h a responsibility, and to invite such a
crisis!

But King George never wavered in his purpose. The Powers sent demands,
and then threats, but all were met firmly by the reply, that _he should
not withdraw his troops from Crete_.

What made it more difficult and exasperating was that the people--the
people, who are always giving their rulers so much trouble, and making it
so hard for them--were wildly applauding King George and the Greeks for
the firm stand they had taken, and saying that the old fire which burned
at Marathon and Thermopylae had not been extinguished; that the modern
Greeks were the worthy sons of a great race!

In England, France, and Italy, public opinion has to be listened to, if
their Governments would stand! When the Ambassadors and the Ministers of
these three countries read the papers and the telegrams, they began to go
very slowly and cautiously. But Germany and Russia, although bound, as I
have already told you, by close family relationships to the King of
Greece, were in hot indignation that he should have audaciously raised
such a storm. He must be stopped at once in a course which might embroil
Europe in a war with Turkey; and more than that, he must be punished.

Then there were more conferences, which were more solemn than before:
three of the Ministers (Salisbury, Hanotaux, and Rudini) not very sure
that an indignant people might not even then be planning their overthrow;
and the other three, with no such apprehension, urging extreme and severe
measures against Greece.

At last they thought they had found a safe compromise.

They would demand that the Sultan should give up Crete, which should have
its own government, or _autonomy_, as it is called, with a ruler whom
they, the Powers, should select. Greece must go home with her troops and
her ships, and have nothing hereafter to do with the fate of the island.

This was considered a wise solution of the difficulty. It would satisfy
public opinion in Europe, while at the same time it properly humiliated
Greece, who would be rebuked before all the world.

Again something unexpected happened. The stalwart, stubborn Cretans had
their own views and preferences.

They did not want autonomy at all. What they desired was _union with
Greece_; and Greece declared her unaltered and unalterable determination
to stand by the island at any cost, and to protect her from being coerced
into a political condition she did not desire.

One small, f