A priest, a statesman, and a soldier stood
Hand in each other's hand, by ruin faced,
Consulting to find succor if they could,
Till soon the lesser ones themselves abased,
Their sword and parchment on an altar laid
In deep humility the while the priest he prayed.
He prayed first for his church, that it might be
Upholden and acknowledged and revered,
And in its opal twilight men might see
Salvation if in truth enough they feared,
And if enough acknowledgment they gave
To ritual, and rosary, and creed that save.
Then prayed he for the state, that it should wean
Well-tutored counselors to do their part
Full profit and prosperity to glean
With dignity, although with contrite heart
And wisdom that Tradition wisdom ranks,
That church and state might stand and men give thanks.
Last prayed he for the soldier--longest, too,
That all the honor and the aims of war
Subserving him might carry wrath and rue
Unto repentance, and in trembling awe
The enemy at length should fault confess
And yield, to crave a peace of righteousness.
Behind them stood a patriot unbowed,
Not arrogant in gilt or goodly cloth,
Nor mincing meek, and yet not poorly proud;
With eyes afire that glittered not with wrath;
Aware of evil hours, and undismayed
Because he loved too well. He also prayed.
"Oh, Thou, who gavest, may I also give,
Withholding not--accepting no reward;
For I die gladly if the least ones live.
Twice righteous and two-edged be the sword,
'Neath freedom's banner drawn to prove Thy word
And smite me if I'm false!" His prayer was heard.
The remainder of that night was nightmare pure and simple--mules
and horses squealing in instinctive fear of action they felt
impending--gipsies and Armenians dragging packs out on the floor, to
repack everything a dozen times for some utterly godless reason--Rustum
Khan seizing each fugitive Armenian in turn to question him, alternating
fierce threats with persuasion--Kagig striding up and down with hands
behind him and his scraggly black beard pressed down on his chest--and
the great fire blazing with reports like cannon shots as one
of the Turk's sons piled on fuel and the resinous wet wood caught.
The Turk and his other six sons ran away and hid themselves as a
precaution against our taking vengeance on them. With situations
reversed a Turk would have taken unbelievable toll in blood and agony
from any Armenian he could find, and they reasoned we were probably
no better than themselves. The marvel was that they left one son
to wait on us, and take the money for room and horse-feed.
"Remember!" warned Monty, as we four sidled close together with our
backs against the wall. "Until we're in actual personal danger this
trouble is the affair of Kagig and his men!"
"I get you. If we horn in before we have to we'll do more harm than
good. Give the Turks an excuse to call us outlaws and shoot instead
of rescue us. Sure. But what about Miss Vanderman?" said Will.
"I foresee she's doomed!" Fred stared straight in front of him.
"It looks as if we'll lose our little Willy too! One woman at a
time, especially when the lady totes a mother-o'-pearl revolver and
about a dozen knives! If you come out of this alive, Bill, you'll
be wiser!"
"Fond of bull, aren't you! You'd jest on an ant-heap."
"There's nothing to discuss," said I. "If there's a lady in danger
somewhere ahead, we all know what we're going to do about it."
Monty nodded.
"If we can find her and get word to the consul, that 'ud be one more
lever for him to pull on."
"D'you suppose they'd dare molest an Englishwoman?" I asked, with
the sudden goose-flesh rising all over me.
"She's American," said Will between purposely set lips. But I did
not see that that qualified the unpleasantness by much.
One of the Armenians, whom Rustum Khan had finished questioning,
went and stood in Kagig's way, intercepting his everlasting sentry-go.
"What is it, Eflaton?"
"My wife, Kagig!"
"Ah! I remember your wife. She fed me often."
"You must come with me and find her, Kagig--my wife and two daughters,
who fed you often!"
"The daughters were pretty," said Kagig. "So was the wife. A young
woman yet. A brave, good woman. Always she agreed with me, I remember.
Often I heard her urge you men to follow me to Zeitoon and help to
fortify the place!"
"Will you leave a good woman in the hands of Turks, Kagig? Come--come
to the rescue!"
"It is too bad," said Kagig simply. "Such women suffer more terribly
than the hags who merely die by the sword. Ten times by the
count--during ten succeeding massacres I have seen the Turks sell
Armenian wives and daughters at auction. I am sorry, Eflaton."
"My God!" groaned Will. "How long are we four loafers going to sit
here and leave a white woman in danger on the road ahead?" He got
up and began folding his blankets.
The Armenian whom Kagig had called Eflaton threw himself to the floor
and shrieked in agony of misery. Rustum Khan stepped over him and
came and stood in front of Monty.
"These men are fools," he said. "They know exactly what the Turks
will do. They have all seen massacres before. Yet not one of them
was ready when the hour set for this one came. They say--and they
say the truth, that the Turks will murder all Europeans they catch
outside the mission stations, lest there be true witnesses afterward
whom the world will believe."
"But a woman--scarcely a white woman?" This from Will, with the
tips of his ears red and the rest of his face a deathly white.
"Depending on the woman," answered Rustum Khan. "Old--unpleasing--"
He made an upward gesture with his thumb, and a noise between his
teeth suggestive of a severed wind-pipe. "If she were good-looking--I
have heard say they pay high prices in the interior, say at Kaisarieh
or Mosul. Once in a harem, who would ever know? The road ahead
is worse than dangerous. Whoever wishes to save his life would do
best to turn back now and try to ride through to Tarsus."
"Try it, then, if you're afraid!" sneered Will, and for a moment
I thought the Rajput would draw steel.
"I know what this lord sahib and I will do," he said, darkening three
or four shades under his black beard. "It was for men bewitched
by gipsy-women that I feared!"
Will was standing. Nothing but Monty's voice prevented blows. He
rapped out a string of sudden rhetoric in the Rajput's own guttural
tongue, and Rustum Khan drew back four paces.
"Send him back, Colonel sahib!" he urged. "Send that one back!
He and Umm Kulsum will be the death of us!"
Fred went off into a peal of laughter that did nothing to calm the
Rajput's ruffled temper.
"Who was Umm Kulsum?" I asked him, divining the cause.
"The most immoral hag in Asian legend! The aggregated essence of
all female evil personified in one procuress!"
"Say, I'll have to teach that gink--"
Monty got up and stood between them, but it was a new alarm that
prevented blows. A fist-blow in the Rajput's face would have meant
a blood-feud that nothing less than a man's life could settle, and
Monty looked worried. There came a new thundering on the door that
brought everybody to his feet as if murder were the least of the
charges against us. Only Kagig appeared at ease and unconcerned.
"Open to them!" he shouted, and resumed his pacing to and fro.
Our Armenian servants ran to the door, and in a minute returned to
say that fifty mounted men from Zeitoon were drawn up outside. Kagig
gave a curt laugh and strode across to us.
"I said you Eenglis sportmen should see good sport."
Monty nodded, with a hand held out behind him to warn us to keep still.
"I said you shall shoot many pigs!"
"Lead on, then."
"Turks are pigs!"
Monty did not answer. To have disagreed would have been like flapping
a red cloth at a tiger. Yet to have agreed with him at once might
have made him jump to false conclusions. The consul's last words
to us had been insistent on the unwisdom of posing as anything but
hunters, legitimately entitled to protection from the Turkish government.
"I would like you gentlemen for allies!"
"You are our servant at present."
"Would you think of holding me to that?" demanded Kagig with a gesture
of extreme irritation. It is only the West that can joke at itself
in the face of crisis.
"If not to that," said Monty blandly, "then what agreements do you keep?"
Kagig saw the point. He drew a deep impatient breath and drove it
out again hissing through his teeth. Then he took grim hold of himself.
"Effendi," he said, addressing himself to Monty, but including all
of us with eyes that seemed to search our hearts, "you are a lord,
a friend of the King of Eengland. If I were less than a man of my
word I could make you prisoner and oblige your friend the King of
Eengland to squeeze these cursed Turks!"
Rustum Khan heard what he said, and made noise enough drawing his
saber to be heard outside the kahveh, but Kagig did not turn his
head. Three gipsies attended to Rustum Khan, slipping between him
and their master, and our four Zeitoonli servants cautiously approached
the Rajput from behind.
"Peace!" ordered Monty. "Continue, Kagig."
Kagig held both hands toward Monty, palms upward, as if he were offering
the keys of Hell and Heaven.
"You are sportmen, all of you. Shall I keep my word to you? Or
shall I serve my nation in its agony?"
Monty glanced swiftly at us, but we made no sign. Will actually
looked away. It was a rule we four had to leave the playing of a
hand to whichever member of the partnership was first engaged; and
we never regretted it, although it often called for faith in one
another to the thirty-third degree. The next hand might fall to
any other of us, but for the present it was Monty's play.
"We hold you to your word!" said Monty.