Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  The women were still clinging to her as if their whole future depended on keeping her prisoner, yet without hurt. She looked down at them pathetically, and then at the men, who were showing no disposition to order her release.

  “I don’t understand in the least yet. I find you bewildering. Can you contrive to let us talk for a few minutes alone?”

  “You bet your young life I can!”

  Fred stepped to the wall beside us, but we none of us drew pistol yet. We had no right to presume we were not among friends.

  “Thirty minutes interlude!” he announced. “The man who stands in this room one minute from now, or who comes back to the room without my leave, is not my friend, and shall learn what that means!”

  He repeated the soft insinuation in Armenian, and then in Turkish because he knows that language best. There is not an Armenian who has not been compelled to learn Turkish for all official purposes, and unconsciously they gave obedience to the hated conquerors’ tongue, repressing the desire to argue that wells perennially in Armenian breasts. They had not been long enough enjoying stolen liberty to overcome yet the full effects of Turkish rule.

  “And oblige me by leaving that lady alone with us!” Fred continued.

  “Let those dames fall away!”

  Somebody said something to the women. Another Armenian remarked more or less casually that we should be unable to escape from the room in any case. The others rolled the great stone from the trap and shoved the smaller stones aside, and then they all filed down the stone stairs, leaving us alone — although by the trembling blankets it was easy to tell that the women had not gone far. The last man who went below handed the spluttering torch to Miss Vanderman, as if she might need it to defend herself, and she stood there shaking it to try and make it smoke less until the planks were back in place. She was totally unconscious of it, but with the torch-light gleaming on her hair and reflected in her blue eyes she looked like the spirit of old romance come forth to start a holy war.

  “Now please explain!” she begged, when I had pushed the last stone in place. “First, what kind of Americans can you possibly be? Do you all use such extraordinary accents, and such expressions?”

  “Don’t I talk American to beat the band?” objected Fred. “Sit down on this rock a while, and I’ll convince you.”

  She sat on the rock, and we gathered round her. She was not more than twenty-two or three, but as perfectly assured and fearless as only a well-bred woman can be in the presence of unshaven men she does not know. Fred would have continued the tomfoolery, but Will oared in.

  “I’m Will Yerkes, Miss Vanderman.”

  “Oh!”

  “I know Nurse Vanderman at the mission.”

  “Yes, she spoke of you.”

  “Fred Oakes here is—”

  “Is English as they make them, yes, I know! Why the amazing efforts to—”

  “I stand abashed, like the leopard with the spots unchangeable!” said Fred, and grinned most unashamedly.

  “They’re both English.”

  “Yes, I see, but why—”

  “It’s only as good Americans that we three could hope to enter here alive. They’re death on all other sorts of non-Armenians now they’ve taken to the woods. We supposed you were here, and of course we had to come and get you.”

  She nodded. “Of course. But how did you know?”

  “That’s a long story. Tell us first why you’re here, and why you’re a prisoner.”

  “I was going to the mission at Marash — to stay a year there and help, before returning to the States. They warned me in Tarsus that the trip might be dangerous, but I know how short-handed they are at Marash, and I wouldn’t listen. Besides, they picked the best men they could find to bring me on the way, and I started. I had a Turkish permit to travel — a teskere they call it — see, I have it here. It was perfectly ridiculous to think of my not going.”

  “Perfectly!” Fred agreed. “Any young woman in your place would have come away!”

  She laughed, and colored a trifle. “Women and men are equals in the States, Mr. Oakes.”

  “And the Turk ought to know that! I get you, Miss Vanderman! I see the point exactly!”

  “At any rate, I started. And we slept at night in the houses of Armenians whom my guides knew, so that the journey wasn’t bad at all. Everything was going splendidly until we reached a sort of crossroads — if you can call those goat-tracks roads without stretching truth too far — and there three men came galloping toward us on blown horses from the direction of Marash. We could hardly get them to stop and tell us what the trouble was, they were in such a hurry, but I set my horse across the path and we held them up.”

  “As any young lady would have done!” Fred murmured.

  “Never mind. I did it! They told us, when they could get their breath and quit looking behind them like men afraid of ghosts, that the Turks in Marash — which by all accounts is a very fanatical place — had started to murder Armenians. They yelled at me to turn and run.

  “‘Run where?’ I asked them. ‘The Turks won’t murder me!’

  “That seemed to make them think, and they and my six men all talked together in Armenian much too fast for me to understand a word of it. Then they pointed to some smoke on the sky-line that they said was from burning Armenian homes in Marash.

  “s’Why didn’t you take refuge in the mission?’ I asked them. And they answered that it was because the mission grounds were already full of refugees.

  “Well, if that were true — and mind you, I didn’t believe it — it was a good reason why I should hurry there and help. If the mission staff was overworked before that they would be simply overwhelmed now. So I told them to turn round and come to Marash with me and my six men.”

  “And what did they say?” we demanded together.

  “They laughed. They said nothing at all to me. Perhaps they thought I was mad. They talked together for five minutes, and then without consulting me they seized my bridle and galloped up a goat-path that led after a most interminable ride to this place.”

  “Where they hold you to ransom?”

  “Not at all. They’ve been very kind to me. I think that at the bottom of their thoughts there may be some idea of exchanging me for some of their own women whom the Turks have made away with. But a stronger motive than that is the determination to keep me safe and be able to produce me afterward in proof of their bona fides. They’ve got me here as witness, for another thing. And then, I’ve started a sort of hospital in this old keep. There are literally hundreds of men and women hiding in these hills, and the women are beginning to come to me for advice, and to talk with me. I’m pretty nearly as useful here as I would be at Marash.”

  “And you’re — let’s see — nineteen-twenty — one — two — not more than twenty-two,” suggested Fred.

  “Is intelligence governed by age and sex in England.” she retorted, and Fred smiled in confession of a hit.

  “Go on,” said Will. “Tell us.”

  “There’s nothing more to tell. When I started to run toward the — ah — music, the women tried to prevent me. They knew Americans had come, and they feared you might take me away.”

  “They were guessing good!” grinned Will.

  She shook her head, and the loosened coils of hair fell lower. One could hardly have blamed a man who had desired her in that lawless land and sought to carry her off. The Armenian men must have been temptation proof, or else there had been safety in numbers.

  “I shall stay here. How could I leave them? The women need me. There are babies — daily — almost hourly — here in these lean hills, and no organized help of any kind until I came.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Nearly two days. Wait till I’ve been here a week and you’ll see.”

  “We can’t wait to see!” Will answered. “We’ve a friend of our own in a tight place. The best we can do is to rescue you—”

  “I don’t need to be
rescued!”

  “ — to rescue you — take you back to Tarsus, where you’ll be safe until the trouble’s over — and then hurry to the help of our own man.”

  “Who is your own man? Tell me about him.”

  “He’s a prince.”

  “Really?”

  “No, really an earl — Earl of Montdidier. White. White all through to the wish-bone. Whitest man I ever camped with. He’s the goods.”

  “If you’d said less I’d have skinned you for an ingrate!” Fred announced. “Monty is a man men love.”

  Miss Vanderman nodded. “Where is he?”

  “On the way to a place called Zeitoon,” answered Will.

  “He’s a hostage, held by Armenians in the hope of putting pressure on the Turks. Kagig — the Armenians, that’s to say — let us go to rescue you, knowing that he was sufficiently important for their purpose.”

  “And you left your friend to help me?”

  “Of course. What do you suppose?”

  “And if I were to go with you to Tarsus, what then?”

  “He says we’re to ride herd on the consulate and argue.”

  “Will you?”

  “Sure we’ll argue. We’ll raise particular young hell. Then back we go to Zeitoon to join him!”

  “Would you have gone to Tarsus except on my account?”

  Will hesitated.

  “No. I see. Of course you wouldn’t. Well. What do you take me for? You did not know me then. You do now. Do you think I’d consent to your leaving your fine friend in pawn while you dance attendance on me? Thank you kindly for your offer, but go back to him! If you don’t I’ll never speak to one of you again!”

  Chapter Ten “When I fire this Pistol—”

  THESE LITTLE ONES

  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, i
f 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.