"There was," he understood, "no way for the enemy to get in from the land side except through the pass. They might approach with difficulty from the seashore, but there was only one place where they could land. Men were watching that, and a smoke by day or a fire by night would warn the villagers. Very good. Fifty men might defend this pass against two hundred and fifty, but they must lose no men and must make every shot count. How much ammunition had they?" "Not much. Only their belts full, and possibly as much again, curses on the English!" "Very well. We must use it the more carefully. We must not get excited. Kostakes Effendi cannot possibly reach the ravine before nightfall--can he get through without a guide?" "No," replied the demarch, "impossible." Panayota spoke. She said only two words, and she said them quietly, though distinctly, but they fell like a thunderclap. "Peter Ampates!" This was the name of the cowardly shepherd whom Lindbohm had driven from the town. "Is there any way to build fires so as to light up narrow places in the ravine?" There were two or three such places where bonfires could be located that would make the pass as light as day. People standing behind the rocks in positions of comparative safety could easily feed the flames by tossing wood into them. "Send out the boys and girls then to prepare these fires and to pile up brushwood enough behind the rocks to keep them burning all night," commanded the Swede. "Build one fire at the mouth of the pass--" but here he was interrupted by a chorus of protest. "Let the Turks get into the pass and then we will kill them," cried his listeners. "Very well, but see that they don't get through." Papa-Maleko had a suggestion to make. The Sphakiotes often got the Turks into narrow defiles and rolled stones down upon their heads. There were half a dozen precipitous places in the gorge where this could be effectively done. "Capital idea," assented Lindbohm. "Let some more women go to those places and pile up heaps of the biggest stones they can carry." Lindbohm suggested that the men, who now numbered sixty, should take their places near the mouth of the defile. In a few brief words he also laid the foundation of an effective commissariat. The mayor's brother, too old a man to fight, was instructed to superintend the sending of food twice a day, in case the siege should be protracted, and above all, water, which could not be found up among the rocks. Women and boys were to act as carriers. A messenger was sent to Korakes, an insurgent chief, who, with three hundred men, had established his headquarters near the village of Alikiano. "We might be able to hold out for a week," said Lindbohm to Curtis, "and Korakes will surely come to our aid. At any rate, we must yust take our chances." CHAPTER IX AWAITING THE SIGNAL Curtis was left alone in the priest's house. Papa-Maleko had gone up the ravine.