clear a passage for their flight.

After sunset four bridges of planks were secretly laid over the outer
ditch of Missolonghi, and the inhabitants were ordered to prepare to
leave in two hours. Many--about two thousand--lost heart at last; some
betaking themselves to the powder stores, there, when all hope was
over, to end their lives by easier death than the enemy might allow
them; others, crouching in corners of their homesteads, deeming it
better to be murdered there than in the open country. The rest obeyed
the orders of the generals. All the women dressed themselves as men,
with swords or daggers at their waists. Every child who could hold a
weapon had one placed in his hand. There was bitter leave-taking, and
desperate words of encouragement passed from one to another, as the
patriots were marshalled in the order of their departure;--three
thousand fighting men to open a passage and four thousand women and
children to follow;--the whole being divided into three separate
parties. At length all was ready, and the first party silently passed
out of the town and advanced to the bridges. To their amazement,
they no sooner appeared than they were met by volley after volley of
Turkish fire. A traitor had revealed their plan, and every measure had
been taken for their destruction. Some rushed on in despite; others
hurried back, to fall into confusion, which it was hard indeed to
overcome. They felt, however, that this deadly chance was their only
chance of life, and they pressed on through the fire, and the swords
of their foes, and by the sheer heroism of despair forced a passage
to the mountains. Karaiskakes's aid--apparently through no fault of
his--was only obtained when the worst dangers had been surmounted or
succumbed to. Of the nine thousand persons who were in Missolonghi on
the day of the evacuation, four thousand were killed in the town or on
the way out of it. Only thirteen hundred men and two hundred women and
children lived to reach Salona after more than a week of wandering and
hiding among the mountains.

The long siege of Missolonghi illustrates all the best and some of
the worst features of the Greek Revolution. In it there was patriotism
worthy, in its bursts of splendour, of the nation that claimed descent
from the heroes of Plataea and Thermopylae. But the patriotism was
often fitful in its working, and oftener wholly wanting. The Greeks
could not shake off the pernicious influences that sprang, almo