“Health and joy to you, palikars!” a high voice cried behind them. “I’ve got back just in time, Captain Michales!”
“What, Vendusos?” cried the captain, his eyes gleaming. “Have you really come back?”
“I’m Vendusos, and I behave like a Vendusos. Take back what you said, Captain!”
“I take back what I said. Forgive me, brother. Come here to me!”
Vendusos took a step, but a bullet hit him hi the forehead and he fell to the ground.
Captain Michales’ eyes were wet. He clasped the dead man and kissed him on the forehead. Then he turned around and again caught sight of Kosmas. He raised his fist.
“Be off!” he cried. “You’ve still got time. Clear out!” “I’m not going!” With one bound he seized Kajabes’ gun, slung his cartridges around him and tore the dagger out of the dead man’s belt.
Captain Michales looked at him hi amazement. “You’re not going?” “I’m not going.”
Suddenly Captain Michales understood. His face beamed. He took Kosmas’ head in both hands.
“Hail to you, nephew,” he cried. “So you too mean to sacrifice yourself? Immortal Crete!”
A storm was rising. The sky, which had clouded over, glowed buff red. From afar came the cawing of hungry birds.
Furogatos sprang up. He was ashamed of having been, for a moment, a coward. Death now seemed to him the great Merciful One, who washed away all dishonor. He rossed himself and drew his short knife. “Freedom or death!” he shouted, and rushed from his cover, bareheaded and unprotected, against the Turks. Five of them surrounded him; he fell upon them savagely, but they threw him to the ground. A dervish knelt on his chest and slaughtered him like a ram.
When Captain Michales saw this he gave the order: “No one to leave cover!”
But of his companions only the two gray-haired ones and Kosmas were left. Sheltered behind boulders they carefully took aim, and not one of their bullets went wide.
Captain Michales, too, aimed serenely at the forehead of each soldier who emerged. A bullet had scored his cheek, another had hit his right thigh. Blood was streaming from him, but he felt no pain. From time to time he cast a glance at his nephew, who was beside him, shooting away imperturbably. “Hail to you, nephew,” he shouted to him. “Your father has risen again. Brother Kostaros, you’ve done a good job!”
“Well met, uncle,” the other answered, drunk with joy. He was transformed. A dark, unfathomable ecstasy possessed him. He felt light and released, as if at this precise moment he had at last come home to his own country. All Prankish, intellectual ideas had vanished, together with mother, wife and son. Nothing remained except this single, ancient duty.
“Freedom or death!” he roared, as the Turks came on.
A sudden darkness fell. Snow came down in thick, noiseless flakes. Behind the cherry-red clouds the course of the sinking sun could be divined.
“A happy meeting, Captain Michales!” The old muezzin of Megalokastro, with his green turban on his head, emerged suddenly over a boulder.
“My greetings, hodza!” Captain Michales answered, and sent a bullet exactly through his Adam’s apple.
A fountain of blood spurted, and the muezzin caved in.
“Kill them off!” cried a Turkish lad with flowing golden hair. He let fly with a long whip at the backs of the soldiers. Bellowing, they rushed forward.
“Don’t flinch, nephew,” said Captain Michales to Kosmas. “There’s no hope. Long live Crete!”
“You’re right. There’s no hope. Long live Crete!”
They drew their daggers and rushed forward. The snow was already beginning to veil the outstretched dead. Every red fez grew white. Two vultures swooped down and circled the men busily killing one another.
In the tumult of the hand-to-hand fighting, uncle and nephew were parted. Captain Michales saw from a distance that the Turks had surrounded Kosmas. He broke through the chain of soldiers with which he himself was surrounded, and rushed forward to free him.
“I’m coming, nephew,” he called out.
But it was too late.
“He’s coming himself, Captain Michales,” one of the native Turks screamed mockingly, and threw Kosmas’ head at his face.
Captain Michales raised the severed head by the hair like a banner. A wild light haloed his face, which was filled with an inhuman joy. Was it pride, godlike defiance, or contempt of death? Or limitless love for Crete? Captain Michales roared:
“Freedom or …”
… and did not finish. A bullet went through his mouth. Another pierced his temples. His brains spattered the stones.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS was born in Crete in 1885 and died in Germany in 1957. He studied at the University of Athens, where he received his Doctor of Law degree, later in Paris under the philosopher Henri Bergson, and completed his studies in literature and art during four other years spent in Germany and Italy.Before the last world war, he spent a great deal of his time on the island of Aegina, where he devoted himself to his philosophical and literary work. For a short while in 1945 he was Minister oj Education in Greece. His works are numerous and variedin the fields of philosophy, travel, the drama and fiction. Perhaps the most outstanding, apart from his magnificently conceived novels, is his long epic poem on the fortunes of Odysseus, which begins where Homer’s Odyssey ends.
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