Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/157

 It was a night for the great lovers of romance to be abroad in; the air was of a wonderful briskness, making the pulse go quick, yet gentle and soft; the moon had set behind the hills to the west, and they sat close together beneath the wonderful twilight of stars, in a little sheltered nook beneath a great clump of fall, singing rushes. On the ground, in front, lay the resin flare, already burning low; but as Mitsos would fish no more that night he did not replenish it. Lower and lower it burned, but now and then it would shoot up with a sudden leap of flame, revealing each to the other, and Suleima would smile at Mitsos; but before she could see his month smile in answer, the flame would die down again into a flickering spot on the glowing, bubbling ash. But in the darkness she knew he smiled back at her; a whispered word would pass from one to the other, and the last flicker of flame showed a lover to the sight of each. Then drawing closer in the darkness, as if by some law which was moving each equally, their lips met again in the kiss that seemed to have never ceased between them. And the wind sang gently in the rushes, while before them spread the broad waters of the bay, just curdied over by the breeze; above, the austere stars burned down on them; behind, rose the empty-wooded hills, where once the soft armies of Dionysus reyelled in love and wine, rising into the peaks above Tripoli.

The wind dropped for a moment, the rushes were silent, and in the lull Mitsos heard a mule bell behind them no great way off. He sat up and peered across the vine-grown strip of plain which lay between them and the mountain, but the skeins of night mist hung opaque aud pearly gray above it.

In a few minutes, however, the sound got sensibly