peasant companions, accustomed to
bed-time at sunset, soon threw themselves down and slept.

The sleeping quarters were on the ground floor. Zaidos found his
pallet behind a great door opening on the street. It was open a
trifle, but a heavy chain secured it from opening any further. Zaidos
stuck his head out. There was enough space for that. It was the
blackest night he had ever seen, if one could be said to see anything
as dark.

A sentry padded up and down in the blackness. Zaidos smiled. The man
could certainly not see five feet ahead of him. All the city lights
were out for safety's sake. As he approached, Zaidos drew back, and
lay staring at the ceiling.

A stifled sob startled him. He turned. On the next pallet a young
fellow lay face downward, and muffled his weeping in the coarse
blanket. For an hour Zaidos listened. The shaken breathing and
occasional sobs continued. Zaidos could stand it no longer. He
reached over and let a friendly clasp fall on the heaving shoulder.

"What is it?" he whispered in his best Greek.

The young fellow turned to him eagerly, glad of sympathy. In a rush of
words that made it hard for Zaidos to understand, he whispered his
story. There was a wife and a little, little baby, "Oh, _so_ little!"
far up on the mountain-side; they would starve; surely, _surely_ they
would starve! They did not know what had become of him. Zaidos tried
in vain to calm the man. He could not do so and finally dropped into a
restless sleep with the man's stifled sobs ringing in his ears.

Zaidos had to concede that the man's fate was a hard one. He was only
nineteen years of age. The girl-wife was seventeen. As Zaidos dropped
asleep he was reflecting that no doubt nine-tenths of the men sleeping
in that room carried burdens as well as the young mountaineer and
himself.

He was wakened awhile later by a touch on the shoulder nearest the
door. A voice addressed him. For a moment Zaidos was unable to locate
it. Then he discovered that it was coming from the partly open door.
It was the young husband who had sobbed in the dark.

"Waken, friend!" said the low whisper. "Waken! Farewell! I go!
There is a small packet under my pallet. I forgot it. Will you hand
it quickly before the sentry turns?"

"Don't do a fool stunt like that," said Zaidos in English.

The deserter repeated, "Quickly, quickly!" and as Zaidos handed him the
packet he disappeared, the night swallowing him