Suliote,
accompanied by the son, a little boy, of Marco Botzaris, with another
man, walked into the Seraglio, a kind of citadel, which had been used
as a barrack for the Suliotes, and out of which they had been ejected
with difficulty, when it was required for the reception of stores and
the establishment of a laboratory. The sentinel ordered them back,
but the Suliote advanced. The sergeant of the guard, a German,
pushed him back. The Suliote struck the sergeant; they closed and
struggled. The Suliote drew his pistol; the German wrenched it from
him, and emptied the pan. At this moment a Swedish adventurer,
Captain Sass, seeing the quarrel, ordered the Suliote to be taken to
the guard-room. The Suliote would have departed, but the German
still held him. The Swede drew his sabre; the Suliote his other
pistol. The Swede struck him with the flat of his sword; the Suliote
unsheathed his ataghan, and nearly cut off the left arm of his
antagonist, and then shot him through the head. The other Suliotes
would not deliver up their comrade, for he was celebrated among them
for distinguished bravery. The workmen in the laboratory refused to
work: they required to be sent home to England, declaring, they had
come out to labour peaceably, and not to be exposed to assassination.
These untoward occurrences deeply vexed Byron, and there was no mind
of sufficient energy with him to control the increasing disorders.
But, though convinced, as indeed he had been persuaded from the
beginning in his own mind, that he could not render any assistance to
the cause beyond mitigating the ferocious spirit in which the war was
conducted, his pride and honour would not allow him to quit Greece.

In a letter written soon after his first attack, he says, "I am a
good deal better, though of course weakly. The leeches took too much
blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in
stopping it; but I have been up daily, and out in boats or on
horseback. To-day I have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately
as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without any animal
food"; then adverting to the turbulences of the Suliotes, he adds,
"but I still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long
as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful."
Subsequently, when pressed to leave the marshy and deleterious air of
Missolonghi, he replied, still more forcibly, "I cannot quit Greece
whil