Crete (Greece) -- History -- Insurrection, 1866-1868 -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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