A week passed, and the camps were all nearly full, and Petrobey waited impatiently for the completion of his preparations. Partly by extreme caution, and partly by good luck, there had as yet been no collision with the Turks, and apparently no uneasiness felt in Kalamata. A report had come in a couple of days before that two Turkish ships of war had been ordered there for the defence of the town, and to carry off the Turkish inhabitants in case of an outbreak; but, though the bay was carefully watched by those on the beacon-point, no sign of them had been seen. But about mid-day on the 2d of April a scout from the beacon came into the camp, saying that a small band of Turks, twelve in number, under arms, and followed by a train of baggage-mules, were coming up the pass from Kalamata. Petrobey's answer was short and decisive: "Stop them!" and some twenty men were sent out to reinforce the outpost at the beacon. From the camp nothing could be seen of the road, but a dozen more men were told off to hold themselves in readiness. Then after a long pause, in which each man's eyes sought the eyes of his fellow in a fever of expectation, shots were heard, and in half an hour's time the message came back to Petrobey and Nicholas, who were at dinner, that they had been stopped. Then Petrobey rose, and his gray eye was fire. "At last, at last!" he cried. "Oh, Nicholas, the vintage is ripe!" He waited no longer. Yanni, who was his aide-de-camp, was despatched at top speed to the next station, with orders that an hour before sunset the army was to start on its march to Kalamata, and all the afternoon the stir of going was shrill. The clan were half wild with excitement and eagerness; but all were absolutely in control, and went about their duties methodically and in perfect order, and the work of lading and marshalling the ammunition and baggage-mules was finished by four o'clock. Meanwhile another party had carried up to the top of the hill the fuel for the beacon, which Petrobey had arranged was to be the signal, not only across to the hill above Bassae, but to the patriots collected lower down in the villages of the Messenian plain. Mitsos, who was charged with the lighting of it, was to let loose the tongue of fire which should shout the word all over Greece as soon as dark fell, and then follow straight down the hill-side after the main body. The whole disposition of the force round Kalamata, and the routes by which, converging as they went, they were to march there, had been already arranged, and by five o'clock the clan set out, spreading themselves in open order over the hill-side, the mules alone following the road of the pass, so as to prevent any one leaving the town by other mountain-paths over Taygetus.