by Talbot Mundy
Chapter Seven "We hold you to your word!"
LIBERA NOS, DOMINE!
A priest, a statesman, and a soldier stoodHand 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 laidIn deep humility the while the priest he prayed.
He prayed first for his church, that it might beUpholden and acknowledged and revered,And in its opal twilight men might seeSalvation if in truth enough they feared,And if enough acknowledgment they gaveTo ritual, and rosary, and creed that save.
Then prayed he for the state, that it should weanWell-tutored counselors to do their partFull profit and prosperity to gleanWith dignity, although with contrite heartAnd 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 warSubserving him might carry wrath and rueUnto repentance, and in trembling aweThe enemy at length should fault confessAnd 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 undismayedBecause 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 wordAnd smite me if I'm false!" His prayer was heard.
The remainder of that night was nightmare pure and simple--mulesand horses squealing in instinctive fear of action they feltimpending--gipsies and Armenians dragging packs out on the floor, torepack everything a dozen times for some utterly godless reason--RustumKhan seizing each fugitive Armenian in turn to question him, alternatingfierce threats with persuasion--Kagig striding up and down with handsbehind him and his scraggly black beard pressed down on his chest--andthe great fire blazing with reports like cannon shots as oneof 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 aprecaution against our taking vengeance on them. With situationsreversed a Turk would have taken unbelievable toll in blood and agonyfrom any Armenian he could find, and they reasoned we were probablyno better than themselves. The marvel was that they left one sonto wait on us, and take the money for room and horse-feed.
"Remember!" warned Monty, as we four sidled close together with ourbacks against the wall. "Until we're in actual personal danger thistrouble is the affair of Kagig and his men!"
"I get you. If we horn in before we have to we'll do more harm thangood. Give the Turks an excuse to call us outlaws and shoot insteadof 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 atime, especially when the lady totes a mother-o'-pearl revolver andabout a dozen knives! If you come out of this alive, Bill, you'llbe 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 dangersomewhere 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 morelever for him to pull on."
"D'you suppose they'd dare molest an Englishwoman?" I asked, withthe sudden goose-flesh rising all over me.
"She's American," said Will between purposely set lips. But I didnot 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 youngwoman 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 tofortify the place!"
"Will you leave a good woman in the hands of Turks, Kagig? Come--cometo the rescue!"
"It is too bad," said Kagig simply. "Such women suffer more terriblythan the hags who merely die by the sword. Ten times by thecount--during ten succeeding massacres I have seen the Turks sellArmenian wives and daughters at auction. I am sorry, Eflaton."
"My God!" groaned Will. "How long are we four loafers going to sithere and leave a white woman in danger on the road ahead?" He gotup and began folding his blankets.
The Armenian whom Kagig had called Eflaton threw himself to the floorand shrieked in agony of misery. Rustum Khan stepped over him andcame and stood in front of Monty.
"These men are fools," he said. "They know exactly what the Turkswill do. They have all seen massacres before. Yet not one of themwas ready when the hour set for this one came. They say--and theysay the truth, that the Turks will murder all Europeans they catchoutside the mission stations, lest there be true witnesses afterwardwhom the world will believe."
"But a woman--scarcely a white woman?" This from Will, with thetips 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 histeeth suggestive of a severed wind-pipe. "If she were good-looking--Ihave heard say they pay high prices in the interior, say at Kaisariehor Mosul. Once in a harem, who would ever know? The road aheadis worse than dangerous. Whoever wishes to save his life would dobest to turn back now and try to ride through to Tarsus."
"Try it, then, if you're afraid!" sneered Will, and for a momentI thought the Rajput would draw steel.
"I know what this lord sahib and I will do," he said, darkening threeor four shades under his black beard. "It was for men bewitchedby gipsy-women that I feared!"
Will was standing. Nothing but Monty's voice prevented blows. Herapped out a string of sudden rhetoric in the Rajput's own gutturaltongue, 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 theRajput's ruffled temper.
"Who was Umm Kulsum?" I asked him, divining the cause.
"The most immoral hag in Asian legend! The aggregated essence ofall 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 thatprevented blows. A fist-blow in the Rajput's face would have meanta blood-feud that nothing less than a man's life could settle, andMonty looked worried. There came a new thundering on the door thatbrought everybody to his feet as if murder were the least of thecharges 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 tosay that fifty mounted men from Zeitoon were drawn up outside. Kagiggave 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 flappinga red cloth at a tiger. Yet to have agreed with him at once mighthave made him jump to false conclusions. The consul's last wordsto us had been insistent on the unwisdom of posing as anything buthunters, 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 gestureof extreme irritation. It is only the West that can joke at itselfin 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 itout again hissing through his teeth. Then he took grim hold of himself.
"Effendi," he said, addressing himself to Monty, but including allof 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 myword I could make you prisoner and oblige your friend the King ofEengland to squeeze these cursed Turks!"
Rustum Khan heard what he said, and made noise enough drawing hissaber to be heard outside the kahveh, but Kagig did not turn hishead. Three gipsies attended to Rustum Khan, slipping between himand their master, and our four Zeitoonli servants cautiously approachedthe Rajput from behind.
"Peace!" ordered Monty. "Continue, Kagig."
Kagig held both hands toward Monty, palms upward, as if he were offeringthe keys of Hell and Heaven.
"You are sportmen, all of you. Shall I keep my word to you? Orshall I serve my nation in its agony?"
Monty glanced swiftly at us, but we made no sign. Will actuallylooked away. It was a rule we four had to leave the playing of ahand to whichever member of the partnership was first engaged; andwe never regretted it, although it often called for faith in oneanother to the thirty-third degree. The next hand might fall toany other of us, but for the present it was Monty's play.
"We hold you to your word!" said Monty.
Kagig gasped. "But my people!"
"Keep your word to them too! Surely you haven't promised them tomake us prisoner?"
"But if I am your servant--if I must obey you for two piasters aday, how shall I serve my nation?"
"Wait and see!" suggested Monty blandly.
Kagig bowed stiffly, from the neck.
"It would surprise you, effendi," he said grimly, "to know how manylong years I have waited, in order that I may see what other menwill do!"
Monty never answered that remark. There came a yell of "Fire!" andin less than ten seconds flames began to burst through the door thatshut off the Turks' private quarters, and to lick and roar amongthe roof beams. The animals at the other end of the room went crazy,and there was instant panic, the Armenians outside trying to getin to help, and fighting with the men and animals and women and childrenwho choked the way. Then the hay in the upper story caught alight,and the heat below became intolerable. Monty saw and instantly pouncedon an ax and two crow-bars in the corner.
"Through the wall!" he ordered.
Fred, Will and I did that work, he and Kagig looking on. It wasmuch easier than at first seemed likely. Most of the stones werestuck with mud, not plaster, and when the first three or four wereout the rest came easily. In almost no time we had a great gap ready,and the extra draft we made increased the holocaust, but seemed tolift the heat higher. Then some of the Zeitoonli saw the gap, andbegan to hurry blindfolded horses through it and in a very littlewhile the place seemed empty. I saw the Turkish owner and severalof his sons looking on in fatalistic calm at about the outside edgeof the ring of light, and it occurred to me to ask a question.
"Hasn't that Turk a harem?" I asked.
In another second we four were hurrying around the building, andWill and I burst in the door at the rear with our crow-bars. Montyand Fred rushed past us, and before I could get the smoke out ofmy eyes and throat they were hurrying out again with two old womenin their arms--the women screaming, and they laughing and coughingso that they could hardly run. Then Will made my blood run coldwith a new alarm.
"The biped!" he shouted. "The Measel in the corn-bin!"
They dropped the old ladies, and all four of us raced back to ourhole in the wall--plunged into the hell-hot building, pulled thelid off the corn-bin (it was fastened like an ancient Egyptian coffin-lidwith several stout Wooden pegs), dragged Measel out, and frog-marchedhim, kicking and yelling, to the open, where Fred collapsed.
"Measel," said Will, stooping to feel Fred's heart, "if you're thecause of my friend Oakes' death, Lord pity you!"
Fred sat up, not that he wished to save the "biped" any anguish,but the wise man vomits comfortably when he can, the necessity beingbad enough without additional torment.
"See!" said a voice out of darkness. "He empties himself! Thatis well. It is only the end of the fever. Now he will be a managain. But the sahibs should have left that writer of charactersin the corn-bin, where he could have shared the fate of his masterwithout troubling us again!"
Rustum Khan strode into the light, with half his fierce beard burnedaway from having been the last to leave by the front entrance, anda decided limp from having been kicked by a frantic mule.
"What have you done with the German?" demanded Monty.
"I, sahib? Nothing. In truth nothing. It was the seven sons ofthe Turk--abetted I should say by gipsies. It was the German whoset the place alight. The girl, Maga Jhaere they call her, saw himdo it. She watched like a cat, the fool, hoping to amuse herself,while he burned off his ropes with a brand that fell his way outof the fire. When another brand jumped half across the room he setthe place alight with it, tossing it over the party wall. He wasan able rascal, sahib."
"Was?" demanded Monty.
"Aye, sahib, was! In another second he released the Turkish lieutenantand shouted in his ear to escape and say that Armenians burned thiskahveh! Gregor Jhaere slew the Turk, however. And Maga followedthe German into the open, where she denounced him to some of theZeitoonli who recently arrived. They took him and threw him backinto the fire--where he remained. I begin to like these Zeitoonli.I even like the gipsies more than formerly. They are men of somediscernment, and of action!"
"Man of blood!" growled Monty. "What of the Turkish owner and hisseven sons?"
"They shall burn, too, if the sahib say so!"
"If they burn, so shall you! Where is Kagig?"
"Seeing that the sahibs' horses are packed and saddled. I came tofind the sahibs. According to Kagig it is time to go, before Turkscome to take vengeance for a burned road-house. They will surelysay Armenians burned it, whether or not there is a German to supporttheir accusation!"
Then we heard Kagig's high-pitched "Haide--chabuk!" and picked upPeter Measel, and ran around the building to where the horses werealready saddled, and squealing in fear of the flames. We left theTurk, and his wives and seven sons, to tell what tale they pleased.