by Talbot Mundy
They refused point-blank to throw their rifles down, bringing a laugh and a shout of encouragement from the German. But she screwed the muzzle of her pistol into the lieutenant’s ear, and bade him enforce her orders, the gipsy women applauding with a chorus of “Ohs” and “Ahs.” The lieutenant succumbed to force majeure, and his men, who were inclined to die rather than take orders from a woman, obeyed him readily enough. They laid their rifles down carefully, without a suggestion of resentment.
“So. The women of Zeitoon are good!” said Kagig with a curt nod of approval, and Maga tossed him a smile fit for the instigation of another siege of Troy.
The gipsy women picked the rifles up, and Maga went to hunt through the mule-packs for clothing. Then Kagig turned on us, motioning with his toe toward Hans von Quedlinburg, who continued to treat himself extravagantly from our jar of ointment.
“You do not know yet the depths of this man’s infamy!” he said. “The world professes to loathe Turks who rob, sell and murder women and children. What of a German — a foreigner in Turkey, who instigates the murder — and the robbery — and the burning — and the butchery — for his own ends, or for his bloody country’s ends? This man is an instigator!”
“You lie!” snarled Von Quedlinburg. “You dog of an Armenian, you lie!”
Kagig ignored him.
“This is the German sportman who tried once to go to Zeitoon to shoot bears, as he said. But I knew he was a spy. I am not the Eye of Zeitoon merely because that title rolls nicely on the tongue. He has — perhaps he has it in his pocket now — a concession from the politicians in Stamboul, granting him the right to exploit Zeitoon — a place he has never seen! He has encouraged this present butchery in order that Turkish soldiers may have excuse to penetrate to Zeitoon that he covets. He wants you Eenglis sportmen out of the way. You were to be sent safely back to Tarsus, lest you should be witnesses of what must happen. Perhaps you do not believe all this?”’
He stooped down and searched the German’s coat pockets with impatient fingers that tugged and jerked, tossing out handkerchief and wallet, cigars, matches that by a miracle had not caught in the heat, and considerable money to the floor. He took no notice of the money, but one of the old gipsy women crept out and annexed it, and Kagig made no comment.
“He has not his concession with him. I can prove nothing to-night. I said you shall stand a test. You must choose. This German and those Turks are my prisoners. You have nothing to do with it. You may go back to Tarsus if you wish, and tell the Turks that Kagig defies them! You shall have an escort as far as the nearest garrison. You shall have fifty men to take you back by dawn to-morrow.”
At that Rustum Khan turned several shades darker and glared truculently.
“Who art thou, Armenian, to frame a test for thy betters?” he demanded, throwing a very military chest. And Will promptly bridled at the Rajput’s attitude.
“You’ve no call to make yourself out any better than he is!” he interrupted. And at that Maga Jhaere threw a kiss from across the room, but one could not tell whether her own dislike of Rustum Khan, or her approval of Will’s support of Kagig was the motive.
Fred began humming in the ridiculous way he has when he thinks that an air of unconcern may ease a situation, and of course Rustum Khan mistook the nasal noises for intentional insult. He turned on the unsuspecting Fred like a tiger. Monty’s quick wit and level voice alone saved open rupture.
“What I imagine Rustum Khan means is this, Kagig: My friends and I have engaged you as guide for a hunting trip. We propose to hold you strictly to the contract.”
Kagig looked keenly at each of us and nodded.
“In my day I have seen the hunters hunted!” he said darkly.
“In my day I have seen an upstart punished!” growled the Rajput, and sat down, back to the wall.
“Castles, and bears!” smiled Monty.
Kagig grinned.
“What if I propose a different quarry?”
“Propose and see!” Monty was on the alert, and therefore to all outward appearance in a sort of well-fed, catlike, dallying mood.
“This dog,” said Kagig, and he kicked the German’s ribs again, “has said nothing of any other person he must rescue. Bear me witness.”
We murmured admission of the truth of that.
“Yet I am the Eye of Zeitoon, and I know. His purpose was to leave his prisoners here and hurry on to overtake a lady — a certain Miss Vanderman, who he thinks is on her way to the mission at Marash. He desired the credit for her rescue in order better to blind the world to his misdeeds! Nevertheless, now that she can be no more use to him, observe his chivalry! He does not even mention her!”
The German shrugged his shoulders, implying that to argue with such a savage was waste of breath.
“What do you know of Miss Vanderman’s where-abouts?” demanded Will, and Maga Jhaere, at the sound of another woman’s name, sat bolt upright between two other women whose bright eyes peeped out from under blankets.
“I had word of her an hour before you came, effendi,” Kagig answered. “She and her party took fright this afternoon, and have taken to the hills. They are farther ahead than this pig dreamed” — once more he kicked Von Quedlinburg— “more than a day’s march ahead from here.”
“Then we’ll hunt for her first,” said Monty, and the rest of us nodded assent.
Kagig grinned.
“You shall find her. You shall see a castle. In the castle where you find her you shall choose again! It is agreed, effendi!”
Then he ordered his prisoners made fast, and the gipsies and our
Zeitoonli servants attended to it, he himself, however, binding the
German’s hands and feet. Will went and put bandages on the man’s burns,
I standing by, to help. But we got no thanks.
“Ihr seit verruckt!” he sneered. “You take the side of bandits.
Passt mal auf — there will be punishment!”
The Zeitoonli were going to tie Peter Measel, but he set up such a howl that Kagig at last took notice of him and ordered him flung, unbound, into the great wooden bin in which the horse-feed was kept for sale to wayfarers. There he lay, and slept and snored for the rest of that session, with his mouth close to a mouse-hole.
Then Kagig ordered our Zeitoonli to the roof on guard, and bade us sleep with a patriarchal air of authority.
“There is no knowing when I shall decide to march,” he explained.
Given enough fatigue, and warmth, and quietness, a man will sleep under almost any set of circumstances. The great fire blazed, and flickered, and finally died down to a bed of crimson. The prisoners were most likely all awake, for their bonds were tight, but only Kagig remained seated in the midst of his mess of blankets by the hearth; and I think he slept in that position, and that I was the last to doze off. But none of us slept very long.
There came a shout from the roof again, and once again a thundering on the door. The move — unanimous — that the gipsies’ right hands made to clutch their weapons resembled the jump from surprise into stillness when the jungle is caught unawares. A second later when somebody tossed dry fagots on the fire the blaze betrayed no other expression on their faces than the stock-in-trade stolidity. Even the women looked as if thundering on a kahveh door at night was nothing to be noticed. Kagig did not move, but I could see that he was breathing faster than the normal, and he, too, clutched a weapon. Von Quedlinburg began shouting for help alternately in Turkish and in German, and the owner of the place produced a gun — a long, bright, steel-barreled affair of the vintage of the Comitajes and the First Greek War. He and his sons ran to the door to barricade it.
“Yavash!” ordered Kagig. The word means slowly, as applied to all the human processes. In that instance it meant “Go slow with your noise!” and mine host so understood it.
But the thundering on the great door never ceased, and the kahveh was too full of the noise of that for us to hear what the Zeitoonli called dow
n from the roof. Kagig arose and stood in the middle of the room with the firelight behind him. He listened for two minutes, standing stock-still, a thin smile flickering across his lean face, and the sharp satyr-like tops of his ears seeming to prick outward in the act of intelligence.
“Open and let them in!” he commanded at last.
“I will not!” roared the owner of the place. “I shall be tortured, and all my house!”
“Open, I said!”
“But they will make us prisoner!”
Kagig made a sign with his right hand. Gregor Jhaere rose and whispered. One by one the remaining gipsies followed him into the shadows, and there came a noise of scuffling, and of oaths and blows. As Gregor Jhaere had mentioned earlier, they did obey Kagig now and then. The Turks came back looking crestfallen, and the fastenings creaked. Then the door burst open with a blast of icy air, and there poured in nineteen armed men who blinked at the firelight helplessly.
“Kagig — where is Kagig?”
“You cursed fools, where should I be!”
“Kagig? Is it truly you?” Their eyes were still blinded by the blaze.
“Shut that door again, and bolt it! Aye — Kagig, Kagig, is it you!”
“It is Kagig! Behold him! Look!”
They clustered close to see, smelling infernally of sweaty garments and of the mud from unholy lurking places.
“Kagig it is! And has all happened as I, Kagig, warned you it would happen?”
“Aye. All. More. Worse!”
“Had you acted beforehand in the manner I advised?”
“No, Kagig. We put it off. We talked, and disagreed. And then it was too late to agree. They were cutting throats while we still argued. When we ran into the street to take the offensive they were already shooting from the roofs!”
“Hah!”
That bitter dry expletive, coughed out between set teeth, could not be named a laugh.
“Kagig, listen!”
“Aye! Now it is ‘Kagig, listen!’ But a little while ago it was I who was sayin ‘Listen!’ I walked myself lame, and talked myself hoarse. Who listened to me? Why should I listen to you?”
“But, Kagig, my wife is gone!”
“Hah!”
“My daughter, Kagig!”
“Hah!”
A third man thrust himself forward and thumped the butt of a long rifle on the floor.
—
“They took my wife and two daughters before my very eyes, Kagig! It is no time for talking now — you have talked already too much, Kagi, — now prove yourself a man of deeds! With these eyes I saw them dragged by the hair down street! Oh, would God that I had put my eyes out first, then had I never seen it! Kagig—”
“Aye — Kagig!”
“You shall not sneer at me! I shot one Turk, and ten more pounced on them. They screamed to me. They called to me to rescue. What could I do? I shot, and I shot until the rifle barrel burned my fingers. Then those cursed Turks set the house on fire behind me, and my companions dragged me away to come and find others to unite with us and make a stand! We found no others! Kagig — I tell you — those bloody Turks are auctioning our wives and daughters in the village church! It is time to act!”
“Hah! Who was it urged you in season and out of season — day and night — month in, month out — to come to Zeitoon and help me fortify the place? Who urged you to send your women there long ago?”
“But Kagig, you do not appreciate. To you it is nothing not to have women near you. We have mothers, sisters, wives—”
“Nothing to me, is it? These eyes have seen my mother, ravished by a Kurd in a Turkish uniform!”
“Well, that only proves you are one with us after all! That only proves—”
“One with you! Why did you not act, then, when I risked life and limb a thousand times to urge you?”
“We could not, Kagig. That would have precipitated—”
He interrupted the man with an oath like the aggregate of bitterness.
“Precipitated? Did waiting for the massacre like chickens waiting for the ax delay the massacres a day? But now it is ‘Come and lead us, Kagig!’ How many of you are there left to lead?”
“Who knows? We are nineteen—”
“Hah! And I am to run with nineteen men to the rape of Tarsus and Adana?”
“Our people will rally to you, Kagig!”
“They shall.”
“Come, then!”
“They shall rally at Zeitoon!”
“Oh, Kagig — how shall they reich Zeitoon? The cursed Turks have ordered out the soldiers and are sending regiments—”
“I warned they would!”
“The cavalry are hunting down fugitives along the roads!”
“As I foretold a hundred times!”
“They were sent to protect Armenians—”
“That is always the excuse!”
“And they kill — kill — kill! A dozen of them hunted me for two miles, until I hid in a watercourse! Look at us! Look at our clothes! We are wet to the skin — tired — starving! Kagig, be a man!”
He went back to his mess of blankets and sat down on it, too bitter at heart for words. They reproached him in chorus, coming nearer to the fire to let the fierce heat draw the stink out of their clothes.
“Aye, Kagig, you must not forget your race. You must not forget the past, Kagig. Once Armenia was great, remember that! You must not only talk to us, you must act at last! We summon you to be our leader, Kagig, son of Kagig of Zeitoon!”
He stared back at them with burning eyes — raised both bands to beat his temples — and then suddenly turned the palms of his hands toward the roof in a gesture of utter misery.
“Oh, my people!”
That glimpse he betrayed of his agony was but a moment long. The fingers closed suddenly, and the palms that had risen in helplessness descended to his knees clenched fists, heavy with the weight of purpose.
“What have you done with the ammunition?” he demanded.
“We had it in the manure under John Zimisces’ cattle.”
“I know that. Where is it now?”
“The Turks discovered it at dawn to-day. Some one had told. They burned Zimisces and his wife and sons alive in the straw!”
“You fools! They knew where the stuff was a week ago! A month ago I warned you to send it to Zeitoon, but somebody told you I was treacherous, and you fools listened! How much ammunition have you left now?”
“Just what we have with us. I have a dozen rounds.”
“I ten.”
“I nine.”
“I thirty-three.”
Each man had a handful, or two handfuls at the most. Kagig observed their contributions to the common fund with scorn too deep for expression. It was as if the very springs of speech were frozen.
“We summon you to lead us, Kagig!”
Words came to him again.
“You summon me to lead? I will! From now I lead! By the God who gave my fathers bread among the mountains, I will, moreover, be obeyed! Either my word is law—”
“Kagig, it is law!”
“Or back you shall go to where the Turks are wearing white, and the gutters bubble red, and the beams are black against the sky! You shall obey me in future on the instant that I speak, or run back to the Turks for mercy from my hand! I have listened to enough talk!”
“Spoken like a man!” said Monty, and stood up.
We all stood up; even Rustum Khan, who did not pretend to like him, saluted the old warrior who could announce his purpose so magnificently. Maga Jhaere stood up, and sought Will’s eyes from across the room. Fred, almost too sleepy to know what he was doing (for the tail end of the fever is a yearning for early bed) undid the catch of his beloved instrument, and made the rafters ring. In a minute we four were singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and Kagig stood up, looking like Robinson Crusoe in his goat-skins, to acknowledge the compliment.
The noise awoke Peter Measel, and when we had finished making fools
of ourselves I walked over to discover what he was saying. He was praying aloud — nasally — through the mouse-hole — for us, not himself. I looked at my watch. It was two hours past midnight.
“You fellows,” I said, “it’s Sunday. The martyred biped has just waked up and remembered it. He is praying that we may be forgiven for polluting the Sabbath stillness with immoral tunes!”
My words had a strange effect. Monty, and Fred, and Will laughed. Rustum Khan laughed savagely. But all the Armenians, including Kagig, knelt promptly on the floor and prayed, the gipsies looking on in mild amusement tempered by discretion. And out of the mouse-hole in the horse-feed bin came Peter Measel’s sonorous, overriding periods:
“And, O Lord, let them not be smitten by Thine anger. Let them not be cut down in Thy wrath! Let them not be cast into hell! Give them another chance, O Lord! Let the Ten Commandments be written on their hearts in letters of fire, but let not their souls be damned for ever more! If they did not know it was the Sabbath Day, O Lord, forgive them! Amen!”
It was a most amazing night.
Chapter Seven “We hold you to your word!”
LIBERA NOS, DOMINE!
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,