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.
"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."
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
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE DARK RIVER 1
CHAPTER II
FATHER AND SON 9
CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 17
CHAPTER IV
A NEW LIFE 26
CHAPTER V
BARON MUGGURDITCH THOMASSIAN 44
CHAPTER VI
ROSES AND BATH TOWELS 59
CHAPTER VII
GATHERING STORMS 66
CHAPTER VIII
A PROPOSAL 73
CHAPTER IX
PEACE AND STRIFE 91
CHAPTER X
AN ARMENIAN WEDDING 113
CHAPTER XI
AN ADVENTUROUS RIDE 125
CHAPTER XII
THE USE OF A REVOLVER 143
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT PASTOR STEPANIAN THOUGHT 155
CHAPTER XIV
A MODERN THERMOPYLÆ 173
CHAPTER XV
DARK HOURS 194
CHAPTER XVI
"THE DARK RIVER TURNS TO LIGHT" 214
CHAPTER XVII
A GREAT CRIME 229
CHAPTER XVIII
EVIL TIDINGS 241
CHAPTER XIX
A GREAT CRIME CONSUMMATED 256
CHAPTER XX
BY ABRAHAM'S POOL, AND ELSEWHERE 271
CHAPTER XXI
"GOD-SATISFIED AND EARTH-UNDONE" 287
CHAPTER XXII
GIVEN BACK FROM THE DEAD 301
CHAPTER XXIII
BETROTHAL 315
CHAPTER XXIV
UNDER THE FLAG OF ENGLAND 323
CHAPTER XXV
AT HOME 341
CHAPTER XXVI
A SERMON 351
APPENDIX 367
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."