being of a masonry which yielded only to artillery, and from the
windows and doors of these a hail of bullets at close quarters met
the entering crowd of regulars and swarms of bloodthirsty Cretan
irregulars, all furious at the resistance and wild with fanaticism.
The artillery had to be brought in to break down the divisions between
the houses and cells, and the fight was one of extermination until all
the buildings were taken except the refectory, the strongest of the
buildings. At this juncture one of the priests fired the magazine,
with an effect far greater on the outside world than on the
combatants, for it did not kill over a hundred Turks. The insurgents
in the refectory were then summoned to surrender, and, having
exhausted their ammunition, they complied, on the solemn promise of
Mustapha that their lives should be spared; but, having handed out
their rifles, they were all immediately killed.

One of the Egyptian officers--an Italian colonel--told me many
incidents of the fight, of a sufficiently horrible nature, but he
said that he saw things which were too horrible to be repeated.
Thirty-three men and sixty-one women and children were spared,
mostly through personal pleas to Mustapha of ancient friendship. The
secretary told me of a fanatic of Canea who had volunteered in the
hope of being killed in a war with the infidel, and who had been in
all the fights of the insurrection, and, escaping from Arkadi unhurt,
went home and hung up his sword, saying that Kismet was against him
and he was not permitted to die for the faith. He also told me that
all the ravines near Arkadi were filled with the dead, while Retimo
was filled with the wounded; and from the report of the hospital
surgeon at Canea, I learned that four hundred and eighty were brought
to our hospital, being unable to find shelter at Retimo.