CHAPTER XXXV

IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS

The report soon spread among the Turks that the English had been driven into the sea. Islam, that always believes in final universal triumph and the death of all unbelievers, was drunk with victory. The Mohammedans of Canea did not stop to think how few they were. It seemed to them that the vengeance of Allah was at hand, and that the whole world of the faithful had arisen. A band of howling demons poured down the streets of the Christian quarter, shooting into the windows and doors of the houses, hacking down with their long knives all who were not able to get out of sight. The shells which the "Hazard" continued to drop into the town in hopes of quelling the uprising only added to the terror of the victims and the fury of the murderers. The Mohammedan has no fear of death when he is on God's business. Kostakes' terrible Bashi Bazouks were everywhere. These are the irregulars who furnish their own arms and equipment. They or their families have suffered in some previous conflict with the Christians, and they kill for revenge and the true faith.

Some resistance was made and guns barked from half-closed window shutters into the faces of the marauders. But whenever this happened it only hastened the fate of those within. The Christian quarter swarmed with Turks. They crowded the streets, leaped over the garden walls, pried open the doors of the houses. Those who were not there out of pure thirst for blood came from love of plunder.

Kostakes, with his friend Mehemet and a half dozen of the Bashi Bazouks, did terrible execution. The Captain, as with drawn sword he drove his victims to bay in their gardens or into angles of the wall, imagined he was still talking to Panayota.

"There'll be no more Christians," he shouted again and again as he thrust home with his sword, or as some form writhed on the bayonet that pinned it to the adobe wall.

"We're going to kill them all."

For hours murder, rapine and plunder ran riot in the streets of Canea. When the moon came up that night eight hundred dead bodies were lying stark and ghastly in the beautiful gardens.

At the first sound of distant firing, the women of Kostakes' harem were not greatly terrified. Another slaughter of Christians did not mean danger to them. Thoroughly ignorant, they believed that all the kings and potentates of the world were vassals of the Sultan, who was able to enforce submission whenever he chose. They had heard from earliest childhood that some day there would be a grand killing of Christians and other unbelievers, after which the earth would be inhabited by Turks alone. No doubt the prophecy was even now coming to pass.

"They are killing all the Christians," said Souleima, peeping through the gate. "All the Christians in Canea."

"Aren't you sorry for them?"

"Bah! why should I be? It's their own fault if they are Christians."

"I am sorry for the little children," said Ayesha with a shudder, thinking of her own little boy, that had died in infancy.

Souleima looked slyly at Ferende, who was sitting on the stone steps at the outer side of the court, her fingers in her ears. The sound of the guns made the ex-favorite nervous, and she wanted to think. She believed that a crisis had arrived in her life. The terrible Turk had been the bogey man of her infancy. Surely he was now conquering the world. Who would be queen of the domestic kingdom which Kostakes would rear, when he should return, covered with blood and glory? Would Panayota remain a Greek when all her countrymen were killed? Alone,--the only Greek in the world?

Ferende laughed scornfully at the thought.

The boom of cannon was heard. It sounded very clear and distinct and seemed to cause a slight tremor of the earth where they stood. They looked at each other with startled and wondering eyes. The sound was repeated. Then, in a moment, the Turkish quarter, which had been hushed to whispering silence, broke forth into a babel of feminine screams, cries of children and the noise of many frightened women, all chattering at once.

"What is it? O, what is it?" shrieked Ayesha and Souleima, in a breath. They looked toward Ferende, but she was gone. Again that dreadful "boom," and now shrieks are heard in the streets, and the sound of flying footsteps. Ayesha and Souleima pull the gate open and look out. They behold a panic. Women clutching their offspring however they can, or dragging them through the street by the arm; old men doddering with long staffs, or holding to the garments of their flying daughters; children darting after their elders, screaming, "Mama! mama!" Some of the Turkish women, in their terror, had not covered their faces. Others instinctively held handkerchiefs, or even bare hands, before their mouths as they ran. From all that shrill uproar an occasional word or syllable detached itself; cries to "Allah" and the "Virgin," supplications for present help to any god or saint that happened to be uppermost in the mind. And every time that terrible "boom" was heard out in the bay the tumult swelled like a wave rising to its crest. Ayesha and Souleima waited for no explanation, but, adding their voices to the general tumult, plunged into the throng and were swept along with it toward the nearest gate of the city.

Ferende had gone to free Panayota. Bounding up the dark narrow stairs, she muttered to herself:

"It's my only chance. I'll be a drudge all my life else."

She did not stop to reason concerning Kostakes' anger or his possible vengeance. There would be time enough to devise some story. The thing that was certain, the situation that she must face, was "the Christians are all being killed, and even the girl upstairs will see that Mohammedanism is triumphant. If I get rid of her, I shall live like a queen the rest of my days."

Panayota was lying on the bed with her face in the pillow, shuddering and whispering to the Virgin. At the first sound of the guns, nature had given way, and she had fallen fainting to the floor.

Recovering consciousness, she had found herself too weak to rise, and had crept to her couch, where she lay, moaning.

Sometimes there would be a few moments of quiet, when she would raise her head and listen, hoping against hope that something had happened, and that the dreadful sound had ceased forever. But no, they always commenced again; one report, another, and then several following in quick succession, or else a general crash, and she would again bury her head in the pillow.

Thus Ferende found her, and, shaking her by the shoulders, cried:

"Quick, Panayota, run, run! They are killing all the Christians in the world!"

"I want to die," cried the Cretan.

"They won't kill you--Kostakes' woman. And he may be here any minute."

Panayota ran into the hall. Hope, that is always living where it seems most dead, thrilled her breast with a sudden ecstasy. If there was any opportunity of escaping from the filthy Turk and his pollution, why, then, she did not want to die. Before her was the open door of a bedroom, and upon the bed lay the black garment and veil in which Mohammedan women bundle themselves when about to walk or ride out. She pounced upon these and literally scrambled into them. Then she stepped to a window and looked down into the street. It was nearly deserted, save for the groups of women peeping from windows and half-opened garden gates. She wondered if she would be able to run that gauntlet of eyes without being questioned, discovered. At that very moment the situation was solved for her. The sound of a cannon was heard and the flight from the Turkish quarter began. When she reached the garden the gate was open, and the street was full of frightened women and children, all running in one direction. There was another roar, louder and fuller than the spiteful chatter of the rifles. It was like a giant shouting in a yard full of children, and it was followed by a general shriek from the rabble of fleeing non-combatants. Panayota had heard cannon before, they were simply one of the voices of war--in this case a mere phase of the riot of blood which had broken forth upon earth. But she was going to flee from it all. In that brief moment that she stood in the gate the great, faithful righteous mountains rose before her mind; they seemed to call and beckon her. Often had she dreamed of them in the days and nights of her captivity, but then they were far away. Now they had moved nearer, the mountains of God--her refuge. Crossing herself, she, too, plunged into the stream of humanity, was swallowed up and swept along by it.

Kostakes came back to his home; came back covered with Christian blood, and longing, like a Turk, for the Christian maiden whom he had locked up in his harem; came back cursing the Mother of God and gloating over the deed which he had resolved to do. But he found his house rent in twain, and his garden filled with a great heap of smoking rubbish. He looked into the cleft rooms as spectators at a theater behold the interior of a house, and there was no sign of any live thing save himself in all the street. There was Panayota's room, with the bed standing in the corner and her Cretan jacket hanging to a nail in the wall. But she was gone. Then a great fear seized Kostakes, and his mother's blood awoke in his heart and surged through his veins again. Trembling in every limb, and with pale face, from which the flush of passion had fled, he unconsciously crossed himself, muttering hoarsely: "It is the vengeance of the Virgin! I am accursed!"