Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/221

 talk with Germanos through the mouth of Mitsos. A further news for you. The monks of Ithome have turned warmly to their country, so there will be no lack of hands in the south, and they from Megaspelaion had better keep to their own country, and outbreak at the same time as we at Kalamata, so shall then be the more magnificent confusion, and from the north as well as the south will the dogs run into Tripoli. Some signal will be needed, so that on the day that we rise in the south they too may make trouble in the north; some device of fiery beacons, I should say."

Here Petrobey's epistolary styie broke down and he finished in good colloquial Greek:

Nicholas thumped the letter as it lay on the table.

"Now, Mitsos," he said, "tell me all that you have to do. Yes, take a pipe and give yourself a few minutes to think."

Mitsos smoked in silence a few minutes, and then turned to Nicholas.

"This is it," he said. "First of all, I go to Patras—no, first I shall go to Megaspelaion to tell the monks that they will be wanted in the north and not the south, and arrange some signals, so that we from Taygetus or Panitza or Kalamata can communicate with them. Then I go to Patras, bearing some message from you to Germanos, whereby he shall excuse himself from going to Tripoli with all the primates, for that is a trap to get them