Dancers of Epano — Wynn Parks

To trap an elusive partisan leader, foreign troops lay siege to Epano, his home village. An Englishman in Epano, Reginald Jordon, plots to escape ---with his secret lover--- from the village's desperate and bloody defense. When the Patriot dies, trying to relieve Epano, the ex-pat imagines that he can stay uninvolved as his lover, and all, dance themselves, and their children off the sea-cliffs behind Epano.
I am haunted by legends of people who follow a course, on principle, that means their certain death ---the defenders of the Alamo; or the Three Hundred Spartans. What words echoed through their minds as they set out to resist their inevitable doom? Were there words at all, or only a quivering pool of inner silence?
On the 16th of December 1803, after witnessing the slaughter, in battle, of their fathers, brothers, and sons, the Greek women of Zalongo danced together in farewell; then threw themselves and their children over a precipice, rather than submit to the advancing Turks. Dancers of Epano is my homage to their imponderable determination.