For six days the two went on travelling in a northerly direction, sometimes keeping close to the coast, sometimes visiting strange, gaunt little villages perched high on the flanks of Taygetus. They travelled for the most part at night, trying if possible to come by daybreak within a mile or two of the village whither they were bound. They would then turn off into some wood, or, if they were close to the coast, down onto the beach, and, after tethering and feeding their mules, would breakfast and sleep till about mid-day, when they entered the village, delivered their message, and passed on. Sometimes it would be received eagerly and with shining eyes, and the news would spread at once that the time for which they were waiting had come. Sometimes, if there were Turks about, it would be taken and answered with guardedness and caution, and once the man to whom they had been sent shook his head and said he knew nought of the matter. This was beyond doubt an occasion when running away was necessary, and little time was lost in running. They reached Kalamata on the seventh day--little did Mitsos think how or when he would see it again--and after spending two nights there (for they had been instructed not only to give messages to three leading Greeks, but also to inquire of the strength of the Turkish garrison, and see to the truth of the report which had reached Petrobey that the fortifications there, as well as at Tripoli, were being repaired), took a boat down the coast to the port of Tsimova, whence their road lay southward through Maina, and then eastward back to Panitza, and it was in this district that red-handed adventure met them. They had now been twelve days from home, and Yanni remarked discontentedly that there were only four more to come. He had never spent more enchanting days than these in the company of Mitsos, with whom in a healthy, boyish manner he had fallen completely in love. Mitsos never lost his temper, and maintained an immense, great serenity under the most disquieting conditions; as, for instance, when they lost one of the mules during their morning's sleep the day before, when they were up on the spurs of Taygetus, and had to hunt it high and low in a blinding snow blizzard, and came back to find that the other mule had made use of his solitude in rolling himself in some thorn bushes while they were away, converting their blankets into one prickly fricassee. The splendid cousin had gazed at them ruefully a moment, and "I would I were a tortoise" was his only comment. Mitsos had fully responded to the frankness of his cousin's adoration, and had confided to him his interrupted love-story, which raised him in Yanni's eyes to hero rank. Besides, he was big and strong and entirely magnificent.