e ceiling and
found its way out at the low door; therefore they pitched their tents
on the small space outside our dwelling, roasted lambs and birds, and
poured out strong sweet wine, of which the Turks were not allowed to
partake.

[Illustration: THE GREEK MOTHER'S SONG.]

When they departed, I accompanied them for some distance, carrying my
little sister Anastasia, wrapped in a goatskin, on my back. One of the
Frankish gentlemen made me stand in front of a rock, and drew me, and
her too, as we stood there, so that we looked like one creature. I
never thought of it; but Anastasia and I were really one. She was
always sitting in my lap or riding in the goatskin at my back; and
when I dreamed, she appeared in my dreams.

Two nights afterwards, other men, armed with knives and muskets, came
into our tent. They were Albanians, brave men, my mother told me. They
only stayed a short time. My sister Anastasia sat on the knee of one
of them, and when they were gone she had not three, but only two
silver coins in her hair. They wrapped tobacco in strips of paper and
smoked it. I remember they were undecided as to the road they were to
take.

But they had to make a choice. They went, and my father went with
them. Soon afterwards we heard the sound of firing. The noise was
renewed, and soldiers rushed into our hut, and took my mother, and
myself, and my sister Anastasia prisoners. They declared that the
robbers had been entertained by us, and that my father had acted as
the robbers' guide, and therefore we must go with them. Presently I
saw the corpses of the robbers brought in; I saw my father's corpse
too. I cried and cried till I fell asleep. When I awoke, we were in
prison, but the room was not worse than ours in our own house. They
gave me onions to eat, and musty wine poured from a tarry cask, but we
had no better fare at home.

How long we were kept prisoners I do not know; but many days and
nights went by. When we were set free it was the time of the holy
Easter feast. I carried Anastasia on my back, for my mother was ill,
and could only move slowly, and it was a long way till we came down to
the sea, to the Gulf of Lepanto. We went into a church that gleamed
with pictures painted on a golden ground. They were pictures of
angels, and very beautiful; but it seemed to me that our little
Anastasia was just as beautiful. In the middle of the floor stood a
coffin filled with roses. "The Lord Christ is pictured there in