But the generous, self-forgetting prophecy was false. In the energy of her sudden hope she had sprang into a sitting posture; and ere the words had left her lips, the fatal bowstring was about her throat. It was the horror of a moment—Two of the executioners flung themselves upon her, and held her down—a couple more grasped her hands—a heavy knee pressed down her heaving chest—there was a low gurgling sound, hushed as soon as it was heard—a frightful spasm which almost hurled the strong men from above the convulsed frame—and all was over! At day-dawn on the morrow, the young Greek was led from his prison. For several days he had refused food, and he was scarcely able to drag his fainting limbs along the uneven streets. Two men supported him, and at length he reached the termination of his painful pilgrimage. For a moment he stood rooted to the earth; he gasped for breath—he tore away his turban—and clenched his hands until the blood sprang beneath the nails. She whom he had loved was before him—her once fair face was swollen and livid, and exposed to the profane gaze of a countless multitude. She was before him—and the handkerchief from which she was suspended, beside the spot marked out for himself, was one which he had given her in an hour of passion, when they looked not to perish thus! I have pursued the tale until I am heart-sick, and can follow it up no further. Yet, revolting as it is, it nevertheless affords a proof of that which I have already adduced elsewhere; that even in their severity the Turks are merciful to their women; and carefully shield them from the shame, even when they cannot exempt them from the suffering, of their own vices. CHAPTER XIV. Political Position of the Turks—Religion of the Osmanlis—Absence of Vice among the Lower Orders—Defect of Turkish Character—European Supineness—Policy of Russia—England and France—A Turkish Comment on England—The Government and the People—Common Virtue—Great Men—Turks of the Provinces—European Misconceptions. The more I see of the Turks, the more I am led to regret their melancholy political position. Enabled, by the introductions which I had secured, to look more closely into their actual condition from the commencement of my sojourn among them, than falls to the lot of most travellers, I have been compelled from day to day to admit the justice of their indignation against those European powers, which, after deluding them with promises that they have failed to fulfil, and pledges that they have falsified, have reduced them to anchor their hopes, and to fasten their trust, upon a government whose interests can be served only by the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, and the subjugation of its liberties. Take them for all in all, there probably exist no people upon earth more worthy of national prosperity than the great mass of the Turkish population; nor better qualified, alike by nature and by social feeling, to earn it for themselves.