Meantime the Albanian mercenaries, who had concluded a truce with the Greeks, hearing the tumult begin, formed under arms in the immense court-yard of the palace of Elmar Bey, their commander, prepared, if the Greeks attempted to violate their conditions, to charge--and with a fair chance of success--this disorganized rabble, and cut their way through. The mob was swarming outside the iron-barred gate, and some were even attempting to break it in, when Anagnostes, who was among them and saw the danger, struggled up to the gate, and by his immense personal strength pushed away the Greeks who were trying to force it. One man, thinking that there was some vast treasure within, and that Anagnostes had made an agreement by which it should be guarded for him, ran at him with a drawn sword, crying "Treachery!" and the other lifting his pistol calmly shot him dead. For a few moments his life hung on a thread, but he succeeded in making the men nearest him understand that inside were the Albanians, who had made a truce and only desired to leave the town; and forming a certain number of men across the street to stop the mob, secured a clear space for the Albanians to march out. Thence they went straight down the road to the Argos gate, round which lay the poorer quarter of the town, by this time almost entirely deserted by the Greek troops, though the hordes of peasants were swarming into the houses to secure all they could lay hands on, and then out of the town, where they took up their quarters in the deserted camp at Trikorpha, whence they watched the destruction of the city, and from there on the seventh day marched north to the Gulf of Corinth, took ship across the Gulf, and at length reached their mountain homes in safety.