A GREAT CRIME CONSUMMATED
"God's Spirit sweet,
Still Thou the heat
Of our passionate hearts when they rave and beat.
Quiet their swell,
And gently tell
That His right Hand doeth all things well.
"Tell us that He,
Who erst with the Three,
Walked (also) with these in their agony;
And drew them higher
And rapt them nigher
To Heaven, whose chariot and horses are fire."
--_C. F. Alexander._
Dread were the watches of that December night, amidst the unutterable
agonies of half a city. In the Armenian Quarter the only sleepers were
those--thrice happy!--who would never awake again--
"Until the Heavens be no more."
They were very many, like the slain in some great battle that decides a
nation's destiny. They lay in heaps, in the open street, in the
court-yards, in the houses. Tearless, wild-eyed women, strong in the
strength of love, came and sought their own amongst them. Sometimes a
wife who found her husband, a mother who embraced her son, wept and
wailed and made sore lamentation, but for the most part they were still
enough. Sometimes they thanked God that they had found them--_there_.
It went worse with those who sat in their desolate homes, and watched
the slow ebbing, often in cruel anguish, of the lives they loved. The
number of the wounded and the dying was enormous. For one thing, the
murderers were unskilful, for another they were often
deliberately--_diabolically_--cruel. Moreover, it was better economy to
hack a Giaour to pieces with swords or knives than to shoot him, since
every bullet cost two piastres!
It went worse still with the women, the girls, the little children even,
who were dragged to the mosques and shut up there, in hunger, cold, and
misery, until the murderers of their fathers, their husbands and
brothers had leisure to come and take them, and work their will upon
them. Oh God of mercy and pity, that these things should be in this
world of Thine!
Had He quite forsaken Urfa? Not always, standing outside the Furnace,
can we see therein the Form of One like unto the Son of God. _In the
Furnace_, men know better.
That night, in the vast Gregorian Cathedral, a great congregation met.
Many, no doubt, came there as to a place of refuge, hoping that even
Moslems would respect that sacred spot. But many more came to worship,
perhaps for the last time, in the courts of God upon earth. A band of
heroic Gregorian priests--men who were ready to be offered, and who knew
that the time of their departure was at hand--made of this last service
a solemn and sacred feast. They showed forth the Death of their Lord,
giving the Bread and the Wine, which He ordained for all time as its
hallowed memorials, to the kneeling, awe-struck multitude. Men, and
women, and little children, thinking thus upon His Death for them, were
strengthened to meet death for Him in faith and patience. On one of the
pillars of that church, now in ruins, some hand, now cold in death, has
traced the record that eighteen hundred persons partook of that solemn
Sacrament. Never again should they eat of that Bread or drink of that
Cup--
"Until the Trump of God be heard,
Until the ancient graves be stirred,
And with the great commanding word
The Lord shall come."
For those still left in the doomed city, that seemed indeed the last
Trumpet which sounded in the early dawn of Sunday, the 29th of
December. It sent a thrill of horror through every Armenian heart. They
knew it was the signal for resuming the massacre, and completing the
work of death and ruin left unfinished the previous day.
An orgie of blood and crime, worse than all that had gone before, began
then. Many Moslems of the lowest class, who had hitherto been kept in
check by the fear that the Christians might defend themselves, now
joined the murderers. Moreover, all passions are blunted by indulgence,
and require stronger and yet stronger stimulants. The passion of cruelty
is no exception. Where it really exists, where men kill and torture--not
for rage or hate, or greed, or fear--but for the joy they have in doing
it, it is as a demon possessing the soul. It lives, it grows, it
thirsts, it craves sacrifices ever greater and more ingenious. It
develops a horrible, a Satanic subtlety. It inspires deeds at the mere
recital of which humanity shudders. We may not tell, we may not even
think of them. Involuntarily we close our eyes, we stop our ears. But
ought we not sometimes to remember that our brothers and our sisters
have _endured_ them all?
Hanum Selferian was sitting in what had been only yesterday the best
room of her comfortable home. Now not a single article of furniture
remained unbroken or unspoiled. Curtains were torn down, presses were
smashed open, and their contents either taken away, broken into
fragments, or strewn about. In the midst of the floor lay all the food
in the house--bulghour, rice, meal, coffee, vegetables, bread--tossed
together in a confused heap, over which charcoal had been thrown and
kerosene poured. But no eyes for this, or for aught else, had the
broken-hearted wife. On a bed in the corner lay her husband, dying. He
was horribly mutilated; but the hand of devoted love had bound up the
fearful wounds, and done the little that was possible to assuage their
anguish. All the long night she had watched beside him, her children
clinging round her weeping and praying, the elder ones trying to help
her when they could. No joy came in the morning, but a new and terrible
fear. What if the Turks should return? Flight and concealment were out
of the question _now_.
The gate of their courtyard was broken the day before; and now some one
pushed open the door of the room where they were. Hanum Selferian
started to her feet. A man stood before her, his eyes wild and
bloodshot, his face stamped with an expression of unutterable horror.
One short hour had passed since John Grayson went forth from the gate
of the prison. In that time he had seen things which he never afterwards
told to any one, and which he would have given a king's ransom for the
power of forgetting. Now, like one walking in a dream--seeing nothing,
hearing nothing--he strode up to her and asked, "Where is my wife?"
Hanum Selferian had seen him often, and knew all about him. But how
could she recognise, in this broken, horror-stricken man, the bright,
fearless English youth? He looked full fifty years of age. Besides, her
own sorrow filled her heart, and dulled her senses. "Speak low," she
said;--"my husband"--
"I am sorry," Jack answered mechanically. "But where is my wife, Shushan
Meneshian?"
"Shushan?" She looked up now, her thoughts diverted for a moment. "You
are not the Englishman?"
"Would I were _not_! No one will kill me. There is a mark set upon me,
that none may hurt me. It is the mark of Cain.--Where is my wife? I was
told she came here."
"Yes; to see her father, Boghos, who was not here at all. It was all a
trick," said the poor woman. "Amaan! do not ask me more."
"Don't cry, dear Effendi," broke in the youngest of the little girls,
taking his hand caressingly, and touching it with her forehead. "Mother
hid me in the storeroom while the Turks were here, but I looked through
the crack of the door and saw--I saw dreadful things. They hurt poor
father, oh, so terribly! but they did not hurt Oriort Shushan at
all--not the very least. They only took her away with them. I am sure
they will be very kind to her, she is so dear and beautiful."
"_Hush!_" said the next sister, just a little older.
Krikor, the eldest boy, came running in. "Mother! mother! let us all go
to the church. The neighbours--those of them who are _here_--say it is
the best thing to do. The Turks will not touch us there."
One loving glance she gave to her dying husband, then she looked at
Jack. "Perhaps," she said, "the kind English Effendi would take you
children there. And your grandmother--Parooz, where is she?"
"Not one of us will stir a step without you, mother; there is no use in
asking us. We live or die all together," the boy said firmly,
disregarding the looks and gestures with which his mother tried to stop
him.
Then a feeble voice was heard, speaking from the bed. "In God's name,
let us all go. I think I could walk--with help."
In John Grayson's broken heart the instinct of helpfulness survived. It
was as if he were dead within, and his shell, his outer self, went on
mechanically, acting out the impulses impressed, and the habits formed,
during his life-time. "I will help you," he said, going over to the
wounded man and preparing to raise him from the bed. Almost dying as he
was, he was still able to stand, and even to walk a little.
Parooz, the eldest girl, fetched the white-haired grandmother, who had
gone apart to weep, and was found in an upper room sleeping for sorrow.
The children gathered round them. Jack put his strong arm about the
dying man, his wife supported him on the other side, and they all went
out together.
The state of the streets was indescribable. People were rushing through
them wildly, shrieking, screaming, crying for help; and the dead and
dying lay about under their very feet. Happily, the Cathedral was near
at hand; but, for one of the little party, peace and safety were nearer
still. As they came in sight of it, Selferian's strength failed. "Let me
rest a moment," he prayed. They put down some of their upper garments,
and laid him gently on them; and there he rested--from all his weariness
and all his pain.
There was no time to mourn the dead. The old grandmother went on first,
taking with her the reluctant Krikor. Then Jack said to the new-made
widow, "For your children's sake," and pointed to the Cathedral.
The sights of horror they had seen, even in their short walk, quickened
their footsteps. They found the churchyard and the buildings around it,
the dwellings of the priests and the school-houses, already full of
people. Making their way through the throng, they got at last into the
Cathedral; and, after some further delay, went up into the gallery, some
people the Selferians knew being there already.
Jack kept with them; his behaviour outwardly was quite rational, but he
had entirely lost control over his thoughts. Once he imagined he was
back again in England, wildly imploring the Queen, the Government, the
whole nation, to send men and guns and bayonets to Armenia--not to save
the people, but to kill them--to kill them mercifully, all at once, and
make an end of this agony. Shushan and Shushan's race seemed in his mind
to have blended together into one. "'And in these days,'" he thought,
"'shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die,
and death shall flee from them.'"
All this time there were people pouring in, filling the vast spaces of
the church till scarce standing room remained. At last the great iron
door swung to, and was shut.
Not one moment too soon. The mob was already thundering at it. The yells
and howls of the frenzied crowd outside mingled with the cries and
groans of the terrified crowd within. At the same time shots came in
through the windows, wounding some and killing others.
At last the storm prevailed, the iron door smashed in, and then the work
of murder began in earnest. But the very density of the crowd of victims
checked its progress. It was hard to cut through that mass of living
flesh. One incident Jack saw which stamped itself upon his mind; though
at the time he felt neither that nor anything else. Some Turk, mounted
on a bench or stone, saw a face in the crowd he knew--that of a young
Armenian singer, whose sweet voice was already winning him gold and
glory, and who was a special favourite with the Moslems. He and others
called to him by name. The youth sprang upon a pedestal, and in a minor
key, with a voice of exquisite pathos and melody, began a plaintive
Armenian song.
Then a strange thing was seen and heard--there were tears on Moslem
faces, and sobs that broke from Moslem breasts. This would not do! Guns
were pointed at the too successful singer. "Stop!" cried the voice of
one having authority. "Dear youth, be a Moslem. We will save you alive,
and give you wealth and honour, as much as you will."
"_Never!_" The dauntless word rang through the church, sweeter than
melody of harp or lute sweeter than voice of song. It was the young
singer's last utterance--the end came then, for him.
The work of death went on, the murderers hewing a way for themselves
through the crowded aisles. Meanwhile, in the vast gallery, which ran
quite round the building, the terrified multitude, mostly women and
children, shrieked and wept and prayed, calling aloud on the name of
Jesus. A few men tried to climb out through the windows; but this was
impossible, and would have been useless, for the mob were waiting
outside with firearms to pick off the fugitives. Jack stood where he
was; for his own life he did not care the turning of a straw, and his
instinct of protection kept him beside the Selferians. He saw all the
work of murder going on in the church below. And now the Moslems had
reached the altar. Some of them sprang upon it, while others tore the
pictures, smashed the woodwork, and broke open anything they thought
might contain treasure.
There was on the reading-desk a large, beautiful, and very ancient
Bible, bound and clasped with silver. With a yell of triumph, a Moslem
seized it, tore out the leaves, and flung down the desecrated volume.
"Now, Prophet Jesus," he shouted, "save Thine own if Thou canst! Show
Thyself stronger than Mahomet!"
For one brief moment a wild ecstatic hope sprang up in the heart of John
Grayson. He looked up, and half expected the solid roof to open,
revealing God's heaven above them, and in it the "sign of the Son of
Man." His Christian lips re-echoed the Moslem cry, "Save Thine own! Show
Thyself stronger than Mahomet!"
"There was no voice, neither any that answered." The silence of the
ages--that strange, mysterious, awful silence--was not broken; it
lasted, as it lasts still.
In the over-wrought brain of John Grayson some chord snapped then.
"There is no Christ," he said. "He cannot hear us; He is dead long ago.
There is no God; He is nothing but a dream--a dream of happy men, who
sit at ease in quiet homes."
He did not know that he spoke aloud, but a woman near him heard the
words. "How can you say there is no God?" she remonstrated. "It is not
true;--but _God has gone mad_!"
The next moment a shot from below struck the speaker, and she fell into
Jack's very arms. The Turks were firing up into the crowd in the
gallery.
But that process was by far too slow. Now they were dragging mattrasses,
rugs, clothing, light wood work from the adjoining priests' houses, and
piling them on and amongst the heaps of dead and dying in the church.
Then they carried in great vessels of kerosene, and poured their
contents over the whole mass. To this horrible sacrifice they set fire
in several places. The flames arose; the crowd in the gallery saw the
awful fate prepared for them, and one wild, wailing shriek of terror
drowned every other noise.
Turks, meanwhile, were rushing up the gallery stairs, seizing the
younger women and girls, and carrying them out. A Turk forced his way
between Jack and Hanum Selferian, "Do you know me?" he asked her. "I
killed your husband yesterday because I want to marry you. Come with me,
and I will save you and your children."
He seized her zeboun, but with an effort she freed herself from his
grasp. Jack helping her, and the children keeping close to her, they
pushed on to the front of the gallery, and looked down. A sea of fire
was beneath them; its hot breath scorched their faces. The Turk was
following them. Then the Armenian mother lifted her youngest child, a
boy of eight, in her arms, and looked at the three little girls
clinging to her side. "Children," she said, "will you go with that man
and be Moslems, or will you die for Christ with me?"
"Mother, we will die with you," said the little voices, speaking all at
once.
She could do for them one thing yet. They should not suffer. In another
moment they should be with Christ. Twenty feet down, right into the
heart of the hottest fire, she flung her youngest child. Then followed
the little girls; and then, just as the Turk's hand touched her
shoulder, her own rest was won.
That was the last thing Jack saw in the burning church.
Oh, Christ, who that day didst keep silence in Thy Heaven, help us to
remember that other day, when around Thy Cross the mocking voices
sounded, "If Thou be the Christ, save Thyself,"--and Thou wert silent
too. Help us to hold fast by that faith in Thee that lies between us and
madness. Make us understand that these Thy people are indeed "members
incorporate in Thy mystical Body." Not _with_ them alone through
sympathy, but _in_ them through vital organic union Thou sufferest
still. In them Thou art "in Thine agony until the end of the world";
until the last member is complete, the last sheaf of the great Harvest
gathered in. Thou lovest them too much for the mockery of Thy foes, or
even for the passionate prayer of Thy friends, to move Thee to come down
from the Cross until the work of the Cross is finished, and the earnest
expectation of Thy suffering creatures changed into the joy unspeakable
of the manifestation of the sons of God.