The troops in the Apokorona were face to face with the Cretans armed to protect the committee, and that step forward would make a collision certain. The irregulars, proud of their new rifles, were firing in every direction all over the country. One heard rifle-balls whistling past, falling on the roofs and everywhere continually. Still no European ships. By every post we pleaded with our ministers at Constantinople for protection. The anxiety and excitement became almost unendurable. The whole community seemed to be in a state of tension and apprehension that approached madness. I found myself going continually and unconsciously to my balcony, telescope in hand, although ten minutes before I failed to discover an object in the range of vision. I grew, like the genius of the Arabian tale in his vase of lead, ready to curse the tardy deliverer that he tarried so long. The sight of a steamer on the horizon produced a loathing, as one after another we had watched them approach only to see the accursed crescent increase on our vision. One night a party of Mussulmans, passing through the suburb in which we resided, in frolic fired several pistol-shots, yelling "Death to the Christians!" In a few minutes, all that remained of Christianity in the quarter outside the gates of the consulates were rushing in a state of uncontrollable panic to beg admission. My cavasses were obdurate and indifferent, being Mussulmans, and refused to open, and, while I lay listening for indications of further and serious disturbance, my wife had descended, thrown the doors open, admitting the crowd of women and children, who passed the rest of the night seated on the floor of the consulate. None of us left our walls needlessly, and then only with an armed guard. My children for weeks did not pass the threshold, and, when business called either of us, whom the Cretans called the friendly consuls, to the palace of the Governor-General, we were greeted passing through the streets with unmistakable scowls and menaces. The sentinel at the city-gate as I passed one day, instead of presenting arms, as etiquette requires to a consular officer, saluted me as an infidel dog, accompanying the epithet with a menace and grimace comprehensible even to one who understood not a word of Turkish. I begged my wife at last to take the children and go to Syra, where they would be in security, but she resolutely refused, believing that her departure would be the signal for the last panic among the Christian women, who depended on our protection. Only they who know the extent and bitterness of Mussulman fanaticism can estimate the danger or anxiety of those few weeks. CHAPTER IV.