DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0179
VII.]
TO DESTROY THE CHRISTIANS.
129
escape through devious passages to the inner recesses
of the cave. The husband and wife, the parent and
child, could only take one last embrace and die. The
smoke now forced its way from the entrance apartment
into that of which a sketch is given'0. Here many more
fell, but the greater number had still time to escape,
through narrow passages, in some of which they must
have crept on their hands and knees, into little side
chambers, and to the more distant recesses of the cavern.
Doubtless, they hoped thus to escape the fate which
had overtaken their less active companions. Alas ! the
passages through which they rushed, suffered the destroy-
ing vapour to follow them ; and thus, at last, the groups
of fugitives who had taken refuge in the inmost depths
of the cave, died as their companions had done ; and, in
a few minutes after their funeral pile was first lighted,
all these unhappy Christians had perished. By submis-
sion they might, undoubtedly, have avoided this fate,
but they were all convinced, that if they once surren-
dered to their angry and ferocious foes, the men among
them would be massacred, and the women and children
reduced to slavery ; so that one wonders not that they
should have refused to listen to the offers which were
made them.
The Turks, and the Cretan Mohammedans, distrust-
ful of the effect of their diabolical contrivance, waited
patiently outside the cavern for eighteen days. They
had with them a Greek prisoner: I might call him a
slave, for' all those who were made prisoners were con-
sidered as such, and used commonly to be sold in the
markets of the chief cities. They offered this Christian
slave his life, as the reward of his consenting to go down
into the cavern to see what his correligionaries were about.
He gladly accepted their proposal, and, after venturing,
with much fear and anxiety, into the grotto, found in
it only the silence of the grave, and soon returned,
70 The sketch was taken immediately after entering this second great
apartment.
VOL. I. I
TO DESTROY THE CHRISTIANS.
129
escape through devious passages to the inner recesses
of the cave. The husband and wife, the parent and
child, could only take one last embrace and die. The
smoke now forced its way from the entrance apartment
into that of which a sketch is given'0. Here many more
fell, but the greater number had still time to escape,
through narrow passages, in some of which they must
have crept on their hands and knees, into little side
chambers, and to the more distant recesses of the cavern.
Doubtless, they hoped thus to escape the fate which
had overtaken their less active companions. Alas ! the
passages through which they rushed, suffered the destroy-
ing vapour to follow them ; and thus, at last, the groups
of fugitives who had taken refuge in the inmost depths
of the cave, died as their companions had done ; and, in
a few minutes after their funeral pile was first lighted,
all these unhappy Christians had perished. By submis-
sion they might, undoubtedly, have avoided this fate,
but they were all convinced, that if they once surren-
dered to their angry and ferocious foes, the men among
them would be massacred, and the women and children
reduced to slavery ; so that one wonders not that they
should have refused to listen to the offers which were
made them.
The Turks, and the Cretan Mohammedans, distrust-
ful of the effect of their diabolical contrivance, waited
patiently outside the cavern for eighteen days. They
had with them a Greek prisoner: I might call him a
slave, for' all those who were made prisoners were con-
sidered as such, and used commonly to be sold in the
markets of the chief cities. They offered this Christian
slave his life, as the reward of his consenting to go down
into the cavern to see what his correligionaries were about.
He gladly accepted their proposal, and, after venturing,
with much fear and anxiety, into the grotto, found in
it only the silence of the grave, and soon returned,
70 The sketch was taken immediately after entering this second great
apartment.
VOL. I. I