he climbed up the rigging of
the mainmast as far as the cross-trees and looked out. The sky was
cloudless--a house of stars--in the west the moon was pale and large.
They were not more than a mile from a rocky headland, which peered out
darkly into the white mist farther down; perhaps a mile away another
pointed a black finger into the water, and between the two the line of
coast was lost, and Mitsos rightly supposed that they were opposite
some bay. Then suddenly, with a catch of his heart, his eye fell on
a couple of masts which rose pricking the mist scarcely half a mile
distant, and looking more closely he saw the masts of two other ships,
one to the right, the other to the left, a little farther off. And with
fierce excitement he climbed down and went to the Capsina's cabin. In
a moment, so quickly that she could not have been asleep or undressed,
she came out to him with a finger on her lip.
"Hush!" she whispered, "the baby is asleep. What is it, Mitsos?"
"Three ships are lying not far from us," he said. "I make no doubt they
are the Turks. You can see their masts from the cross-trees; on deck
there is white mist."
"Where are they?"
"Between us and land, which is a mile off, on the entrance of a bay."
"Is there wind?"
"Not a breath; but when day wakes the wind will wake with it, and the
mist will lift. The sun will be up, I should think, in an hour. There
is the smell of morning already in the air."
The Capsina paused a moment, thinking intently, and went out on deck.
"Praise be to the God of vengeance!" she said. "Oh, Mitsos, pray that
our revenge may be complete. See, this is what we will do. As soon as
the wind comes we sail round them into the bay, Kanaris attacks them on
this side. Send across to Kanaris at once. Saints in heaven, but how
are we to find him in the mist? Go aloft again, lad; see if you can spy
his masts: he cannot be far, for when we lay to last night he was close
by us, and look out to see if there is a sign of wind coming."
Mitsos returned speedily. "He is not a quarter of a mile from us to
seaward," he said, "and it is already lighter, and I see where we are:
the farther cape is just this side Galaxidi. And oh, Capsina, there
is a great black cloud coming up from the west; the wind may be here
before the sun."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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