The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of IndependenceBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
History
The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Greece -- History -- War of Independence, 1821-1829 -- Fiction
Some sort of order was restored in the camp that day, and a third
part of each of the four regular corps was stationed to blockade the
citadel, while the others, in a more orderly manner and under the
command of officers, went on with the sack of the town. The rabble
who had passed in the day before were driven out of the place, and
a watch set at each of the gates; but these measures were only half
successful, for many took to hiding in the deserted houses, or, having
been ejected, climbed back again at the Argive tower, or at other
points of the walls where they could find entrance. Already many of the
Greeks were ill with an ill-defined fever, which Petrobey put down to
the effects of the foul, pestilence-laden atmosphere, and he employed
a number of men to cart the dead out of the city and burn them. But
they were not able to keep pace with the massacring which went on all
day, and that evening the fever took a more pronounced and violent form
in many of the eases, and before the morning of the 7th fifty or more
Greeks, chiefly countrymen, who had slept two nights in the streets,
were dead.
Just before dawn on the 7th a party of Turks made a sortie from the
citadel and broke through the Greek lines. The alarm was given at once
by the sentries, but the Turks were already among them before they
were able to make any resistance, and after not more than ten minutes'
fighting, they had broken their way through, and were doubling down
the street towards the Argive gate. The guard there had sprung to arms
at the sound of the disturbance above, and they engaged the Turks with
somewhat better success, but more than half the original number got
through and made straight for the unguarded hills between the plain and
Argos.
Nicholas, who had passed a feverish, tossing night, feeling weak and
weary, yet unable to sleep, had sprung up at once on the alarm, and was
among the first to meet the charge. In the darkness the fighting was
wild and random; they fought with shadows, and parrying a sword thrust
aimed at his head, though he turned the blow aside, he felt the weapon
wound him just below the shoulder, and the edge grate on the bone. Such
rough aid as could be given him was at once administered. His arm was
tightly bound above the wound to stop the bleeding from the severed
artery, and, after the rough but often effective surgery of the day,
the severed ends of the artery were cauterized and bound up, and the
edges of the wound were brought together. No serious consequences were
expected, for the flow of blood was soon checked, but for the present
any further search for Suleima was out of the question. But a couple
of hours later he grew more feverish and restless, and by ten o'clock
on the morning of the 8th he was delirious, down with that swift and
terrible fever which during the past night had already claimed many
victims.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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