So far, however, Christian and Turk fought on equal terms. No discipline entered on either side--the Janissary fought the partisan, and the superior enthusiasm of liberty turned the scale in favor of the Christian. They had yet to meet their strongest foes--internal dissension and disciplined force. The first did its work quickly, and Melidoni was assassinated by Russos, the Sphakiote chief, in jealousy of his dominant influence. A Moreote chieftain, Afendallos, was sent from Greece to replace him, but, incapable and without control of the Cretans, his command was in every way unfortunate, and he was superseded by a French Philhellene of ability, Baleste, who for a moment restored the fortunes of Crete, but, deserted by the wretched Afendallos in the heat of battle, and the Cretans being carried away in panic by the example, Baleste was surrounded by the Turks and killed. At the same time, an Egyptian army coming in to reinforce the exhausted and demoralized Janissaries, the war became for the Christians a series of disasters, relieved for a time by the management of Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, who again cleared the open country of the Turks, and laid siege to Canéa. The arrival of new forces from Constantinople obliged him to retire to the highlands, and an Egyptian fleet arriving debarked a fresh army, which, marching into the interior, surprised a great number of villages, and in a single raid put to the sword nearly 20,000 men, women, and children. Tombasis, watching his opportunity, fell on a small detachment of Egyptians, and cut them to pieces. The Christians rallied, and, swarming down from the mountains, assailed the retiring army with such fury that they killed 7,000 men. A new Egyptian expedition of 10,000 troops with a large squadron reinforced the Ottoman army, and the commander, Ismail Gibraltar, so-called from having been the first Turk to sail beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, an able, adroit, and comparatively humane man, began to assail the Sphakiotes on their weak side, and induced them by bribery to withdraw from the hostilities. The other districts, many times decimated, had not the force to maintain the struggle, and Tombasis, after making a vain effort to rally the elements of another struggle, abandoned the island, which submitted almost entirely. Thousands of the most devoted and patriotic Cretans went to Greece, where they fought bravely for the common nationality. We see still on the plains of Athens the tomb of the corps that perished there to a man refusing to turn their backs to the Turk.