Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/172

144 at once of the planetus of the ancients. It was the sister of the unhappy man who had just been executed. Her eyes had no tears; she was thinking of a future vendetta, when her turn would come.

The next day the Greek ships in the harbour lowered their colours half-mast high. A long procession of all the principal Greeks in Rhodes attended the funeral of the unhappy man, who I really believe was sacrificed to some vile family feud; and after the funeral I had a visit from the chief mourner, Mr. Leonidas Sakelarides. The mention of his name obliges me to give a sketch of a long previous history, in which this execution is only one act. Some three years ago, an Austrian vessel was wrecked off the little island of Cassos. The Cassiotes are enterprising mariners, who combine the professions of trader and pirate in a way more profitable to themselves than pleasant to their neighbours. The captain of the Austrian vessel went on shore, little knowing that he had entered into a den of thieves. He drew up the usual protest, or declaration of the shipwreck, before the only local authority he could find in the island, a Greek council of primates.

The captain unluckily knew no Greek. The secretary of the Council being the only person in the place who knew Italian, pretended to take down the captain's protest in Greek, writing all the time a false declaration to the effect that all the cargo was lost at sea. This false protest the captain unknowingly signed. Then the Cassiotes, thinking themselves secure, plundered the vessel and appropriated all the cargo. But the ship having been