"Yanne!"
The woman with the babe reeled as though the earth were slipping from beneath her-feet. A neighbor caught the child and the mother fell limply to the ground. Then, while friends dashed water upon her face and rubbed her hands, the boy talked rapidly, shrilly, flinging his arms about with loose-elbowed gestures. The woman opened her eyes and two of the men helped her to her feet. She tottered for a moment, disheveling her hair with despairing hands and whispering hoarsely:
"Yanne! Yanne! What shall I do? What shall I do?"
But suddenly the brave woman-soul asserted itself and her frail body straightened, tense, defiant, ready for any effort. Clasping the babe to her breast she kissed it tenderly many times. Holding it for a moment at arm's length, she looked at it hungrily, and then turned her eyes away. A neighbor took the child.
"Come!" said the mother, and she ran lightly up the ravine, followed by the boy. The babe bleated "Mama! mama!" like a frightened lamb, but the woman did not look back. Hopping two or three steps from the doorway, Curtis seized a woman by the arm.
"Killed?" he asked in Greek.
"Eh?"
"Killed?"
Unfortunately, everybody understood, and all commenced talking at once.
"I don't understand," shouted Curtis. "Silence! Killed? killed?"