Kostakes himself had been the indirect cause of Ben Sabbath's death. This is what had happened: He and the impetuous Mehemet were standing close to one end of the line of Highlanders, making insulting remarks in Greek for the benefit of Platonides and their Christian neighbors. Stung beyond endurance, the excitable Greek pulled the English officer's sleeve and pointed to his tormentors with raised arm. Kostakes stepped boldly forward and shook his fist in the direction of his enemy, whereupon one of the statues in kilts came to life and dropped the butt of his musket on the Turk's toe. The latter sprang back with a cry of pain and the exclamation in Turkish: "Death to the Christians!" A Bashi Bazouk, enraged at the insult suffered by his commanding officer, and taking the exclamation for a command, drew his knife and plunged it to the handle into the Highlander's back. As the unfortunate man fell his gun was discharged, causing the death of Hassan Ben Sabbath and awakening the demon of massacre that now for many years had lurked in the towns and villages of Crete, feverishly and fitfully sleeping. And what an inconceivably horrible demon it is! Here is the sweetly wimpling sea, with the Grecian sky above; here are vineyards and pastures on the hillsides and the ancient pipe of the shepherd boy; here are white villages that should hear no sound save such as harmonize with the vesper chime of some monastery bell, drifting across the waters, or the choiring of the Cretan nightingales. And yet, nowhere on earth has hate, irresponsible and pitiless, found so congenial a home as among these idyllic scenes. Mehemet whipped an English navy revolver from beneath his coat and shouting "_Allah il Allah!_" fired point blank at the Lieutenant in charge of the guard, who sank to the earth, gasping: "Steady, boys, steady." Kostakes' Bashi Bazouks came plunging through the press from all directions, gathering about their master. Knives twirled in the sun and flashed above the heads of the people--horrible knives with concave edges, made for the cutting of throats. And now, from windows and from the roofs of houses, commenced a sporadic sputtering of guns against that gallant body of men standing in front of the custom house, statues yet, save when now and then one sank to earth--brought to life by death. Their officer lay dead at their feet, and his last words had been, "Steady, boys, steady!"