Nicholas found opportunity to tell Petrobey about Mitsos' love affairs, but a few days afterwards news came to the camp that a landing of the Turks from their western squadron was expected on the Gulf of Corinth, near Vostitza, and the prince, with some acuteness, found in this rumor sufficient reason to make his presence there desirable. Petrobey, wishing to have a speedy and reliable messenger who could communicate with the camp in the event taking place, sent Mitsos off with him, and before the end of the third week in September the prince took his departure in some haste, hoping to regain in fresh fields the loss of prestige he had suffered here and at Monemvasia. The news, if confirmed, was serious, for it meant that the Turkish squadron had evaded the Greek fleet and threatened the Morea from the north, while, if once a landing was effected, the Turks would, without doubt, march straight to the relief of Tripoli just when its need was sorest. The prince left the camp with much state and dignity, but with nothing else, and Mitsos, to whom he had given a place on his staff as aide-de-camp extraordinary to the Viceroy of Greece, with the rank of lieutenant in the Hellenic army, pranced gayly along on a fine-stepping horse, and for the first time fully sympathized with Nicholas's resignation. They travelled by short marches, "like women," as Mitsos described it afterwards, and one night the aide-de-camp extraordinary, having occasion to bring a message to his master, woke him out of his sleep, and saw the commander-in-chief in a night-cap, which left a deep, bilious impression on his barbarian mind wholly out of proportion to so innocuous a discovery. For a time, at least, in Tripoli there was no more intriguing between the besiegers and the besieged, for Petrobey redoubled his vigilance, and every night sent down a corps of trustworthy men to lie in wait round the town. Meantime he knew a strong band of cavalry and a large force of Albanian mercenaries were within the town, and in the citadel was enough artillery to be formidable; so that while there was a chance of capitulation, provided the rumor of the expected landing of troops on the Gulf of Corinth continued unconfirmed, he was unwilling to make an assault on the town. But it began to be known that the fall of Tripoli was inevitable, and from all over the country the peasants flocked together on the hills waiting for the end and a share in the booty. It was in vain that Petrobey tried to drive them back; as soon as he had cleared one range of hills they swarmed upon another like sparrows in the vines, springing as it seemed from the ground, or as vultures grow in the air before a battle. Some came armed with guns, requesting to be enrolled in the various corps; others with sickles or reaping-hooks, or just with a knife or a stick. Every evening on the hills round shone out the fires of this unorganized rabble, gathering thicker and thicker as the days went on.