"If I cannot have a Christian home,I will have a Christian grave."
"If I cannot have a Christian home,I will have a Christian grave."
"If I cannot have a Christian home,I will have a Christian grave."
"If I cannot have a Christian home,
I will have a Christian grave."
"Yon Effendi," he resumed, "their hate of us is growing every day. And now, I think, they mean to make a full end of us."
For rumours of terrible and wholesale massacres were reaching them every day. Now it was about Sassoun, now about Zeitun, now about Marash and Trebizond, that these things were whispered from lip to lip. Such rumours kept them in a continual state of apprehension and panic; for they knewnot what to believe, and had no means of learning the truth. It was easier to know in England what happened in any town of Armenia than to know it in another town of the same country. The Turks of Biridjik triumphed openly; and some of them boasted to their Giaour neighbours that they would soon have all that belonged to them. Some of the Christians thought they were all sure to be murdered; others remembered there had been just such a scare seventeen or eighteen years before, but that then it had come to nothing; so they thought that now also things would just go on as usual, neither better nor worse. Others again thought anything between the two extremes that their fears or their fancies prompted.
John Grayson thought, for one, that certainly for the present he would stay where he was. "It is not in the hour of danger one rides away and leaves one's friends behind," he said to himself.
More than four years had passed now since his first coming to the country. He was twenty years of age, full six feet with his slippers off, with light brown hair and beard, fair complexion well tanned by the sun, English blue eyes, and frank, fearless English face.
He either fears his fate too much,Or his desert is small,Who spares to put it to the touchAnd gain or lose it all.—Marquis of Montrose.
He either fears his fate too much,Or his desert is small,Who spares to put it to the touchAnd gain or lose it all.—Marquis of Montrose.
He either fears his fate too much,Or his desert is small,Who spares to put it to the touchAnd gain or lose it all.—Marquis of Montrose.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who spares to put it to the touch
And gain or lose it all.
—Marquis of Montrose.
Jack often went to the service held daily, a little after sunrise, in the Gregorian Church.
So did many members of the household, Mariam, Shushan, and Gabriel especially being constant attendants.
One day the returning party was met at the door by Hagop, weeping bitterly.
Asked by every one what was wrong, he sobbed out, "The cattle! The cattle!"
"What is wrong with the cattle?"
"They are not wrong—they are all gone. The Kourds have taken them away—every one."
"Every one? The kine, and the sheep and goats as well?"
"There's not a cow left to low nor a lamb to bleat of them all. The shepherds have come in,wounded and beaten, to tell us. Grandfather says they did all they could. Amaan! Amaan!"
By this time the women were all weeping. For them it meant ruin—almost starvation. But Gabriel touched his mother's hand caressingly, and whispered a word from the Psalm they had just sung in church: "His are the cattle upon a thousand hills."
"But that is unbearable!" Jack burst out.
"Ithasto be borne," Mariam said sadly.
"We shall see! I cannot believe such things are done—here even—and there is no remedy. A man's whole possessions swept away at a stroke. Hagop, where are the men?"
"In the great front room."
"I will go to them. Come, Gabriel."
But Hagop pulled his brother back. "Youwon't be let in," he said. "I was not."
"I am two years older."
"But you are not a man. Father said, 'This is for men,' and took me by the shoulder and turned me out."
Jack rather wondered what had to be talked of which intelligent boys of twelve and fourteen ought not to hear, but he said nothing, and went in at once.
He found all the men of the household, with a few of their intimate friends, gathered in thelarge room of which Hagop had spoken. As he entered all were silent. They stood together in a dull stupor, like cattle before a thunderstorm. In their faces was profound sadness, mingled with fear. Jack looked around on them, and cried out impetuously, "Are we going to stand this outrageous robbery? Is there nothing to be done?"
There was no answer. Some bowed their heads despairingly; others put their hands on their hearts, and said, "Amaan!" Others, again, looked up and murmured, "God help us!"
Jack turned to Hohannes. The old man was weeping, his face buried in his cloak. The sight touched him.
"Father, do not weep," he said gently. "We will try to recover at least something."
Hohannes flung his cloak aside with a gesture of passionate pain. "Dost think I am weeping for sheep and oxen?" he said. "Friends, this young man is to me as a son, and to Shushan as a brother. Tell him—I cannot."
Pale with a new alarm, Jack turned to the rest, "What isthis?" he cried. "Tell me, in God's name."
They looked at each other in silence. At last Avedis, who seemed fated to belie his name, found his voice. He said hoarsely, "Just after theshepherds came to tell about the flocks, my father was called aside. It was a private message from the Kamaikan, who is not so bad as some. He sent to warn us that Mehmed Ibrahim has found out Shushan is here. He will send to demand her for his harem, and we will have to give her up."
Jack groaned, and turned his face away. Silence fell upon them all—a silence that might be felt. After a while some one said, "He has not sent yet. The Kamaikan's warning was well meant."
"Yes," said Avedis, "we have given gold. He will get us a respite if he can."
"What use in a respite," Boghos, Shushan's father, moaned in his despair—"except to dress the bride?"
"Thebride!" a younger man repeated,—rage, hate, and shame concentrated in the word.
There was another pause, and a long one. Then John Grayson strode out into the middle of the room and stood there, his form erect, his eyes flashing, his arm outstretched. "Listen!" he cried, in a voice like the sharp report of a rifle.
Every one turned towards him, but old Hohannes said hopelessly, "It is no use; yet speak on, Yon Effendi; thou dost ever speak wisely."
"There is one way of saving Shushan."
"Let me speak first," an old man, as old as Hohannes, broke in hastily. "Englishman, thouhast lived long among us, but thou art not of our race. Thou dost not yet understand that we are born to suffer, and have no defence except patience. I wot thou wouldst talk to us of fighting and resistance; for thou art young, and thy blood is hot. But I am old, and my head is grey. I have seen that tried often enough—ay, God knows, too often! Did not my son die in a Turkish prison, and my daughter, whom he struck those blows to save—Well, she is dead now, and Shushan—as we hope—will die soon, for God is merciful. But let there be no word spoken of resistance here; for that means only anguish piled on anguish, wrong heaped on wrong."
Without change of voice or attitude, Jack repeated his words, "There is one way of saving Shushan."
Avedis spoke up boldly. "Let us hear what Yon Effendi has to say. He saved her once already from the wild dogs."
Jack looked round the room. "Do I not see a priest here? Yes, Der Garabed."
The priest had been ill, and had come out now for the first time, drawn by sympathy for the troubles of the Meneshians. He was sitting in a corner on some cushions, but when his name was spoken he rose, in his long black robe with large sleeves, like an English clergyman's gown.
"What do you want of me, Yon Effendi?" he asked.
"I want you to marry me to-morrow morning to Shushan Meneshian."
A murmur of astonishment ran round the room. Old Hohannes was the first to speak. "Dear son, thou art beside thyself. Forget thy foolish words. We will forget them also."
"I am not beside myself, and I speak words of truth and soberness," said Jack, to whom Bible diction came naturally now. "There is no other way."
"One cannot do things after that fashion," the priest said vaguely, being much perplexed, "nor in such haste. One must be careful not to profane a sacrament of the Church."
"Where is the profanation? I love her—more than my life." Crimson to the roots of his hair, and with the blood throbbing in every vein, John Grayson stood, in that supreme moment, revealed to his own heart, and flinging out the revelation as a challenge to all that company of sorrowful, despairing men.
"It is a strange thing, a very strange thing," said Hohannes, stroking his beard.
He expressed the sense of the whole assembly. The proposal was a breach of every convention of their race, amongst whom betrothal invariablyprecedes marriage. "It cannot be done in that way," was their feeling.
Jack knew their customs as well as they did; but, being an Englishman, he thought necessity should and must override custom. He spoke again, with that curious calmness which sometimes marks the very heart of an intense emotion, the spot of still water in the midst of the whirlpool. "As the wedded wife of an Englishman, no Turk will dare to molest her. I should like to see him try it! He would have England to reckon with, and England can keep her own."
Now, if any hope survived in the crushed hearts of these oppressed, downtrodden Armenians, it was hope in England. The English were Christians, so they would have the will to help them; they were mighty warriors and conquerors, so they would have the power. Themselves under the pressure of a malignant, irresistible power, they had perhaps an exaggerated idea of what power could accomplish, if combined with beneficence.
Certainly for a young man to marry a girl in that way, without preparation, without betrothal, without even time to make the wedding clothes, was a thing unheard of since the days of St. Gregory. Yet, what if it were the only way of saving Shushan?
Hohannes spoke at last. "Yon Effendi," heasked, "have you therightto do this? Is there in your own land no head of your house, no kinsman, without whose leave this thing ought not to be done? Answer, as in the sight of God."
Jack held up his head proudly. "There is none," he said. "I am my own master."
"Then," Hohannes resumed, "it is my mind to say to you, do what is in your heart, and may God bless you."
"Then," said Jack, "with your leave, father, I will ask her."
"And I, the head of her house, give her to you in the name of God."
Jack looked around in perplexity. "But you know I have got to ask her," he repeated. Boy as he was when he left England, he knew that when a man wished to marry, the one indispensable preliminary was to "ask" the lady of his choice.
Then arose Boghos, who had been nearly silent hitherto in a sorrow too great for words or tears. "I too her father, I give her unto thee in the Name of God," he said solemnly.
"I have only, then, to ask her," Jack persisted.
"Thouhastasked, and we have given her." It was Hohannes who spoke now. "What yet remains to do?"
Jack pulled himself together, and tried to explain. "But if she—does not like me—I can't—you know.—Don't you understand?—I must speak to her, and ask her if she will have me."
The men stood silent, looking at each other. Had they spoken their thoughts, they would have said, "Heard ever any man the like of that?" Scarcely would they have been more surprised had Jack, wishing to sell his horse, announced that he could not conclude the bargain without the creature's express consent.
At last Avedis threw out a modest suggestion. "This may be one of the customs of the English people, which we do not understand. No doubt they have their customs, as we have ours."
Jack turned to him gratefully. "You are right, Avedis. Itisthe custom of my country to take the 'yes' or 'no' only from the lady's lips.
"A very strange custom," muttered Boghos.
"But if itisthe custom, we ought to conform to it, however strange or unsuitable it may appear to us," Der Garabed advised. "We should do all things in order; and moreover, should we fail in this, it might happen that in the English country the marriage would not be recognised. Therefore this is what I propose: let us send for the young maiden, and let the Englishman, in our presence, do after the manner of his country."
This was too appalling! Jack tingled all over at the thought of such an ordeal for Shushan, andfor himself. "Oh, I can't! For Heaven's sake, let me go to her," he said.
"If that also is according to the custom, it shall be duly observed," said Hohannes, with the air of one who humours a sick person. "Let us all go."
Happily for Jack, some of those present had the sense to reflect that the women's apartment would not hold them all, and that therefore their assistance might be dispensed with. Still the grandfather and father of the maiden, two of her uncles, the priest, and three other persons thought it behoved them to go and witness the due performance of this ceremony of the English.
Jack was conducted by this solemn group to the room where Shushan sat with her mother. As with trembling footsteps he approached her, the rest fell back and stood in a grave half-circle, their ears and eyes intent upon his every word and motion. "Heaven help me!" thought Jack. "Had ever man to propose in such a way? What shall I say?" But no words would come to him; sense and speech seemed both to have departed from him.
The silence throbbed in his ears like a pulse of pain—the awful silence, which he knew he ought to break, which hemustbreak, for his life, and more than his life—and yet he could not. Not a word could he utter.
Shushan, meanwhile, not knowing what all this might portend, hastily veiled her face, and clung to her mother. Mariam had a copper dish which she had been cleaning in her hand, and in her surprise and alarm she let it go. It slipped slowly down her dress, and fell at last with a slight sound upon the floor. In the strained silence every one started, and Shushan dropped her veil with a little frightened cry.
Jack saw her sweet face, pale with anguish, her soft, dark eyes, heavy with unshed tears. Every thought was lost in an unutterable longing to snatch her from the fate that threatened her. "Will you let me save you, Shushan?" he pleaded, coming close to her,—and his voice was the voice of a strong man's infinite tenderness.
Shushan stood up, looked around upon her father, her grandfather, and all the rest, then looked calmly and steadily in the face of the Englishman. "Yes," she said softly.
For she knew there was one way of escape for the Christian maiden in a strait like hers. There had been often in Armenia Christian fathers strong enough to say, like Virginius,—
"And now, my own dear little girl, there is no way but this."
"And now, my own dear little girl, there is no way but this."
"And now, my own dear little girl, there is no way but this."
"And now, my own dear little girl, there is no way but this."
What more likely than that the brave, kind Englishman—whom it would not hurt so much, as he wasnot of her own blood—might do for her that which her kindred would find too hard? There was a strange fascination, a sort of rapture in the thought of dying by his hand. "I am not afraid," she said, with a firm sweet look,—"not afraid to die."
"To die!" Jack cried in horror. "Who talks of dying? No, you shall not die, but live. You shall live for me, my own true wife, in happy England. Say 'yes' to that, Shushan."
She looked at him in wonder. At last the colour mounted to her pale cheeks, her lips parted softly, and a low murmur came, "If God wills."
Hohannes turned gravely to the rest. "No doubt," he said, stroking his beard, "Yon Effendi has done after the manner of the English, when they would take their wives. If he is satisfied, we may go our way, thanking God, who has sent him to the help of our dear child in her peril."
Jack's heart beat thickly, as one by one they went, and he was left alone with Shushan and her mother. Hohannes had looked back to see if he were following; but no, he stood rooted to the spot. "The custom of his country," thought the old man, and passed on.
Jack stood looking on the ground, not daring to raise his eyes to Shushan's face. But when the last retreating footstep had died away, he looked up, and there was that in his face which she hadnever seen before. The question of his heart was this: "Does she care forme, or am I only better than a Turk?" It spoke in his eyes, and thrilled her with a sense of something strangely new and sweet. He had been kind and good to her for so long a time, butthis—what was this?
Instinctively she turned from him to her mother. Mariam's tears of joy and thankfulness were falling drop by drop. She could have thrown herself at the feet of the deliverer of her child. But, true to the custom of her race when a maiden is in the presence of him who has chosen her, she drew the veil over her daughter's face.
"Ah!" Jack exclaimed involuntarily. But he had seen enough—enough at least to assure him that he could teach Shushan to love him as he loved her. "Dear mother," he said, "you have been a mother to me for so long; now I am going to be your son altogether, and take care of your Lily."
Scarcely had the men reached the court when the priest said gravely, "There is one thing we have left out of our account, which is serious, and may not be disregarded. An Englishman cannot marry a subject of the Sultan without a written permission from his own Consul—even if he can do it except in the Consul's presence. Under the circumstances, I dare not perform the ceremony;terrible harm might come of it; and moreover it might not be valid in England."
Most of the party knew this already, but in their excitement they had disregarded or forgotten it. They stood just as they were in the court, and looked at one another; "all faces gathered blackness."
"Call forth Yon Effendi and tell him," said Hohannes.
Avedis called him, and he came, his face flushed and glowing with a shy, half-hidden rapture.
Der Garabed explained the difficulty. Jack tossed his head impatiently, like a young horse restrained unwillingly by bit and bridle. "What a plague!" he cried in boyish indignation. Then, his face changed and sobered as the man within him asserted himself; he seemed to grow years older all at once. "This is what we will do," he said: "Bring Shushan well disguised to one of the Christian villages near—you know them all, and which is best to choose—and hide her there for a few days. I will take horse this very hour and ride to Urfa. You know it is reported the Consul is there at present. If he is, I can see him; if not, I can go after him. I daresay he can give me some writing, or document, which will make everything straight for us. But if he cannot, and the thing must be done in his presence, I will bringShushan to him, were he at the end of the world. For I carry this thing through, or I die for it—so help me God!"
"Good. And before you go, we will betroth her to you," Hohannes answered.
Then he took him privately into the room where his father's things were hidden. He gave him all the gold that remained; and then, with an air of mystery, took out another parcel, and having unwound its many wrappings, displayed to Jack's astonished eyes a small revolver and a belt of cartridges.
"I did not know you had these," he said.
"No; I was afraid to tell you while you were but a boy; lest some chance word to your companions might betray that we had firearms here, and ruin us all; or else you might have been too eager to get hold of them, and unwilling to wait. But now you are a man, and have sense and understanding; and on the way to Urfa, where there are robbers, they may be of use to you."
Jack took the revolver in great delight, and went off to examine it. In England he had been a good shot for a boy of his age, though only with an ordinary gun. But he had sometimes cleaned the revolver for his father, so he knew what to do. He found it in a terrible condition from rust and damp, and feared it would be quite useless.However, he managed with great difficulty to clean two barrels out of the six, and to load them; more it would be useless to attempt.
As he was thus engaged some one knocked at the door. Knowing his occupation to be a very dangerous one, he did not say, "Come in," but went and opened it cautiously. Gabriel stood there. "Yon Effendi," he said, "the post is going to-night."
"Well?"
"That means that you may get to Urfa in nine hours instead of in two days; for you know they go the whole way at a hard gallop. It means safety too, for they have zaptiehs to guard them."
"Good, Gabriel. 'Tisthoushouldst be called Avedis (good tidings). I will go at once and settle to go along with them."
"You will hidethat thing," said Gabriel, with a frightened glance at the revolver. "'Twould mean death. And oh, Yon Effendi, one word, please!" He stooped, kissed his hand, and pressed his forehead to it. "Tell them a boy comes with you. Take me, I pray of you, Yon Effendi!"
Jack hesitated. "There would be danger for you," he said.
"No more than here."
"But your father and mother, and your grandfather, Gabriel?"
"They give me leave; nay, they wish it. They say it is for my sister you are doing all this; therefore if I can help you—and I can. I know Turkish well, and that will be very useful. I know the ways of the Turks too, much better than you do. And I love you, Yon Effendi."
There was reason in what he said, and in the end he had his way.
That evening all the Meneshian family met together in the largest room of their house, the men and boys sitting at one side of it, the women at the other. At an ordinary time they would have "called their neighbours and chief friends," but now they were afraid to do it; so Der Garabed was the only outsider, and his presence was official, for he read certain prayers of the Church and a passage of Scripture. Then Jack stood up, and walked over to the place where Shushan sat, beside her mother. In his hand was his father's Bible and another book—an Armenian hymnbook. Shushan rose and stood before him with bowed head and veiled face, as with a few low-breathed words he gave her the books. She took them from him, and laid them on the table. No word was spoken by her; in taking them she had done enough. The betrothal was sealed. Then, according to custom, the boys handed round bastuc and paclava, (a kind of paste made withhoney,) and also coffee and sherbet. But this was rather a sacrifice to use and wont than a genuine festivity. The little gathering soon broke up, and Jack and Gabriel prepared for their journey.
At nightfall they said to their friends and kindred the usual "Paree menác" (remain with blessing), and were answered by the usual, and in this case most heartfelt "Paree yetac" (go with blessing).
"They that have seen thy look in deathNo more may fear to die."
"They that have seen thy look in deathNo more may fear to die."
"They that have seen thy look in deathNo more may fear to die."
"They that have seen thy look in death
No more may fear to die."
John Grayson and Gabriel Meneshian were threading their way through the narrow, unsavoury streets of Urfa, the gutters which ran down the middle often not leaving them room to walk side by side. They had left their horses at a khan, and were now seeking the dwelling of the Vartonians, to which they had been directed. Emerging at last into a wider thoroughfare, they saw a church, standing in the midst of its churchyard, of which the gate was open. "We must be in our own quarter," cried Gabriel, delighted, "for this is a Christian church."
Jack stepped inside the gate and looked at it with interest. The door of the church was open also; and Gabriel, seeing him look towards it, said, "You might go in there, Yon Effendi, and rest a little, for I see you are tired to death; I willrun on and try and find the house. It cannot be far off now."
"But you are tired too."
"Not a bit. I would feel quite fresh this minute if I only had a drink. And, by good luck, there goes a fellow outside, a Turk too, with a bucket full ofiranto sell."
The Turk, who had been crying his ware, stopped at the moment, for he saw an Armenian boy coming down the street with a large empty pitcher in his hand. "You want this?" said he, preparing to pour his sour milk into it.
The boy said he wanted nothing of the kind. He had been sent for water, and water he must bring. His people were waiting for it, and would be very angry. He tried to pass on, but the Turk laid hold on him, seized his pitcher, and emptied the bucket ofiraninto it, not without spilling a good deal in the street. "Now pay me my money," he said.
"But the thing is no use to me," the boy protested ruefully.
"What does that matter, dog of a Giaour? You got it; and, by the beard of the Prophet, you must pay for it."
As the boy, crying bitterly, searched for the few piastres he had about him, Jack's honest English face flushed with wrath, and Gabrielwould have sprung to the rescue had he not laid his hand on him and whispered, "Wait."
They waited until the Turk had turned down a side street, then Jack hailed the lad, who was standing quite still, gazing dolefully at his useless pitcher ofiran. "Will you give us a drink?" he asked, coming out of the gate. "We are dying of thirst."
The boy checked his sobs; and for answer held up his pitcher to the lips of the stranger. Jack took a long deep draught, then passed it on to Gabriel, while he made the boy happy with more piastres than the Turk had taken from him. His tears all gone, he blessed the strangers for good Christians, and thanked them in the Name of the Lord.
"What church is that?" asked Gabriel, giving back the pitcher.
"That? Oh, that is the church of the Protestants."
"Is it English then?" Jack asked, feeling a pull at his heart strings.
"No; it is Armenian. But it is of the religion of the foreigners, who talk English. They are good people, and very kind to the poor."
"Perhaps there is service going on, as the church is open," Jack said. "I will go and see."
"Do," said Gabriel; "meanwhile, this lad will help me to find the Vartonians, and I will come back for you."
Jack passed through the churchyard, and, leaving his shoes on the threshold, entered the church. The interior was very handsome, all of white stone, and adorned with fine pillars and beautiful carving. It was not unlike a Gregorian church, save for the absence of pictures. In the window, over what the Gregorians called the Altar and the Protestants the Table of the Lord, was a small red cross. There was a very low partition, separating the places where the men and the women sat, and the floor was covered with rushes.
Before the Holy Table, on a kind of couch, all draped in snowy white, and covered with flowers, something lay. Jack knew what it was, for he had seen the dead laid in the church at Biridjik, to await their final rest. With bowed head and reverent footsteps he drew near to look. Venturing gently to draw aside the face-cloth from the face, he saw it was that of a woman. Not, evidently, a young and lovely girl like Shushan, but one who had lived her life, had borne the burden and heat of the day, and, it well might be, was glad to rest. Perhaps yesterday there were wrinkles on the cheek and furrows on the brow; now death,—"kind, beautiful death,"—had smoothedthem all away, and stamped instead his own signet there of which the legend is "Peace." The closed white lips had that look we have seen on the faces of our dead, as if they are of those "God whispers in the ear,"—and theyknow, though they cannot tell us,yet. English words, that he had heard long ago, came floating through the brain of John Grayson. "The peace of God that passeth all understanding." He found himself once more in the church of his childhood, while a solemn voice breathed over the hushed congregation those words of blessing. Then, coming back to the present, he thought, "It takes away the fear of death to see a dead face like that." He reverently replaced the veil, and withdrawing somewhat into the shadow, knelt down to pray.
As he knelt there, he heard the footsteps of one who came to look upon the dead. Rising noiselessly, he saw a tall, noble-looking man, dressedà la Frank, approach the bier. His bent head was streaked with grey, his face pale with intense, though quiet sorrow. As he knelt down silently beside his dead, John Grayson knew instinctively that the love of those two had been what his love and Shushan's might become, if God left them together for half a happy lifetime.
For a few minutes the silence lasted, then came that most sorrowful of all earth's sounds of sorrow,the sob of a strong man. Jack kept quiet in the shadow of his pillar, in reverence and awe; not for worlds would he have betrayed his presence there.
Afraid Gabriel might come in search of him, he looked round for some chance of escape. He saw, to his relief, a small side door, near where he was standing. He crept towards it noiselessly, found it unlocked, withdrew the little bolt, and going through the pastor's study, slipped out into the churchyard to wait for Gabriel. Yes, there he was, just coming in at the gate. He went to meet him.
"Did you think me long, Yon Effendi?" asked the boy. "I have found the Vartonians, and I am to bring you to them at once. Baron Vartonian himself is away from home, but one of his sons would have come with me to bid you welcome to their house, only they are in great trouble to-day, for Pastor Stepanian, their Badvellie, whom they love, has just lost his wife. Shushan will be very sorry, for Oriort Elmas Stepanian, the Badvellie's daughter, is her greatest friend."
"I know," Jack answered softly. "I have seen the face of the dead. Gabriel, I do not thinknowthat it can be very hard to die."
"No," said Gabriel. "It would not be hard to die for Christ's sake, Yon Effendi."
"It reminds me," Jack went on, as if talking to himself, "of the last words I heard my father say, 'The dark river turns to light.'"
Jack was received with open arms by the whole Vartonian household. It was even a larger household than that of the Meneshians in Biridjik. Its head, a prosperous merchant, was absent in Aleppo, but there was his old infirm father, and there were his numerous sons and daughters, two or three of them married, with children of their own, but the youngest still a child. There were also many servants. Some of the family were Gregorians and some Protestants, but there was no friction or jealousy between the two. Being people of substance, their house, built as usual around a court, was large and very handsomely furnished, the wood-work carved elaborately, and the curtains, rugs, and carpets of rich materials, and beautifully embroidered.
The Vartonians considered Jack in the light of a hero. But they were uneasy at Shushan's being left, even for the present, in a village exposed to the attacks of the Kourds; for much more was known at Urfa than at Biridjik about the disturbed state of the country, and the terrible massacres that had taken place in many towns and villages. Was not the Armenian quarter still full of the miserable refugees from Sassoun, who had comethere during the past winter—diseased, starving, wounded, sometimes dying, and with horrible tales of the cruelties they and theirs had suffered?
It was agreed on all hands that the best thing Jack could do was to refer his case to the lady at the head of the American Mission, whose school Shushan had attended. We shall call this heroic lady, who is happily still living, Miss Celandine. She thought the best plan would be to bring Shushan, as soon as she was married, back to Urfa in disguise, since under her charge and in the mission premises she would be, for the time, absolutely safe. She believed the English Consul would be able to give permission for the marriage without being personally present. But she was not certain as to where the Consul was to be found. Very likely he was at the baths of Haran, the season being August, and very hot. She would find out as soon as possible, and put Mr. Grayson into communication with him.
Two or three days later, Jack was setting out, with one of the young Vartonians, to explore the hill that overhangs Urfa, and to visit the remains of the ancient citadel, and the other interesting ruins with which it is strewn,—when Kevork Meneshian walked in. As soon as they had got through the usual salutations, Barkev Vartonian and John Grayson asked him together, "What has broughtyou here?" And Barkev added, "It is not the time for vacation."
"True," answered the young man, smiling; "I did very wrong to come away. And I am very glad I came."
"You speak in a riddle," said Jack.
"It is easily read. When Pastor Stepanian's wife died, the news came by telegraph to Oriort Elmas in Aintab. It was in her heart to go home at once to her father and her young brothers, who must need her sorely. But what a journey for a girl, and a girl all alone, with only khartijes for companions and protectors! Only think of it, four long days on horseback, and three nights in the wayside khans! And then the perils of the road—wild Kourds everywhere, not to speak of other robbers, more treacherous, if less violent. I could not have it! So I told no one, but just wrote a note of apology, and left it for the Principal, slipped out without waiting for leave, put on a servant's dress, and became her shadow, from the moment her lady teacher bade farewell to her in Aintab until she fell fainting into her father's arms here in Urfa, last night."
"A proper personyouwere to act as a young lady's guardian!" said Barkev laughing.
"I did not say 'guardian,' I said 'shadow,'" Kevork returned coolly. "One's shadow is alwaysbefore or behind. So I took care to keep; only letting her know Iwasthere, if I was wanted. There were many ways I could help her. That is how I came to be here; and I suppose the Mission folk at Aintab will have no more of me, since I have broken all their rules. But I have got a good deal of their learning already," he added with some complacency. "Yon Effendi, how are my father and my mother, and all our house in Biridjik, for we did not stay there on our way? And what in the world has broughtyouhere?"
Jack answered his questions, marvelling the while at the mixture in his character. Shrewd, practical, and almost selfish in the pursuit of his ambition as he used to think him, he had served Elmas Stepanian with a delicate, self-sacrificing chivalry of which any lover might have been proud.
"I think," said Barkev, "you would do well to go to the Badvellie. He is very learned, and might give you the lessons you have missed."
"I will not trouble the Pastoryet," answered Kevork with decision—"not until I can go to him for something else. No; I shall beg of Miss Celandine to give me work, teaching the boys that come to her school, and study for myself in the evenings."
"You'll get on," said Barkev approvingly. "Foryou know what you want. 'A polished stone is not left on the ground.'"
"I might, in any other country. But," lowering his voice, "what is this I hear of fresh massacres?"
"Oh, rumours, rumours! There are always rumours. I would not think too much of them—not until we hear more."
"You may well talk of rumours," Kevork returned. "Some of the things people say are past thinking for foolishness. Do you know I heard in Aintab that some people say in Europe it iswewho are massacring the Turks? As if wecould, even suppose we would! Without firearms, or weapons of any kind, so much as to defend ourselves from the Kourdish robbers—good forusto think of killing Turks! 'Twould be striking the point of a goad with one's fist."
"The wolf eats the lamb, and cries out that the lamb is eating him," said Barkev. "But," he added, glancing round apprehensively, "is there any talk of the English coming to help us?"
"Much talk there is of the Sultan's having consented, moved thereto no doubt by the English and the other Christians, to grant us certain privileges."
"We do not want privileges," said Barkev; "we wantjustice. We want security for our lives and properties, and, above all, for our women."
"Well, that is what these reforms are intended to give us."
"I'll believe in them, when I see a Moslem punished for a crime against one ofus. And that is what my grandfather, in his seven and eighty years, has never seen, nor I think will little Nerses, who is not weaned yet, live to see it."
"Where is the use of that kind of talk, true though it be?" said Kevork; "it only brings trouble."
The heart of Kevork Meneshian was not just then attuned to trouble. The deepest gorges of the Alps have every day their gleam of sunshine, though it be but for one short hour; so even in the most shadowed lives there is usually some brief, golden moment, when the light in a soft eye or the smile on a dear lip is more than the fate of nations or of empires. It was such a moment now with Kevork; and it ought to have been such a moment with John Grayson, only, for him, it was love itself that hung suspended in the balance of fate.
Fate, for the time, seemed to have turned against him. The ride from Biridjik to Urfa had been done at headlong speed, and he had not reached his destination until it was almost noon, and the sun's heat absolutely overpowering. He thought his miserable sensations afterwards were only theresult of fatigue, and kept up bravely until the coming of Kevork, when he had to own to overpowering headache, and feverish alternations of heat and cold. He just managed somehow to write a letter to the Consul, which he asked the Vartonians to get Miss Celandine to forward for him, if she could. Then he yielded to destiny. For eight days he tossed in fever, with Kevork as his special nurse, his kind hosts also giving him every care and attention in their power.
Once the fever left him however, he recovered rapidly, his good constitution, strengthened by a simple and healthy life, coming to his aid. As soon as he was able to be about again, he said he would go to the Mission House, and ask Miss Celandine if she had any tidings for him. As he spoke, he was standing near one of the few windows of the Vartonian House which looked out upon the street. Something he saw there made him break off suddenly, pause a moment, then utter an exclamation of pity and horror.
"What is it?" asked Kevork, coming to the window, followed by Barkev, and two of the ladies of the house, who chanced to be present.
Along the street passed slowly, by twos and threes, in a straggling procession, some of the most miserable creatures the eye of man has ever looked upon. Gaunt, half famished, with limbs reducedto skin and bone, or else swollen out of all shape by disease, they walked on with uneven, tottering footsteps. All were in filthy, ragged garments; some had rags clotted with blood tied about their heads or their arms, others limped along with the aid of sticks. Just under the window a woman dropped in the street, and lay as one dead. The man who was walking beside her stood and looked, without doing anything to help. How could he? Both his hands were gone.
The three young men ran to the street together. Jack proved the quickest, and was already kneeling on the ground and trying to raise the poor woman when the others came up. "It is no use," said the man beside her in a dreary, almost indifferent, tone. "She is dead."
"I don't know that," said Jack. "Give her air, for heaven's sake. Kevork, keep back the others. Barkev, you could fetch us some cordial."
It was not so easy to obey him; for those before had stopped, while those behind came crowding up, and with the strangers a few Armenians of the town. One of these pushed through the rest with an air of authority. "Make way, good people," he said; "I am a doctor."
He did not seem a very prosperous member of the fraternity, to judge by his dress; but then he was young, and had the world before him. Hefelt the woman's pulse and her heart, and said presently, "She is not dead; but she soon will be unless she gets proper care and nourishment. Who will help me to carry her into my dispensary close by?"
Jack volunteered, quite forgetting his recent illness; but Barkev raised an objection. "Better bring her to the Mission House," he said. "Miss Celandine has food and medicine, and will take good care of her."
"Miss Celandine will have her hands full. Besides, my place is near. Yes, sir, take her feet,"—he nodded to Jack. "I'll manage the rest. This way, please."
"You are a good fellow, Melkon Effendi, and I believe you are right," said Barkev, his attention claimed by another of the miserable group, who was begging in God's name for a bit of bread, as they had eaten nothing for several days but grass and roots.
Jack helped Melkon to lay his patient on the surgery table, and watched his efforts to restore animation. "Who are they?" he asked.
The young doctor answered in broken phrases without stopping his work. "From one of the villages—Rhoumkali—fugitives—there has been a massacre—wholesale—of our people—by Turks and Kourds."
"Horrible!"
"Horrible? If you had seen the Sassoun refugees when they came here last winter, you might talk of horror. I believe the young Mission lady, Miss Fairchild, sacrificed her life to them."
Miss Fairchild, Shushan's friend! "Is she dead then?" Jack asked anxiously.
"They sent her away still hanging between life and death, and we know not yet which will conquer. But, as for massacres—to-day there, to-morrow here."
"Nothere, in a great city like this—not here surely," Jack said. "But the villages, the little towns like Biridjik, for them one's heart trembles," he added, his thoughts flying to Shushan.
"She is coming to," said Melkon cheerfully, the duty of the moment shutting out the terrors of the future.
"Well, my lad, what doyouwant?"—this to a youth who appeared in the doorway. "Oh, I see; you are one of Baron Thomassian's people, and come just in time to fetch what I want. I am out of these drugs," and he handed him a list.
"You shall have them, Melkon Effendi," said the young man. "But my business now is with the other gentleman. I have just met Baron Barkev Vartonian, who told me I should find him here."
"Withme?" said Jack, a little excited; forwhat possible business could Thomassian have with him, except to give him a letter from England; or, at least, a letter or a message from the Consul?
"With you, sir. My master salutes you with all respect, and begs of you to honour his poor dwelling with a visit, and to drink his black coffee."
Still under the same impression, and with bright visions floating before him of bringing his young bride in triumph to England, Jack only waited to see the poor woman fully restored to consciousness, and to give Melkon a little money to supply her immediate necessities. He then accompanied the youth to the house of Thomassian, leaving a message on his way for the Vartonians, to say whither he had gone.
He was rewarded with the first specimen of genuine Oriental wealth and splendour he had seen in Armenia. He had thought the house of the Vartonians a model of luxury, but this was a fairy palace! Muggurditch Thomassian himself, in a faultless European costume, met him at the door. He had heard nothing of his illness, which was not surprising, as he seldom saw his kinsfolk the Vartonians. He explained that he had taken the freedom of asking him to visit him at the earnest request of his wife, who had a great desire to see an Englishman once more. "She is fromConstantinople," he said a little proudly. "There she used to have much intercourse with the Franks, and especially with the English, whom she greatly esteems." Then he led his visitor across the spacious marble court, with its beautiful fountain in the midst, its bushes laden with fragrant roses, its flowers of many kinds and hues. Some of them, which were rare and newly brought to the country, he pointed out to the Englishman.
Jack admired them duly, and expressed the satisfaction he would have in waiting on "the Madam"; but, the claims of courtesy thus fulfilled, he could not help adding, "I hoped you might have a letter to give me from my friends in England, or at least a communication from the Consul."
"Have you had, yourself, no answer to your letter, Effendi?" Thomassian asked, as he stopped to gather for his guest some roses he had particularly admired.
"None whatever."
"Djanum!" (my soul! a common exclamation) "Then I fear it must have gone astray in the post. You know how often, unfortunately, that happens here."
"But the Consul?" Jack asked eagerly; "you spoke to him, did you not?"
"He was absent when I went to Aleppo,"Thomassian answered. "I wrote to him about your matters; but I fear that letter may have miscarried, like the other one."
"That Consul is alwayssomewhere else," Jack thought despairingly, as he took off his shoes at the beautifully carved and polished door that led to the apartment of the ladies. He found himself, on entering, in a large room heavy with perfume. Silken hangings, richly embroidered, adorned the walls. Silk and satin cushions of all colours, often heavy with gold and silver, lay about in profusion. The only other furniture the room contained was the long satin-covered divan which occupied one side of it, and upon which there half sat and half reclined a very handsome lady. Her dress was of the costliest materials, and of a fashion partly Eastern and partly European. Jack made the usual compliments in his best style; and was invited to sit upon luxurious cushions, and by-and-by to partake of choice coffee, sherbet and sweetmeats, which were handed to him on silver trays by pretty, dark-eyed girls in silk zebouns and jackets. Meanwhile his host entertained him with what he could not help calling, in his disappointed soul, vapid and uninteresting commonplaces, the lady putting in now and then a languid but courteous word or two. His heart full of his own perplexities and of what he had justseen of the wretched fugitives from Rhoumkali, he began a question about the massacres there, but his host, with a warning glance directed towards his wife, turned the conversation immediately. Jack could understand his not wishing to alarm her, or to wring her heart with terrible details; especially as she did not look very strong.
But the time seemed long to him; and as soon as he thought it consistent with good manners, he rose to take his leave.
The lady called one of her attendants, and gave her a brief direction. The girl left the room, and speedily returned, bearing a pretty card-board box about a foot square, covered with coloured straw wrought in patterns. "Will you do me a kindness, Mr. Grayson?" said "the Madam." "Will you take charge of this box of Turkish sweetmeats from Constantinople, and present it, with my salutations, to the little Vartonians, the cousins of my husband? But, I pray you, take toll of it in passing. Open the box, and eat the first sweetmeat yourself." As she said this her dark eyes, for one instant, met andfixedthe English blue eyes of Jack Grayson; the next, she was bidding him good-bye with perfect Eastern courtesy, just touched with the dignified nonchalance of the typical fine lady.
When Jack was once more alone withThomassian, he spoke again of the horrors of Rhoumkali. Thomassian shrugged his shoulders. "It is very dreadful," he said.
"Can nothing be done?"
"Nothing, Mr. Grayson. Foolish people, who run about talking of things they do not understand, only get themselves and other men into trouble. Here is what happens many a time—there is some wild talk going of help from England, or some such nonsense, and on the strength of it some hot-headed fellow kills a Kourd, or resists a zaptieh, and then all hell is let loose upon us."
"But if the zaptieh is torturing his father for not paying a tax he does not owe, or giving up a rifle he has not got? Or, if the Kourd is taking—well, you know what I mean; the word chokes me," said Jack, thinking of Shushan.
"Let be! let be! 'Speech is silver, silence is golden.' 'The heart of the fool is in his tongue, the tongue of the wise man is in his heart.'—Mr. Grayson, I thank you for honouring me with a visit. I beg of you to salute my cousins in my name. I hope old Father Hagop's cough is not so troublesome now? And how is the little one? Does he begin to walk yet? I hope to have the pleasure of visiting them very shortly, but business is pressing just now." With such talk as this heled Jack once more to the outer door; and he, as he took his final leave, remembered an English word which he had hardly thought of since he left the shores of his native land. He confessed himself decidedly "bored."
As soon as he got home, he opened the box of sweetmeats and looked anxiously for what the giver might mean by the "first." Each of the dainty morsels was wrapped up separately in thin paper; but one of them looked, on close inspection, as if the paper had been removed, and then carefully replaced. He took it off, and found—traced upon it in very fine, faint handwriting—the following words:
"Mr. John Grayson.—Shushan is in danger. The chief wife of Mehmed Ibrahim is my friend. She does not wish Shushan to be found. She tells me Mehmed has discovered the name of the village where she is, and will set on the Kourds to attack it, and to make her a prisoner. There is no safe place for her, except the house of the American missionaries here—if only you can bring her to it secretly, in some disguise—for the Turks do not dare to enter it. I may not write to the Mission ladies myself, as my husband forbids me to have any communication with them, therefore I write to you. You will know what to do. God bless you.—Yevnega Thomassian."