For several weeks after the adventure of the fire-ship his anxieties about Suleima had been stilled, for that escape seemed to him so heaven-sent that with childlike faith he had no manner of doubt but that the saints watched over her, and though at times his heart went a-mourning for her absence, yet he trusted an unreasoning conviction that at the time appointed he would see her again. The strong probability that she was in this beleaguered town did not at first weigh on him at all. Some day, when provisions ran short, it would capitulate, and there would be a repetition of the scene at Kalamata; or they would storm it, and there would be fighting inside. But the women would all be in the houses, and even if the houses were attacked she would remember what he had told her, and cry out to them in Greek, saying she was of their blood, and all would be well. But when the excitement of the skirmish at Valtetzi, now nearly two months ago, and the move to Trikorpha, with all the delightful night-raiding, was over, and was succeeded by an inaction sickened by the odious intrigues of the primates, he began to weary sore for her, and then to be filled with panic fears as unfounded as his first security. Safety in a siege, there was no such thing! A chance bullet, an angry Greek, and a repetition of that infernal butchery of women and children on board the ship bound for Egypt. What was more horribly possible? A burning house, a falling wall, and then a mass of pulped bodies. On this particular night his fears grew like the monstrous visions of some hag-ridden nightmare. A hundred terrible scenes loomed enormous before him, and in each Suleima, with white, imploring face, was struck out of life, now by a bullet, now by a sword. Below, in the part of the town nearest him, where five or six big houses were built on the wall, there gleamed rows of lights from narrow-barred windows, and from each Suleima's face looked out from a room burning within, while she shook the iron bars with impotent hands as the flames flickered and rose behind her. The thing became intolerable; he rose and walked about, but found no rest. Thirty yards away the soldiers' huts began, and he could hear sounds of singing from the big shanty-built café a little farther on. The sentry had just been on his rounds, and Mitsos exchanged a word or two with him as he passed, and he would be back again in half an hour. The wall inside was only six feet high, outside perhaps ten or twelve, but with plenty of handhold for an agile lad, and the next moment, without thinking where or why he went, he had clambered up and dropped down on the other side.