If Life were what the liars say
And failure called the tune
Mayhap the road to ruin then
Were cluttered deep wi' broken men;
We'd all be seekers blindly led
To weave wi' worms among the dead,
If Life were what the liars say
And failure called the tune.
But Life is Father of us all
(Dear Father, if we knew!)
And underneath eternal arms
Uphold. We'll mock the false alarms,
And trample on the neck of pain,
And laugh the dead alive again,
For Life is Father to us all,
And thanks are overdue!
If Truth were what the learned say
And envy called the tune
Mayhap 'twere trite what treason saith
That man is dust and ends in death;
We'd slay with proof of printed law
Whatever was new that seers saw,
If Truth were what the learned say
And envy called the tune.
But Truth is Brother of us all
(Oh, Brother, if we knew!)
Unspattered by the muddied lies
That pass for wisdom of the wise--
Compassionate, alert, unbought,
Of purity and presence wrought,--
Big Brother that includes us all
Nor knows the name of Few!
If Love were what the harlots say
And hunger called the tune
Mayhap we'd need conserve the joys
Weighed grudgingly to girls and boys,
And eat the angels trapped and sold
By shriven priests for stolen gold,
If Love were what the harlots say
And hunger called the tune.
But Love is Mother of us all
(Dear Mother, if we knew!)--
So wise that not a sparrow falls,
Nor friendless in the prison calls
Uncomforted or uncaressed.
There's magic milk at Mercy's breast,
And little ones shall lead us all
When Trite Love calls the tune!
Naturally, being what we were, with our friend Monty held in durance
by a chief of outlaws, we were perfectly ready to kidnap Miss Vanderman
and ride off with her in case she should be inclined to delay
proceedings. It was also natural that we had not spoken of that
contingency, nor even considered it.
"We never dreamed of your refusing to come with us," said Will.
"We still don't dream of it!" Fred asserted, and she turned her head
very swiftly to look at him with level brows. Next she met my eyes.
If there was in her consciousness the slightest trace of doubt, or
fear, or admission that her sex might be less responsible than ours,
she did not show it. Rather in the blue eyes and the athletic poise
of chin, and neck, and shoulders there was a dignity beyond ours.
Will laughed.
"Don't let's be ridiculous," she said. "I shall do as I see fit."
Fred's neat beard has a trick of losing something of its trim when
he proposes to assert himself, and I recognized the symptoms. But
at the moment of that impasse the Armenians below us had decided
that self-assertion was their cue, and there came great noises as
they thundered with a short pole on the trap and made the stones
jump that held it down.
At that signal several women emerged from behind the hanging
blankets--young and old women in various states of disarray--and stood
in attitudes suggestive of aggression. One did not get the idea that
Armenians, men or women, were sheeplike pacifists. They watched
Miss Vanderman with the evident purpose of attacking us the moment
she appealed to them.
"If you don't roll the stones away I think there'll be trouble,"
she said, and came and stood between Will and me. Fred got behind
me, and began to whisper. I heard something or other about the trap,
and supposed he was asking me to open it, although I failed to see
why the request should be kept secret; but the women forestalled
me, and in a moment they had the stones shoved aside and the men
were emerging one by one through the opening.
Then at last I got Fred's meaning. There was a second of indecision
during which the Armenians consulted their women-folk, in two minds
between snatching Miss Vanderman out of our reach or discovering
first what our purpose might be. I took advantage of it to slip
down the stone stairs behind them.
The opening in the castle wall was easy to find, for the star-lit
sky looked luminous through the hole. Once outside, however, the
gloom of ancient trees and the castle's shadow seemed blacker than
the dungeon had been. I groped about, and stumbled over loose stones
fallen from the castle wall, until at last one of our own Zeitoonli
discovered me and, thinking I might be a trouble-maker, tripped me
up. Cursing fervently from underneath his iron-hard carcass I made
him recognize me at last. Then he offered me tobacco, unquestionably
stolen from our pack, and sat down beside me on a rock while I recovered
breath.
It took longer to do that than he expected, for he had enjoyed the
advantage of surprise while hampered by no compunctions on the ground
of moderation. When the agony of windlessness was gone and I could
question him he assured me that the horses were well enough, but
that he and his two companions were hungry. Furthermore, he added,
the animals were very closely watched--so much so that the other
two, Sombat and Noorian, were standing guard to watch the watchers.
"But I am sure they are fools," he added.
This man Arabaiji had been an excellent servant, but decidedly
supercilious toward the others from the time when he first came to
us in the khan at Tarsus. Regarding himself as intelligent, which
he was, he usually refused to concede that quality, or anything
resembling it, to his companions.
"That is why I was looking for you when you hit me in the dark with
that club of a fist of yours," I answered. "I wanted to speak with
you alone because I know you are not a fool."
He felt so flattered that he promptly let his pipe go out.
"While Sombat and Noorian are keeping an eye on the horses, I want
you to watch for trouble up above here," I said. "In case the people
of this place should seek to make us prisoner, then I want you to
gallop, if you can get your horse, and run otherwise, to the nearest--"
He checked me with a gesture and one word.
"Kagig!"
"What about him?" I demanded.
"If I were to bring Turks here, Kagig would never rest until my fingers
were pulled off one by one!"
"If you were to bring Turks here, or appeal to Turks," said I, "Kagig
would never get you."
"How not?"
"Unless he should find your dead carcass after my friends and I had
finished with it!"
"What then?"
He lighted his pipe again by way of reestablishing himself in his
own esteem, and it glowed and crackled wetly in the dark beside me
in response to the workings of his intelligence.
"In case of trouble up here, and our being held prisoner, go and
find other Armenians, and order them in Kagig's name to come and
rescue us."
"Those who obey Kagig are with Kagig," he answered.
"Surely not all?"
"All that Kagig could gather to him after eleven years!"
"In that case go to Kagig, and tell him."
"Kagig would not come. He holds Zeitoon."
"Are you a fool?"
"Not I! The other two are fools."
"Then do you understand that in case these people should make
us prisoner--"
He nodded. "They might. They might propose to sell you to the
Turks, perhaps against their own stolen women-folk."
"Then don't you see that if you were gone, and I told them you had
gone to bring Kagig, they would let us go rather than face
Kagig's wrath?"
"But Kagig would not come."
"I know that. But how should they know it?"
I knew that he nodded again by the motion of the glowing tobacco
in his pipe. It glowed suddenly bright, as a new idea dawned on
him. He was an honest fellow, and did not conceal the thought.
"Kagig would not send me back to you," he said. "He is short of
men at Zeitoon."
"Never mind," said I. "In case of trouble up above here, but not
otherwise, will you do that?"
"Gladly. But give it me in writing, lest Kagig have me beaten for
running from you without leave."
That was my turn to jump at a proposal. I tore a sheet from my
memorandum book, and scribbled in the dark, knowing he could not
read what I had written.
"This writing says that you did not run away until you had made quite
sure we were in difficulties. So, if you should run too soon, and
we should not be in difficulties after all, Kagig would learn that
sooner or later. What would Kagig do in that case?"
"He would throw me over the bridge at Zeitoon--if he could catch
me! Nay! I play no tricks."
"Good. Then go and hide. Hide within call. Within an hour, or
at most two hours we shall know how the land lies. If all should
be well I will change that writing for another one, and send you
to Kagig in any case. No more words now--go and hide!"
He put his pipe out with his thumb, and took two strides into a shadow,
and was gone. Then I went back through the gap in the dungeon wall,
and stumbled to the stairs. Apparently not missing me yet, they
had covered up the trap, and I had to hammer on it for admission.
They were not pleased when my head appeared through the hole, and
they realized that I had probably held communication with our men.
I suppose Fred saw by my face that I had accomplished what I went
for, because he let out a laugh like a fox's bark that did nothing
toward lessening the tension.
On the other hand it was quite clear that during my absence Miss
Vanderman had not been idle. Excepting the two men who had admitted
me, every one was seated--she on the floor among the women, with
her back to the wall, and the rest in a semicircle facing them.
Two of the women had their arms about her, affectionately, but not
without a hint of who controlled the situation.
"What have you been doing?" Fred demanded, and he laughed at Gloria
Vanderman with an air of triumph.
"Making preparations," I said, "to take Miss Vanderman to Tarsus."
I wish I could set down here a chart of the mixed emotions then
expressed on that young lady's face. She did not look at Will,
knowing perhaps that she already had him captive of her bow and spear.
Neither did Will look at us, but sat tracing figures with a forefinger
in the dust between his knees, wondering perhaps how to excuse or
explain, and getting no comfort.
If my guess was correct, Gloria Vanderman was about equally distracted
between the alternative ignominy of submitting her free will to Armenians
or else to us. Compassion for the women in their predicament weighed
one way--knowledge that our friend Monty was in durance vile contingent
on her actions pulled heavily another Fred was frankly enjoying himself,
which influenced her strongly toward the Armenian side, she being
young and, doubtless the idol of a hundred heart-sick Americans,
contemptuous of forty-year-old bachelors.
"Of course we shall not let you go!" one of the Armenians assured
her in quite good English, and I began fumbling at the pistol in
my inner pocket, for if Arabaiji was to run to Zeitoon, then the
sooner the better. But it needed only that imputation of helplessness
to tip the beam of Miss Gloria's judgment.
"You can attend to the sick ones. You can play music for us all.
Doubtless these other two have qualifications."
I was too busy admiring Gloria to know what effect that announcement
had on Fred and Will. She shook herself free from the women, and
stood up, splendid in the flickering yellow light. There was a sort
of swift move by every one to be ready against contingencies, and
I judged it the right moment to spring my own surprise.
"When I fire this pistol," I said, producing it, "a man will start
at once for Zeitoon to warn Kagig. He has a note in his pocket written
to Kagig. Judge for yourselves how long it will take Kagig and his
men to reach this place!"
The nearest man made a very well-judged spring at me and pinned my
elbows from behind. Another man knocked the pistol from my hand.
The women seized Gloria again. But Fred was too quick--drew his
own pistol, and fired at the roof.
"Twice, Fred!" I shouted, and he fired again.
"There!" said I. "Do what you like. The messenger has gone!"
And then Gloria shook herself free a last time, and took command.
"Is that true?" she demanded.
I nodded. "The best of our three men was to start on his way the
minute he heard the second shot."
Then I was sure she was Boadicea reincarnate, whether the old-time
British queen did or did not have blue eyes and brown hair.
"I will not have brave men brought back here on my account! Kagig
must be a patriot! He needs all his men! I don't blame him for
making a hostage of Lord Montdidier! I would do the same myself!"
Will had evidently given her a pretty complete synopsis of our
adventure while I was outside talking with Arabaiji. It is always
a mystery to the British that Americans should hold themselves a
race apart and rally to each other as if the rest of the Anglo-Saxon
race were foreigners, but those two had obeyed the racial rule.
They understood each other--swiftly--a bar and a half ahead of
the tune.
"This old castle is no good!" she went on, not raising her voice
very high, but making it ring with the wholesomeness of youth, and
youth's intolerance of limits. "The Turks could come to this place
and burn it within a day if they chose!"
"The Turks won't trouble. They'll send their friends the Kurds instead,"
Fred assured her.
"Ah-h-h-gh!" growled the Armenians, but she waved them back to silence.
"How much food have you? Almost none! How much ammunition?"
"Ah-h-h-h!" they chorused in a very different tone of voice.
"D'you mean you've got cartridges here?" Fred demanded.
"Fifty cases of cartridges for government Mauser rifles!" bragged
the man who was nearest to Will.
"Gee! Kagig 'ud give his eyes for them!" (Will devoted his eyes
to the more poetic purpose of exchanging flashed encouragement
with Gloria.)
"Men, women and children--how many of you are there?"
"Who knows? Who has counted? They keep coming."
"No, they don't. You've set a guard to keep any more away for fear
the food won't last--I know you have! Well--what does it matter
how many you are? I say let us all go to Zeitoon and help Kagig!"
"Oh, bravo!" shouted Fred, but it was Will's praise that proved
acceptable and made her smile.
"Second the motion!"
I added a word or two by way of make-weight, that did more as a matter
of fact than her young ardor to convince those very skeptical men
and women. No doubt she broke up their determination to sit still,
but it was my words that set them on a course.
"Kagig will be angry when he comes. He's a ruthless man," said I,
and the Armenians, men as well as women, sought one another's eyes
and nodded.
"Kagig must be more of a ruthless bird than we guessed!" Will whispered.
Counting women, there was less than a score of refugees in the room,
and if we had only had them to convince, our work was pretty nearly
done. There was the guard among the trees down-hill that we knew
about still to be converted, or perhaps coerced. But just at the
moment when we felt we held the winning hand, there came a ladder
thrust down through the hole in the corner of the roof, and a man
whom they all greeted as Ephraim began to climb down backward. He
was so loaded with every imaginable kind of weapon that he made more
noise than a tinker's cart.
Nor was Ephraim the only new arrival. Man after man came down backward
after him, each man cursed richly for treading on his predecessor's
fingers--a seeming endless chain of men that did not cease when the
room was already uncomfortably overcrowded. Some of these men wore
clothes that suggested Russia, but the majority were in rags. The
ladder swayed and creaked under them, and finally, at a word from
Ephraim, the last-comers sat on the upper rungs, bending the frail
thing with their weight into a complaining loop.
Several of the newcomers had torches, and their acrid smoke turned
the twice-breathed air of the place into evil-tasting fog.
Three men put their faces close to Ephraim's and proceeded to enlighten
him as to what had passed. He seemed to be recognized as some sort
of chieftain, and carried himself with a commanding air, but so many
men talked at once, and all in Armenian, that we could not pick out
more than a word or two here and there. Even Fred, with his gift
of tongues, could hardly make head or tail of it.
We three pressed through the swarm and took our stand beside Gloria,
not hesitating to thrust the other women aside. They dragged at their
men-folk to call attention to us, but the argument was too hot to
be missed, and the women clawed and screamed in vain.
"I believe we could get out!" I shouted in Will's ear. But he shook
his head. At least six men were standing on the trap, and we could
not have driven them off it because there was no other space on the
floor that they could occupy. So I turned to Fred.
"Couldn't we shake those ruffians off the ladder, and climb up it
and escape?" I shouted. But Fred shook his head, and went on listening,
trying to follow the course of the dispute.
At last somebody with louder lungs than any other man made Ephraim
understand that it was I who sent the messenger to Zeitoon. Instantly
that solved the problem to his mind. I should be hanged, and that
would be all about it. He gesticulated. The men swarmed down off
the ladder to the already overcrowded floor, and mistaking Will for
me several men started to thrust him forward. A face appeared through
the hole in the roof and its owner was sent running for a rope.
I had not recovered my pistol, and my rifle was slung at my back
where I could not possibly get at it for the crowd. But Fred had
a Colt repeater handy in his hip-pocket and he promptly screwed the
muzzle of it into Ephraim's ear. What he said to him I don't know,
but Ephraim's convictions underwent a change of base and he began
to yell for silence. The men who had seized Will let go of him just
as the rope with a disgusting noose in the end was lowered through
the roof. And then Ossa was imposed on Pelion.
A new face appeared at the hole. Not that we could see the face.
We could only see the form of a man who shook the bloody stump of
a forearm at us, and shrieked unintelligible things. After thirty
seconds even the men in the far corner were aware of him, and then
there was stony silence while he had his say. He repeated his message
a dozen times, as if he had it by heart exactly, spitting foam out
of his mouth and never ceasing to shake the butchered stump of an
arm. At about the dozenth time he fainted and fell headlong down
the ladder bringing up on the shoulders of the men below.
"What does he say?" I bellowed in Fred's car. But Fred was forcing
his way closer to Gloria, to tell her.
"He says the Kurds are coming! He says two regiments of Kurdish
cavalry have been turned loose by the Turks with orders to 'rescue'
Armenians. They are on their way, riding by night for a wonder.
They cut both his hands off, but he got away by shamming dead.
He says they are cutting off the feet of people and bidding them
walk to Tarsus. They are taking the women and girls for sale. Old
women and very little children they are making what they call sport
with. Have you heard of Kurds? Their ideas of sport are worse than
the Red-man's ever were."
Every tongue in the room broke loose. In another second every man
was still. They looked toward Ephraim. He who could order a hanging
so glibly should shoulder the new responsibility.
But Ephraim was not ready with a plan, and could not speak English.
Wild-eyed, he seized the lapel of my coat in trembling fingers, and
with a throat grown suddenly parched, crackled a question at me in
Armenian. I could have understood Volopuk easier.
"What does he say, Fred?"
"He wants to know how soon Kagig can be here."
"Kagig!" Ephraim echoed, clutching at my collar. "Yes, yes, yes!
Kagig! Come--how soon?"
"We shall be all right," said another man in English over on the
far side of the room. His hoarse voice sounded like a bellow in
the silence. "Kagig will come presently. Kagig will butcher the
Kurds. Kagig will certainly save us."
"Kagig!" Ephraim insisted. "Come----how soon?"
But I knew Kagig would not come, that night or at any time, and Ephraim
shook me in frenzied impatience for an answer.
Chapter Eleven
"That man's dose is death, and he dies unshriven!"
"MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM"
The ancient orders pass. The fetters fall.
All-potent inspiration stirs dead peoples to new birth.
And over bloodied fields a new, clear call
Rings kindlier on deadened ears of earth.
Man--male--usurping--unwise overlord,
Indoctrinated, flattered, by himself betrayed
And all-betraying since with idiot word
He bade his woman bear and be afraid,
Awakes to see delusion of the past
Unmourned along with all injustice die,
Himself by woman wisdom blessed at last
And her unchallenged right the reason why.
Now for a moment I became the unwilling vortex of that mob of anxious
men and women--I who by, my own confession knew Kagig, I who had
sent Kagig a message, I who five minutes ago was on the verge of
being hanged in the greasy noose that still swung above the ladder
through the hole in the roof--I who therefore ought to be thoroughly
plastic-minded and obedient to demands.
The place had become as evil smelling as the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Everybody was sweating, and they shoved and milled murderously in
the effort to get near me and learn, each with his own ears from
my lips, just when Kagig might be expected. Ephraim, their presumptive
leader, got shuffled to the outside of the pack--the only silent
man between the four walls, watchful for new opportunity.
With my clothing nearly torn off and cars in agony from bellowed
questions, the only remedy I could think of was to yell to Fred to
start up a tune on his concertina; I had seen him change a crowd's
temper many a time in just that way. But even supposing my advice
had been good, he could not get his arms free, and it was Gloria
Vanderman who saved that day.
Whoever has tried to write down the quality that makes the college
girl, United States or English, what she is has failed, just as whoever
has tried to muzzle or discredit her has failed. She is something
new that has happened to the world, not because of men and women
and the priests and pundits, but in spite of them. Part of the reason
can be given by him who knows history enough, and commands almost
unlimited leisure and page; but that would only be the uninteresting
part that we could easily dispense with. The college girl has happened
to the world, as light did in Genesis 1:3.
Gloria Vanderman, with her back against the wall, struggled and
contrived to get her foot on Will's bent knee. Another struggle
sent her breast-high above the sea of sweating faces. There was
fitful light enough to see her by, because the man who held a pine
torch was privileged. If there had not been hot sparks scattering
from the thing doubtless they would have closed in on him and crushed
it down, and out, but he had elbow-room, and accordingly Gloria's
face glowed golden in its frame of disordered chestnut hair. One
heard her voice because it was clear, and sweet with reasonableness,
so that it vibrated in an unobstructed orbit.
"Surely you are not cowards?" she began, and they grew silent, because
that idea called for consideration.
"Kagig is a patriot. Kagig is fighting for all Armenia. Surely
you are not the men to let brave Kagig be tempted away from his post
of danger at Zeitoon? If I know you men and women you will hasten
to meet Kagig, taking your food, and weapons, and children with you.
You will hurry--hurry--hurry to meet him--to meet him as near Zeitoon
as possible, so as to turn him back to his post of duty!"
Then Ephraim saw his chance. Some whisperer translated to him and
he owned a voice that was worth gold for political purposes.
He took up the tale in Armenian, working himself up into a splendid
fervor, and so amplifying the argument that he could almost fairly
claim it as his own before he was half-done. She had introduced
the light, but he exploited it, and he knew his nation--knew the
tricks of speech most likely to spur them into action.
Within five minutes they were shoving the stones off the trap at
imminent risk of anybody's legs, and the ladder bent groaning under
the weight of twice as many as it ought to bear, as half of them
essayed the short cut over the roof. A blast of sweet air through
the opened trap ejected most of the smoky ten-times-breathed stuff
out with the climbers; and as the room emptied and we wiped the
grimy sweat from our faces I heard Will talking to Gloria Vanderman
in a new tongue--new, that is to say, to the old world.
"Good goods! Stampeded 'em! They'll vote for you for any office--your
pick! If that guy Ephraim plans buttering the slide we'll
set him on it--watch!"
"You bet," she answered sentimentally. "I wasn't cheer leader for
nothing. Besides, I delivered the valedictory--say, what are we
waiting here for?"
"Come on, then!" I urged her. "We'll leave our mule-load behind
in case they've eaten your horse. Come with us to the stables and--"
But she interrupted me.
"You men go down and get the horses. Do what you can with the crowd.
I'll get the women into something like order if that's possible,
and we'll all meet wherever there's open ground and moonlight at
the foot of the hill."
"I'll come with you," Will proposed. "You'll need--"
"No you won't! The women are easy. They've been taught to obey
orders! It'll take all the wit you three men own between you to
get the men in line! Let's get busy!"
The men had treated the hanging blankets with the respect the ancient
Jews accorded to the veil of the Holy of Holies. (We learned afterward
that there was an Armenian man of the party who had followed a circus
one summer all across the States, and had brought that sensible
precaution home with him as rule number one for successful management
of mixed assemblies.) Gloria Vanderman made a run for the curtain
and dived behind it. We heard the women welcome her.
"Let's go!" said Will.
Will had ever been our ladies' man in all our wanderings, because
women could never resist his unaffected comradeship. Even among
Americans he was rare in his gift of according to women equality
not only of liberty, but of understanding and good sense, and it
went like wine to the heads of some we had met, so that Will was
seldom without a sex-problem on his hands and ours. But Will was
too good a comrade to be surrendered to any woman lightly.
"Damn that chicken!" murmured Fred by way of praying fervently, pausing
in the breach in the wall to rub his shin. "Feel that bruise, will
you! No young woman ever brought me luck yet!"
"What are you waiting for?" complained a voice from outer darkness.
"Come on, you rummies!"
Fred sat down on the protruding stone that had injured his shin,
and detained me with his arm across the opening.
"Mark my words! In order that that young woman may be educated to
consider Will Yerkes a paragon of unimaginable virtues, we--you and
I--are going to have to do what he calls 'hustle.' We're going to
see speed, and we're going to sweat, trying to catch up. There isn't
a scatterbrained adventure conceivable that we're not going to be
forced into, nor an imaginable peril that we're not going to have
to pull him out of. We're going to be cursed for our trouble, and
ridiculed to make amusement for her majesty. And at the end of it
all we're going to be patronized for a couple of ignorant damned
fools who don't know better than be bachelors. What's worse, we're
going to submit tamely. What is infinitely worse, we're going to
like it! There are times when I doubt the sanity of my whole sex!"
"Have you guys taken root?" demanded the familiar voice and we heard
Will's returning footsteps.
"No, America. But I have to sit down when my shin hurts and I'm
seized with the gift of prophecy."
"Huh! We'll find Miss Vanderman tired of waiting for us with the
women. Since when has a crack on the shin made a baby of you? You
used to be tough enough!"
"D'you get the idea?" chuckled Fred. "We're coming, Will, we're
coming."
Perfectly unconsciously Will took the lead, and most outrageously
he drove us. Not that his driving was not shrewd, for his usually
practical and quick mind seemed to take on added brilliancy. And
since we first joined partnership--he and Monty and Fred and I--we
had always been contented to follow the lead of whichever held it
at the moment. But there was new efficiency, and impatience of a
brand-new kind that would not rest until every man and animal had
been rummaged in darkness out of that old ruin, and men, horses,
cows, goats, bags of grain, and fifty cases of cartridges were driven
down through the forest like water forced through a sieve, and were
gathered in the only open space discoverable.
There we cooled our heels, fearful and full of vague imaginings until
Miss Vanderman should bring the women, not at all encouraged by shouts
in the distance that well might be the exulting of plundering Kurds,
nor by occasional rifle-shots that sounded continually nearer, nor
by the angry crimson glow of burning roofs that lighted half
the horizon.
We waited an hour, Will objecting whenever either of us proposed
to return and speed Miss Vanderman.
"Aw, what's the use? D'you suppose she doesn't know we're waiting?"
At last Fred proposed that Will himself go and investigate. He went
through the form of demurring, but yielded gracefully.
"The spirit," Fred chuckled, "is weak, and the flesh is willing!"
Will handed his mule's reins to an Armenian and started alone up-hill
through the pitch-dark forest; and because the world is mixed of
unexpectedness and grim jest in fairly equal proportions, five minutes
after he left us Gloria Vanderman came leading the women by
another path.
To avoid confusion with our part, and for sake of silence, she had
led them a circuit, and except for the occasional wail of a child
and a little low talking that blended like the hum of insects with
the night, they made very little noise. The rear was brought up
by the strongest women carrying the sick and wounded on litters that
had been improvised in a hurry, and like most things of
the sort were much too heavy.
"Your mule is ready," said I. But she shook her head.
"You gentlemen must give your mules up to the sick and wounded.
We well ones can walk."
I did not know how to answer her, although I knew she was wrong.
The way to organize a marching column is not to level down to the
ability of the weakest, although the pace of the weakest may have
to be the measure of speed. We, who had to protect the column and
shepherd it, would need our mounts; without them we should all be
at the mercy of any enemy, with no corresponding gain to any one
except the litter-bearers. All the same, I did not care to take
issue with that capable young woman then and there. She would have
put me in the wrong and left me speechless and indignant, after the
fashion that is older than poor Shylock's tale.
But Fred is made of sterner stuff than I, and was never above amusing
himself at the expense of anybody's dignity.
"Will is the youngest," he answered. "Besides, he's keeping us all
waiting with his love-affairs! He ought to be made to walk!"
"His love-affairs?"
"He went into the woods to see a woman," Fred answered imperturbably.
"Let him forfeit his mule. Here he comes. Did you find her, America?"
Will emerged out of gloom with a grin on his face.
"Just my luck!" he said simply. "What are we waiting for? I can
hear the Kurds. Let's start."
At that Gloria got excited.
"D'you mean you're willing to leave a woman behind alone in that
forest?" she demanded, and Will's jaw dropped.
Fred nudged my ribs.
"Come on! We've given 'em a ground for their first quarrel. They'll
never thank us if we wait a week. Mount! Walk--ride!"
We sent our two Zeitoonli in advance to show the way. True to his
word, Arabaiji had left us, mule and all, and we missed him as we
strove to get the unwieldy column marshaled and moving in line.
We did not see Will and Gloria again that night, except when they
passed between us, walking, arguing--Will explaining--we sitting
on our mules on either side of the track until the last of the swarm
tailed by. Then we brought up the rear together, to drive the stragglers
and look out for pursuit.
"Not that I know what the devil we'll do if the Kurds get after us!"
said Fred.
"Let's hope they make for the castle to-night, and waste time plundering
that."
"Piffle!" he answered.
"Why?"
"Because, you ass, if they get to the place and find if empty they'll
deduce, being less than idiots, that we're not far off and that we're
at their mercy in the open! Let's hope to God they funk attacking
in the dark, and wait out of range of the walls until daylight.
In that case we've a chance. Otherwise--I've still got six rifle
cartridges, and four for my pistol. How many have you?"
"Six of each."
"Then you owe me one for my pistol."