"Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; ... and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

By Far Euphrates

A TALE

BY
D. ALCOCK

Author of "The Spanish Brothers" "Crushed, yet Conquering"
"Dr. Adrian" etc

London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27 PATERNOSTER ROW
——
MDCCCXCVII

Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.

PREFACE

Many a tale of blood and tears has come to us of late from far Euphrates, and from the regions round about. It is not so much the aim of the following pages to tell these over again as to show the light that, even there, shines through the darkness. "I do set My bow in the cloud" is true of the densest, most awful cloud of human misery. As in the early ages of Christianity, "what little child, what tender woman" was there

"Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh,

Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God"?

As in later times, of no less fervent faith, "men took each other's hands and walked into the fire, and women sang a song of triumph while the gravedigger was shovelling the earth over their living faces," so now, in our own days, there still walks in the furnace, with His faithful servants, "One like unto the Son of God."

Every instance of faith or heroism given in these pages is not only true in itself, but typical of a hundred others. The tale is told, however feebly and inadequately, to strengthen our own faith and quicken our own love. It is told also to stir our own hearts to help and save the remnant that is left. The past is past, and we cannot change it now; but we CAN still save from death, or from fates worse than death, the children of Christian parents, who are helpless and desolate orphans because their parents were Christians, and true to the Faith they professed and the Name they loved.

D. ALCOCK.

CONTENTS

Chapter I THE DARK RIVER

"A thousand streams of lovelier flow

Bathed his own native land."

The Eastern sun was near its setting. Everywhere beneath its beams stretched out a vast, dreary campaign—pale yellowish brown—with low rolling hills, bare of vegetation. There was scarcely anything upon which the eye of man could rest with interest or satisfaction, except one little clump of plane trees, beside which a party of travellers had spread their tents. They had spent the day in repose, for they intended to spend the night in travelling; since, although summer was past and autumn had come, the heat was still great.

The tent in the centre of the little encampment was occupied by an Englishman and his son, to whom all the rest were but guides, or servants, or guards. The Syrians, the Arabs, and the Turkish zaptiehs who filled these offices were resting from their labours, having tethered their horses under the trees.

It was about time for them to be stirring now, to attend to the animals, to make the coffee, and to do other needful things in preparation for the journey. But they were used to wait for a signal from their master for the time being—Mr. Grayson, or Grayson Effendi, as they generally called him. Pending this, they saw no reason to shorten their repose, though a few of them sat up, yawned, and began to take out their tobacco pouches, and to employ themselves in making cigarettes.

Presently, from the Effendi's own tent, a slight boyish form emerged, and trod softly through the rest. "Hohannes Effendi"—so the Turks and Arabs called him, as a kind of working equivalent for "Master John"—was a bright, fair-faced, blue-eyed English lad in his sixteenth year. He was dressed in a well-worn suit of white drill, and his head protected by a kind of helmet, with flaps to cover the cheeks and neck, since the glare reflected from the ground was almost as trying as the scorching heat above.

Once beyond the encampment, he quickened his pace, and, fast and straight as an arrow flies, dashed on over the little hills due eastwards. For there, the Arabs had told him, "a bow shot off," "two stones' throw," "the length a man might ride while he said his 'La ilaha ill Allah!'"—ran the great river. Waking some two hours before from the profound sleep of boyhood, he had not been able to close his eyes again for the longing that came over him to look upon it. For this was "that ancient river," last of the mystic Four that watered the flowers of Eden, witness of ruined civilizations, survivor of dead empires, the old historic Euphrates. Not that all this was present to the mind of young John Grayson; but he had caught from his father, whose constant companion he was, a reflected interest in "places where things happened," which was transfigured by the glamour of a young imagination.

On and on he went, for the wide, featureless, monotonous landscape deceived his eye, and the river was really much farther than he thought. He got amongst tall reeds, which sometimes hindered his view, though often he could see over them well enough—if there had been anything to see, except more reeds, mixed with a little rank grass—more low hills, and over all a cloudless, purple sky. The one point of relief was the dark spot in the distance, that meant, as he knew, the trees from which he had started.

He thought two or three times of turning back, not from weariness, and certainly not from fear, except the fear that his father might wonder what had become of him. But, being a young Englishman, he did not choose to be beaten, and so he went on.

At last there reached his ears what seemed a dull, low murmur, but what was in fact the never-ceasing sound of a great river on its way to the sea; while at the same time—

"The scent of water far away

Upon the breeze was flung."

He hurried on, now over a grassy place, now through tall, thick reeds, until at last, emerging from a mass of them, he found himself on the edge of a steep precipitous bank, and lo! the Euphrates rolled beneath him.

He could have cried aloud in his surprise and disappointment. Was this indeed the great Euphrates—the grand, beautiful river he had come to see? Had this indeed flowed through Paradise?—this dull, muddy, most unlovely stream? Dark, dark it looked, as he stood and gazed down into its turbid waters. "Dark?" he said to himself, "no, it is not dark, it is black." And the longer he gazed the blacker and the drearier it grew.

Why stay any longer by "this ugly old stream"?—for so he called it. There was nothing to do, nothing to see. He turned to go back, and then the whole scene in its loneliness and desolation took a sudden grip of his young soul. The awe and wonder of the great, silent, solitary space overcame him. The river, instead of being a voice amidst the stillness, a living thing amidst the death around, was only another death. It seemed to flow from some—

"Waste land where no man comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world."

Then all at once, by a very common trick of fancy, young John Grayson found himself at home—at home really—in happy England. His mother, dead a year ago, was there still. He saw her room: the table with her books and work, and her favourite clock upon it; a shawl she used to wear of some blue, shimmering stuff like silk;—he saw her face. And then, as suddenly, all was gone. He knew that she was dead. And he stood alone with the silent sky, the desolate earth, the gloomy river—an atom of life in the midst of a vast, dead world. Before he knew it the tears were on his cheek.

This would never do. He was ashamed of himself, though there was no one there to see. Dashing the disgraceful drops aside, he started at a run to go back.

After a time he stopped, in a space fairly clear of reeds, to look about him. He could see in the distance the clump of trees that marked the camping place, but it looked very far off. The low hills confused him; it would not be such an easy matter as he thought to return. He sat down to rest a little, for disappointment and discouragement made him feel suddenly very tired.

But he soon sprang to his feet again with a shout. A familiar sound reached his ear, the long Australian "Coo-ee-en!" which his father had adopted as the most penetrating kind of call. He gave back the cry with all the strength of his lungs, and waved his handkerchief high in the air.

Presently he saw his father coming towards him through the reeds, followed by two of the Arabs. He ran to him in high delight, his sad reflections gone into the vast limbo that engulfs boyish sorrows. "Father! father! I have found Euphrates."

"Yes, my boy, but I had some trouble to find you."

They stood together, son and father, in that great solitude, as in a sense they did also in the greater solitude of the world. The father was one of those men of whom it is impossible to say he belongs to such and such a type, or, he is cast in such and such a mould. Rather was he hand-hewn, as by the Great Artist's own chisel. He was tall, spare, wiry, with a cheek as brown as southern skies could make it, dark hair and beard showing early threads of grey, dark eyes full of fire, and a mouth as sensitive as a woman's. The boy had inherited his mother's blue eyes and fair hair, but he was very like his father, both in expression and in the cast of his features, especially the shape of his forehead and the moulding of his fine mouth and chin. Slight as was the shadow of rebuke conveyed by his father's words, he felt it—it was so rare.

He said simply, "I am sorry."

"Did you think Euphrates worth the trouble when you found it?" asked his father, who had seen the far-famed and disappointing river long ago.

"Very much the reverse, father. An uglier, muddier, blacker kind of a river I never saw."

"I suppose we are quite close to it? I will go on and have a look, as there is no hurry about our start. Stay here, if you are tired, with one of the Arabs."

"I will come back with you. I should like it."

"Come along, then."

A short walk brought them to the bank, the two Arabs following at a respectful distance stately and indifferent.

The sun was setting now, and, behold! a wonder met their eyes. The dark stream was transfigured, as if by the wand of an angel. It poured rejoicing on its way, a torrent of liquid gold; for it had taken to its heart of hearts all the glory of the setting sun, and gave it back to the beholder in a marvel of radiance. So might look to mortal eyes the river of God, the river of the water of life, that runs through the shining streets of the New Jerusalem. The boy uttered a cry of wonder and delight. The father gazed in silence. At last he said, "So the dark river turns to gold."

"But come, my boy," he added presently, "before the sun sets. Let us take away with us in memory this look of the Euphrates."

Chapter II FATHER AND SON

"I cannot rest from travel, I will drink

Life to the lees."

—Tennyson.

While the travellers go back to their encampment, now in full preparation for the start, it may be well to introduce them formally by name. In this respect they were exactly alike; the father's name in full was John Frederick Pangbourne Grayson, and so was the son's. His friends, however, generally called him John, Johnnie, or Jack, by preference the latter, which was his father's custom also.

John Frederick Pangbourne had made himself remarkable in early life as a bold, adventurous traveller, going into places and amongst peoples little known to the rest of the world. He was in perils of many kinds, often great, sometimes desperate, but he always came through, thanks to his cool courage, his quickness of resource, his tact in dealing with men, and last, but not least, his abounding sympathy and kindness. So other men said; he himself said simply, if any one spoke of his dangers and deliverances, "I got out of it," or "they went away," or "they did me no harm," as the case might be,—"thank God." For he feared God; and though he did not go out of his way to tell it to the world, he was quite willing for the world to know it.

Beside the travel-hunger of the Englishman, which is as strong or stronger than the earth-hunger of the Celt, Pangbourne had another motive in his wanderings. He was smitten to the heart with love and longing for "brown Greek MSS.," or MSS. in any other ancient tongue. He had already made a find or two, chiefly of early copies, or part copies, of the old Christian Apologists. But these only whetted his appetite for more. He had heard of MSS. to be found in the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat, and was purposing to go in search of them, when two events changed his plans—he got a fortune, and he married a wife.

As he was a younger son, the family acres had gone of course to his elder brother, Ralph Pangbourne, a squire in one of the Midland counties. Not that they brought him any great wealth; for he suffered like others from the economic changes of the time, there was a heavy mortgage on his property, and his family was large and expensive. Therefore he was not particularly rejoiced when Miss Matilda Grayson, a distant connection of the family, left her large fortune to his younger brother instead of to himself. However, as there was the condition attached of assuming the name of Grayson, she may well have thought that the representative of the Pangbourne family would not choose to comply. "But I wish she had given the chance to one of my boys," thought Ralph Pangbourne.

Frederick, as he was usually called by his kinsfolk, behaved with great liberality. He cleared off the mortgage, and virtually adopted one of his brother's children, his god-son and namesake. Still, the fortune was his.

But it would not have kept him in England if he had not about the same time met his fate, while visiting one of the universities, in the daughter of a learned Professor who was interested in his archæological researches. The course of true love in this instance falsified the proverb. He bought a pleasant country seat in the south of England, and settled down to the life of an English gentleman. Quiet years followed; and if even in his happy home he sometimes felt the stings of a longing for wider horizons and more stirring scenes, at least he told of them to none. One son, and only one, was born to him.

After some fifteen happy years his wife died, very suddenly. No man ever mourned his dead more truly; but it was inevitable that when the first pangs of bereavement died into a dull aching, he should long to resume his wandering life. Some special studies, which he had been making when the great calamity overtook him, gave definiteness to his plans. His fancy had been caught by the old legend of Agbar, King of Edessa, of his letter to our Lord, and the answer, fabrications though they manifestly are. An idea possessed him that in the neighbourhood of the ancient Edessa, Agbar's "fair little city," so early Christianized, MSS. might be found, dating perhaps from the first century. The thought gave an object to his proposed wanderings in the East, for to the East his heart was ever drawn by strong, mystic yearning. And if his dreams should prove only dreams, there was no duty now which forbade him to pursue them.

One duty indeed he had—the care of his boy. Always much attached, in the days of their bereavement son and father drew very close together. Everybody advised him to leave Jack at school, but everybody spoke to deaf ears; for Jack entreated him to take him with him, and his own heart echoed the plea. After all, why not? He was a strong, healthy lad, very manly, and full of bright intelligence. Might not foreign travel be the best of schools for him? To Jack the prospect seemed the most delightful ever unfolded before mortal eyes.

Grayson could well afford every luxury of travel that might ensure safety and preserve health. Had he been alone, he would have cheerfully faced many risks and inconveniences to which he did not care to expose his son. So far they had journeyed in great comfort, keenly enjoying the adventure. They expected next morning to reach a little town on the Euphrates called Biridjik, where they proposed to rest for a day or two, arranging, as they always did in such circumstances, for the use of a room or rooms in some comfortable house.

The journey by night, in that land where night never means darkness, was delicious. The moon was at the full, and bathed in beauty even the desolate, monotonous landscape. Its light was quite enough for all travelling purposes; it seemed indeed only a softer, cooler, and more genial day.

Early morning found them on the stretch of road leading to the river. At the other side was a sort of natural amphitheatre. A picturesque hill rose in terraces from the river, near its summit the ruins of a castle. A semi-circular wall, which had once belonged to the castle, formed a bow, of which the river was the string, and which enclosed the little town with its houses, orchards, and gardens.

On each side of their road, as they drew near the river, was a large Turkish burying-ground, full of upright tombstones, all very narrow, and some of them very high. Then came a solitary plane-tree, and a small rude khan. Around it, and down to the river's brink, gathered a noisy, shouting, vociferous crowd. "Oh, such a crowd!" Jack thought. There were camels from Aleppo, with their heavy burdens, and their swearing, screaming drivers; khartijes or muleteers, with their laden mules; stately Arabs; zaptiehs in gold-laced uniforms, stolid and indifferent amidst the turmoil; Kourds with horses and donkeys, and dresses of every colour of the rainbow. Jack was especially amused with a Kourdish woman who joined the throng with two little donkeys, which she belaboured vigorously with a short club, her lord and master sitting the while upon one of them, content and passive. But even this sight lost its interest when he thought he discovered in the distance some one on horseback in a European dress, and beside him—wonderful vision!—what looked like a European lady. He could scarcely believe his eyes.

But now, every eye was fixed upon the river. Floating swiftly down stream, with only a stroke or two from the paddles of the ferry-men, came two enormous wooden boats, each in shape like a woman's shoe. Then began a regular stampede, the whole disorderly crowd wanting to get in at once, and fearing to be left behind. As soon as the boats touched the land the rush became frantic. It was like Bedlam; the men pushing, swearing, shouting,—the animals, who objected strongly to the whole proceeding, being urged on by their furious or frightened drivers, to the peril of all within reach of them. Jack got separated from his father, and carried nearly off his feet, but he found himself at last in one of the boats, which was swaying horribly from side to side. The terrified horses, jammed together in a narrow space, were kicking, biting, and squealing, and the shrieks and curses of their drivers were not likely to soothe them. Some of these had dismounted, others kept their seats. Jack saw one of their own zaptiehs pushed against the side of the boat, and thought he would be killed. But he called on Allah, and used his fists manfully, and in a minute or two had extricated himself, and was sitting safely on the bulwark. Jack climbed up beside him, anxious to see where his father was, and soon discovered him, near the other end of the boat, helping to keep the frightened animals under control. It was impossible, however, to reach him through the throng.

Looking back, he saw the other boat quite close. There, amidst the crowd of men and horses, stood the English lady (as Jack supposed her), a tall, slight figure, holding the bridle of her horse. He saw the look of terror in the creature's face, the ears laid back, the nostrils quivering, and red as fire. He was going mad; he would bite or trample her! No; she had snatched off her veil, and, quick as thought, tied it over his eyes. The situation was saved. And Jack was gratified by a moment's vision of a girlish face, very fair, very young, and crowned with clustering golden hair. Then the boats changed position, and he lost it.

After half an hour's swaying and joggling, they all got safe to the other side. Then there was more noise and confusion, and then they found themselves slowly ascending the steep, irregular flights of stone steps that formed the streets of Biridjik. Here Jack caught a last glimpse of his lady of the golden hair, now decorously veiled, and seated on her horse—very unsafely, as he feared, for she looked in danger of falling off over his tail, at every step he took in the perilous ascent.

But the party to which she belonged went on at once upon their journey, while the Graysons remained in Biridjik.

Chapter III FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"Manners are not idle, but the fruit

Of loyal nature, and of noble mind."

—Tennyson.

Young John Grayson stood alone in the large upper room which had been assigned to him and to his father. Mr. Grayson had gone out to reward and dismiss the zaptiehs and the Arabs, and to make arrangements about the Syrian servants, whom he meant to keep with him; but Jack was looking for his return every moment, to partake of the breakfast which had been just brought in. First, a stool had been placed in the middle of the room, and then a metal tray, much larger, set upon it. Handsome embroidered cushions, placed beside, showed where and how the guests were expected to sit. Except these cushions, and a few rugs or small carpets, the only furniture the room contained was a divan running along the side, covered with Turkey red, and adorned with white embroidered cloths. There were also some beds, or mattrasses, folded up in a niche in the wall; and a few articles belonging to the travellers had been brought and left in the room.

There were several windows, large, and very close together. Jack stood at one of them, and looked out on the courtyard round which the house was built in the form of a hollow square. There must be a great many rooms, he thought, and wondered if one family occupied them all. The court looked gay and pleasant, with late crocuses, a few fruit trees, and, best of all, a little stream of living water flowing right through it, and filling the air with its cheery murmuring.

But the eyes of the hungry boy soon turned back to the well-spread table, where they rested approvingly upon a remarkably good breakfast. There was a dish of pillav, made of a preparation of wheat called bulghour, with boiling butter poured over it, and upon the pillav a well-cooked fowl lay in state, as the best part of the banquet. There was queer-looking bread in large cakes thin as wafers, and folded together like napkins; there was a great copper vessel lined with something that looked like silver, and filled with madzoun, a kind of cold, sour, boiled milk, and there was a pitcher of tempting pink sherbet, with glasses to drink it from. Jack gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and ejaculated, "Wish father would come before the fowl gets cold."

Grayson came, looking white and weary, a thing unusual with him.

"Let us have our breakfast, father," Jack said. "I am sure you are starving,—I am."

His exploits on the fowl went far to prove it. But his father gave him little assistance.

"You don't eat, father," he said.

"I am not hungry. Though the sun is up such a little while, it has contrived to give me a headache. I shall sleep it off. You want a sleep too, as your eyes are crying out."

"Not a bit of them, father. I could not sleep now; I want to go out and see this queer old place. I'll sleep all the better when I come back."

"Well, do so; but take care of the sun, and get one of the servants to go with you. You will find them about somewhere."

Grayson spoke with a dull, listless air, quite foreign to his brisk, energetic nature.

"He is very sleepy," Jack thought, as he put on his protective head-dress, and ran cheerfully down into the court.

He looked about for the servants, but could not see either of them. As he was standing there, an open door attracted his eye, and he could not help looking in. A woman was baking bread, in an oven consisting of a large round hole in the clay floor of the middle of the room. She was taking small pieces of dough from a lump beside her, slapping them on the inside of the oven, and promptly removing those already baked sufficiently. Two dark-eyed little boys were playing quietly at some game on the ground, and an older lad was standing beside her, talking, apparently about a bundle of cotton in a cloth which he held by the four corners.

Raising her eyes for a moment from her oven and her dough, the woman saw the stranger at the door. He did not know a word of Armenian, nor she a word of English, but she saluted him with great courtesy, bowing almost to the ground; then, as she rose slowly, touching her heart, her lips, and her forehead. The children did the same; the youngest acting his little part so prettily that Jack fell in love with him on the spot. As the woman, by signs, invited him to enter, he did so, and the children placed a cushion for him in the corner farthest from the door. The older boy brought him sherbet, flavoured and tinted with rosewater.

"This is all very nice," thought Jack. "Still, when one pays a visit one is expected to talk. And how can I talk to people who don't know a word of my language, nor I a word of theirs?"

He tried to solve the difficulty by introducing himself, patting his own breast and forehead, and repeating, "John—John Grayson," an experiment attended with only partial success, his new friends learning to call him "Yon Effendi." Then he pulled out his schoolboy silver watch for their edification. The two little boys, who stood gazing at him with their great black eyes, evidently thought he was a far greater wonder himself; but the elder looked at it intelligently, as one who perfectly knew its use.

He tried next to get at their names, pointing to each in turn with a look of inquiry. As well as he could make out the unfamiliar sounds, he thought the eldest boy called himself something like Kevork, the second was certainly Gabriel, the youngest probably Hagop. He took Gabriel's little brown hand in his own large one, whereupon the child stooped down, kissed the hand that held his, and touched it with his forehead.

Fearing that he was interrupting the baking operations, he soon rose to go. He happened to notice a picture on the wall; or rather a coloured daub in staring blue, red, and green, representing an impossible warrior, running an impossible sword through the heart of a monster three or four times as large as himself. Seeing him look at it, the woman and the eldest boy began an explanation in which he could only distinguish one of the names he had just heard—"Kevork." He thought they meant that it belonged to Kevork; and did not find out until long afterwards that "Kevork" is one of the Armenian forms of "George," and that he had lighted upon a picture of the patron saint of his own land, slaying the traditional dragon.

He left his new friends after a silent exchange of courtesies; and, forgetting all about the servants he ought to have looked for, began to descend the crooked, winding steps, or streets, that led down to the river. Presently he heard a patter of feet behind him, and, looking back, saw Gabriel trotting after him. The child came up, and held out to him a little roll of something yellow, with what looked like the kernels of nuts in it. It was evidently to be eaten, for Gabriel, smiling, pointed to his mouth; so Jack sat down on one of the steps and made his first acquaintance with the Armenian delicacy called bastuc, a preparation of grape sugar, into which the kernels of nuts are sometimes put. He liked it at first; but it soon palled, and he began to fancy it was making him sick. Whatever was the cause, a strange faintness and dizziness came over him as he sat there by the river. "It is too hot here," he thought. "I must go back." He got up, but found it a hard matter to keep his feet. Twice or thrice, as he toiled up the steps, he was obliged to sit down and rest. Little Gabriel had stayed beside him, and he was very glad of it, as without a guide he would almost certainly have missed the gate of the house where their quarters were, since all the houses, built in the same way about their court-yards, looked so exactly alike. Feeling worse every minute, he stumbled up the stairs, threw the door open, and got into the room just in time to fall down in a faint.

When he came to himself, he was lying on one of the beds; and his father, stooping anxiously over him, put a glass to his lips, from which he drank obediently.

"How do you feel now, my son?" he asked.

"Oh! all right," Jack said. "I don't know what came over me down there by the river. I suppose it was the sun. But I am better. I can get up."

"Don't. Lie still and give me your hand. I want to feel your pulse."

Jack gave it.

"Father," he said, looking up, "your own hand is shaking. Is there anything wrong?"

"Not much, I hope. You are a little hot and feverish. A dose of quinine will do you no harm."

"Hot!" said Jack. "No; I am shivering with cold. I can't keep still."

The dose was administered; and Jack, following his father's movements with his eyes, noticed that he took one himself also.

"Now, my boy," he said, "you have not slept for nearly four and twenty hours, and you spent all last night in the saddle. Unless you take a good rest, you may be ill. Lie as quiet as you can, and try to sleep."

"I will, father; but—I'm so thirsty!"

His father gave him some sherbet, and covered him up comfortably with a silk rug. Then he sat down, and took out his note-book and pencil; but he wrote only a few words in a faint, irregular hand, difficult to decipher: "Have heard from Jacob, my Syrian, that the plain we have just traversed is noted for its deadly malaria—is, in fact, a perfect hotbed of fever. I fear John has it."

After some time Jack dropped off into a troubled doze. Strange dreams came to him, ending usually in some catastrophe that made him start up in sudden fright. Once he thought he was walking by the river, and somehow lost his footing and fell in. He woke up with a cry, "The water is so cold—so dark!" His father was at his side and soothed him.

"Don't you remember," he said, "the dark river turns to light?"

But as soon as the boy was quiet and at rest again, John Grayson added one more to the records in his note-book, and it was almost illegible: "We have both caught the fever. God help us! If I can, I will arrange——"

Chapter IV A NEW LIFE

"Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

—Tennyson.

After that, for young John Grayson, life was a blank. Dim shadows came and went like reflections in a mirror, having no continuity and leaving no impression. In a passing way, as a dumb creature might, he felt burning heat and freezing cold, pain and weariness, and nameless, indescribable distress. So too he saw forms around him—kind, dark-complexioned people, who gave him things to drink, and spoke to him in words he could not understand. Sometimes he was conscious of a sort of dull relief, or pleasure, when they cooled his burning brow with snow, which had been brought from the mountains packed in straw, and carefully preserved. But throughout all he missed something—some one. At first he knew that he wanted his father, and used to call for him piteously. But this passed at length; he grew too weak even for the pain of longing. With the very ill, as with the very old, "desire fails."

Yet, in spite of all, he crept slowly back to life. One day he felt himself carried somewhere, and then became suddenly conscious of a delicious coolness after what seemed a lifetime of burning heat. Looking up presently, when the sense of fatigue had somewhat passed, he saw that he was lying on a large bedstead, like one of our old "four-posters," in the open air. There were white curtains all around him, which were being softly stirred by a refreshing breeze; while over his head—no roof between, not even the canvas of a tent—glowed the deep, rich blue of the Eastern sky. He was on the house-top.

For a while after that he recovered more quickly. But the hot weather, coming early that year, brought on a sore relapse, and again for many days his life was despaired of. More than once the watchers thought he was actually gone, and often they thought the question was one of hours. Yet in the end the long conflict of death and life ended in the victory—the slow, uncertain victory—of the latter.

He came back to life like a little child only just beginning it. For the time, his past was completely blotted out. Too weak in mind and body for connected thought, he accepted the things about him without question. He seemed to have been always there, amongst those dark-eyed people, who sat upon the ground, ate rice and bulghour, and wore striped "zebouns" of cotton cloth, and many-coloured jackets. He picked up their speech very quickly, as a child picks up his mother tongue; and at this stage did not remember his own. He came to know those about him, and to call them by their names. Between twenty and thirty persons dwelt in the large house in which he was a guest. But they were all one family—the sons and sons-in-law, the daughters and daughters-in-law, and a whole tribe of the grandchildren of a grey-haired patriarch called Hohannes Meneshian. The whole household were Jack's familiar friends. But he loved best the three boys who had been his first acquaintances, and their mother Mariam Hanum, who throughout his illness had been his devoted nurse. He liked the gentle touch of her hand, and the tenderness in her eyes as she looked at him. Sometimes he called her Mya—"Mother," as the boys did.

Of the three—Kevork, Gabriel, and little Hagop—Gabriel was his favourite. Indeed the child was like his shadow, waiting on him continually, and often bringing him beautiful flowers—gorgeous pomegranate blossoms, or roses of many kinds and of most exquisite perfume. Or he would bring him fruit—delicious grapes, pears, plums, and peaches. Or sometimes he would just steal silently up to kiss his hand, and touch it with his forehead, or stand or sit quietly beside him.

There was one thing that soothed him inexpressibly; though, like all else, it was accepted without question or comprehension. When Mariam and the other women went about the household tasks that, as he grew better, he liked to watch, they would say, "Hesoos ockna menk"—"Jesus, help us." When they finished, they would say, "Park Derocha"—"Praise the Lord." In everything there was devout acknowledgment of God; and the sweetest of all names that are named in heaven or upon earth was often on their lips, spoken with reverence and love. Something that for John Grayson still lived on,

"In the purple twilight under the sea"

of conscious thought, made this very grateful to him, and joined it with what were like the first heavenward thoughts and prayers of a little child.

So time passed on. But, as he grew stronger, there awoke again within him a vague sense of want and longing. He had no power to express his feelings, but he felt something was wrong with him—he was not in his proper place. Or was it, rather, that there was something wrong with all the people about him? They were very kind; but they and their ways had a queer, distorted, unnatural look in his eyes, like the things one sees reflected in the bowl of a spoon. He longed continually, longed inexpressibly, for something he could not get, for some one who was not there; yet he could not tell who it was he wanted.

He grew silent and melancholy, and his friends thought him in danger of another relapse, which would certainly have been fatal. Happily, it was now autumn again, the sultriest months of the year being over. So one day they wrapped him up carefully, seated him comfortably on cushions upon a donkey, and brought him with them, to a vineyard which Hohannes possessed on a slope of one of the hills above Biridjik. He was a man of some property, having flocks and herds also. The great, luscious grapes, "as large as plums," purple, green, and amber, hung in ripe profusion, nearly breaking down the low bushes they grew upon. Jack ate of them to his heart's content, and lay in the pleasant shade of a fig-tree, watching the other young people as they gathered them for their various uses. Tents had been brought, and it gave him a kind of dreamy satisfaction to sleep in one of these; it seemed somehow to bring him nearer to the things he had lost, and was vaguely feeling after. Often hints of them seemed to flash on him unbidden, but when he tried to grasp them vanished as they came, leaving him confused and faint, with a fluttering heart and an aching head.

However, his strength improved in the cooler air and amidst the new surroundings. He had soon an opportunity of testing it. One day he happened to be by himself, resting under his favourite fig-tree, when he heard a noise as of something trampling and tearing the vines. Looking up, he saw that a flock of goats had got in among them, and were doing terrible damage, not only to the ripe fruit but even to the trees. He got up and called for help, but no one heeded, and he supposed no one heard. It was dreadful to see all this harm done; in fact, he could not endure it. Taking heart, he went to the rescue himself, or rather, for the first time since his illness, he ran. His steps were unsteady, his limbs shook under him; once indeed he fell, but he was up and on again in a moment. The exercise seemed to give back strength to his muscles and vigour to his brain. He shouted aloud; he took up stones and flung them at the trespassers, sending them flying over the low stone wall. Then, the Englishman's joy of battle waking in him, he gave chase as fast, or faster, than his limbs would carry him.

He heard the others crying out to him; but he thought they were encouraging his efforts. Even when they came running up with evident intent to stop him, he thought they were only afraid he would do himself harm. But at last the youngest son of Hohannes caught him bodily in his arms, shook the stones out of his hand, and cried breathlessly, "You must not! You must not!"

Jack had a good deal of Armenian by this time. "Inchu? Inchu?—Why? why?" he gasped; "they were destroying your vines."

The young man, by name Avedis, or "good tidings," looked sadly at the injured trees, but only said, "Those goats belong to the Kourds."

Jack stammered in his eagerness to find the words he wanted. "What has that to do with it?" he got out at last. "What right have the Kourds to spoil your vines?"

"Don't you know, Yon Effendi, that if we dare to stop them doing it, or even to drive their sheep and goats out of our fields and vineyards, they think a great deal less of stabbing or shooting one of us than you would of killing a cat?"

"But then they would be hanged for it!" cried Jack. "Have you no—oh, what is the word for it?—have you no—police?" He said the word in English, and a rush of old, new thoughts and impressions came crowding into his brain.

"Police?"

"The men who keep order, and take people to prison."

"Do you mean the zaptiehs? They are worse than the Kourds. The Turk and the Kourd are the upper and the nether millstone, grinding us to powder. If one of us is fool enough to complain of a Kourd or a Turk, the Kamaikan—the governor, I mean—says he will enquire into the matter. And he does. He sends for the man who has complained, throws him into a dungeon, and keeps him there till he confesses all the wrong is on his own side; or perhaps until his people pay a sum of money. Or perhaps he may be never heard of again at all."

Avedis did not say this with fierce looks and indignant gestures, but in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if such things were part of the everlasting order of nature, which has been from the beginning and will be until the end. Jack did not follow every word; but one thing he understood very clearly: they must all stand still and see their beautiful vines destroyed. There was no remedy—why? Because this was not England. England! Now he knew everything. He was an English boy, left alone here in this strange land. And his father—where was his father? "Where is my father?" he cried aloud in English.

"What is that you say?" asked Avedis.

Jack repeated his question in Armenian.

"Come and sit down under the tree," said Avedis.

Jack obeyed, silent and trembling. Avedis stood, looking at him sadly. "Tell me, where is my father?" Jack repeated with pleading eyes, into which a new expression was dawning slowly.

"You know, Yon Effendi, you have been very ill," Avedis said. "Your father, a great English Effendi, very wise and good, was ill too. You recovered; your father did not recover. He is gone to God. Do you understand me, Yon Effendi?"

Jack understood so well that he flung himself face downwards on the ground, and burst into a passion of weeping. In vain Avedis tried to comfort him. "God forgive me," he thought, "I ought not to have told him. I fear I have killed him." And he certainly had not acted up to the meaning of his name. The rest of the family blamed him severely, when they heard what he had done. It was the custom of their country for the bearer of sad tidings to go about his task with great circumlocution, carefully "breaking" them, as we say in England.

Yet the shock, instead of killing John Grayson, brought him back to his true life. Up to this there had been a serious danger that his brain would never wholly recover the shock of that long and terrible illness; and that, if he lived, he might go through the future years as one whose mind had an important leaf left out of it. But that day's agony of weeping, and the days and nights of distress that followed it, meant that he would either die, or else recover wholly, and claim his intellectual inheritance in the present and the past. This full recovery, however, might well be an affair of time—perhaps of a long time.

Old Hohannes heard with the rest that the English youth knew now that his father was dead, and that he was weeping and refusing comfort, in a manner very likely to make him ill again. "We will take him back to the town," he said; and so they did the next day.

The following morning Hohannes took him by the hand, led him into a low, dark room on the ground-floor, where bulghour and rice were stored, and shut and barred the door.

"Sit down," he said. Jack did so; and looked on wonderingly while the old man dug a hole in the ground with some implement resembling a trowel.

At last he grew impatient, and asked, "Will you not tell me about my father?"

Hohannes looked up. "There is not much to tell," he said. "Feeling himself, no doubt, very ill, the English Effendi sent for me, and I came. He asked me to take care of you, and if you should recover to try and send you back to your friends in England. And he gave me, to use for you as I thought best, the things I have kept hidden here. He spoke somewhat also of certain papers, but before he could finish what he wanted to say, the fever increased upon him, and his mind began to wander. As to the papers, we never got them. They were stolen away, with his other baggage, by the two Syrian servants, who were brothers, and precious rascals. But these I have." He stooped and took out of the hole something wrapped in a skin and tied with cords. These he carefully unfastened, took off the skin, and revealed two books and a belt of chamois leather. The books he gave to Jack, who recognised, with a thrill of joy and a pang of sorrow, the pocket Bible his father always carried with him, and the note-book in which he used to see him write. "Keep these thyself," said Hohannes. "This," holding up the belt, "I must keep still. There is gold in it." Instinctively his voice dropped lower, though there was none to hear the dangerous word.

"I am very glad of it," Jack said frankly, as, for the first time, it occurred to him that these people, upon whom he had no claim, had been providing for all his wants. "Father Hohannes, you and yours have fed and tended me all this time like a child of your own. It ought to be all yours!"

"You have a generous heart, Yon Effendi. And, in fact, I have used it for you as far as was necessary and just. There were medicines and other things when you were ill, and there was the tax to pay for you."

"The tax for me?" Jack repeated. "What tax?"

"Know you not we have to pay, year by year, every man and boy among us, for breathing the air? Even for the new-born babe the Turk exacts it. So your tax had to be found along with our own, and will be next year also. Moreover I own, a piece or two went to the Kourds as backsheesh, that they might let our cattle alone."

"Indeed, father," Jack said again, "I wish you would take it all; it is yours by right."

Hohannes shook his head. "And what, then, if you should want to go home?" he said; "or if any way for your doing it should open? Moreover we dare not, for our lives, let any one know we have so much gold in the house. The Kourds would come down from the mountains and rob us, or the Turks would take it from us on pretence of arrears of taxes. It is best for me to keep it here for you. You see where I put it?"

"Yes, Father Hohannes; it is all right," said Jack.

He was longing to go away somewhere by himself, and feast his eyes on his father's handwriting, and on the printed words he loved so well. But, as he was going, a thought came to him that made him turn again. Things which he had heard Kevork say as he began to get better, and which at the time he had scarcely noticed, came to his mind with a sudden inspiration.

"Father Hohannes," he said, "Kevork, your grandson, longs sore to go to Aintab, to the great school the Americans have set up there for your people. Kevork loves learning very much. May he not take some of this gold and go?"

Again Hohannes shook his head. "Kevork is a foolish boy," he said. "The cock that dreamed of grain fell from his perch trying to scratch for it. Let him stay at home, and mind the cattle; or take to the weaving, if it like him better." Jack was sorry for Kevork, but the possession of the precious books drove everything else out of his head. He flew upon the spoil; nor was it with a passing joy alone, since during the time that followed the chief sustenance of his life, that which made it worth living, came from these books.

He was himself again, but only a childish, weak, discouraged self—a different being from the strong, active-minded, energetic lad who had come with his father to Biridjik. His illness and its consequences had thrown him back in his development of body, of mind, and still more of character, for at least a couple of years. He was quite unable at present to look his life in the face, or to take the initiative in any way.

Nor was there any one about him who could give him effectual help. How to go to England was a problem no one in Biridjik seemed able to solve. Even a letter was a difficult and doubtful undertaking. It is true the town possessed a Turkish post-office, but this, at all events for foreign letters, was a perfect "tomb." In answer to his questions, his friends told him of a certain "Cousin Muggurditch," a kinsman of Hohannes, who lived at "Yeatessa," but was a great traveller, going sometimes even as far as Constantinople;—he could send a letter safely to England. Jack thought Yeatessa was the place his father wanted to go to, and which was mentioned in his note-book as Edessa, the city of the legendary King Agbar. His friends assured him it was; that they knew all about it, and that the story of King Agbar was quite true, for his tomb was still to be seen just outside the city, which the Franks called Urfa, and which was only two days' journey from Biridjik.

"I shall go there some time," Jack said; but he said no more about it, and it seemed as if for the time all thought of change had passed out of his mind. He slipped into the life and the ways of those about him. Even his European clothes were out-worn or out-grown, and he adopted the striped zeboun, the gay jacket and the crimson fez of the Armenians. Mariam Hanum (Mrs. Mary) took care of his wardrobe, and he might be seen every Saturday going with the other men and youths to the bath, and carrying his clean clothes with him tied up in a towel.

One day he wanted a kerchief to put under his fez and keep off the sun, and he went by himself to the shop to buy it. He came back with one of bright green, which he thought very handsome; but, to his amazement, Kevork snatched it from his head and Avedis flung it into the fire, with the approval of all the rest.

"Don't you know that green is the Moslem colour?" they said to him.

"Then be sure I will never wear it," Jack answered; "I am a Christian."

He went with his friends to the Gregorian Church on Sundays and feast days; often too in the early mornings before sunrise, or in the evenings at sunset. It is true he did not understand very much of the service; but the Armenians themselves were scarcely better off, as the ancient Armenian language is still used in the liturgy of the national Church. He was shown, in the adjoining graveyard, the resting-place of his father, marked like all the other graves with a flat stone. Then he printed carefully, in English capital letters, his father's full name, and gave it to the best stonecutter in the town, asking him to engrave it for him, with a cross.

"I should like it put upon another stone," he said; "one to stand up, as we have them in England."

The stonecutter explained that he could not have it here. It was unlawful. Mahometans had their tombstones erect, but a Christian might only mark the resting-place of his dead with a flat stone. "But," the man added with a smile, "that will not hinder our rising again at the last day."

Kevork and his brothers continued Jack's greatest friends. Kevork talked much with him, and told him many things. He said he should like to go to Yeatessa, or Urfa, because he had a sister there.

"A married sister, I suppose?" Jack said, rather wondering he had not heard of her before.

"No," said Kevork, lowering his voice mysteriously. "My grandfather had to send her away to our cousins, because the Kamaikan who was here before this one wanted to marry her; and we never talk of her, not even before Gabriel and Hagop, lest any word might slip out about where she is, and the Turks might overhear. But I had rather go to Aintab than even to Urfa, to learn English and Greek and Latin, and grammar and geography, and all kinds of science."

"And what then?" Jack asked with a smile.

"Then I would go, if I could, to America or to England, learn still more, and become at last a famous professor in some grand college in a Christian land."

Kevork had already learned from a friendly priest, Der Garabed, to read and write Armenian, and to read Turkish in the Arabic character. For the Turks, and it is a significant fact, have never reduced their own language to writing; their books are printed either in the Arabic or in the Armenian character. He was in raptures when Jack offered to teach him English, which he promptly began to do, using as a text-book his father's Bible, the only book he had, with the exception of a Tauchnitz "Westward Ho," which happened to be in his pocket when he came to Biridjik. In return, Kevork taught him to read and write Armenian, and these lessons were shared by Gabriel and Hagop. Gabriel was a remarkably quick, intelligent boy, all life and fire; Hagop was quiet and rather dull, more at home at his father's loom than at his brother's book. Both used to listen delightedly to Jack, when, chiefly as an exercise for himself, he would translate some simple Bible story aloud in Armenian.

Not that such were the only uses Jack made of his father's Bible. Outwardly his character still continued unformed, boyish, passive; inwardly it had begun silently to grow and to deepen. He did not act, but he thought a great deal. His mind was like a stream flowing underground, gathering volume as it flowed, and sure to emerge again to the light of the upper world. Its sources were fed by observation, memory, faith, and hope, and most of all by that matchless fount, not only of spiritual but of intellectual inspiration, the English Bible.

Chapter V BARON MUGGURDITCH THOMASSIAN

"Warbling still amidst the others,

Wandering with them where they roam,

And yet hallowing remembrance,

With low gushes about home."

No doubt some subtle form of nervous weakness, the relic of his long and terrible illness, still held young John Grayson in its grasp. Moreover the loss of his father, so intensely loved, had entered like iron into his soul. His mother's death was still, when he left home, a recent bereavement, and he was an only child. He had no near relatives except in his uncle's family, and even amongst them there was only one he cared for much, his father's godson, a cousin five years his senior, whose fag he had been at school.

What had he, after all, to go back to in England? He excused his torpor with thoughts like these, whenever it occurred to him to ask himself if he meant to spend his life tending vines, teaching English, and studying Armenian, in a little out-of-the-way town on the banks of the Euphrates.

He spent many months there without taking much note of time. The Meneshians were his family; the whole Armenian community his friends. He entered more and more into their life, shared more and more their interests. He was especially interested in the culture of the vineyard, wanting to know the how and the why of everything. Once—but this was in early days—he proposed taking Kevork and a couple of other lads with him, and going to stay there long before the regular vintage time. "We could guard it a great deal better," he said, "than that lazy Turk, who does nothing but lie all day on his perch smoking cigarettes, and is always wanting backsheesh."[1]

"You could not do it at all," answered Boghos, the eldest son of Hohannes, and the husband of Mariam Hanum, "just because you are not a Turk. Backsheesh is very well spent in setting the Turk to watch the Kourd, instead of both of them preying upon us. Do you not know that yet, Yon Effendi?"

They all continued to give him that name, which he had taught in the first instance to Kevork and his brothers. To them all he was a cross between a pet and plaything to be taken care of, and a superior person to be honoured. In both capacities he had every attention, and all his wants were liberally supplied. But he insisted that Hohannes should expend for that purpose some of his father's gold, and should give from time to time a small sum by way of compensation to Boghos and Mariam Hanum, with whom he lived. Money was so scarce in that region that a very small sum sufficed.

At last one day the whole Meneshian family, and indeed the whole Armenian quarter of Biridjik, was thrown into excitement by the news that Baron Muggurditch Thomassian (in English, Mr. Baptist Thomson), was about to honour them with a visit. He was travelling from Urfa to Aintab, and proposed staying a day or two on his way with his kinsfolk, the Meneshians.

Jack shared in the excitement. He was very curious to see this wealthy, travelled, educated Armenian, whom he expected to find of a very different type from the simple folk of Biridjik. And now, at last, he was sure to find through him the opportunity of communicating with his friends in England, which, however little eagerness he might feel in the matter, he knew he ought not to neglect.

What could the duteous and admiring kinsfolk of Baron Thomassian do on the occasion, except pay him the attention of riding "three hours distance" to meet him on his way, even although it was midwinter, the rains heavy and the wretched road ankle-deep in mud? Boghos led the party, and Jack went among the rest. Old Hohannes had a few fine horses, of which he was very proud; and he had given one of them to Jack, to his immense delight and satisfaction.

In that district there is scarcely any snow, and the rain had happily cleared off, so it was only a splashed and muddy, and not a drenched and soaking company that drew up by the wayside in the shelter of a little hill, to await the coming of the travellers.

At last the jingling of mule bells announced the approach of the caravan. There was a long string of khartijes, or muleteers, there were some servants on horseback, and a few zaptiehs to act as guards. These were fully armed of course, and the central figure of the whole, Baron Thomassian himself, rode a very fine horse, and actually carried a gun at his side, for which he must have got a special "permit" from the government. He was a good-looking middle-aged man, dressed à la Frank, or in complete European costume, except that he wore a fez in place of a hat, which was amongst the things forbidden to an Armenian.

There was something else which gave all the Biridjik folk a great surprise. Beside him rode a slight young girl, closely wrapped in a long "ezhar" of striped silk, which was drawn as a veil over the greater part of her face, leaving very little of it visible except her large, beautiful, dark eyes. Veiled though she was, Boghos recognised his daughter, and Kevork at least guessed his sister. Scarce, for looking at her, could they give their kinsman the customary greeting, "Paré yejock" (your coming is a joy), or wait for the response, "Paré dessack" (we see you with joy). And Thomassian hastened to say, "I have brought your daughter back to you at the request of your cousin, Baron Vartonian. I will explain the reason afterwards." Then Boghos kissed his daughter on both cheeks, and she kissed his hand and asked for his blessing. Kevork kissed her also; and Jack, keeping modestly in the background, thought what a pleasant thing it must be to have a sister. He had already seen lovely faces among the girls and women of Biridjik, but never, as he thought, eyes quite so soft and dark, lips quite so rosy, and cheeks of such perfect form and hue.

All the rest, who were old acquaintances, came crowding round her; and then Boghos turned his attention to Jack, and made him known to Thomassian, with much polite observance, as their English friend, John Grayson Effendi.

They rode back together to Biridjik, Boghos devoting himself to the entertainment of Thomassian. Jack could not help wondering that they all showed so little pleasure at the return of Shushan; on the other hand, a sort of constraint and gloom seemed to brood over the whole party. Kevork would give him no explanation. Even when he said, "I am surprised to see your sister looking so young. She seems scarcely fourteen. I thought, of course, from what you told me, that she must be older than you." Kevork only answered, with a quick, guarded look around, "She was but ten years old when she left us."

After the festive supper in honour of the guest, Thomassian explained the matter in private to Hohannes and to Boghos.

"Your former Kamaikan, Mehmed Ibrahim," he said, "has come to Urfa. He has got some good office there in the Government. Somehow he found out that Shushan was there with the Vartonians, and—he has not forgotten. In short, she must go. There was no other way."

"Amaan!" or "Oh dear!" was all her father said. But he looked perplexed and sorrowful, seeing trouble before them all.

Hohannes put the trouble into words. "He may find out, and send after her here."

"The Vartonians thought not. You must keep her as close as you can, or send her in disguise to one of the villages."

"How dare we—for the Kourds? A bride on her way from the church was carried off the other day from Korti, and the bridegroom and her father, who tried to defend her, were both killed. Our girls are not safe anywhere, except in their graves." Though they sat within closed doors, they all spoke in low tones, and with furtive glances around them.

"Our only possible protection," Thomassian said, "lies in the wealth our abilities and our industry enable us to gain. The Turks and Kourds consider our peace and safety marketable properties, which they are willing to sell us at a good price."

"Yes," said Hohannes sadly, "until they find we have nothing more to give, or until it suits them to take all together."

Thomassian, who probably did not much care to talk on these matters, said that he was weary with his journey, and expressed a wish to go early to rest.

Kevork had been hanging about watching for an opportunity of speaking with him, and now, as soon as the door was opened, he came forward, offering politely to attend him to his sleeping-place.

A little later he came quickly, and evidently in much excitement, into the room where Shushan was sitting, with her mother and several other women and girls of the household, who had come in to see her.

"Mother, I have done it!" he cried.

"Done what, my son?" asked his sad-faced mother.

She was sitting, as usual, behind her wheel, but its whirr was silent now. She had enough to do in looking in the face of Shushan, and holding her hand.

"I have made a conquest of old Cousin Muggurditch," said Kevork triumphantly. "He will take me with him to Aintab, and put me to the Foreigners' School."

A murmur of surprise ran round the room. But his mother asked, with some shrewdness,—

"What did you give him?"

"What you gave me, mother. I owe all to you. It was those gold coins that did it."

The other women looked significantly at Mariam. The strings of gold coins which she wears about her person are the Armenian woman's only absolute and indisputable possession. They stand to her instead of settlements and dowry. That must be precious indeed for which she will sacrifice them.

"He made little of the coins at first," said the quick-witted lad; "but that was all in the way of business. I could see that he thought a good deal of them, and liked well to get them."

"How much did you sell them for?" asked Mariam.

"I did not sell them. Not such a fool as that! I mean you to have them again some day, mother. I only gave them in pledge to him—he promising to advance my school expenses—until I should be able to repay him."

"But that is for ever and ever," said one of the women.

"Nothing of the sort. After two years at Aintab I shall be a teacher, and able to earn money for myself."

Here Shushan looked up and spoke. She was very beautiful; not only with the beauty characteristic of her race—soft dark eyes, black pencilled eyebrows almost meeting, long curling eyelashes, and olive-tinted, regular features—but with the rarer loveliness of a sweet, pure expression, that suited well her name, Shushan, the Lily. During her four years of absence the familiar surroundings of home had become strange to her, so she spoke with a certain timidity.

"My brother," she said, looking appealingly up to the tall youth whom she had left a mere child—"my brother, will you do something for me when you go to Aintab?"

Kevork protested his willingness, although somewhat surprised.

"My dearest friend," said Shushan, "the person I love best in the world, next after my father and mother and my brothers, is just now going to Aintab, to the school for girls. They hurried me away so quickly that I could not see her to say good-bye. And I shall not see her now; for, although she must pass by this on her way, she will not come into the town, but lodge in the khan outside. Will you salute her for me, and give her this as a gift from her poor little friend, Shushan Meneshian?" She drew from her bosom something resembling a necklace, made of amber beads, and held it out to Kevork.

He stooped down to take it, saying, "Well, then, my sister, what is the name of the girl?"

"Elmas Stepanian; she is the daughter of the Badvellie."

"Badvellie" means "full of honour"; and the Armenians usually speak of their priests and pastors by this respectful title.

"Stay, Kevork," said his mother. "You had better not take that tebish. Shushan is a child, and does not know the world. But do you think that it is possible the foreigners would allow the boys and the girls to speak to one another? They are very good people, else surely our cousins would not have let their own children, and Shushan, go to school to them."

This certainly was a difficulty, and even Shushan looked perplexed. But Kevork was equal to the occasion. "Yon Effendi tells me that the foreign Effendis, men and women, talk to each other just as much and as often as they like," he said. "Shushan, my sister, I will pray of the Effendi who teaches me to give thy token to the Effendi who teaches Oriort[2] Elmas Stepanian, and she will find some right way, I have no doubt, of giving it to her."

"Do so, Kevork, and I thank thee many times." She gave him the string of beads, and then her tongue waxed eloquent in praise of her friend. "She is so good, so clever," she said. "She knows, oh, so many things! She can speak and write English, not just a little as I do, but beautifully, like a real American! She knows grammar and geography, and the counting up of figures, and the story of the world. She does not want a thought-string like that to help her." (Both Turks and Armenians are accustomed, when thinking or talking, to finger strings of beads, called tebishes, and to obtain some mysterious assistance from the process.) "Oh! no. She would never use one at school, nor indeed would most of us. But now she is going where she will have such very hard lessons to learn, that perhaps she may be glad of it. At least it will remind her of her poor little Shushan. Tell her, Kevork, that Shushan puts a prayer for her on every bead she sends her."

"I think it is a very foolish plan to teach all those things to girls," one of the old women observed. "They will be fit for nothing else in the world but reading books, and who will mind the babies? And what will become of cooking and washing and baking bread, not to talk of spinning and sewing?"

"The girls of the American school at Urfa cook and bake and spin and sew right well for their years," Shushan spoke up bravely. "And those who go to Aintab, like Elmas, learn those things even better there. Oh, I wish you could see Elmas in her home, working to help her mother, and taking care of her little brothers and sister; you would know what she was worth then."

This did not fall upon unheeding ears. Young Kevork made a mental note of it; then turned quickly to ask his mother what she could manage to give him in the way of clothing, as his cousin wished to set out on his journey the morning of the day after next.

Meanwhile Jack was busily employed writing to his uncle, and to his uncle's son. The former he told, briefly enough, of his father's death, his own long illness, and the care and kindness of the people amongst whom he had fallen. He asked him to write to him, and to send him money for his journey home, and also to recompense those who had been so good to him. He knew, of course, that he would have a considerable income of his own, so he felt no difficulty in making this request. He concluded with love to his relatives and enquiries after their welfare. To his cousin he wrote more freely, and gave more particulars. But even to him his words did not flow easily. He could not take up his life in his hand, and look at it from the outside, so as to describe it to another. He could only give details of his surroundings, and of this he soon tired, being unaccustomed to write in English, or indeed to write at all. He broke off abruptly, folded up the two letters in one, sealed the packet, directed it to his uncle, and brought it to Thomassian.

Baron Muggurditch Thomassian was emphatically the courteous, cultured, cosmopolitan Armenian. He had amassed a considerable fortune in his business, which was that of a merchant of drugs; and to which he joined some cautious and lucrative money-lending. Moreover, he had travelled far, and seen much. He could speak several languages quite well enough to make shrewd bargains in them; and he knew the art of spending as well as of making money. He could appreciate music, poetry, and painting, no less than luxuries of a more material kind. Yet Jack felt as if he could never love him, never trust him even, as he did his friends in Biridjik. "I don't know what it is," he said to himself; "for there is nothing amiss with his looks, except perhaps something a little shifty about his eyes."

Nothing, however, could have been more courteous than his response to Jack's request that he would take charge of his letter, and see it safe into some really reliable post-office.

"I am asking my friends to send money to bring me home," he added, by way of explanation.

"How did you tell them to send it, Mr. Grayson?" asked Thomassian.

"I never thought of telling them how. I thought they would know themselves," Jack answered simply.

"It is not so simple a matter as you think," said Thomassian.

"Then what must I do? Stay, could it be managed this way? You are going to Aleppo?"

"Yes, Effendi."

"The English Consul there was my father's friend, and very kind to us. He would let my uncle send the money to him, and would know how to send it to me. I daresay he would write to my uncle too. You will ask him, will you not, Baron Thomassian?"

"I will do it without fail."

"And I am very grateful to you," Jack said, giving him his hand in English fashion, though the courteous Eastern did not fail to bow low over it.

Next morning Muggurditch Thomassian went his way, taking with him Jack's letter and Jack's chief friend Kevork, but leaving behind him what was destined to be of still more importance in the life of the English youth.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The "perch" upon which the Turkish guard reposed was a kind of booth, erected on the top of four poles, twelve or fifteen feet high, planted firmly in the ground.

[2] Miss.

Chapter VI ROSES AND BATH TOWELS

"He moved about the house with joy

And with the certain step of man."

—Tennyson.

"Good-morning, Mr. John, I give you my salvation."

Very softly and sweetly fell the English words from the pretty lips of Shushan. Jack stood before her (it was spring now) with a great basket of spring flowers—glorious red anemones, fragrant wild roses, pink and yellow—wild heliotrope, wild hyacinths, and other flowers for which we have no name in England. They were not alone together, of course; Mariam Hanum was there at her wheel, and two or three other women or girls of the family, spinning or sewing. Shushan herself was bending over a piece of the beautiful silk embroidery she had learned in Urfa, when the entrance of the young Englishman with the flowers they all loved so well made all look up together. Only the men and boys of their own family might come in thus freely to the room where the women sat; for any others the younger ones would have withdrawn, or at least have veiled their faces modestly. Shushan, at her first home-coming, used to do so for Jack; but the practice had gradually and insensibly fallen into disuse. She had been learning English in the school in Urfa, and at this time it was the greatest pleasure Jack had in life to hear her speak it. She was not unwilling to do so, being most anxious to remember all she had been taught.

"Is that right said, Mr. Yon?" she asked.

"It is very nice. And now, for my salutation, I give you my flowers. Here are enough for everybody."

He laid the basket down beside Mariam, having first taken out a fragrant nosegay of roses and heliotrope, carefully chosen and tied with grass.

"It is for saying a good lesson," he explained, as he offered it to Shushan.

Jack was now a tall, handsome youth of eighteen. Of late he had grown strong and active, and he took part as much as he could in outdoor life, especially in riding. In the saddle he was utterly fearless, and he began to be very helpful to Hohannes in the training of his young horses.

A month after the departure of Thomassian, he began to look out for answers to his letters. But in vain he watched and waited; nothing came for him. Weeks passed away, and then months; still the silence was unbroken. Jack was astonished, disappointed; sometimes, by fits and starts, he was angry. It looked as if his English friends did not care for him any longer, as if they chose to forget him. If it were not so, why had they, all this time, made no effort to find out what had become of his father and himself? Very well; if so it were, he could do without them. He could not just then feel any pressing anxiety to leave Biridjik; although of course he always meant to go back to England some time or other. When he came of age, he would certainly go, for then he could claim his inheritance.

But it was pleasant here. How richly glowed the Eastern sky! how glorious the wealth of roses! how sweetly smelled the blossoming vines, as he rode past the vineyards on the hills!

At last the vintage time came round again.

One fine autumn morning a string of horses, mules, and donkeys stood at the door of the Meneshians' house. Upon them were packed two tents of coarse black cloth—that cloth of Cilicia which the tent-maker of Tarsus used to weave. Some thin mattrasses and rugs were thrown over the bright-coloured saddles, and in the saddlebags were provisions, cooking utensils, and a few changes of dress. Then the whole family, from old Hohannes down to the youngest child, seated themselves, or were seated, on the animals as best they could find a place; and the yearly visit to the vineyards—the great autumn holiday of the Armenians—began.

If ever they shook off the deep melancholy which ages of oppression had stamped upon their race, it was in the simple pleasures of those sweet vintage days. The days were all too short for them, so they began them very early, with the singing of a psalm or hymn together. Then they dispersed to the different kinds of work allotted to them. Some stripped the low trees of their wealth of clusters, others trod out the juice in wooden troughs; again, others made it into sherbet, or into a kind of sugar, or mixed it with starch and with the kernels of nuts for the preparation of bastuc. Again, a company of happy children plucked the large grapes singly from their stalks and laid them in the sun, on great white linen cloths, to turn themselves into raisins. Their labours were lightened with talk and song, and sometimes even with jests and laughter.

One morning John Grayson, gathering grapes apart from the rest, heard a piteous cry for help. The voice was Shushan's; she was in pain or danger. Dropping his basket on the ground, he tore along, leaping over the low vines, making a straight line for the spot whence came the cry, whence came also horrible sounds—the yelps, the snarls, the growls of savage dogs.

In a corner of the vineyard Shushan and little Hagop clung together, just keeping at bay, with loose stones from the low wall, five or six wild, half-famished, wolfish dogs. Their strength was nearly gone. Another minute and they would be torn to pieces.

Jack dashed in amongst the dogs, dealing frantic kicks and blows about him. No matter what came next, if only he saved Shushan.

"Run! make for the tent!" he cried to her and Hagop.

The brutes being for the moment occupied with him, the thing was possible, and they did it.

The sunshine flashed on something bright in the belt of his zeboun—the great scissors used for cutting grapes. He seized it, and drove it with all his might into the neck of the nearest dog. Yelping with pain, the creature ran off. But the stoop was nearly fatal; two or three sprang on him at once;—he felt fierce teeth meeting in his flesh.

"Done for!" he groaned, conscious only of agony and blackness.