I shall never forget the despair in the face of old Costa Veloudaki, the chief of the Rhizo district, when I told him of my failure.

Tall and straight under his seventy odd years, sickened with a terrible nostalgia away from his mountain home, he listened mute and turned away without a word, bowed with grief and too much moved to risk speaking lest tears should shame him.

I had known the old man from the beginning of the troubles, for he was the chief of the mountain country above Canea, and had been the spokesman of the committee when they came to see the consuls,--a noble, honest, and truly patriotic man, and a hero of all the movements since 1827.

In one of the first battles, fought in view of my house, his son had been killed, and, taking his hand as he lay on the ground they had successfully defended, he thanked God his son had been worthy to die for Crete.

It was, for me, the hard ending of a tragedy in which I had had my part, serious enough to identify myself with my island friends, and I can remember this episode of my life with the consciousness that those who suffered more than I did acknowledged that I had been a true friend and a prudent counselor from the beginning.
On my return to Athens I found Russie limping from the effects of a heavy fall he had had during my absence, and to which no attention had been paid, though it gave him continual pain.