"I shall leave three of my men behind to look after your wants and those of the young lady. I shall explain to the one I leave with you that he is your servant--that he must bring you anything you ask for. He speaks Greek, so you will be able to get along with him." Five minutes afterward Kostakes was riding away at the head of his troop. He turned once in the saddle and waved his hand to Curtis. The American picked up his hat from the table and swung it in the air. "_Au revoir_, Kostakes," he cried. "The devil confound you and your whole crew of cutthroats--I wonder if this beggar speaks English?" He glanced suspiciously at the tall, sallow-faced Turk who stood a short distance away, leaning upon his musket. "No, I guess not. He'd give some sign if he did." Two other Turks, with musket on shoulder, were pacing back and forth before the door of the hut where Panayota was imprisoned. Curtis could feel his heart thumping against his breast. He struck the place with his doubled fist. "Keep still, curse you," he muttered, "and let me think. Here is the opportunity--but how? how?" The army was crawling along a white road that streamed like a ribbon athwart the foot of a hill. The ribbon fluttered as the dust rose in the wind. The bayonets twinkled in a dun cloud. "Four against one," mused Curtis. "Four Turks against one Yankee trick--but how?" Kostakes plunged into the hill and disappeared, and the blazing bayonets, line after line, were extinguished in a billow of green thyme. The American looked back over his shoulder at the door of a stone hut--the one into which the wounded Bashi Bazouk had been carried. "Hey!" he called, "you there, hey!" The Turk left ostensibly as Curtis' servant, but actually as his guard, stepped briskly forward, and, taking in his own the American's extended hand, pulled him to his feet. "Help me into the house," said Curtis. "Now bring me that bench." The man complied, after which he went to the door, and, leaning against the jamb, looked wistfully at his fellows. At one end of the room was a fireplace, filled with ashes and charred pieces of log. It was a primitive concern, the only vent for smoke being a hole in the roof directly overhead. Board platforms on each side the fireplace served as couches for the family. On one of these, flat on his back, lay the wounded man. "I wonder how badly he's hurt," mused Curtis. "There isn't strength enough left in him to put up a fight, but there's enough left to pull a trigger if I tackle the other chap. Hello, he's got the hiccoughs; why, that's queer."