Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/171

Rh and decided on risking nothing for the chance of saving an innocent man. The Mejlis broke up. The family of avengers stood on the quay, the usual place of execution at Rhodes, waiting impatiently for the condemned man to appear. The Cavass Bashi, or chief of the police, calmed their impatience by telling them that an executioner could not be found. The fact was that the Turks were afraid of a rescue. There was a ship in the harbour full of Cassiotes, countrymen of the condemned, and the sympathies of the whole Greek population of Rhodes were roused. So the Turks, having quieted the friends of the condemned by saying that there was a reprieve for three days, and appeased the family by the excuse of not being able to find an executioner, proceeded to double the guards of the konak, and to get the guns of a ship of war in the harbour ready to fire on the quay, if necessary. Then at sunset, locking the town gates a little sooner than usual to prevent any great crowd, they called in the family, who rushed to the place of execution with savage joy, shut out the sympathizing- crowd, and finished what we call in England the last act of the law—I am afraid that in Turkey such executions are sometimes but legalized mm-ders. I had been out walking to enjoy the glorious sunset, congratulating myself with the faint hope that our exertions had obtained a few days' reprieve, when I met a great crowd coming from the town. In the centre was a woman with a flushed cheek and fierce eye, beating her naked bosom with alternate hand, and in regular time, the action reminding me