CHAPTER VIII

SMOKE BY DAY AND FIRE BY NIGHT

The peaceful village was transformed into a scene of tumult. An invisible thundercloud seemed hovering in the clear sky. The frightened children and the timid women, running about the streets, reminded Curtis of the sudden motherward flurry of chickens, at the shadow of the swooping hawk. He was left alone in the deserted inn. He dragged a bench to the open door and sat down. Those rapid preparations for defense were going on which suggest themselves instinctively to people bred and reared in a land of strife. A group of sturdy mountaineers soon collected on the square, wearing well-filled cartridge belts and carrying Gras rifles. The throng grew, and every new arrival was greeted affectionately by his first name, "Bravo, Kyr' Yanne!" or "Bravo, Kyr' George!" The demarch formed the nucleus of the group, the red marks under his eyes blushing like new cut slashes.

A rapid jingling of bells, and the sound as of animals running, were heard, and a sentinel goat appeared on the edge of a distant rock. He cast an agitated glance back over his wethers, and slid down, his four hoofs together, his back humped into a semicircle, his bucolic beard thrust outward. Others appeared and slid over, as though borne on the crest of a torrent. Then two tall shepherds were sketched for an instant on a background of mountains and sky, swinging their crooked staves. But they, too, were caught by the invisible torrent and swept into the town. Boys were dispatched into the surrounding hills, and within an hour the streets were filled with bleating flocks. The group of armed men grew to fifty. Lindbohm and Michali had both been provided with guns. The Swede had been induced to discard the straw hat as too conspicuous a mark, and to bind a dark handkerchief about his head. Curtis felt himself one of them, and yet knew that he was not.

"If I had a gun, I might get up there among the rocks and do something," he muttered. "I can shoot just as well if I am lame, if I could only get into position. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? This isn't my fight. I'm a non-combatant, I am."

The priest came down, leading Panayota by the hand and carrying a cross. The girl was white, even to the lips, but there was a proud smile on her face and her eyes were shining. She wore a short Cretan knife in her belt. Papa-Maleko held aloft the cross and solemnly blessed the waiting warriors, after which he presented the sacred symbol to the lips of each in turn. Lindbohm strode over to Panayota and pulling the handkerchief from his head, bowed low, with his hand upon his heart.

"Before they get you," he said, "they must yust take us all."

Curtis shouted "That's right!" but was not aware of the fact until the little army turned and looked at him inquiringly.

"I'll make a fool of myself here yet," he said, sinking back on the bench.

Michali translated Lindbohm's speech and a great shout of "Bravo! bravo!" went up.

Lindbohm was in his element.

"There was," he understood, "no way for the enemy to get in from the land side except through the pass. They might approach with difficulty from the seashore, but there was only one place where they could land. Men were watching that, and a smoke by day or a fire by night would warn the villagers. Very good. Fifty men might defend this pass against two hundred and fifty, but they must lose no men and must make every shot count. How much ammunition had they?"

"Not much. Only their belts full, and possibly as much again, curses on the English!"

"Very well. We must use it the more carefully. We must not get excited. Kostakes Effendi cannot possibly reach the ravine before nightfall--can he get through without a guide?"

"No," replied the demarch, "impossible."

Panayota spoke. She said only two words, and she said them quietly, though distinctly, but they fell like a thunderclap.

"Peter Ampates!"

This was the name of the cowardly shepherd whom Lindbohm had driven from the town.

"Is there any way to build fires so as to light up narrow places in the ravine?"

There were two or three such places where bonfires could be located that would make the pass as light as day. People standing behind the rocks in positions of comparative safety could easily feed the flames by tossing wood into them.

"Send out the boys and girls then to prepare these fires and to pile up brushwood enough behind the rocks to keep them burning all night," commanded the Swede. "Build one fire at the mouth of the pass--" but here he was interrupted by a chorus of protest. "Let the Turks get into the pass and then we will kill them," cried his listeners.

"Very well, but see that they don't get through."

Papa-Maleko had a suggestion to make. The Sphakiotes often got the Turks into narrow defiles and rolled stones down upon their heads. There were half a dozen precipitous places in the gorge where this could be effectively done.

"Capital idea," assented Lindbohm. "Let some more women go to those places and pile up heaps of the biggest stones they can carry." Lindbohm suggested that the men, who now numbered sixty, should take their places near the mouth of the defile. In a few brief words he also laid the foundation of an effective commissariat. The mayor's brother, too old a man to fight, was instructed to superintend the sending of food twice a day, in case the siege should be protracted, and above all, water, which could not be found up among the rocks. Women and boys were to act as carriers.

A messenger was sent to Korakes, an insurgent chief, who, with three hundred men, had established his headquarters near the village of Alikiano.

"We might be able to hold out for a week," said Lindbohm to Curtis, "and Korakes will surely come to our aid. At any rate, we must yust take our chances."