DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0197
178
sfakians put to death
[chap.
by, and see their innocent fellow-villagers and relations
arrested and conducted down to the head-quarters at
Fre, probably to be executed in cold blood by these
Egyptians, whom every one hated as bitterly as the
old Turks.
Now the villagers of Askyfo and Nlpros, not an hour
distant, would supply a body of full two hundred men :
they would also be able to obtain a reinforcement from
Asfento, so that probably they would muster about three
hundred, nearly all of whom could arm themselves in
an instant39. The leading men among them held a
secret deliberation, and felt satisfied that daybreak would
see their fellow-villagers marched off under a strong-
escort, of perhaps a hundred men, to the Pashas. They
therefore determined to go in two parties so as suddenly
to inclose them as they passed the narrowest part of the
defile. " We will then demand their prisoners, and we
will have them either dead or alive40.'" Happily, how-
ever, for the tranquillity of Crete, and, perhaps, for the
Sfakians themselves, the messenger sent to the Pashas
returned in the silence and darkness of night, and com-
municated his orders to the President and Colonel.
When the Sfakians were on the look out, at the very
earliest dawn, to see what the Turks were on the point
of doing, the first sight that met their eyes was the five
bodies of the unfortunate prisoners, one or two of whom
had been despatched by the bowstring, and the rest had
been bayonneted by the Arabs, in the house where they
were guarded.
The Askyfidtes around me, three of whom, in their
height and muscular strength, are such men as one sees
only in these mountains, sigh as they repeat the tale,
and point out to me, in the group which surrounds me,
39 Although the whole of Crete was nominally disarmed, when the Egypt-
ians had the country given to them by England, France, and Russia, yet the
Sfakians nearly all of them still have concealed arms, and could at any time
rise equipped for their old pursuits of war and plunder.
40 "H d-Trodaficifnv; rj "^wvTai/ous.
sfakians put to death
[chap.
by, and see their innocent fellow-villagers and relations
arrested and conducted down to the head-quarters at
Fre, probably to be executed in cold blood by these
Egyptians, whom every one hated as bitterly as the
old Turks.
Now the villagers of Askyfo and Nlpros, not an hour
distant, would supply a body of full two hundred men :
they would also be able to obtain a reinforcement from
Asfento, so that probably they would muster about three
hundred, nearly all of whom could arm themselves in
an instant39. The leading men among them held a
secret deliberation, and felt satisfied that daybreak would
see their fellow-villagers marched off under a strong-
escort, of perhaps a hundred men, to the Pashas. They
therefore determined to go in two parties so as suddenly
to inclose them as they passed the narrowest part of the
defile. " We will then demand their prisoners, and we
will have them either dead or alive40.'" Happily, how-
ever, for the tranquillity of Crete, and, perhaps, for the
Sfakians themselves, the messenger sent to the Pashas
returned in the silence and darkness of night, and com-
municated his orders to the President and Colonel.
When the Sfakians were on the look out, at the very
earliest dawn, to see what the Turks were on the point
of doing, the first sight that met their eyes was the five
bodies of the unfortunate prisoners, one or two of whom
had been despatched by the bowstring, and the rest had
been bayonneted by the Arabs, in the house where they
were guarded.
The Askyfidtes around me, three of whom, in their
height and muscular strength, are such men as one sees
only in these mountains, sigh as they repeat the tale,
and point out to me, in the group which surrounds me,
39 Although the whole of Crete was nominally disarmed, when the Egypt-
ians had the country given to them by England, France, and Russia, yet the
Sfakians nearly all of them still have concealed arms, and could at any time
rise equipped for their old pursuits of war and plunder.
40 "H d-Trodaficifnv; rj "^wvTai/ous.