"Hark!" said Curtis, who was sitting in the door of the parsonage. "What's that?"
"I didn't hear anything," replied Michali.
"I did. I believe it was a gun. It was a faint throb in the air. There it goes again. There they go!"
No mistake was possible this time.
"They're coming through," said Michali, rising upon his elbow. "The Turks will be here pretty quick, now, I think."
"Hello," cried Curtis, "there comes the demarch. There he goes into that house. Now he comes out—there he goes into another—what's up, I wonder? Here he comes!"
Kyr' Nikolaki looked in at the door. His face was flabby with fatigue and his under lids had drooped perceptibly, enlarging the red pits beneath his eyes into semicircles.
"What is it? what is it?" asked Curtis, who had not clearly understood the few hurried words addressed by the demarch to Michali.
"They're nearly out of cartridges. They can't hold the pass over an hour longer. They're going to send the flocks and the women and children down to the sea. The village owns a lot of caiques there. Then the men will retreat last, fighting, shooting all the time."
"But what are you quarreling about?"
"O, nothing. Nothing at all."
It did not take the Ambellakians long to pack up. The most treasured belongings were thrown into blankets, which were rolled into bundles, and then, away for the ravine and the sea!
A mother dashed by the house with a babe under her left arm and a bundle over her right shoulder. Another dragged two frightened children along the stony street, clutching tight a tiny wrist with each hand. An aged couple doddered by, the man with feeble and palsied hand striving to support the woman, who clung to a frame containing two bridal wreaths. From amid the faded orange blossoms smiled the youthful eyes of a shy mountain girl and a stoutpallikari—man's work lasts so much better than man himself.
The confusion grew to frenzy. A parrot-like chatter and screaming of women filled the air. A florid housewife stumbled and wheezed down the street, carrying a pair of long-handled coffee stew pans. She did not know what they were, but had seized them through force of habit. Another bore a cheap chromo, representing skin-clad hunters thrusting spears into a number of colossal polar bears. She fell and jabbed her knee through the picture, but picked up the frame and ran on with that. Scrips, or bags of pied and brightly-colored wool, of which two or more are to be found in every Cretan peasant's house, were hanging from the arms and shoulders of many of the fugitives.
At a burst of firing, seemingly more distinct and nearer than anything that had preceded it, an old woman stopped, and fumblingly extracted a silver mountedeikonfrom her scrip. After kissing it and making the sign of the cross several times, she replaced it, and hurried on again. A babe was laughing and clutching with glee at the disheveled locks of its fleeing mother. A girl of six hugged to imminent suffocation a shapeless and wrinkled pup.
The demarch came in again, accompanied by Lindbohm and a stalwart mountaineer. The Swede had a gun in his left hand. In the grime of his powder-blackened face his eyes looked unnaturally blue. But they were no longer childlike. It was rather the blue of an angry sea.
"Panayota's taken," he said to Curtis.
"I know it."
"There's nothing to be done now except to rally the men and rescue her." The Swede did not talk like a man in despair. He seemed, on the contrary, exalted by a great resolve.
"We will get together and fall upon Kostakes like a thunderbolt. We'll not let him go far. And if he harms a hair of her head—" He doubled his ponderous fist and shook it. Then he whirled about briskly and gazed at Michali.
"We'll take you somehow," he said. "We'll be as careful as we can. They'll kill you if you stay here."
"I not go," replied Michali. "I have said it to the demarch. Take two strong men to carry me. They better be fighting. Leave a gun with me. When they find me I will kill two, three Turks. Ha! By God, I surprise them! So I die!"
"Come, no more of this foolishness," said Lindbohm. "I take him on my back, and the shepherd here take you," turning to Curtis.
But Curtis had been thinking very fast, and the bright image of his beautiful and high-spirited hostess in the hands of the Turks had sharpened his wits to an extraordinary degree.
"Look here, Lindbohm," he said, speaking very rapidly, "I'll stay here and look out for Panayota. They won't kill me, I'm a non-combatant, and the Turks won't be so apt to abuse the girl when there's a foreigner amongst them. Help me to the wine cave. I'll hide there till the right moment and then I'll give myself up."
Lindbohm saluted.
"I would not have asked it," he said, "but it is the brave thing to do. Ah, tell the officer you're a newspaper correspondent. That's the safest thing."
The firing had ceased entirely for several minutes. Now rapid footsteps were heard. Looking toward the door Curtis saw a Cretan shepherd fling by. He was running low to the ground, carrying his gun horizontally, like a man hunting—or being hunted. Another and another passed.
"We have five minutes now," said Lindbohm, holding out his arms to Michali. "They have given up the pass. Come! Must I take you, or will you come on my back?"
"I come," replied Michali, "to the wine cave."
Lindbohm kneeled by the divan and Michali put his arms about his neck. The Swede arose, wrenching from the Cretan's throat a groan that ended in a low, sharp shriek.
Lindbohm strode from the door, followed by the demarch and the shepherd, the last mentioned carrying Curtis.
Five or six shots, followed by a persistent fusillade, were heard.
"Now I think they come through," muttered Lindbohm, breaking into a run. Michali was breathing in tremulous, faint groans between set teeth. Then, mercifully, he fainted, and remained unconscious until the Swede, panting with exertion, bounded through the arbor into the dim café.
The demarch ran to his wine barrels, and, pulling an empty one around parallel with the wall, smashed in its end with the butt of a musket, using the weapon as though it were a battering ram. Michali was shoved into the barrel as tenderly as possible and the broken pieces were laid in beside him. Then they pushed the tun back into place, with the open end against the wall.
"And you?" said Lindbohm, turning to Curtis, who was sitting upon the table where the shepherd had dropped him.
"Save yourselves!" cried the American, pointing to the door. A shepherd, standing behind the platane tree, was aiming at something above him. He fired, and jerking the empty shell from his smoking piece, reloaded. Three Cretans darted to the rear of the café, trailing blue ropes of smoke from the muzzles of their guns. The man behind the tree started after them, but stopped at a crash of musketry and dropped his gun with a "ching" among the rocks. His legs broke at the knees as though some one had playfully jabbed them from behind. As he instinctively threw forward his arms to save himself from falling, his elbows collapsed and his hands fell flopping at the wrist, like penguin's wings. He was dead before his body reached the ground.
Lindbohm snatched his musket from the table and ran from the café, followed by the demarch and the shepherd. Curtis slipped into a corner, behind the huge oil crock. The sound of the firing continued, but no one came into the café. Ten minutes, twenty minutes passed. They seemed hours to the American. Occasionally he heard a sput, sput against the outside of the soft wall. Once a "ftha," like the hissing of a cat, was followed by a humming sound, as a bullet, slightly flattened by the sand, sang in through the open door.
It did not occur to him that these things were dangerous.
"I must see what they are doing," he said. "It's a good fight! It's a good fight!"
He slid around the smooth, cool crock and leaned out from his hiding place. He could see nothing but a strip of the open door and a huge vine, sturdy as the trunk of a tree. He jumped back just in time to save himself. The café was poured full of Turks, bringing Panayota and her father. An officer, young, slender and very handsome, dropped into a chair and laid his unsheathed sword before him on the table. The soldiers fell respectfully back, leaving the girl and the priest standing facing the officer. Ampates slunk in the background with Panayota's Cretan knife in his hand. It was he who had led the way to the women, by a round-about path.
A long conversation ensued, in which Kostakes spoke with insinuating sweetness, smiling continually and occasionally twirling the ends of his small, dark mustache. His intentions with reference to Panayota were honorable, he said. The priest began his reply in a pleading tone but ended with a fiery denunciation. Once or twice a soldier stepped threateningly towards him, but Kostakes waved the would-be murderer back with a slight gesture or an almost imperceptible movement of the head. Panayota was magnificent. She seemed at no moment to have any doubt of herself. She stood erect, pale, calm, contemptuous, until near the end of the interview when, with an incredibly quick movement, she snatched the sword from the table, and, turning the hilt towards her father, threw back her head and closed her eyes. The officer with a loud cry sprang to his feet, tipping over the table, and a soldier knocked the weapon harmlessly into the air. All the Turks in the room leaped upon Papa-Maleko, who fought like a cornered cat, wounding one, two, three of his assailants. The Turks did not dare shoot, for fear of killing their officer or the girl. Curtis came from his hiding place, crying hoarsely in English:
"Panayota! For God's sake! For God's sake! Panayota!" and then "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! You'll kill Panayota!"
But it was no part of Kostakes' plan to kill Panayota's father in her presence. A Turk, cooler than the rest, reaching over the heads of his comrades, dropped the butt of a rifle on the man's skull and he sank to the ground. Panayota fell on her knees beside him, fumbling in his hair and sobbing, "Papa! papa!"
The heart has a little vocabulary of its own, which it has spoken from the beginning of the world, the same for all peoples, unchanged in the confusion of tongues. Curtis was not noticed in the tumult until he had forced his way into the officer's very presence, where he stood, shaking his fist and shouting, still in his own tongue:
"This is a shame! Do you hear me? You're a scurvy blackguard to treat a girl in that way. If I had you alone about five minutes I'd show you what I think of you!"
Two or three soldiers sprang forward, and a petty officer half drew his sword, but Kostakes, astonished at hearing a language which he did not understand, but which he surmised to be either German or English, motioned them back.
"Qui êtes vous, Monsieur, et que faites vous ici?" he asked in the French which he had learned at the high school at Canea.
"Je suis Américan, correspondant du—du—New York Age," replied Curtis.
"Ah, charmé! charmé! Comment dites vous en Anglais?Welcome.Je suis Kostakes, Capitaine de Cavalerie, à votre service!"
Curtis did not find it easy to express his feelings in French to this smiling officer with the straight, large nose, dazzling white teeth and cordial manner, who wore an inverted red flower pot for a hat. French is no language for a self-respecting man to swear in, any way. Besides, one does not, in Ollendorf, learn a vocabulary suitable to critical occasions. All Curtis could think of was "lâche," "sacré bleu" and "caramba." The first did not seem appropriate, the second lost its force by translating itself in his mind into English and he was not certain whether the last was French, Spanish or Italian, so he asked:
"Is this lady a prisoner of war?" And Kostakes answered:
"Monsieur is as gallant as he is brave. I give you my word of honor that neither the lady nor her father shall come to any harm. Is that sufficient?"
It had to be, so Curtis, being anything but a fool, replied:
"A gentleman's word of honor is always sufficient."
"And now," continued Kostakes, "being a non-combatant, you are at perfect liberty to follow your own wishes. Will you remain here or go with us? We shall be charmed, I assure you, charmed to have your society."
"How long will you stay here?"
"About an hour. Just long enough to collect any spoils of war and burn the town."
"Burn the town?"
"Certainly, this is war, and war, even for a nation as highly civilized as Turkey, consists in doing your enemy as much harm as possible."
Curtis glanced uneasily at the row of barrels in the cave. Here was a new dilemma. Should he give up the brave Cretan and appeal to Kostakes' manliness and chivalry? He looked at the Turk shrewdly. Somehow he did not have confidence in him.
Besides, Michali could understand French. If he were conscious, he could call out and give himself up, if he thought it were safe.
"I would stay here," thought Curtis, "and ask him to leave me the café as a shelter. But there's Panayota, I mustn't desert her."
The firing had ceased and the looting had begun. Turks darted by the door in the abandoned glee of destruction, or passed more slowly, dragging bedticks, doors, pieces of furniture and other inflammable articles, which they were casting upon a great bonfire in the square. A wave of ribald laughter, that started somewhere in the distance and ran nearer and louder, splashed into the open door. A soldier danced in with aneikonof the Holy Virgin, and held it up for the guard to spit upon. Then he tossed it into the fire. The priest, who was sitting on the floor, supported by the kneeling Panayota, covered his eyes with his hands and shuddered with horror. The trellis for the demarch's grape arbor came down with a crash and was wrenched loose from the grip of the despairing vines. The benches whereon the gossip shepherds had sat and sipped their coffee, bore company in the fire with the only rocking chair in the village, in which a very old lady used to sway to and fro and sing lullabies of her forgotten childhood. A soldier seized one of the tables within the café and tossed it through the open door. Then he dragged out a long bench, that scraped and spluttered on the floor of hard beaten earth. Two others braced themselves between the wall and the oil crock. An inspiration flashed through Curtis' mind.
"Stop! stop!" he shouted. "It is full of oil—the lady on the floor."
"Mais, certainement," cried Kostakes, and he sent the soldiers from the room.
"The same argument will apply to the wine barrels," reflected Curtis. "They would have been at them in a minute more."
"Does Monsieur elect to stay with us, or with the Greeks?" asked the Captain. "We must leave here immediately, before the Greeks return with reinforcement and seize the ravine."
"If I might be permitted to go with you? But I am lame; I have hurt my foot."
"I regret greatly to hear it. Not seriously, I hope?"
"No, I stepped on a—a—thorn," he did not know the French word for sea urchin.
"I will give a horse—my own, if necessary. I shall be charmed, charmed. And now, perhaps you will excuse me one moment while I marshal the force? Perhaps, also, you will look at the priest's head. I regret that our surgeon was killed in the attack."
Rising, he said a few words in Greek to Panayota, bending deferentially with his hand on his heart. His tones were musical and earnest and Curtis understood him almost perfectly. He spoke high Greek very distinctly. He expressed regret for Papa-Maleko's hurt, and assured the girl of his undying love.
"You are the cause of all this ruin, fair creature," he murmured earnestly. "My love for you brought me here. Have no fears. You shall be treated like a queen. Not a hair of your head nor of your father's shall be harmed. All I ask is a little love in return."
She made no reply. She did not even look up. Curtis felt a great spasm of rage contract his heart, and a queer sickness swoop down upon him. He wanted to kill Kostakes, he did not know exactly why. The man certainly had a right to love the girl; it is any man's inalienable right, established from the beginning of the world, to love any girl; and the protestations of protection were exactly what Curtis wanted, but somehow they made him sick and mad. In the midst of all this killing, why couldn't he do a little for himself? Then Kostakes bent lower, and attempted to lift Panayota's hands to his lips. She threw his arm from her with horror, and, shrinking back, with doubled fists, looked at him with such an ague of open-mouthed, staring disgust as no Duse or Bernhardt ever dreamed of. Curtis felt almost friendly toward Kostakes, who bowed solemnly, with hand upon heart, and strode from the room. Two sentinels took their places just inside the open door, and closed the entrance with crossed bayonets.
Curtis parted the long hair carefully on Papa-Maleko's head with his fingers and looked for the wound.
"I ought to have been a doctor," he said to Panayota.
She smiled, a little, fleeting smile that was sadder than tears. Her hair, that had been wound into a great coil at the back of her head, had slipped partly loose. Even as she looked up at Curtis, the glossy rope writhed like a living thing, and a massive loop dropped down upon her temple. Though her cheeks were pale, her lips were still red—Curtis had never noticed until now how red and velvety they were.
"Is he badly hurt?" she asked.
Papa-Maleko's hair was clotted with blood, but Curtis made absolutely sure that the skull was not fractured.
"No," he replied, "it is not broken."
"Thank God! thank God!" cried Panayota.
The priest put his hand on his daughter's shoulder and shuffled to his feet. He staggered a little and caught his head in his hands.
"O papa! papa!" cried the girl, throwing her arms about his neck.
"Bah! I'm all right. I was a little dizzy, that's all."
"Nothing broken. Nothing broken," reiterated Curtis. "The blood is from the—" he did not know the word for skin, so he lifted up a little tent on the back of his left hand with the finger and thumb of his right.
"Nothing, nothing at all," said the priest. Panayota turned her eyes toward the smoky and cobwebbed rafters and crossed herself. The steel cross in the door leaped to a parallel of presented muskets, and Kostakes Effendi reappeared. Twirling his mustache, he gazed perplexedly at the group within the café, but recovered himself in a moment and advanced smiling.
"So his reverence is quite well again! I am glad to see it, very glad. I feared that his skull was fractured. A musket butt is no plaything."
The Turk assisted Curtis to the door, and into a cavalry saddle on the back of a respectable looking horse.
"It is the horse of my sous-lieutenant," explained Kostakes, "who really prefers to walk—Lieutenant Gadben, Monsieur—but I have not the honor of knowing your name."
"Curtis—"
"John Curtis, American journalist."
Half an inch of saber cut disfigured the lieutenant's left temple. Curtis wondered at first glance how far it extended under the flower pot hat. The possessor of the cut was a grizzled man of fifty, with a short pointed beard and a mustache, into the left side of which cigarettes had burned a semicircular hole. The Turkish troops were drawn up in marching order, dirty, dust-stained, faded, some of them shoeless, but there was something about them, something in the attitude of the bodies and the obedient expectancy of the countenances, that suggested the soldier.
Curtis was amazed at the amount of desolation which had been accomplished in so short a time. The ruffian hand of war had wrecked the peaceful and idyllic town as a discontented child smites a playhouse of blocks. Everything combustible had been set on fire, and even from the stone houses smoke was pouring. Doors had been torn from the hinges, windows smashed in, arbors pulled down. The fire in the square filled the nostrils with the familiar odor of burning olive oil. The houses with their denuded window holes reminded Curtis of men whose eyes had been ruthlessly gouged out.
Lieutenant Gadben brought the hilt of his sword to his forehead and said something to the Captain in Turkish. The latter glanced at his little army and Curtis followed his eye. The men involuntarily straightened up, stiff as posts.
Turning in his saddle Curtis cast a furtive glance at Panayota. She was sitting on a mule, looking sadly to earth. One white hand rested caressingly on the wrist of her father, who stood by, holding to the pommel of her high pack-saddle. She had tied a handkerchief about his wound. He was a manly and appealing, albeit extraordinary figure, as he stood there erect, his dark eyes flashing scorn and defiance. His billowy, spade-shaped beard covered his entire breast. He wore no coat and the enormous Cretan breeches and yellow boots seemed to take on added proportions for that reason. An empty cartridge belt, passed under his right arm and over his left shoulder, bore strange comradeship with the cross that hung from his neck. His dark brown hair, that any woman might have envied, fell quite to his waist and rippled in the breeze. Even as Curtis looked, Panayota gathered it in her hands and hastily twisted it into a knot. The Captain said a few words to the Lieutenant, who, turning to the ranks, pointed to four of the men nearest him and transmitted the order to them. They saluted, and stacking their muskets, ran into the café. Instantly the huge oil crock fell across the door, and breaking, gave up its inoffensive golden contents.
"Monsieur, you will destroy the café!" cried Curtis in alarm.
Over went the bar with a sound of smashing glass.
"It will take but a moment," replied the Captain, apologetically. The tables and benches were now going into the pile in the middle of the floor.
"The rascals should have saved the oil to pour on their bonfire," remarked Kostakes judicially. The sound of dull blows caused the Captain to bend and look in at the door.
"Hey! hey!" he shouted, and gave an order. "I told them not to spill the wine, but to roll the full barrels close to the fire," he explained to Curtis. "There is sure to be one or two of them filled with brandy, and their loud explosion does more execution than half a dozen axes."
Michali's barrel was fourth from this end.
"Why the devil wasn't I born with some brains in my head?" groaned Curtis, inwardly. "Why can't you think of something, blockhead?" He was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to butt his skull against the stone wall of the café. He knew that a happy thought would save poor Michali, and he realized also that undue excitement on his part would betray everything. The picture of his friend being dragged from his hiding place by his broken leg and thrust through with bayonets, leaped before his imagination.
"Monsieur," he said, "I beg grace for the café. Stop the soldiers one moment and I will explain."
Kostakes called to the four vandals and they desisted.
"I beg of you," he said inquiringly to Curtis, "but pray be brief."
"I am the correspondent of the New York Age. I am neither Greek nor Turk, I assure you. I wish to write glowing accounts of your heroism—and your magnanimity. I have a sentiment connected with the café. It is so beautiful. I have written a little poem about it. It begins thus:
"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold."
Curtis beat off the waltz time of the meter with great energy.
"It sounds very beautiful. What a pity that I do not understand English! Monsieur's sentiment shall be respected. He shall write for his paper that Kostakes Effendi is not only a magnanimous soldier, but a patron of letters."
The four vandals took their places again in the ranks. Kostakes, waving his sword theatrically, gave the order to march, and they were off up the rocky, winding street, with the little army pattering behind. As they passed the parsonage Curtis noticed that it was in ruins, but the festal wreath of yesterday hung brave and bright above the blackened door.
The priest strode by his daughter's side, his hand still lying upon hers. As the cavalcade started he shuddered, and, looking at Panayota, sobbed:
"Oh, my daughter! Would to God you were in your grave beside your mother!"
She put out her white arm, and laid it around his neck.
"I am my mother's child," she replied, piously, "I shall find death somehow sooner than dishonor."
An occasional corpse lay in their path. Curtis observed with pleasure that red, woolen flower pots were beside two of the bodies, but a wave of indignation and pity passed over him as his horse shied from a corpulent body, bent horribly over a sharp backbone of rock. The head lolled downward, and the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward out of sight. There were two red pits beneath the eyes, that made the whites look doubly ghastly.
Curtis lifted his hat.
"Why do you do that?" asked the Captain.
"Because he died like a brave man," replied the American, shuddering as he thought of the jolly and hospitable demarch, who, like an heroic captain of a sinking ship, had remained at his post of duty until escape became impossible.
"I fear you like the Greeks better than you do the Turks," observed Kostakes. "You do not know us yet. You will like us better when you have been with us a few days."
Curtis was determined to be politic. Only thus, he foresaw, could he hope to be of any help to Panayota.
"He stayed behind to fight, when he might have escaped. Had he been a Turk, I should have taken off my hat just the same."
They were about to enter the ravine. From their elevated position the whole town was visible. The American turned in his saddle and cast a glance backward. The smoke from a score of fires tumbled heavenward until, commingling, it formed a somber roof above the town, supported by trembling and bending pillars. There was the distant sea—the very spot where the "Holy Mary" had been sunk. The little stream, whose course they had followed to the ill-fated town, looked no larger than a silver thread. There was the square, ending in the ledge upon which he had first seen Panayota with the water jug upon her shoulder. It had been but a short time ago, a few hours comparatively, and here she was now, a captive being led away in all probability to a shameful fate. Curtis seemed to have lived ages in the past few days, and yet their whole history flashed through his mind during the brief moment of this parting glance. There was the girl, beautiful, desolate, defiant, pure as snow; her hand rested on the shoulder of her father, in one of those pitiful, yet sublime feminine caresses that cry "courage" when, even God Himself seems to fail. She was a Christian, the father a Christian priest, and this was the nineteenth century of our blessed Lord, and there, but a few miles away, lay the great battleships of the Christian powers of Europe, defending the integrity of the Turkish empire!
Curtis gave such a violent start that he nearly fell out of his saddle. Great heavens, was not that the café on fire? The café, where he had left hidden his comrade and friend, Michali, the brave, the boyish, the noble-minded!
"Monsieur!" he cried, "the café! It is burning!"
"Oh, I think not," replied Kostakes.
"But it is. I can see it plainly; you must send people back to put it out."
Kostakes took a pair of field glasses from the hands of an orderly, and, calmly adjusting the focus, looked down the hill, while the little army, escorting Panayota and her father, marched rapidly past, and were swallowed up in the ravine.
"You are right," he said, "it is indeed the café."
"But you are not sending anybody back to put it out!"
"Monsieur could hardly ask me to do that much for sentiment. Some of my rascals must have eluded my vigilance. They shall be punished."
Curtis whirled his horse around, urging it with his fists and his sound foot, and started back toward the town. But the way was steep and rough, and the animal had not gone ten paces before two soldiers sprang to its head and seized the bridle on each side. Curtis kicked and struck at them, and, suddenly overcome with a paroxysm of rage, swore at them, but all to no avail. They turned the horse around and led it back to Kostakes.
"Monsieur's sentiment must be very strong," said the Captain, smiling sweetly.
"There's a wounded man in that building. A wounded man, I tell you, and he'll burn up alive!"
Kostakes shrugged his shoulders.
"It cannot be helped," he replied, "in war, what is a man more or less? But we must not delay.Allons, Monsieur."
And he spurred his horse to a brisk walk, while a stout Turk, throwing the bridle rein of Curtis' animal over his shoulder, trotted along after.
The American looked back.
"I'll slip off and run to the café," he thought, "foot or no foot—damn the foot, anyway!" But another soldier with a loaded musket was following close behind. In his despair, the thought of his passport occurred to him. He pulled it from his pocket with feverish haste. It was badly damaged by water, but it held together and the big seal was still there. Urging his horse forward, he flourished the document in Kostakes' face and shouted:
"I am an American citizen. Do you see that? Voilà! If you do not let me go you suffer for it."
But all to no avail. He was hustled along by order of the smiling and affable Kostakes, and the last thing his eyes rested upon as he plunged into the ravine was a cloud of smoke pouring from the front door of the demarch's café.
It did not require a trained eye to see that the Greeks had defended themselves stubbornly and had inflicted much more injury than they had suffered. Curtis counted twenty-five dead Turks in the defile. The continual dread that his horse should step on them kept him in a state of nervousness. But the animal evidently was possessed of as keen sensibilities as his temporary master, for he avoided the corpses with the most patent aversion. At a turn in the pass, behind a jutting rock, lay two Greeks. Curtis fancied this must have been the place where Michali had received his wound. It was evident that a well-organized and desperate stand had been made here, because in the narrowest part of the pass, only a few yards distant, lay seven Turks in a heap. Glancing back at the two dead Greeks, under the impression that he recognized one of them, the American beheld a sight at once noble and disgusting. The priest had lingered and was leaning toward his slain compatriots, making the sign of the cross with solemn gestures, the while he cried in tones sorrowful and defiant.
"I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
Panayota, her glorious eyes streaming with tears, her white hands clasped to her bosom, was looking to heaven and silently praying. Curtis felt his soul uplifted. The narrow walls of the ravine changed to the dim aisle of a cathedral; he seemed to hear a grand organ pealing forth a funeral march.
"Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
When he opened his eyes he found himself in hell. Two or three Turks, grinning with diabolical hate and derision, were spitting at the dead Cretans. The soldier directly behind Papa-Maleko was jabbing him in the back viciously with the butt of his musket, while another touched him playfully between the shoulders with the point of a bayonet. The priest shrank from the steel with a gasp of pain, but turned back as he stumbled along chanting:
"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen!"
A little farther on they came upon a sight which made Curtis reel in his saddle—the bodies of the seven peasant girls who had leaped over the cliff: Four lay together in a heap. Of the remaining three, one had fallen face down upon a rock, and her long hair, shaken loose, rippled earthward from the white nape of her neck. Another was sleeping the last sleep peacefully, her head upon her outstretched arm, a smile upon her lips; and still a third lay upon her back. This one seemed to have suffered, for there was a look of terror in the staring eyes. Again the priest lifted his voice.
"I am the resurrection and the life," but the solemn chant was this time interrupted by a shriek from Panayota. Curtis, who had resolutely turned his face from the scene of fascinating horror, looked back quickly at the sound. A slender young girl had arisen upon her elbow, and was stretching her hand imploringly toward the priest. The hand was brown and chubby, but the arm from which the flowing sleeve had slipped away, was very white and shapely. She was dying even then, but the blessed words of her mother's faith and her mother's tongue had pierced her swooning ears and she had paused at the very threshold of death for the priest's benediction. A Turkish soldier thrust her through the neck with his bayonet, and her head dropped softly upon the bosom of a dead fellow.
"But this is barbarous," cried Curtis. "The civilized world shall know of this. Barbarous, I say, uncivilized—you an officer? A gentleman? Bah!"
"But Monsieur is too violent and hasty," replied Kostakes. "Irregularities happen in all armies. The man shall be punished."
"If he is to be shot," said the American, "please put me in the firing squad!"
Emerging from the pass, they came to a steep, wooded ravine, and their path led through an aisle of tall pine trees. The feet of the soldiers made no noise on the carpet of fallen spines. They found four more dead Turks and picked up two that were wounded. After about an hour of forced marching the ravine spread out into a beautiful sunlit valley, whereon the new plowed ground lay in patches of rich brown, terra-cotta and black loam. The vines were just putting forth their pale green sprouts. The laborers had been surprised in the act of heaping conical mounds about the roots, and an occasional discarded mattock betokened hasty flight. Poppies lifted everywhere their slender-stemmed, scarlet beakers—such glasses in shape as are fit to hold the vintage of the Rhine. The little slopes were set thick with candelabras of the ghostly asphodel, whose clusters of pale-pinkish, waxen flowers seemed indeed to belong to regions where the dear sun is but a memory. Scattering fruit trees, in the full revel and glory of their snowy bloom called to each other with perfume.
It was some time after noon now, but they stopped neither to eat nor rest. Curtis' foot began to pain him fearfully, but he made no sign. In the midst of such desolation, he felt pain to be a trivial thing. The vines were here, but where were the toilers? The pear trees were in bloom, but where were the laughing children, the wives and maidens with wine and bread for the midday feast? Once they passed a shock-headed boy of fourteen, or possibly younger, lying dead in a vineyard, with his mattock beside him, and later in the day they came upon a plow in the unfinished furrow. One of the oxen was dead, and the other great beast had struggled to his feet and stood patiently beside the body of his mate.
After that their path led for a way through a field of half-grown wheat. Around nearly every shoot the sweet wild-pea had twined its graceful spiral, bravely lifting the pretty blue of the flowers among the pale green of the grain. When the wind swept over the field it looked like changeable silk.
Toward sunset they came within seeing distance of a white village on a mountain side. A vast olive orchard surrounded it and a dozen or more dark green cypress trees pointed heavenward among the houses, like spires.
"Voilà, Monsieur," cried Kostakes, gaily. "There we shall rest to-night, and shall find time to eat. Are you hungry?"
An air of indescribable sadness hangs over a deserted town. Any one who has ever passed through a shepherd village, from which the inhabitants have gone for the summer, expecting to return again when the first snows of autumn drive them down from the mountains, has experienced this feeling. Here is the fountain, where the slender, merry maidens met at sundown, to gossip and fill their water jars; here is the café, where the old men gathered together under the platane tree and smoked and dreamed of the long ago; here is a secret nook, guarded by sweet poverty vines, where lovers held tryst in the fragrant twilight. But all is lonely, lonely.
The waters splash with a melancholy sound, the tables and chairs are gone from under the platane tree and the lovers—let us hope they are fled together. The spirit of loneliness dwells where man has been and is not—in a tenantless house, in the chamber of death, by the embers of a camp fire in a vast wilderness. As you follow the streets of a deserted town you hear nothing but the splash, splash of the waters of the fountain or the enquiring twitter of some little bird. Perhaps a cat, tamed more by solitude than by hunger, tiptoes to meet you, purring with diplomatic fervor. But these sounds do not break the silence, they are its foil, its background.
Galata was deserted because its inhabitants had fled two days before from the terrible Turk. Thanks to a timely warning, most of the people had succeeded in getting away, though an occasional corpse proved how narrow had been the escape of the entire population from sudden death.
Kostakes and his little troop now marched through an olive orchard, whose gnarled and venerable trunks had perhaps witnessed the cruelties of the only oppressors worse than the Turk—the haughty, treacherous and inhuman Venetians; they climbed a flight of steps cut in the natural rock and followed a street paved with cobblestones from the walls of partly ruined houses to the village square.
Here the men stacked arms and dispersed among the houses, looking for temporary quarters. Curtis could not help admiring the soldierly way in which everything was done. In ten minutes after their arrival the square looked like a little Indian village filled with wigwams of muskets, and sentries were pacing patiently up and down at all possible places of approach. This was evidently a town of considerable importance, as some of the houses facing the square were two-storied, and in one or two instances the projecting beams supporting the balconies were of carved marble. The fountain, too, that stood beneath a disheveled willow, whose roots drank at the overflowing waters, was of marble.
Three carven swans, the successive wonder of as many generations of unkempt children, swam full-breasted from a square pedestal, each hissing a clear, thin stream into a circular stone basin. An inscription informed posterity that the marble hero who sat atop of the inevitable column was Petros Nikolaides, former mayor of Galata,—aneuergetesof imperishable memory. Mr. Nikolaides, with white goggle eyes, looked over the house tops, the olives and cypresses and away to the distant purple hills. His chin was small and cloven with a deep dimple and one side of his drooping mustache had been stoned away twenty years ago by mischievous boys.
Panayota and her father were led to a respectable looking stone house facing the fountain and two sentries were stationed before the door.
"Ah, well," said Kostakes amiably to Curtis, "we shall be quite comfortable here, eh? Will you do me the honor to dine with me?"
"I shall be delighted," replied the American. "It is I who shall receive the honor."
"No, no! I protest, Monsieur. It's quite the other way. We'll have a table set here under this tree. Ah, we shall be very cozy.Voilà! I shall be able to offer you some fresh cheese. If there's anything left, trust to my rascals for finding it!"
A soldier was dragging a stuffed goat-skin from the door of a grocery. At a sign from Kostakes, he set it on end, and ripped open the top with his knife, disclosing the snowy contents.
"Voilà, Monsieur! And no doubt we shall be able to find you some excellent wine, though you must excuse me from joining you in that. Mohammedans do not drink wine."
Kostakes leaped lightly to the ground, and gave his horse to an orderly. Kostakes was a handsome young fellow, almost boyish, and yet with an insolent, aristocratic air. His features seemed to combine sensualism and cruelty with a certain refinement. His lips were too thick and too red, and his chin was square. It was evident at a glance that his under front teeth closed even with the uppers. His nose was his cruel, sensitive feature. It came down straight from his forehead, thin as a knifeblade, and the nostrils had a way of trembling when he talked. Curtis threw his good leg over the horse's mane, and sat, woman fashion, eyeing the Turk. He could not, somehow, reconcile this gentlemanly, smiling young officer with the nightmare that continually haunted him—Michali in the burning building, wounded and screaming vainly for help. There was a sort of ghostly relief in the reflection that the poor fellow must have been over his sufferings long ago. But to burn to death! Ugh! How long does it take a man to burn to death?
"Does your foot pain you?" asked Kostakes, with genuine solicitude. "If those barbarian Greeks had not shot my surgeon—very cruel people the Greeks, especially the Cretan Greeks. When you know them better you will find that they are not half-civilized."
"If you will let one of your men help me dismount," said Curtis, "I will take a wash. I am glad to see that dinner is so nearly ready. I assure you I am half famished."
"One of my soldiers, Monsieur! I would never permit such a thing. I will help you myself. So—so! Ah! How is the foot?"
The American placed the wounded member on the ground and attempted to bear his weight upon it. To his surprise, it seemed much better. But a happy thought, an inspiration, took possession of him. He seized the leg tightly with his hands above the knee and sank upon the edge of the water basin.
"I—I believe it's worse!" he groaned.
"Allah forbid!" cried the Turk. "It is from the long ride. When you have rested it will be better. Now let us wash and eat something—a soldier's frugal meal."
Curtis attacked the repast with the zest of a ravenous appetite. The salt cheese, the brown bread and the country wine seemed to him viands fit for the gods. The orderly brought several heads of long Italian lettuce, which he washed at the fountain and cut lengthwise. They ate it like asparagus or celery, dipping it in salt. The American thought it delicious, and rightly. He would never again be able to relish the pale, tasteless chips sold in America for lettuce at brigand prices. He saw that Panayota and her father were also eating.
"Sensible girl," thought Curtis; "means to keep her strength up. We'll outwit these Turks yet."
He touched glasses with Kostakes, who was disposed to be convivial, albeit in water.
"Do you know, Monsieur le Capitaine," Curtis said, "I cannot decide which is the greater sensation—the pleasure of eating or the pain of my foot. Do you think, if blood poisoning should set in, you have anybody here who could amputate it?"
"Now, Allah forbid!" cried the Turk again. "By day after to-morrow we shall reach a Mohammedan village, and there we shall find a doctor."
Curtis shared the quarters of his amiable host, Kostakes Effendi, in the front room of the grocery. Panayota and her father slept next door. The American's bed consisted of blankets laid upon two tables, placed side by side. As the blankets had been prodigally bestowed he found the couch sufficiently comfortable. He lay on his back with his arms under his head, gazing out into the moonlit square. Despite the fatigue and excitement of the day, he was not in the least sleepy. The Cretan night was too intense. The moonlight, wherever it fell, was passionately white, and the shadows of things were as black and distinct as though sketched in charcoal. Rows of soldiers wrapped in their blankets were sleeping in the square. Occasionally one sat up, looked about, and then lay down again. Once, when he was about to drowse off, he was roused to consciousness by a faint mewing overhead, and called softly:
"Kitty! kitty!"
The mewing ceased, for oriental cats are summoned by means of a whistle between the teeth, similar to the sound made by a peanut roaster.
"That's the grocer's cat," mused Curtis. "Poor animal, she doesn't know what's happened. She was asking me as plain as day, 'Do you know where my folks are?' Now, the dog probably went with the old man, but cats are different—the cat and the mortgage stick to the old homestead. I must make a note of that. Let's see. How do the Greeks call their felines? 'Ps-whs-whs.' That's it. Ps-whs-whs!"
A scrambling overhead, and a bolder "meouw!" rewarded the effort. Pussy was between the tile roof and a covering of reeds that, nailed to the rafters, answered the purpose of lath and plaster.
"Ps-whs-whs!"
"Meouw!" still more confidently, and the sound of cautious feet on dry reeds. Kostakes sat up on his table and rubbed his eyes.
"Are you awake, too, Monsieur?"
"Meouw!" said pussy again.
"Ah, the cat keeps you awake. If I were a Greek, now, I should order it killed, but we Turks are very merciful. I will order the sentry to drive it away."
"No, no, I beg of you. I was holding a little conversation with it. I cannot sleep, my leg pains me so. I fear that gangrene is setting in."
"Allah forbid! It is from the fatigue. We shall have a surgeon soon." Kostakes was too good a soldier to keep awake.
"Good night again, Monsieur," he said, and turned over.
Outside the nightingales were calling each other from far, tremulous distances. The waters of the fountain splashed and gurgled unceasingly. Curtis' senses became more and more acute. Sounds that he could not hear a moment ago became audible now, without growing louder. He heard the plying of axes, and once the sound of a hammer, followed by laughter.
"What the deuce are they up to?" he muttered. "Are they building a fortification of any kind? I've got to do some tall thinking in the morning. Somehow or other I must get away with that girl. But how? how? I'll make Kostakes believe I'm lamer than I really am, and he won't watch me so close. But I must have an opportunity. No man can do anything without an opportunity—and that isn't so bad, either. I must make a note of that in the morning. Let's see, what's that other thing I thought of? H'm—hang it, I've forgotten it."
"Meouw!" said kitty.
"That's it, by Jove! Cats and mortgages."
For fully an hour the American invented and discarded schemes for escaping with Panayota. He tried to think of passages in novels describing the rescue of captive maidens by heroes like himself, but fairy tales of enchanted carpets and wishing caps persisted in running through his head, to the exclusion of more practical methods.
"I must watch for an opportunity," he exclaimed, aloud, bringing his fist down upon the table. "If I can't do any better I'll stick to Kostakes till we get to Canea, and then I'll put the matter in the hands of the English consul. Hello! What's that!"
He was sure he heard a dull, crushing blow, followed by a moan and the sound of some one falling. He listened for a long time, but heard nothing more, and yet he was conscious of a sense of horror, as though he had just awakened from a nightmare. He rubbed his eyes and pinched himself.
"I'm awake," he thought, "and yet I feel as though a murder had been committed. Lord, but I'm all haired up! If this keeps on I shall turn spiritualistic medium. I wonder if I can see the folks at home?" And he shut his eyes and fixed his mind upon his father and mother.
"Let's see, now, what time of day is it in Boston?"
He was awakened from his reverie by the voice of Panayota, violent and pleading, by turns; one moment mingled with sobs and the next angry. She was demanding "Where is my father?" and asking for Kostakes. The latter sat up and listened for a moment. Then hastily buckling on his belt and throwing his cloak over his shoulders, he went out. Curtis, who was not undressed, followed him. As he passed through the door, one of the guards seized him, but he struck viciously at the soldier and cried so angrily, "Let go of me or I'll punch you!" that the Captain looked around and spoke two or three words sharply to the guard, who released him. Suddenly remembering that he was very lame, he sat down upon the edge of the fountain. Panayota was standing in the door of her lodging, in the full moonlight. Her attitude, her voice, her face, were eloquent of terror and despair. As soon as she saw Kostakes she stretched her arms towards him and cried:
"Don't let them kill my father. Bring him back to me, please, please!"
"Why, certainly, my own Panayota, You know that I would not harm you nor any one belonging to you. But where is your father?"
"He asked the guard to bring him a drink of water, and the guard told him to come out and get it. And he hasn't come back, I tell you; he hasn't come back. O, Mother of God, help! help! Don't let them kill him."
"I see it all," cried Kostakes; "he has escaped," and he questioned the bystanding soldiers in Turkish.
"Yes, my Panayota. He has taken advantage of my kindness. I ordered that he be not bound and that he be treated with every consideration—for your sake, dear Panayota!" Here his voice became low and tender and he moved nearer. The Turk was, indeed, a gallant figure in the moonlight, leaning gracefully on his sword, the cape of his long military cloak thrown back over his shoulder.
"You hear the men; they say that he darted away and that they ran after him, but could not catch him. Had it been anybody else, they would have shot him down. But I had ordered them not to injure him under any circumstances. This I did for you, my Panayota, because I love you. It is you who—"
"Murderer!" screamed Panayota, leaning toward him with a look of pale hate, the while she fixed him with a long accusing finger. "Murderer—Oh, don't deny it! Coward! Liar! You come to me red with my father's blood and talk to me of love. Apostate! Renegade! Where is my father, eh? You perjured Greek, where is my father?"
Stepping down from the door, majestic as a goddess, she advanced toward Kostakes with arm extended.
He shrank slightly from her and looked uneasily to right and left, to avoid her eye.
"But, my dear Panayota, you shouldn't give way to your temper like that. You wrong me, really you do. I assure you, your good father has escaped."
She dropped her arm heavily to her side.
"Yes," she replied, solemnly, "escaped from a world of murderers and liars. Gone where there is no more killing and burning; where there are no Turks and no renegades—gone, Kostakes Effendi, where you must meet him again, with the brand of Cain upon your brow!"
Turning, she walked back to the house, but stopped in the door and said:
"Do you know how those are punished in hell who renounce the religion of Christ and become Turks? And what torture awaits you, renegade and murderer of a Christian priest? Kill, kill, give up your life to deeds of blood. Never think of forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for such as you. Your place in hell is already chosen. They are even now preparing the torments for you. O God," and she raised her hands as one praying, "may this man's deeds find him out, in this world and in the next. May he be haunted night and day for the rest of his life. May he die a violent and shameful death, and his memory be held in disgust. May his soul go to the place of torment, and be tortured forever. For he has renounced the Son of God, and has slain his holy minister!"
She disappeared within the house, and Curtis heard her sobbing in the darkness, "Papa! Papa!"
Kostakes filled the cup which hung from the pillar of the fountain by a chain, and took a long drink. He was trembling so that the tin vessel rattled against his teeth.
"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, observing Curtis. "Did you ever see anything so unreasonable as a woman? Here is her father run away, and she accuses me of killing him, and consigns me to eternal torment. Really, she has made me quite nervous. If I were not innocent, I should really fear her curses." And he took another drink of the cool water.
Curtis thought of the dull, crushing blow and the groan that he had heard, and he involuntarily moved a little away from the handsome and affable Kostakes, who had sat down by him on the rim of the basin.
"What do you keep the girl for, anyway?" he made bold to ask. "You surely would not force her to join your—your harem, against her consent?"
Kostakes sighed.
"Monsieur," he said, "is a poet. He will understand and sympathize with me. I love Panayota. I would make her my sole wife in honorable marriage. I desire no other woman but her. Bah! What are other women compared to her? Is she not magnificent? I could not help loving her, even just now, when she was cursing me. It is true that I am part Greek by extraction, and that I was baptized into the Greek church, and that I have become a Turk. But what is religion compared with love? Panayota is all the heaven I want. I am willing to turn Greek again and have a Christian wedding, if she would take me."
"Aren't you conducting your courtship in rather a violent manner?" asked the American. "In my country your conduct would be thought, to say the least, irregular."
"Have you in English the proverb, 'All things are fair in love and war?'"
"Certainly."
"Well, you see this is both love and war. I have possession of Panayota, and I mean to treat her so well that she shall love me. Not a hair of her head shall be touched until she marries me of her own free will."
"But your wives?" asked Curtis. "How many have you of them?"
The Captain shrugged his shoulders.
"Three," he replied. "Dumpy, silly creatures. A Mohammedan has not much difficulty in getting rid of his wives."
Curtis arose.
"If you will help me to the house," he said, "I will try to get a little sleep."
Kostakes sprang to his feet.
"Lean on my shoulder," he said. "So, so, how is the leg?"
"Bad, very bad. I'm really worried about it. Do I bear down on you too heavily?"
The sound of a reveille awoke Curtis, and he looked out into the dim, dewy morning. The wigwams of muskets had disappeared, and the little army had already fallen in. Several horses, saddled and bridled, stood by the village fountain. One, a young and sleek charger, was impatiently pawing the earth and another was drinking. Kostakes was sitting at a table, giving some orders to his second in command, the veteran with the scar. A sword attached to a leather belt kept company on the cloth with a pile of eggs, a loaf of bread and a pot of steaming coffee.
"Bon jour," cried the Captain gaily, springing to his feet, as he espied the American. "How have you slept, and how is the foot?"
"I got a little sleep, despite the pain, but the foot seems no better. I am getting very anxious to see that doctor of yours."
"To-morrow, I promise you without fail. And now for breakfast, as we must be off."
The Captain and his Lieutenant ran to the American, who put an arm about the neck of each and hopped to the table, groaning ostentatiously. After the hurried breakfast, Panayota was summoned. She came forth, pale as death, a beautiful, living statue of despair. Kostakes offered to help her, but she repulsed him with loathing, and climbed into her saddle as a refuge from his attentions. There were dark circles under her swollen eyes. As she looked about her, as though in hopeless search for the missing dear one, her features trembled on the verge of tears. Groaning:
"Ach, my God!" She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and stared into vacancy. Her beautiful hair was disheveled and her long white cuffs were wrinkled and soiled. The chivalry in Curtis' nature prompted him to speak and comfort her, although the words sounded hollow and false to his own ear.
"Take comfort," he said, "your father is surely alive. Believe me, he has escaped."
She smiled sadly.
"You do not know the Turks," she replied.
"Did I not tell you, my darling?" cried Kostakes eagerly, "of course he has escaped."
She did not even look at him, but murmured:
"Murderer! perjurer!"
Kostakes shrugged his shoulders, as who would say, "See!" and turning to Curtis cried:
"But Monsieur speaks Greek famously!"
"Only a few words and those with much difficulty."
"Mais non! On the contrary I find your Greek very perfect. And nowallons!"
They pushed briskly up the narrow street, through a scene of utter desolation. The whirlwind of war had struck the town and wrecked it. As they turned a corner a long-legged, half-grown fowl broke for cover and tilted away, balancing its haste with awkward, half-fledged wings. They came unexpectedly upon a little Orthodox church and a putrid odor assailed Curtis' nostrils. Their path led them around to the front door.
"My God!" he gasped. A sight had met his eyes that was destined to thrill him with sickness and horror to the latest day of his life, as often as the black phantom of its recollection should arise in his mind. The village priest, an old, gray-bearded man, had died about a month before and had been buried in his robes. There was the body, hanging to its own church door, like the skin of a great black bat. Nails had been driven through the clothing at the shoulders, and the weight of the carcass, sinking down into the loose garment, had left it pulled up above the head into the semblance of joints in a vampire's wings.
From a bonfire of bones, half-decayed corpses and sacredeikons—the last named gathered from the houses and the church—a disgusting odor arose and filled the air. The Turks broke forth in derisive laughter as their eyes fell upon the horrid spectacle.
"My rascals have eluded my vigilance, I see," observed Kostakes, "and have been having a little fun in their own way."
"Different nations have different ideas about a joke," gasped Curtis through his handkerchief.
Emerging from the town, they picked their way through a large patch of freshly felled olive trees. The sound of the nocturnal chopping was now explained. About eleven o'clock they stopped for dinner in a small, deserted hamlet. During the progress of the meal a wounded Bashi Bazouk rode into the town and up to the table where Curtis and Kostakes were sitting. The man wore a red turban, which gave to his pallid face a tint similar to that of the underside of a toadstool. His soft shirt had sagged into a little bagful of blood, that dripped out like the whey from a sack of cottage cheese, upon his yellow sash and blue breeches. He said a few words with mouth wide open, as though his under jaw had suddenly grown heavy, and then, reeling, was caught by two soldiers, dragged from the saddle and carried into a hut.
"I must ask you to excuse me for several hours," said Kostakes, rising. "My Bashi Bazouks, whom I left with certain commissions to execute, are being defeated at Reveni, about an hour's march from here. How fifty Bashi Bazouks can find any difficulty with a little place like Reveni is more than I can understand! But I shall soon put a new face on affairs when I arrive!"
"God help the poor people," prayed Curtis, inaudibly.
"I shall leave three of my men behind to look after your wants and those of the young lady. I shall explain to the one I leave with you that he is your servant—that he must bring you anything you ask for. He speaks Greek, so you will be able to get along with him."
Five minutes afterward Kostakes was riding away at the head of his troop. He turned once in the saddle and waved his hand to Curtis. The American picked up his hat from the table and swung it in the air.
"Au revoir, Kostakes," he cried. "The devil confound you and your whole crew of cutthroats—I wonder if this beggar speaks English?"
He glanced suspiciously at the tall, sallow-faced Turk who stood a short distance away, leaning upon his musket.
"No, I guess not. He'd give some sign if he did."
Two other Turks, with musket on shoulder, were pacing back and forth before the door of the hut where Panayota was imprisoned. Curtis could feel his heart thumping against his breast. He struck the place with his doubled fist.
"Keep still, curse you," he muttered, "and let me think. Here is the opportunity—but how? how?"
The army was crawling along a white road that streamed like a ribbon athwart the foot of a hill. The ribbon fluttered as the dust rose in the wind. The bayonets twinkled in a dun cloud.
"Four against one," mused Curtis. "Four Turks against one Yankee trick—but how?"
Kostakes plunged into the hill and disappeared, and the blazing bayonets, line after line, were extinguished in a billow of green thyme. The American looked back over his shoulder at the door of a stone hut—the one into which the wounded Bashi Bazouk had been carried.
"Hey!" he called, "you there, hey!"
The Turk left ostensibly as Curtis' servant, but actually as his guard, stepped briskly forward, and, taking in his own the American's extended hand, pulled him to his feet.
"Help me into the house," said Curtis. "Now bring me that bench."
The man complied, after which he went to the door, and, leaning against the jamb, looked wistfully at his fellows. At one end of the room was a fireplace, filled with ashes and charred pieces of log. It was a primitive concern, the only vent for smoke being a hole in the roof directly overhead. Board platforms on each side the fireplace served as couches for the family. On one of these, flat on his back, lay the wounded man.
"I wonder how badly he's hurt," mused Curtis. "There isn't strength enough left in him to put up a fight, but there's enough left to pull a trigger if I tackle the other chap. Hello, he's got the hiccoughs; why, that's queer."
The man became quiet, and again Curtis relapsed into thought, to be disturbed a second time by the sound of knocking on boards. Looking around, his eyes fell directly upon the eyes of the Bashi Bazouk, and he felt as though he heard some one crying for help when no help was near. The man was resting upon his back and both elbows. For a moment those bloodshot, praying, awful eyes were fixed upon Curtis; then they swept the dingy hut and went out like panes of glass when the light is extinguished in a room. The man fell backward, fluttered on the hard planks and was still. Curtis shuddered.
"That wasn't nice," he muttered, "but this is no time for sentiment."
The other Turk stood by the body of his dead comrade, looking down at the ghastly, upturned face. Curtis pinched the muscles of his own right arm with the fingers and thumb of his left hand, and moved his doubled fist tentatively up and down.
"Where shall I hit him?" he mused. "In the chin or back of the ear? He must never know what struck him."
Bending over, he untied the long strip of cloth about his foot and unwound it. Taking it in his hands he pulled several times on it, to test its strength.
"Strong as a hemp rope. You could hang a man with that."
It was Panayota's blue homespun.
"Hey!" he called to the Turk. "You there. Say, look at this foot of mine, will you, and see what you think of it."
The man kneeled. Curtis drew back his arm, but realized that he could not get sufficient swing in a sitting posture.
"O, hold on a minute. Let me try the foot on the ground and see how it goes."
They rose to their feet together, and the unsuspecting soldier reeled backward, stunned by a vicious punch on the temple. But he did not fall, and Curtis, maddened by a great fear lest he bungle his opportunity, sprang forward and delivered a swinging, sledgehammer-like blow upon his victim's ear, throwing into it the entire strength of his body. The Turk dropped like an ox under the butcher's hammer. Then Curtis hastily bound him, hand and foot, with Panayota's bandage, and, tearing the lining from the man's coat, stuffed it down his throat. Pulling up a plank from the platform by the fireplace, he thrust the limp form out of sight and closed up the opening.
"I hope I didn't kill you," he muttered; "but, as old Lindbohm says, 'you must yust take your chances!'"
He walked once or twice the length of the hut. The foot gave him considerable pain, but it was possible to step on it.
"What'll I do with the other two?" he mused.
He picked up the gun lying on the floor and examined it. It was a Mauser and charged with five shells. He peeped cautiously through the doorway at Panayota's prison, concealing his body. The two guards appeared at the corner and looked curiously in his direction.
"Bah! What a fool I am!" he thought, and hopped boldly into sight, holding up his lame leg by passing his hand under it while he leaned against the jamb. The guards faced about and disappeared, putting the house between themselves and Curtis on their backward march to the other end of their beat.
"I could pot one of them, and then—but no, I might miss, and then I'd be in a pretty mess. And even if I did hit one, the other would have me at a disadvantage."
There was a sound of kicking against the boards at the fireplace. He sprang to the spot, rifle in hand, and tore up the plank. The man was lying upon his back with his eyes open. A great light broke in upon Curtis—an inspiration. He had thrust the Turk out of sight through instinct.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "they can't both leave Panayota. If I call to them, may be one will come out of curiosity, and I'll do this thing right over again. But what'll I tie him with?"
He cast his eyes about the room. The inevitable chest, studded with brass nails stood against the wall. He opened it.
"Cleaned out, by Jove!"