The Capsina was on the quay when the news came, the impassive Kanaris with her. She sent him off at once to the ships with orders to bring both crews back armed, leaving only a few in charge. Already women and children from Tiryns were beginning to pour, a panic-stricken crowd, with all they could carry of their household gear, into the town, with confirmation of the approach of the Turks. A shepherd lad feeding his sheep on the lower hills had fled before them, leaving his flock behind him; there were not less than three hundred of them. The Capsina's men were the first to start; another contingent drawn off from the besieging troops were to follow. They were to march straight to Tiryns and guard the place through the night, and in the morning they would be relieved. There still remained many Greek women and children there, and the place was also a sort of hospital for sick men from Argos and Corinth; and the Capsina's eye blazed. "Women, children, and wounded men!" she cried, "a tit-bit for Turks!" Kanaris had done his utmost to persuade her not to come with them. If the news was true, and the Turks attacked Tiryns, there would be wild, hazardous fighting in the dark, each man for himself, no work for a woman. There were no sort of fortifications or even houses at the place; the people lived in wry-set rows of pole booths, roofed in with branches and maize-stalks. The Turks would enter where they pleased. But the girl only laughed. "It is as well to die one way as another," she said, "and this is one of the better ways. Besides, I mean to sail the _Revenge_ many times yet. Oh man, but I killed five Turks at Porto Germano; and had it not been for Mitsos, the fifth would have killed me. I was happy that day. If God is good, I will kill five more. One was as big as you, Kanaris, and fatter by half." The sky was already growing dusky red with sunset when they set off. The land-breeze had set in shrill and steady, rattling the dry maize-fields, whistling in the stubborn aloes and cactuses along the road, and whispering in the poplars. Here and there they passed little knots of women flying into Nauplia, all with the same tale. The Turks were undoubtedly coming, and there were still many left in the town; they had been seen not two miles off, and that ten minutes ago. A gaunt set of apparitions awaited them at the place, men shaking with fever, leaning on crutches, with bandaged arms and swathed heads. Some few only had muskets, the most part short knives, but many only stakes of wood, pointed and hardened in the fire. A crowd of women and children, crying and bewailing themselves, hung about them, unable to make up their minds to face the perils of the dark road into Nauplia, and convinced that Turks were in ambush there. They clung to the men, now beseeching them not to desert them, now begging them not to fight but to surrender. What chance had they against three hundred armed men?