"'He was a brave man,' said I to my friends; 'therefore he must have been a good man.'
"As soon as the zaptiehs were out of sight, we ran down to see the two men, and ascertain if life were quite extinct in them.
"I went up to the Turkish guard. I lifted up his lifeless head, and, as I did so, my heart was filled with love and sorrow. He was a stalwart, handsome man, in the flower of his years.
"'Is he quite dead?' I asked myself; 'is he not, perhaps, only wounded?'
"I opened his vest to look at the wound, and as I laid his chest bare, there, to my astonishment, grief and dismay, below the left breast, pricked in tiny blue dots, was the sign of the holy Cross —the Greek Cross, like the one which had been tattooed on my own flesh.
"I felt faint as I beheld it; my eyes grew dim, my hands fell lifeless. Was this man one of my long-lost brothers?
"My strength returned; with feverish hands I sought the mark on the nape of the neck. It was full-moon; therefore the stain was not only visible, but as red as the blood which flowed from his wounds.
"A feeling of faintness came over me again; I knew that I was deadly pale. I uttered a cry as I pressed the lifeless head to my heart.
"This man, no doubt, was my youngest brother, whom those hell-hounds had snatched away from our mother's breast upon that dreadful day, and—cursed be their race for ever—they had made a Turkish guard of him.
"His head was lying upon my lap; I bowed upon it and covered it with kisses.