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!_" CHAPTER XIV A CRITICAL MOMENT