"My God!" he cried, in a hoarse whisper, and jumped into the corner beside the door, just as one of the other two Turks walked boldly into the room. Without a moment's thought Curtis brought the barrel of his rifle down upon the man's head, who dropped his own gun and pitched sprawling upon his face. For fully a minute, which seemed an hour, the American stood motionless, breathless, in the attitude which had followed the blow. Every muscle was set to knotted hardness; he held the rifle in both hands, ready to throw it suddenly to his shoulder. He did not breathe, and he listened so intently that he could hear his own heart beating, and the breathing of the man at the fireplace. Suddenly his muscles relaxed like an escaping spring, and he looked nervously about for the detached sleeve. Picking it up, he stooped over the second Turk, when the latter moved his left arm several times with the palm of the hand down, feebly suggesting an effort to rise. Then the arm dropped and the hand beat a faint tattoo on the earthen floor. There was a great shiver of the whole body, a twitching of the muscles, a queer rattle in the throat, and--silence. Curtis stared with open mouth and dilated eyes, and a great, inexplicable horror came over him. "Ah!" he gasped, and, dropping upon his knees, he ran his fingers over the skull. The hair was matted with blood, and a deep, ragged-edged dent bore witness to the terrible force with which the rifle barrel had fallen. "I've killed a man," he whispered, in an awestruck voice, rising to his feet. Staring fixedly at the silent thing lying there before him, he repeated the sentence over and over again: "I've killed a man--I've killed a man!" Then all at once a great change came over him, the joy and fierceness of the lust for blood, and he laughed hysterically, gloating over the dead man before him, as the victorious heroes used to do in the old barbaric ages. He thought of the other Turk, and looked out of the door just in time to see him turn at the hither corner and disappear as he walked back on his beat. Curtis made a dash for an olive tree about eight rods distant, and, skulking behind it, peeped between the high gnarled roots. When the guard had again appeared and turned back, he ran to a rock and threw himself down behind it, instinctively using tactics by which he had sometimes crept up on a diving duck. He was now within listening distance. The next run brought him to the side of the house, and he had just time to throw his gun to his shoulder when the guard stepped into view. He might have taken him prisoner, but the thought did not occur to him. He had tasted blood. Panayota came to the door and looked wonderingly out. The American ran to her with the smoking musket in his hand and seized her by the wrist. It was the natural act of the savage who has won his woman in fight. "Come, Panayota!" he cried, "you are free. They are all dead!"