by Talbot Mundy
Chapter Twelve"America's way with a woman is beyond belief!"
CUI BONO?
Did caution keep the gates of Greece,Ye saints of "safety first!"Twixt Thessaly and Locris whenLeonidas' thousand menDied scornful of the proffered peaceOf Xerxes the accurst?Watch ye have kept, ward ye have kept,But watch and ward were vainIf love and gratitude have sleptWhile ye stood guard for gain.
Or ye, who count the niggard costIn time and coin and gearOf succoring the under-dog,How often have ye seen a hog,Establishing his glutton boast,Survive a famine year?Fast ye have kept, feast ye have made;Vain were the deeds and dolesIf it was fear that ye obeyedTo save your coward souls.
Ye banish beauty to the stewsFor lack of eyes that see,And stifle joy with deadly roteAs empty as the texts ye quote,The while forgiveness ye refuseLest wrath dishonored be.Gray are your days, drab are your ways,Strong are your fashioned bars,But, ye who ask if service pays--Who polishes the stars?
Spring in Armenia is almost as much like heaven as heaven itselfcould be, if it were not for the unspeakable Turk, but his blightrests on everything. I could have kept awake that morning withoutFred's irreverent music, simply for sake of the scenery, if its freshnesshad been untainted. But there hung a sickly, faint pall of smokethat robbed the green landscape of all liveliness. One breathedweariness instead of wine.
We could not possibly have lost the way, because our crawling columnhad left a swath behind it of trampled grass and trodden crossing-placeswhere the track wound and rewound in a game of hide-and-seek withtinkling streams. But we began to wonder, nevertheless, why we caughtup with nobody.
It was drawing on to ten in the morning, and I had dozed off forabout the dozenth time, with my horse in pretty much the same condition,when I heard Will's voice at last, and looked up. He was standingalone on a ledge overlooking the track, but I could see the endsof rifles sticking up close by. If we had been an enemy, we shouldhave stood small chance against him.
"Where are the rest of you?" I asked, and he laughed!
"Women, kids and wounded all swore a pitched battle was raging behindthem. Most of them wanted to turn back and lend a hand. I thoughtyou guys mighty cruel to put all that scare into a crowd in theircondition--but I see--"
"Guests, America! My country's at peace with Turkey! Where shallwe stow our guests?"
"There's a village below here."
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. But behind him was the apexof a spur thrust out in midcurve of the mountainside, and one couldnot see around that. We had emerged out of the straggling outpostsof the forest high above the plain, and to our right the whole panoramalay snoozing in haze. The path by which we had turned our backson Monty and Kagig went winding away and away below, here and therean infinitesimal thin line of slightly lighter color, but more oftensuggested by the contour of the hills. Our Zeitoonli in their zealto return to their leader had been evidently cutting corners. Ifthe smudge of smoke to the right front overhung Marash, then we wereprobably already nearer Zeitoon than when we and Kagig parted company.
"Come up and see for yourselves," said Will.
Fred passed the line that held his prisoners in tow to an Armenian,and we climbed up together on foot. Around the corner of the spur,within fifty feet of where Will stood, was an almost sheer escarpment,and at the foot of that, a thousand feet below us, with rampartsof living rock on all four sides, crouched a little village fondledin the bosom of the mountains.
"They've piled down there and made 'emselves at home. The placewas deserted, prob'ly because it 'ud be too easy to roll rocks downinto it. But I can't make 'em listen. Ours is a pretty chesty lot,with guts, and our taking part with 'em has stiffened their courage.They claim they're goin' to hold this rats' nest against all theTurks and Kurds in Asia Minor!"
"That's where the rest of us are," said Will
"Where's Miss Vanderman?"
"Asleep--down in the village. The're all asleep. You guys go downthere and sleep, too. I'll follow, soon as I've posted these menon watch. That small square hut next the big one in the middle isours. She's in the big one with a crowd of women. Now don't makea fool row and wake her! Tie your horses in the shade where yousee the others standing in line; there's a little corn for them,and a lot of hay that the owners left behind."
So we undertook not to wake the lady, and left Will there carefullychoosing places, in which the men fell fast asleep almost the minutehis back was turned. Sleep was in the air that morning--not mereweariness of mind and limb that a man could overcome, but inexplicablecoma. Whole armies are affected that way on occasion. There wasa man once named Sennacherib.
"Sleepy hollow!" said Fred, and as he spoke his horse pitched forward,almost spilling him; the rope that held the prisoners in tow wasall that saved the lot of them from rolling down-hill. Fred dismounted,and drove the horse in front of him with a slap on the rump, butthe beast was almost too sleepy to make the effort to descend.
There was no taint of gas or poison fumes. The air tasted freshexcept for the faint smoke, and the birds were all in full song.Yet we all had to dismount, and to let the prisoners walk, too, becausethe horses were too drowsy to be trusted. The path that zigzaggeddownward to the village was dangerous enough without added risk,and the eight Armenian riflemen refused point-blank to lead the wayunless they might drive the animals ahead of them.
Even so, neither we nor they were properly awake, when we reachedthe village. We tied up the horses in a sort of dream--fed themfrom instinct and habit--and made our way to the hut Will had pointedout like men who walked in sleep.
Nobody was keeping watch. Nobody noticed our arrival. Men and womenwere sleeping in the streets and under the eaves of the little houses.Nothing seemed awake but the stray dogs nosing at men's feet andhunting hopelessly among the bundles.
The little house Will had reserved for our use contained a stooland a string-cot. On the stool was food--cheese and very dry bread;and because even in that waking dream we were conscious of hunger,we ate a little of it. Then we lay down on the floor and fellasleep--we, and the prisoners, and the eight Armenian riflemen.Within a quarter of an hour Will followed us into the house, butwe knew nothing about that. Then he, too, fell asleep, and untiltwo or three hours after dark we were a village of the dead.
To this day there is no explaining it. Certainly no human watchor ward saved us from destruction at the hands of roving enemies.I was awakened at last by a brilliant light, and the effort madeby our two prisoners, still tied together, to crawl across my body.I threw them off me, and sat up, rubbing my eyes and wondering whereI was.
In the door stood Kagig, with a lantern in his right hand thrustforward into the room. His eyes were ablaze with excitement, andbetween black beard and mustache his teeth showed in a grin mixedof scorn and amusement.
Next I beard Will's voice: "Jimminy!" and Will sat up. Then Fredgave tongue:
"That you, Kagig? Where's Monty? Where's Lord Montdidier?"
Kagig strode into the room, set the lantern on the floor, struckthe remnants of the food from off the little stool, and sat down.I could see now that he was deathly tired.
"He is in Zeitoon," he answered.
Noises from outside began then to assert themselves in demonstrationthat the village was awake at last--also that the population hadswollen while we slept. I could hear the restless movement of morethan twice the number of horses we had had with us.
Kagig began to laugh--a sort of dry cackle that included wonder aswell as rebuke. He threw both hands outward, palms upward, in agesture that complemented the motion of shoulders shrugged up tohis ears.
"All around--high hills! From every side from fifty places rockscould have been rolled upon you! So--and so you sleep!"
"I set guards!" Will exploded.
"Eleven guards I found--all together in one place--fast asleep!"
He showed his splendid teeth and the palms of his hands again inactual enjoyment of the situation. For the first time
then I sawthere was wet blood on his goat-skin coat.
"Kagig--you're wounded!"
He made a gesture of impatience.
"It is nothing--nothing. My servant has attended to it."
So Kagig had a servant. I felt glad of that. It meant a rise fromvagabondage to position among his people.
Of all earthly attainments, the first and most desirable and lastto let go of is an honest servant--unless it be a friend. (But thedifference is not so distinct as it sounds.)
A huge fear suddenly seized Fred Oakes.
"You said Monty is in Zeitoon--alive or dead? Quick, man! Answer!"
"Should I leave Zeitoon," Kagig answered slowly, unless I left abetter man in charge behind me? He is alive in Zeitoon--alive--alive!He is my brother! He and I love one purpose with a strong love thatshall conquer! You speak to me of Lord what-is-it? Hah! To meforever he is Monty, my brother--my--"
"Where's Miss Vanderman?" I interrupted.
"Here!" she said quietly, and I turned my head to discover her sittingbeside Will in the shadow cast by Kagig's lantern. She must haveentered ahead of Kagig or close behind him, unseen because of hisbulk and the tricky light that he swung in his right hand.
Kagig went on as if he had not heard me.
"There is a castle--I think I told you?--perched on a crag in theforest beside Zeitoon. My men have cut a passage to it through thetrees, for it had stood forgotten for God knows how long. Lateryou shall understand. There came Arabaiji, riding a mule to death,saying you and this lady are in danger of life at the hands of mynation. I did not believe that, but Monty--he believed it."
"And I'll wager you found him a hot handful!" laughed Fred."Not so hot. Not so hot. But very determined. Later you shallunderstand. He and I drove a bargain."
"Dammit!" Fred rose to his feet. "D'you mean you used our predicamentas a club to drive him with?"
Kagig laughed dryly.
"Do you know your friend so little, and think so ill of me? He namedterms, and I agreed to them. I took a hundred mounted men to findyou and bring you to Zeitoon, spreading them out like a fan, to scourthe country. Some fell in with a thing the Turks call a hamidiehregiment; that is a rabble of Kurds under the command of Tenekelis."
"What are they?"
"Tenekelis? The word means 'tin-plate men.' We call them that becauseof the tin badges given them to wear in their head-dress. In noother way do they resemble officers. They are brigands favored byofficial recognition, that is all. Their purpose is to pillageArmenians. While you slept in this village, and your watchmen sleptup above there, that whole rabble of bandits with their tin-plateofficers passed within half a mile, following along the track bywhich you came! If you had been awake--and cooking--or singing--ormaking any sort of noise they must have heard you! Instead, theyturned down toward the plain a little short distance too soon--andmy men met them--and there was a skirmish--and I rallied my othermen, and attacked them suddenly. We accounted for two of the tin-platemen, and so many of the thing they call a regiment that the otherstook to flight. Jannam! (My soul!) But you are paragons of sleepers!"
"Do you never sleep?" I asked him.
"Shall a man keep watch over a nation, and sleep?" he answered."Aye--here a little, there a little, I snatch sleep when I can.My heart burns in me. I shall sleep on my horse on the way backto Zeitoon, but the burning within will waken me by fits and starts."
He got up and stood very politely in front of Gloria Vanderman,removing his cossack kalpak for the first time and holding it witha peculiar suggestion of humility.
"You shall be put to no indignity at the hands of my people," hesaid. "They are not bad people, but they have suffered, and somehave been made afraid. They would have kept you safe. But now youshall have twenty men if you wish, and they shall deliver you safelyinto Tarsus. If you wish it, I will send one of these gentlemenwith you to keep you in countenance before my men; they are foreignersto you, and no one could blame you for fearing them. The gentlemanwould not wish to go, but I would send him!"
She shook her head, pretty merrily for a girl in her predicament.
"I was curious to meet you, Mr. Kagig, but that's nothing to theattraction that draws me now. I must meet the other man--is it Montyyou all call him--or never know a moment's peace!"
"You mean you will not go to Tarsus?"
"Of course I won't!"
"Of course!" laughed Fred. "Any young woman--"
"Of course?" Kagig repeated the extravagant gesture of shrugged shouldersand up-turned palms. "Ah, well. You are American. I will not argue.What would be the use?"
He turned his back on us and strode out with that air that not eventhe great stage-actors can ever acquire, of becoming suddenly andutterly oblivious of present company in the consciousness of deedsthat need attention. Generals of command, great captains of industry,and a few rare statesmen have it; but the statesmen are most rare,because they are trained to pretend, and therefore unconvincing.The generals and captains are detested for it by all who have neverhumbled themselves to the point where they can think, and be unselfishlyabsorbed. Kagig stepped out of one zone of thought into the next,and shut the door behind him.
A minute later we heard his voice uplifted in command, and the businessof shepherding those women and children was taken out of our handsby a man who understood the business. The intoxicating sounds thatarmed men make as they evolve formation out of chaos in the darknesscame in through open door and windows, and in another moment Kagigwas back again with a hand on each door-post.
"You have brought all those cartridges!"
He thrust out both hands in front of him, and made the knuckles ofevery finger crack like castanets. In another second he was goneagain. But we knew we were now forgiven all our sins of omission.
Somewhere about midnight, with a nearly full moon rising in a goldendream above the rim of the ravine, we started. And no wheeled vehiclecould have followed by the track we took. It was no mean task formen on foot, and our burdened animals had to be given time. Whetheror not Kagig slept, as he had said he would, on horse-back, he kepthimself and our prisoners out of sight somewhere in the van; andthis time the rear was brought up by a squadron of ragged irregularhorse that would have made any old campaigner choke with joy to lookat them.
Drill those men knew very little of--only sufficient to make it possibleto lead them. No two men were dressed alike, and some were not evenarmed alike, although stolen Turkish government rifles far predominated.But they wore unanimously that dare-devil air, not swaggering becausethere is no need, that has been the key to most of the sublime surprisesof all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddleand toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackleforlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year lunacy to the martinetwith twenty times their number.
"Who'd have thought it?" said Fred. "We've all heard the Turk wasa first-class fighting man, but I'd rather command fifty of these,than any five hundred Turks I ever saw.
There was no gainsaying that. Whoever had seen armies with anunderstanding eye must have agreed.
"Turks don't hate Armenians for their faults," I answered. "Fromwhat I know of the Turk he likes sin, and prefers it cardinal. IfArmenians were mere degenerates, or murdering ruffians like the Kurds,the Turk would like them."
Fred laughed.
"Then if a Turk liked me, you'd doubt my social fitness?"
"Sure I would, if he liked you well enough to attract attention.The fact that the Turk hates Armenians is the best advertisementArmenians have got."
We were entering the heart of savage hills that tossed themselvesin ever increasing grandeur up toward the mist-draped crags of KaraDagh, following a trail that was mostly watercourse. The simplesavagery of the mountains laid naked to view in the liquid goldenlight stirred the Armenians behind us to the depths of thought;and theirs is a consciousness of warring history; of dominion longsince taken from them, and debauched like pearls by
swine; of hope,eternally upwelling, born of love of their trampled fatherland.They began to sing, and the weft and woof of their songs were grieffor all those things and a cherished, secret promise that a limithad been set to their nation's agony.
In his own way, with his chosen, unchaste instrument Fred is a musicianof parts. He can pick out the spirit of old songs, even when, asthen, he hears them for the first time, and make his concertina interpretthem to wood and wind and sky. Indoors he is a mere accompanist,and in polite society his muse is dumb. But in the open, given fairexcuse and the opportunity, he can make such music as compels men'sears and binds their hearts with his in common understanding.
Because of Fred's concertina, quite without knowing it, those Armeniansopened their hearts to us that night, so that when a day of testingcame they regarded us unconsciously as friends. Taught by the atrocityof cruel centuries to mistrust even one another, they would surelyhave doubted us otherwise, when crisis came. Nobody knows betterthan the Turk how to corrupt morality and friendship, and Armeniais honeycombed with the rust of mutual suspicion. But real musicis magic stuff. No Turk knows any magic.
At dawn, twisting and zigzagging in among the ribs of rock-boundhills, we sighted the summit of Beirut Dagh all wreathed in jeweledmist. Then the only life in sight except ourselves was eagles,nervously obsessed with goings-on on the horizon. I counted as manyas a dozen at one time, wheeling swiftly, and circling higher fora wider view, but not one swooped to strike.
Once, as we turned into a track that they told us led to El Oghlu,we saw on a hill to our left a small square building, gutted by fire.Twenty yards away from it, on top of the same round hill, strangefruit was hanging from a larger oak than any we had seenthereabouts--fruit that swung unseemly in the tainted wind.
"Turks!" announced one of Kagig's men, riding up to brag to us."That square building is the guard-house for the zaptieh, put thereby the government to keep check on robbers. They are the worst robbers!"
The man spoke English with the usual mission-school air suggestiveof underdone pie. As a rule they go to school at such great sacrifice,and then so limited for funds, that they have to get by heart threetimes the amount an ordinary, undriven youth can learn in the allottedtime. But by heart they have it. And like the pie they call tomind, only the surface of their talk is pale. Because their heartis in the thing, they under-stand.
"By hanging Turkish police," said Fred, "you only give the Turksa good excuse for murdering your friends."
"Come!" said the man of Zeitoon. "See."
He led the way down a path between young trees to a clearing wherea swift stream gamboled in the sun. Down at the end of it, wherethe grass sloped gently upward toward the flanks of a great rockwas a little row of graves with a cross made of sticks at the headof each--clearly not Turkish graves.
"Three men--eleven women," our guide said simply.
"You mean that the Turkish police--"
"There were fifteen on their way to Zeitoon. One survived, andreached Zeitoon, and told. Then he died, and we rode down to avengethem all. The Turks took the three men and beat them on the feetwith sticks until the soles of their feet swelled up and burst.Then they made them walk on their tortured feet. Then they beatthem to death. Shall I say what they did to the women?"
"What did you do to the Turks?" said I.
"Hanged them. We are not animals--we simply, hanged them."
Somewhere about noon we rode down a gorge into the village of ElOghlu. It was a miserable place, with a miserable, tiny kahveh inthe midst of it, and Kagig set that alight before our end of thecolumn came within a quarter of a mile of it. We burned the restof the village, for he sent back Ephraim to order no shelter leftfor the regiments that would surely come and hunt us down. But thebusiness took time, and we were farther than ever behind Kagig whenthe last wooden roof began to cockle and crack in the heat.
Will and Gloria were somewhere on in front, and Fred and I beganto put on speed to try to overtake them. But from the time of leavingthe burned village of El Oghlu there began to be a new impediment.
"We are not taking the shortest way," said Ephraim. "The shortestway is too narrow--good for one or two men in a hurry, but not forall of us."
We were gaining no speed by taking the easier road. There beganto be vultures in evidence, mostly half-gorged, flopping about fromone orgy to the next. And out from among the rocks and bushes therecame fugitive Armenians--famished and wounded men and women, clingingto our stirrups and begging for a lift on the way to Zeitoon. Zeitoonwas their one hope. They were all headed that way.
Fred detached a dozen mounted men to linger behind on guard againstpursuit, and the rest of us overloaded our horses with women andchildren, giving up all hope of overtaking Gloria and Will, forgettingthat they had come first on the scene. In my mind I imagined themriding side by side, Will with his easy cowboy seat, and Gloria lookinglike a boy except for the chestnut hair. But that imagination wentthe way of other vanities.
There was neither pleasure nor advantage in striding slowly besidemy laboring horse, nor any hope of mounting him again myself. SoI walked ahead and, being now horseless, ceased to be mobbed byfugitives. At the end of an hour I overtook two horses loaded withlittle children; but there was no sign of Gloria and Will, and losingzest for the pursuit as the sun grew stronger I sat down by the ways-sideon a fallen tree.
It was then that I heard voices that I recognized. The first wasa woman's.
"I'm simply crazy to know him."
A man's, that I could not mistake even amid the roar of a city, answeredher.
"You've a treat in store. Monty is my idea of a regular he-man."
"Is he good-looking?"
"Yes. Stands and looks like a soldier. I've seen a plainsman inWyoming who'd have matched him to a T all except the parted hairand the mustache."
"I like a mustache on a tall man."
"It suits Monty. The first idea you get of him is strength--strengthand gentleness; and it grows on you as you know him better. It'snot just muscles, nor yet will-power, but strength that makes yourheart flutter, and you know for a moment how a woman must feel whena fellow asks her to be his wife. That's Monty."
I got up and retraced a quarter of a mile, to wait for Fred whereI could not accuse myself of "listening in."
"Fred," I said, when he overtook me at last and we strode along sideby side, "you were right. America's way with a woman is beyond belief!"
I told him what I had heard, and he thought a while.
"How about Maga Jhaere's way, when she and Will and the Vandermanmeet?" he said at last, smiling grimly.