The inhabitants of the once beautiful island of Scio, were among the last to rise against their oppressors and throw off the Turkish yoke. A combination of causes prevented them from taking part in the revolt when it first broke out. The spirit of enterprise and commerce, while it enriched and refined the people, had withdrawn them, by degrees, from those warlike habits which had distinguished many of the neighboring isles. They were immediately under the coast of Asia Minor, from whence, without a moment’s warning, they might be overwhelmed by hordes of merciless barbarians. They could not look out upon their vine-clad hills and their cultivated fields, where the orange, citron and pomegranate bloomed in oriental richness, and think that the fair scene should be polluted by the horrors of a desolating war. Learning and religion were protected. They were prosperous and happy under a government which, to _them_ at least, had been an indulgent one, and they wisely preferred their present safety to the uncertain chance of future benefit. The young men of the island, many of whom had been educated in the universities of France and Italy, with the generous impulse of their age, hastened, at the first cry, to join the ranks of the revolters; and we may well imagine that many, who were themselves unable to take up arms, prayed for the success of the cause and aided it in secret. A year had now passed, and such was the situation of Scio. It was an evening in the month of March, when a young Greek might be seen hastening along the beach in the direction of the principal town of the island. In the dress of the person--which was that of the higher class of citizens--there was nothing remarkable; but in his manner there was much to draw attention. His countenance was marked by an expression of cool and high-strung desperation. He strode on, as if to escape from the burthen of some intolerable thought, and muttered to himself from between his close set teeth. We may catch the import of his words. “Well, well! it is over; and in sooth, she carried it nobly for one so young; but that pride shall have a fall, my haughty beauty,--and that stripling Antonio, too--by the cross! to be outwitted, circumvented, thus--that _he_ should step in and pluck the fruit I had coveted so long. Most excellent Constantine! truly thy wits have grown sharp of late to be thus miserably foiled by a beardless boy, and thine own egregious self conceit.--Fool! fool!” He paused for an instant, and a demoniac scowl passed across his features. “Ay, revenge----and she shall kneel to me even as I knelt to her, and pray to me in her agony and I will not hear her. Wo to those who would trifle with the proffers of Constantine.”