Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/144

 The girl laughed gently—the echo, as it were, of a laugh.

"Oh, out, out to sea," she said; "right away from this horrible place. Where shall I sit?"

Mitsos took the pillow out of the net and put it for her at the stern of the boat.

"See," he said. "I remembered that you said the net smelled fishy, and I have brought you my pillow to sit on. There—is there a more comfortable seat in all Greece?"

She sat down, and the boy busied himself with the boat for a few minutes. He had to row ont a dozen strokes or so until they got from under the lee of the wall, and the wind, catching the sail, slowly bulged it out taut; the boat dipped and bowed a moment and then began to move quickly forward towards the mouth of the bay. He stood a few seconds irresolute until Suleima spoke.

"Well, have you finished?" she asked,

"Yes, We shall run straight before the wind as far as you like."

She pointed with her hand to the seat beside her.

"Come and sit by me," she said.

There was silence between them for several minutes—she with a smile hiding in the depths of her dark eyes; he, serious and tongue-tied. The air was full of the freshness of the night and of the sea, but across that there came to him some faint odor from her—a warm smell of a live thing, too delicate to describe. Then she drew from her pocket a small box und opened it.

"See what I have brought you," she said—"Rahat-la-koom. How do you call it in Greece? Sweets, anyhow. Do you like sweets?"

She took a lump of the sticky, fragrant stuff out of the