To these the sight of the Capsina and her sailors was like a draught of wine. "Praise the Virgin," cried one, "it is the Capsina!" And she fell on the girl's neck, sobbing hysterically. The Capsina disengaged herself. "There is no time to lose," she said to Kanaris. "Take the women off, and put them in the centre. The attack will be from the north; at least they come from there. These men are useless. Man!" she cried, turning to one, "if your arm shake so, you will as like cut off your own head as the head of a Turk. Get you with the women. You too, and you!" The second contingent from Nauplia had not yet arrived, and even while the Capsina spoke a man from a farm near, half dressed and bleeding from a wound in the hand, rushed in saying that the Turks had pillaged his house. He had escaped from there with a sword-cut; they were not two hundred yards off. The last of the women were pressing into the centre of the town, and there was only one child left, a boy about three years old, who was clinging, with howls, to his father, a gaunt, fever-stricken man, but capable of using a knife. The Capsina spoke to the child. "Father will come to you if you will go with the others," she said. "Oh laddie, let go of him. Take charge of the child," she said to the last of the women. "Mind, I leave him with you." She paused a moment, listening. Above the whistling of the wind could be heard the tramp of feet along the road. "The others are not here yet," she said. "These feet come from the north. To your posts along the huts by the north, three men together! There are no other orders except to kill; that only, and to save the women." The men filed off quickly, but without confusion, but before more than half had gone there came a sudden rush from outside, and a band of Turks poured up the narrow lane of booths. For a few moments the two crowds surged together without fighting-room, then they broke up right and left into the narrow alleys, fighting in groups. The Capsina found herself wedged up in the crowd, a Turk between her and the door-post of one of the huts, each staring wildly at the other, and neither able to move. Then, as the pressure behind grew greater, the door-post gave under the weight, and they both tumbled headlong in. The Capsina's pistol went off wildly in the air, a musket-bullet whistled by her, and the hut was suddenly full of smoke. She had fallen straight across the man, but in a moment she struggled to her knees and stabbed fiercely at something soft below her. The soft thing quivered and was still, and something warm spurted onto her hand with a soft hot gush.