The men filed off quickly, but without confusion, but before more than half had gone there came a sudden rush from outside, and a band of Turks poured up the narrow lane of booths. For a few moments the two crowds surged together without fighting-room, then they broke up right and left into the narrow alleys, fighting in groups. The Capsina found herself wedged up in the crowd, a Turk between her and the door-post of one of the huts, each staring wildly at the other, and neither able to move. Then, as the pressure behind grew greater, the door-post gave under the weight, and they both tumbled headlong in. The Capsina's pistol went off wildly in the air, a musket-bullet whistled by her, and the hut was suddenly full of smoke. She had fallen straight across the man, but in a moment she struggled to her knees and stabbed fiercely at something soft below her. The soft thing quivered and was still, and something warm spurted onto her hand with a soft hot gush.
At that the madness of fresh blood took possession of her, and she laughed softly, a gentle, cooing, cruel laugh, like in spirit to the purring of a wild cat which has killed its evening meal and is pleased, not only with the thought of the satisfaction of its hunger, but with having killed. She stayed still a moment, the silent centre of the shouting confusion outside, waiting to see if the man moved again. Outside the fight had surged and wavered and moved away, and though she was on her feet again in less than a minute from the time when she and her prey had fallen together headlong into the hut, she looked out to find the little alley, where the first rush had been made, empty except for a few forms which lay on the ground, and a Turk who was leaning against the post of a hut opposite, in the shadow of death. His side had been laid open by a sword-cut, and he was trying, but very feebly, because he was already a dead man, to stanch the flow of blood. Looking up he saw the Capsina, his mouth gathered in a snarl, and with an effort he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. But it had already been fired, and he threw it from him with a grunt of disgust and took no more notice of her. And she laughed again.
Listening, she heard the turmoil of the fight sweeping away round to the east of the hill, and she was just about to dash off again to rejoin the rest when up the lane by which the Turks had entered came a woman with a baby in her arms. In the dim light of the stars and the grayness before the rising of the moon the Capsina could not clearly see her face, only she was tall. The baby was hidden under the shawl in which her head was wrapped; she carried it on her left arm, and in her right hand she held a pistol. Then catching sight of the Turk opposite propped against the hut door, she paused a moment and pushed noiselessly but with all her weight against the door of another hut, seeking shelter.
The Capsina came out of the shadow and beckoned to her.
"Here, come in here," she said; "but why are you not with the other women?"
The woman sank down in a corner of the hut, and then swiftly got up again.
"What is it here?" she said. "There is some one here!"
The Capsina laughed again.
"Limbs and a body," she said. "A Turk. I killed him. Where are you from?"
"From a house near," she said. "I left it in haste, and had to hide in a ditch till the Turks passed. I saw the Greeks from Nauplia enter here, and I thought I should be safer with them than on the road."