THE EVE OF THE GATHERING
thousand feet down, and cut against the intense blue of the sky with the keenness and edge of steel. From Panitza their path lay for five or six miles along the upward slope, and where it struck the ridge they could see the hnddled roofs of a village, which Yanni said was Kalyvia, where they delivered their first message. From there the track crossed a pass and went down the other side towards the sea, It was rough, cold going on the heights, and it would be a full day's journey to get down to Platsa, where they would sleep. After that they would travel chiefly by night, and sleep when and where they could, avoiding as far as possible all villages but those where they were charged with messages. "Oh, it will be very good," said Yanni, Mitsos' thoughts went aching back to the bay of Nauplia; but he agreed. Besides, he would go to Nauplia again soon.
It had been an immense relief to him that he was not going alone, though in that moment when Nicholas had told him that the time was come he had made his self-surrender absolute, and would have taken upon him any outrageous task which might have been imposed. But the four days of travelling alone from Nauplia had been like a sick man's dream. He had set off at daybreak, and taking the same path by which Nicholas had come the evening before, he reached in an hour the little bay where he had fished, and sat down under the clump of rushes where they had sat together, looking at the well-known places with the eyes of a dog that comes back to a deserted house which has once been home, In the sand he could see the footprints made by his own bare feet as he came up from the water, and close beside them the print of Sulcima's little pointed shoes. They had overlooked two or three small fish, which were lying still fresh and clean after the cool night, where they had
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