Krinos was standing at the door, and even as Yanni looked, a head wearing a red soldier's fez popped out and back again, and he crept back with suppressed excitement in his eyes.
"They are both there," he said; "two of them and two of us. Oh, Mitsos, this is very good! You see, we must go to deliver our message, otherwise we should be doing better to run away now; but there is the message to deliver, and that is the first order. This is what I will do: Tie up your mule here, and get behind that bush. Then I will walk down to the mill with my mule, and I expect when Krinos sees me he will go back into the mill and wait; if he does, run down ever so quickly and quietly--there are no windows this side--and hide behind the corner of the house. Then will I come and knock at the door, and I expect that when I give the message Krinos will let me in, and if you hear me shout, in with you. There will be no running away."
"It won't go," said Mitsos; "there will be two of them. They may kill you before I can get in."
"O best and biggest of fools!" whispered Yanni, excitedly; "this is no time for talk. They will not want to kill me, for what would that profit them? They will wish to take me to the Turks--and be damned to all Turks!"
Mitsos crept to his post behind the bush, after tethering his mule well out of sight, and Yanni went unconcernedly down the hill-side. As he had expected, as soon as Krinos saw him he strolled back into the mill and shut the door. Yanni waited a moment, and beckoned to Mitsos, who strode noiselessly down and stood behind the corner of the wall, while Yanni came slowly on, reached the mill, and tapped at the door. A voice from inside answered him.
"It matters not," said Yanni. "Are you grinding corn?"
"Corn for the hungry, or corn for the Turk?"
The door was thrown open and Yanni entered. The moment after it was flung to again, and a half-muffled shout came from inside. Mitsos sprang out and threw himself against the door, and went reeling in.
Yanni was struggling in the grasp of two men, the Greek and the Turk, and Mitsos, without losing a moment, flung himself onto Krinos, who was nearest him, and dragged him off with a throttling grip. Krinos dropped his hold on Yanni and turned round to grapple with his new assailant, whom, to his dismay, he saw towering half a head above him. At that moment all Mitsos' cheerfulness and good spirits were transformed into a white anger at the treachery of the man, and, tightening his hold, he wrestled for his life. His extra four inches were counterbalanced by Krinos's extra ten years of hardened bone and knitted muscle, and for the first few seconds they toppled wildly about, and either might have won the fall. But then Mitsos' height began to tell; he heard, with a fierce joy, the cracking of some bone in its joint, and knew it came not from him.