Then, for a moment, he felt his adversary's right arm slacken, and knew that his hand was fumbling at his belt, whether for a knife or pistol he could not tell. His own pistol was in his belt, but tumbling, as he had, headlong into the middle of the fight, he had forgotten to take it out. But there was no doubt what that fumbling at the belt meant, and, throwing all his force into one effort, he lifted his opponent off his feet and threw him. Krinos's left hand, with which, alone, he was holding Mitsos, lost its grasp, and the man went head over heels backward, and Mitsos, by the force of his own throw, fell forward half across him. Just in front of them the millstone was turning with a slow relentlessness, and for a moment Mitsos thought his own head was going to strike it; but he fell free. Not so the other; there was a moment's cessation of the noise; then came a hoarse cry of agony, a horrid crack, and the stone began to turn again. Krinos's head had fallen right beneath it, and it was cracked as a nut may be cracked in a hinge. [Illustration: "YANNI WAS STRUGGLING IN THE GRASP OF TWO MEN, THE GREEK AND THE TURK"] There was no time for exultation. Mitsos picked himself up and gained his feet just as Yanni and the Turk, who were still struggling together, fell--the Turk uppermost. Mitsos saw him reach his hand to the butt of his pistol and draw it, keeping his knee on Yanni while he cocked it with the other hand. But in a moment he had done the same, and the two reports were almost simultaneous. Just above Yanni's head there appeared on the wooden floor a raking furrow, as if some wild beast's claw had struck and torn it; but the Turk fell back, shot through the head. The smoke cleared away, and Mitsos pulled Yanni from under the soldier; he lay quite still, and the edge of his black curls was singed and burned. Mitsos propped him up against the wall, and ran to get water from the millstream outside. When he came back Yanni's eyes were open, and he was looking about in a dazed, confused way. Mitsos poured a draught of it down his throat and sluiced his head, whereat Yanni looked up and smiled at him. "Did I not say it would be very good?" he murmured. "Oh, Mitsos, the black devils!" He sat up and looked round, then pointed at the dead body of the Turk. "I think I was stunned by the fall," he continued. "I remember falling and hitting my head an awful bang. So you shot him. Where is the other?" He staggered to his feet and looked round at the millstone; it was streaked and clotted with something dark and oily, and its edges dripped with the same. Krinos's fingers, though he had been dead two minutes at the least, still opened and shut, like seaweed under the suck of a ground-swell, and the nails scratched impotently on the rough-splintered floor. "We fell--he fell there," said Mitsos. "Come outside, Yanni. It is not good to stop here. Here, let me put my arm round you; you are unsteady yet."