Lambros, who had the southern palate for anything smacking of drama and mystery, obeyed in letter and spirit, and at mid-day, while the primates were halting, he spurred a jaded, foam-streaked horse up the road, flung himself quickly off, and gave the forged communication to his master. Germanos glanced through it with well-feigned dismay and exclamations of astonished horror, and at once read it aloud to the assembled primates, who were struck with consternation. Some suggested one thing and some another, but every one looked to Germanos for an authoritative word. "This will we do, my brothers," he said, "if it seems good to you: I will send this letter to my admirable friend--or so I still think--Mehemet Salik, and ask for a promise of safety, a matter of form merely. Yet we may not disregard what my other admirable friend has said, for if, as God forbid, it is true, where would our flock be without their shepherds? But if it is false, Mehemet will at once send us a promise of safety. Meantime, we must act as if the truth of this letter were possible, and I suggest that we all disperse, and for our greater safety each surround himself with some small guard. And before the answer comes back, it may be"--he looked round and saw only the faces of patriots--"it may be that there will be other business on hand"--and his face was a beacon. It is probable that more than one of the primates guessed that the letter was a forgery, but they were only too glad to be supplied with a specious excuse for delaying their journey, and followed Germanos's advice. Then followed those ten days of feverish inaction, while on Taygetus Petrobey collected the forces which were to be the doom of Kalamata. Evening by evening patient men climbed to the hills where the beacon fuel was stacked, questioning the horizon for the signal, and morning by morning returned to the expectant band of patriots in their villages, saying "Not yet, not yet," until one night the signs of fire shouted from south to north of the land, telling them that the Vintage was ripe for harvest. At Kalavryta, where the first blow in the north was struck, they found the Turks even less ready than at Kalamata, and little expecting the soldiers of God in their companies from the monastery; and on the 3d of April the town surrendered on receiving, as at Kalamata, a promise that there should be no massacre. The place was one of little importance among the Turkish towns, but of the first importance to the revolutionists, lying as it did in the centre of the richest valley in Greece, and in close proximity to Megaspelaion, and it became the centre of operations in the north. Also, it was valuable inasmuch as several very wealthy Turks lived there, and the money that thus fell into the hands of the Greeks was food for the sinews of war.