Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/201



a space they went on in silence; if was as much as Yanni could do to grip his horse, for he still felt nauseous and giddy reelings in his head, and Mitsos trotted behind, with an incessant stick for the mules to make them keep up the pace. They were of the sedater sort, that hitherto had strolled through life, and they did not take kindly to a higher rate of going. But at the end of some half an hour Yanni reined in.

"Let's go slow a bit," he said, "for we are out of the range of risks. We are in our own country again; no one saw us go to the mill except my cousin Christos, and they might pull his tongue out before he spoke. Besides, there is nothing to say. The mill blew up. The matter is finished."

Mitsos assented, and threw himself down on the ground panting and blown, for the pace had been stiff. However, a few minutes' rest and a drink from the wooden wine-flask set his blood to a slower time, and he opened his mouth, and, to Yanni's intense astonishment, began to swear. He was in a white-hot rage, and he cursed Krinos in the name of every saint in heaven and every devil in hell, and labelled him with each several vile and muddy epithet he knew, and of these the Greek tongue boasts an inimitable profusion.

Yanni was still looking on in surprise when Mitsos'