CHAPTER VII
THE RULE OF THE SENATE
From this conversation among the three sprang into being thePeloponnesian Senate, than which no more futile apparatus has ever beendevised to guide the affairs of a nation. From the first harmony wasimpossible between the two parties, and the only result it achievedworth mentioning was that it diverted the time and energies of themilitary leaders from the work to which every muscle should have beenstrained--the fall of Tripoli. So far from reconciling the divisionsamong the soldiers, it merely encouraged partisanship, for it was knownthat the senate could not agree on any point worth the deliberation.Petrobey was more than once tempted to resign his seat, but to do thatwas only to throw the wavering balance of power firmly into the handsof the primates, while between Nicholas and Germanos there ripened,as bitter as a Dead-Sea apple, an enmity only to be reconciled at adeath-bed, for Germanos, so Nicholas considered, and did not scrupleto say, had deceived both him and his colleague. He had professed thehighest, most altruistic aims; what guided his conduct was the mostselfish and personal policy. This, it is to be feared, was partly true,though not entirely, for Germanos had been sincere when he opened tothe two his scheme for the glory of the church; but finding supremacy,like the fruit of Tantalus, still dangling beyond, but seemingly onlyjust beyond, his reach, and stung intolerably at his failure, thepersonal motive crept in, and before long usurped the place of theother.
Nicholas had hoped great things from the arrival of the prince;but they, too, were doomed to be disappointed. He was given anenthusiastic welcome by the army, the majority of whom were sickenedwith this atmosphere of intrigue, and Petrobey instantly took hisplace as his subordinate; but the prince gave him to understand thatit was his wish that the conduct of the siege should continue inthe same hands. Germanos, too, welcomed him cordially, with a duerecognition of his position, for he hoped to win him over to the sideof the church. For the time it seemed that some solution of theirdifficulties was imminent, and in the hands of a stronger man, nodoubt, such universally recognized authority would have found a meansof reconciliation.
But Prince Demetrius was terribly unfitted for the responsibility.His principles were honorable, but by nature he was weak andundecided. He inclined first to one party, then to another, with nodiplomatic yielding, which will give an inch to gain a yard, butwith the pitiful futility of one who has no knowledge of men, nohabit of command, and no certainty of himself. To the soldiers thisweakness manifested itself openly, and unhappily not erroneously,in his personal appearance. He was under middle height; his manner,always stiff and awkward, was sometimes insolent, sometimes timid--anunfortunate demeanor, for he was neither the one nor the other, butonly excessively self-conscious and shy. His face was thin and pinched,and his hair, although he was only thirty-two, was already gray andscanty, giving him a look of premature old age. Being short-sighted,he blinked and peered, as Mitsos said, like a noonday owl, and hisvoice was querulous and high-pitched. Yet he was of an upright mind,indifferent to danger, and free from the besetting sin of his race,avarice. All these outward defects corresponded but too well with theinadequacy of his nature; a strong man with not so honorable a heart ashe had might easily have filled his post better, and the uprightness ofhis character, at a crisis where uprightness was the quality wanted,could not make itself felt, but which to the army and the council wasbut the bubbling that came from a man half drowned, when what waswanted was a firm voice and a loud and no drowning cry. Moreover, hewas morbidly sensitive about his own dignity and position, and therewas something comically tragical to see that puny frame with bentshoulders presiding over a company of strong men, and hear that littlescreechy voice prating of "My wish" and "My command." On one side ofhim sat Germanos, courtier-like and full of deference, plying himwith his titles, as the nurse gives suck to a baby, while the prince,drinking like a child, would be well pleased, and pipe, "What you sayis very true. It is my wish that the church should be fully recognized.Yes, quite so, my dear archbishop; but I think our friend, the gallantcommander of this army, of which I, as the commander-in-chief, as theviceroy by the wish of the Hetairia--yes, exactly--has something to sayon the subject."
Then Petrobey would lay before the prince the urgent need of doing onething before all others. Tripoli must be taken; surely the claims ofthe two parties could be settled afterwards. That was the work mostimportant to them. For three weeks now since the beginning of June hadthey waited at Trikorpha, and the provisions of the array were alreadybeginning to be exhausted. The herds were being thinned, the lowerpasture was drying up in the summer heat. Must not steps be taken hereat once? And Prince Demetrius would answer something in this manner:
"What you say is very true, my dear Petrobey, and I quite agree withyou that there is no time to be lost. Would you not form a committeeand deliberate what is to be done, and then submit your results to meto receive my sanction? You spoke, I remember, about the formation ofsome cavalry corps; a very wise plan I thought it, and I meant to havesome talk with you about it. But really the days have slipped by so.Yes, we must, indeed, be up and doing, and my orderly has just informedme, gentlemen, that dinner is ready; and I shall be pleased to see you,my dear archbishop, and you, commander, at my table. Dinner will beserved immediately, and our deliberations, gentlemen, in which I thinkwe may say we have made some solid progress, will be adjourned tillto-morrow at the usual hour."
Nicholas saw that there was no help here, and he set himself tothwart Germanos with all his power. He considered that the presenceof the primates in the camp rendered the army powerless, for it waseaten up with intrigue, slander, and incessant accusation, provokingcounter-accusation. At the meetings of the senate he opposed Germanoson every point, whether or no his suggestions were honorable orexpedient, and allying himself with any one who would join him inupholding the army against the church, ranged himself side by sidewith crooked and unscrupulous men like Poniropoulos and Anagnostes,mere brigands and adventurers, who, without any motive but their owngreed, had got together a band of peasants, and were in command of amere disorderly rabble; men who in his soberer moments he knew wereas detestable as, in his furious anger against Germanos, he thoughtthe primate to be. Every day the meetings of the senate grew moreand more disorderly, and gradually Prince Demetrius saw that he wasno more than a cypher in the eyes of these men. Of personal ambitionNicholas had none; honestly and with his whole heart he cared fornothing but the success of the revolution and the extermination of theTurk, and he used his great power and influence for the defeat of theintriguing primates, being convinced that till the question betweenthe two parties was settled nothing could be done. At any rate, he wasfree from all stings of conscience; his conduct might be unwise, buthe acted from impeccable motives, and there was enough truth in hisallegations against Germanos to give them a sting that was wellnighunforgivable.
It was already more than half-way through June, and still the armyremained inactive. Petrobey had so far succeeded in rousing the princeas to permit him to make arrangements for regular supplies being sentto the camp; but there was still no talk of an assault on Tripoli, orindeed any preparations for ensuring its success. The senate had metas usual that morning, and the meeting had degenerated into a fiercebrawl between Anagnostes and Nicholas on the one side, and Germanosand Charalambes on the other. It was in vain that the prince tried torestore order; they listened to him no more than to a buzzing fly, whenat length Germanos, bitten to the quick by some intolerable taunt ofNicholas's, rose from the table, saying he would take no further partin the deliberations of the senate.
"There must be an end," he said, "to this. How long ago is it,Nicholas, since you swore allegiance to me?"
"Allegiance in all things in your jurisdiction," replied Nicholas, "andto the glory of God, not to the glory of Germanos."
The heat of his anger did not excuse the words, and the momentafterwards every better feeling within him would have had them unsaid,but Anagnostes, sitting at his elbow, applauded vehemently.
"Silence, you there," said Germanos, in a white anger. "You will hearmy voice no more here; but let me tell you, you are not rid of me. Wewill see what the people say to such treatment as that I have beensubjected to."
"Go to the people," shouted Nicholas; "see how the Mainats receive you!"
"The Mainats?" said Germanos; "the Mainats, whom I hold a degree onlyabove the Turks?"
"My dear archbishop--my dear archbishop," piped the prince.
"But there are true and loyal men in Greece besides those hounds,"continued Germanos, not even hearing the prince speak.
"Archbishop," said the prince again, with a certain dignity, "I commandyou, I order you, to be silent."
Germanos turned round on him, still mad with rage.
"You order, you command?" he said, with infinite scorn, and broke intoa sudden, unnatural laugh.
Prince Demetrius flushed, and on all the senate fell a dead hush. Foronce the man showed the dignity of birth and breeding, and standing up,he faced the angry prelate. His nervous, weak manner had left him; herose to the occasion.
"You will please to take your seat, archbishop," he said. "I have a fewwords to say."
Germanos looked round and saw on all sides eager, attentive faces bent,not on him, but on the prince. His anger still burned like fire withinhim, and he paused not to consider.
"I prefer to leave the room," he said. "I take no further part in theseproceedings."
"You choose to disregard my request," said the prince, and with thathis voice rose sudden and screaming and fierce; "I will thereforeorder--Sit down!" he cried.
Germanos's anger went out as suddenly as lightning at night is followedby darkness, and he realized what he had done. The prince's favorhe had forfeited hopelessly, and though the prince was nothing, hehad forgotten in the man's insignificance the power he represented.Henceforth he would have to fight without the expectancy of help fromthere; and feeling his schemes already threatening to totter and fallabout his head, in sheer blank bewilderment he sat down.
The prince stood silent a moment and then spoke.
"I feel," he said, "that all the good I hoped to do, and all theefforts I wished to make for the great cause, are not to be fulfilled.With the exception of the commander of this army, the senate generallyhave chosen to disregard my presence here. From Petrobey, however,I have always had courtesy and respect. The party of the church, inparticular, has chosen to adopt an insolent demeanor towards me, thelike of which I accept from no man. You have seen, gentlemen, theexample their head has given them. I regret the decision which Ihave long thought was possible, but which has been forced upon me.Gentlemen, I leave the camp to-day. The meeting is adjourned."
Then turning to Petrobey, and bowing to the rest:
"Come with me," he said; "we will leave this assembly together," andtaking his arm, he left the room.
Half an hour later he quitted the camp with a small guard, leaving therest of his retinue to follow as quickly as they could get ready. Butthe news of his departure and the reason for it spread like wildfirethrough Trikorpha, and the men, who still regarded him, partly becauseof the marked favor he showed to Petrobey, partly from the prestige ofthe revolutionary Hetairia which he represented, as their champion,were wildly indignant with the primates. A riot nearly ensued, and hadnot Petrobey and other commanders, notably Nicholas himself, had themguarded in a place of safety, it is not improbable that some wouldhave been murdered. Germanos, however, who, whatever his faults were,was perfectly fearless, refused all protection, and when one of theMainats passing near him, spit at him, the archbishop dealt the mana blow which knocked him off his feet, and passed on without hurryor discomposure, though he was in the middle of the clan. But theMainats, who were without a particle of reverence for him, but had adeep respect for personal pluck, appreciated the act fully and madeno attempt to stop him, though a minute before it was very doubtfulwhether he would have reached his quarters alive.
All day the feeling in the camp against the primates rose higher andhigher, for, from the soldiers' point of view, the prince was theirprotector not only against them, but their own commanders, who, as theprimates had told them, rousing suspicion if not belief in their minds,were employed in making private arrangements with the Turks, promisingthem their lives in exchange for their property. No one, it is true,had breathed a suspicion about either Petrobey or Nicholas, for theystood beyond any shadow of scandal, and for the time the ugly thoughtsthe primates had suggested were cast aside in the fierce indignationexcited by the immediate cause of the withdrawal of the prince, forwhich the primates alone were to be thanked. A knot of angry menassembled outside the building where primates and muskets were stored,demanding that they should be given up to be dealt with as theydeserved; and, indeed, such a fate was not unmerited, and it would havesaved a world of trouble to Petrobey. For they were responsible for allthis doubt and division; they were traitors in the camp, and in time ofwar a traitor is worse than a regiment of foes. Next day there was noabatement of popular feeling, and in the afternoon the whole body ofcommanders and captains went to Petrobey, after exacting a promise fromtheir men of quietude in their absence, asking that the prince might bepetitioned to return, for his absence could but end in one thing, thedeath of all the primates, either with the authority of the commanders,or, in default of that, by mutiny.
Petrobey readily consented to go in person, for things were at anabsolute _impasse_, and without the prince's co-operation and presencehe was really afraid that the worst might happen, and in the name ofthe entire army, and with the earnest appeals of the primates, hewaited upon him at Leondari, a revolted town not far from Megalopolis.The prince at first hesitated, or seemed to hesitate, but privatelyhe was very much gratified at what seemed so universal a mark ofconfidence; for on thinking his action over, it had appeared to himthat he must cut but a sorry figure if he returned to the Hetairia,saying that the army disregarded his authority and met his commandswith insolence, while if he came back, his withdrawal assumed theaspect of a most successful piece of diplomacy. Accordingly, at the endof the week he returned amid the welcoming acclamations of the army,and was pleased to accept--having insisted on the same--the apology ofGermanos, which was bitter herbs to that proud man, but to Nicholas assweet as honey in the mouth.
Throughout July, but waning with the moon, continued the reign of thatincompetent, but honest man, Prince Demetrius. His indecision amountedto a disease of the mind; he seemed morally incapable of acting, or,through his pretentious viceregal claims, of letting others act forhim; a creature afflicted with acute paralysis of will. Inside Tripolithere was still no famine of food or water, and though Achmet Bey sawthat escape was impossible, for the weakness of the troops inside wouldhave rendered an attempt to cut through the occupations on the hillsquite hopeless, yet he was in no mind to surrender when no attemptswere made to induce him to do so. There were provisions in the campwhich would last three months more, for the harvest had been got inbefore the occupation of Valtetzi; the ravages of the Greeks haddestroyed only the villages and the winter crops, and Mehemet Salikremarked one morning that one seemed safer in Tripoli than anywhereelse.
And the hot month throbbed by, while to the Greeks every day's closesaw another day lost.