TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.

Mt Benger Mail, Volume I, Issue 44, 2 March 1881, Page 7

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.

Full details are now to hand of the fearful crime perpetrated on the 21st September in the little villiage of Narlikeui, situated about two miles beyond the European village of Bourna*. bat, on the road to Hadjilar. It appears that about half-past six on that evening a gang of robbers surrounded the house of an Armenian gentleman named Ohannes Aktchali and knocked at the garden gate, which opens into a small enclosed field situated on the road to Hadjilar. Until 6 o'clock Mr Aktchali had been sitting under the great plane trees which form one of the prettiest features in the little village, chatting with some Mussulman acquaintances. A few minutes after six he returned to his house. When the robbers knocked at the garden gate Mr Aktchali, who had only just come in, was alone in the courtyard. The manservant was out, Mr Aktchali, an invalid, was in a room on the first floor, Miss Aktchali was in another room on the ground floor, and the maid was in the kitchen. Mr Aktchali went and opened the door himself, believing that some peasant neighbour had come to see him. The door was hardly ajar when the robbers rushed in, felled him with repeated blows, and almost in an instant he was stretched on the ground in a dying state. At this juncture the daughter ran out, and, seeing the terrible spectacle before her, cried aloud for aid One of the robbers took her by the hair, threw her down, and struck her several blows with the butt end of his gun, then kneeling upon her chest, he loaded his gun. While he was thus engaged, the man servant arrived, but was uuabie to get into tho lionfff, as the" robbers had taken the precaution of closing the doors. He tried to make his way into the house by climbing over an adjoiuing wall, but the robbers fired at him, and, the shot taking effect upon his knee, he was rendered incapable of giving any assintance. A neighbor, a woman, who also tried to make her way into the house was likewise fired at aud slightly wounded on the face. Thus the robbers wero masters of the house aud the situation. Having discovered Mrs Aktchali, they threatened her with instant death if I she did not immediately show them her husband's cash box and valuables. She pointed to the adjoining room, and then fell back exhausted on her bed. The door of the room indicated was open, and the heavy safe within was carried away, although it is said to have weighed nearly 2cwt. It contained money, bills of exchange, title deeds, and family jewels. As the firing had by this time alarmed the village, the captain of the band became apprehensive of being surrounded. The order was therefore given to retreat, and the band made off with the safe. Seven robbers were counted within the house, and as many more were stationed in the garden. They marched off quietly, and without haste, taking their booty with them. When the neighbors and peasants succeeded at length in gaining an entrance into the house, they found Mr Aktchali stretched lifeless on the ground, the servant bleeding from his wound in the courtyard, and the daughter senseless. A messenger was sent to inform the police of Bournabat, whose emissaries arrived some time after, and next day, that is 14 hours after the crime was committed, the authorities arrived from Smyrna, and the pursuit of the malefactors began. The safe was fpttfui at a distance of two kilometres from the village. It was broken in pieces, and a heap of ashes was all that remained of the papers which it contained. Who these robbers wero and whence they came is a mystery. The deceased belonged to one of the oldest and most respectable of the Armenian families of Smyrna.