THE VINTAGE
Mitsos think how or when he would see it again—and after spending two nights there (for they had been instructed not only to give messages to three leading Greeks, but also to inquire of the strength of the Turkish garrison, and see to the truth of the report which had reached Petrobey that the fortifications there, as well as at Tripoli, were being repaired), took a boat down the coast to the port of Tsimova, whence their road lay southward through Maina, and then castward back to Panitza, and it was in this district that red-handed adventure met them.
They had now been twelve days from home, and Yanni remarked discontentedly that there were only four more to come. He had never spent more enchanting days than these in the company of Mitsos, with whom in a healthy, boyish manner he had fallen completely in love. Mitsos never lost his temper, and maintained an immense, great serenity under the most disquieting conditions; as, for instanee, when they lost one of the mules during their morning's sleep the day before, when they were up on the spurs of Taygetus, and had to hunt it high and low in a blinding snow blizzard, and came back to find that the other mule had made use of his solitude in rolling himself in some thorn bushes while they were away, conyerting their blankets into one prickly fricassee. The splendid consin had gazed at them ruefully a moment, and "I would I were a tortoise" was his only comment.
Mitsos had fully responded to the frankness of his cousin's adoration, and had confided to him his interrupted love-story, which raised him in Yanni's eyes to hero rank. Besides, he was big and strong and entirely magnificent.
Mitsos had just awakened Yanni on this particular morning, reminding him that it was after mid-day and
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