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Title: An Armenian princess
A tale of Anatolian peasant life
Author: Edgar James Banks
Release date: April 28, 2025 [eBook #75978]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Gorham Press, 1914
Credits: David Petrosyan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ARMENIAN PRINCESS ***
AN ARMENIAN
PRINCESS
_A Tale of Anatolian
Peasant Life_
BY
EDGAR JAMES BANKS
[Illustration: ARTI et VERITATI]
BOSTON: THE GORHAM PRESS
TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED
Copyright, 1914, by Edgar James Banks
All Rights Reserved
THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AK HISSAR 7
II CHILDHOOD DAYS 14
III THE PARTING 21
IV THE TAX COLLECTOR 27
V THE LETTER 37
VI A VISITOR 40
VII THE PADISHAH 47
VIII ARRESTED 53
IX THE TRIAL 59
X THE BUYUK ZAPTIEH 63
XI THE TURBANED MOLLAH 70
XII BEFRIENDED 78
XIII HOME 81
XIV THE SILENT APPEAL 87
XV MARKET DAY 93
XVI THE REWARD 99
XVII CAPTIVES 105
XVIII THE CHAOUSH 109
XIX FOR THE PADISHAH 112
XX AS FROM THE DEAD 122
XXI VASSINAG 128
XXII THE ANSWERED PRAYER 131
XXIII IN THE HAREM 138
XXIV ON THE TRAIL 148
XXV BEHIND THE LATTICE 152
XXVI IN DISGUISE 159
XXVII FIRE 168
XXVIII THE DERVISHES 175
XXIX THE WANDERERS 182
XXX MINGLED JOY AND SORROW 189
XXXI DRIVEN ON 193
XXXII HOPE 202
XXXIII THE PASHA’S PROPOSAL 212
XXXIV REJECTED 222
XXXV THE CHARM 228
XXXVI TOO LATE? 234
XXXVII DARKNESS 237
XXXVIII THE REAL HAKIM 245
XXXIX FORWARD 251
AN ARMENIAN PRINCESS
CHAPTER I
AK HISSAR
Nestling among the hills of Central Asia Minor is the little village
of Ak Hissar, or Aksar, as the natives call it. The name comes from a
neighboring old castle, a relic of the early days when the wild Turkish
hordes from the distant East swept over and conquered the country. The
white ruins of this ancient fortress are now almost hidden by mulberry
trees. Its dungeons, once dark and damp, but now lighted by the warm
sun, had they the power to speak, could narrate tales of horror to the
children who make them their innocent playhouses.
On a little square in the heart of the village stands the great wooden
government building, before whose rickety, half-closed door the little
folk often stop to gaze at the soldiers quartered within. It is here
the governor lodges when he comes to the village. Here the passports
are issued. Here the tax collector stores his money. Here the prisoners
are chained. And it is here the villagers learn the latest news from
the outside world, or discuss weighty questions, while lounging and
smoking and sipping their coffee.
At one end of the single street of the village may be seen a little,
whitewashed mosque. From its slender minaret, towering above a roof of
reddish tiles, the muezzin rubs his sleepy eyes at the appearance of
the first rays in the east, and sings to the Faithful that prayer is
better than sleep. And by the side of the mosque, in a thatched hut
with bare openings in its walls for windows, the little Moslems go to
school, where they sit from early morning till late in the afternoon,
squatted on the dirt floor in a circle about the priest and teacher,
and imitating his nasal accent obtain their education by memorizing
verses from the Koran.
At the other end of the village stands the Armenian church, a small
building surmounted by a wooden cross. As in most Protestant churches
in Turkey, for the protection of the worshipers, the few windows are
grated with iron bars. Nearly opposite the church is the Armenian
school, where it is taught that other countries than Turkey exist; that
czar and emperor and king are not governors appointed by the Sultan,
and that there are other things worth learning besides the Koran.
The rest of the narrow street is lined with buildings peculiar to
Anatolia. The low houses with latticed windows to shield the faces
of the Osmanli women from the polluting eyes of the stranger are at
once distinguished as Turkish homes. Here and there are grouped the
shops, their entire fronts open to the street. Year in and year out the
grocer sits patiently behind his stock in trade, consisting of a box of
coarse salt, a cone of sugar, and a few glass jars filled with spices,
candles, and cigarettes. The saddler exposes for sale huge gorgeously
decorated packsaddles and long strings of blue glass beads, which, good
as they are as ornaments for the donkeys, are even more potent to
protect the animals from the influence of the evil eye. Half concealed
behind his dark-brown loaves of bread, the baker mixes his dough, and
with long-handled scoop pushes it far back into the stone oven. On
a shelf before the little eating house is displayed a row of bright
copper pans, filled with boiled rice, eggplant floating in oil, curdled
milk, and other dainties savory to the palate of the Anatolian peasant.
In the fruit shop are baskets overflowing with grapes and figs, and
huge piles of delicious melons, which provident nature has bestowed so
lavishly on the improvident Turk. The little village, remote as it is
from the busy world, can boast of its money changer too. Badiark, a
young Armenian, sits from morning till night at his little glass case
rattling his silver coins to inform the passers-by that he has money to
sell. For a coin worth twenty cents he gives nineteen cents in change;
the other cent is his profit. To the distressed villager who is able
to pawn a family jewel, a house, or a piece of land, he lends his idle
capital at what in his eyes is a moderate rate of interest, twenty
per cent a month. And the village is so small that the young money
changer has leisure for another occupation when not collecting interest
or making change. Conspicuously arranged with his money is a bunch of
reed pens, and some ink; and for the villager who would write to a
distant friend, the versatile Badiark, with scholastic air, selects one
of a stock of flowery-worded letters which he keeps on hand, adds the
date and the name of the sender, with awe-inspiring seal, and collects
therefor a goodly fee. Thus the young money changer grows wealthy.
Ak Hissar is not without accommodations for the stranger. The quaint
doorway of the dilapidated inn opens into a single large room on the
first floor. In the farther corner, under the great stone arch, the
innkeeper prepares the coffee, and keeps alive the coals for the
nargilehs furnished to his guests. About the sides of the room, and
raised slightly from the ground, runs a wide platform, upon which
sleep side by side the travelers who cannot afford the luxury of a
bed in one of the little chambers above. A door in the rear leads to
the stairway, and out to the spacious stables. The inn is more than a
stopping place for strangers. All day long the idle villager, loitering
in its shade, lazily sips his coffee and smokes his pipe, or watches
the graceful maidens filling their earthen jars with water at the well.
Here, too, during the summer evenings, the simple peasants gather to
listen to the tales of a wandering story-teller; or they are held by
the weird Oriental strains which the village musicians improvise on the
clarionet and pompoms; or proudly they watch a pompous soldier as he
flourishes his sword before an imaginary enemy; or, if not wearied by
the labor of the day, they join hands, and sway about as they execute
the fantastic step of their national dance.
The pride of the village is the shop of the old Armenian merchant
Dicran, for it is larger than the others, and, like some of the shops
in Stamboul, possesses both door and window. Displayed within are
silks from Brusa, print goods from England, bright colored sunshades
for Turkish ladies, and boots and slippers worthy even of the Moslem
priest. Dicran is justly regarded as the chief of the village. When
disputes arise among the villagers, does not Dicran settle them to the
satisfaction of both parties? Does not Dicran sell goods to people who
have no money, and trust them till better times come? When the tax
collector is severe, extorting more than the people can pay, does not
Dicran intercede for them? If the soldiers are dragging a debtor to
prison, does not Dicran pay the debt? When a villager is in trouble
with the government, does not Dicran alone dare to take his part?
When the mayor is in doubt, is not Dicran consulted? And when work is
scarce, is it not to Dicran the poor villager goes? Dicran is old, and
his hair has long been gray, but his form is powerful and erect, and
few even of the younger men would care to grapple with him. Some call
him severe. When his dark, penetrating eyes look from beneath those
gray, shaggy brows, as if to search the very soul, and detect fraud or
deceit, none could be more severe; but kinder heart than Dicran’s never
was.
CHAPTER II
CHILDHOOD DAYS
Dicran’s history was long and mysterious. All that the neighbors knew
of his early life was that many years before he had come from an
Armenian town in the far east of Turkey, bringing with him his only
child, Takouhi, a little blue-eyed girl. Dicran himself seldom spoke
of his past, yet it was whispered about that he was descended from a
branch of the ancient family of Armenia, supposed to be long extinct.
His stately bearing, together with his last name, Lucinian, “son of the
moonlight,” a name by which the early Armenian kings are known, may
have given rise to the story; however, those who knew him best believed
in his royal lineage.
In his native land Dicran had prospered, but the Turkish officials,
perhaps suspecting his origin, or coveting his wealth, had confiscated
his property, and slain his son and his son-in-law while defending it.
With his little girl Takouhi, whose mother had died in her infancy,
he wandered from home to find peace; and at the age of forty, by some
chance, he came to Ak Hissar. He was the first Armenian who settled in
the village. But gradually other Armenians came, forced by continued
oppression to leave their homes, and soon they equaled the Turks in
number. During the twenty years of voluntary exile, Dicran had partly
regained his fortune.
The little blue-eyed Takouhi grew up, and married Vartan, a clever
Armenian lad whom Dicran had taken into business. Two children were
born to them, both girls. Vassinag, the older, who resembled her
father, was dark, with large black eyes and thick glossy hair. Her
features were of the pure Armenian type. Europeans might think her nose
somewhat prominent, and call her swarthy, but beneath her dark skin
glowed a ruddy tinge of health, and it was not surprising that the
Armenian lads of the village cast their glances at her.
Armenouhi, the other child, a decided contrast to her sister, was her
grandfather’s favorite, and his constant companion. It seemed as if
all his affection for his long-lost wife and daughter centered in her.
He never tired of holding her on his knee to tell her stories; and at
night he himself put her in her cot near his own bed. Armenouhi was of
a type rarely seen in Eastern countries. Her eyes were blue, her hair
a rich dark brown, her soft fair skin clear and transparent. In her
chin was the suggestion of a dimple, and every word or smile brought
others to her cheeks. She was a vivacious, light-hearted little maiden,
ever happy, but happiest of all when in Dicran’s presence. The old man
would often sit and gaze inquiringly into her innocent eyes. There was
a tradition in the family that the great Armenian king, Dicran, or
Tigranes, as he is sometimes called, married the beautiful daughter of
Mithridates, king of Pontus, and that the fair young wife bequeathed
her likeness to her descendants; so that if at times her likeness
seemed to vanish for several generations, it would at length reappear
in all its beauty. Armenouhi, so Dicran was always fond of thinking,
was the very image of the daughter of the famous king; she had the same
features, the same blue eyes, the same sweet expression; and already,
in her early childhood, she gave promise of surpassing beauty. Her
blue eyes, the more beautiful because so rare in the East, captivated
all who saw them. As the pet of the village, she was at home in every
household, and the other children were not jealous, for was she not
Armenouhi, granddaughter to the wise and good Dicran?
Death knocked again at Dicran’s door, and Armenouhi’s mother died.
Armenouhi was then cared for by Yester, the wife of the thrifty Herant,
who lived next door. The people used to say that Herant was more
fortunate than some of his neighbors, for in return for his thrift and
labor his mulberry trees always yielded a bountiful supply of leaves
for the silkworms, and with the profits of his industry he bought
the cocoons of others to send to the royal silk factories at Hereke.
Armenouhi grew up in this good family, loved by Herant and his wife,
and having as her playmate their only child, Takvor, a manly lad some
four years her senior. He shared with her his playthings. He took her
to Dicran’s shop and to the village well, and to the playhouse in
the old castle. From the first they were always together, and each
was at home in the house of the other. He acted as her safeguard,
and looked after her wants. Once he caught her when she was on the
point of falling into the well. For her he often had his pockets full
of walnuts. To save her little hands, he pulled the burrs from the
chestnuts she gathered, or climbed the mulberry trees, and threw the
ripe fruit into her checkered apron. To see the two playing in the
shade of the plane tree by the well, or listening to the stories in
the grandfather’s shop, or romping hand in hand over the hillsides, or
riding Dicran’s horse, was a familiar picture.
Badiark, the young money changer, alone envied them their happiness.
When he saw them together, he sneered at a boy who would play with a
girl. Finding them on one occasion in the shade of a tree outside the
village, happily pulling grass to feed their horse, he thought to annoy
them by driving the animal away. He raised his heavy stick, and struck
the horse in the mouth. Then frightened at the blood spurting from
the wound which he had so maliciously caused, he hurried away to the
village, while the horse, accustomed only to kindness, held down his
head and came nearer the children. With tears filling their eyes, they
gently stroked his nose with their little hands, and tried to ease the
pain with comforting words. They found that one of his lower teeth had
been broken.
When Takvor and Armenouhi played with the other village children
among the ruins of the old castle, there was one little room which
they called their own. Here they kept house together. Some blocks of
wood were the chairs and tables. An ancient brasier was the stove.
On a shelf stood a row of broken bottles, for Takvor was the hakim,
as they called the physician, and Armenouhi was the hakim’s wife.
Together they cured the pretended diseases, and healed the imaginary
wounds of their playmates. The medicine prescribed was from the long
black bottle, or from the green or the blue bottle. Whatever the
trouble was, however, the cure was always the same cold water from the
well. The patients more often clamored for pills or tablets, for they
were manufactured from little lumps of sugar broken from the cone in
Dicran’s shop. One day when their patients had left them, Takvor took
his playmate’s hands in his, and looked into her great blue eyes.
“Armenouhi, some day when I am a man, I shall be a real hakim, and
I shall have real patients, and real medicine. Will you then be the
hakim’s real wife?”
“Just the hakim’s wife,” she whispered, and her steadfast eyes rested
in his.
CHAPTER III
THE PARTING
It is only in the larger of the Turkish cities, where you hardly know
your next-door neighbor, and where people of the same religious faith
collect in quarters, that the Moslem and the Christian cannot live
in peace together. In the country village, where everybody knows the
secret thoughts of his neighbor, the feeling is no less kindly than
between the members of the different churches of a Christian country
town. The Moslem peasant counts his beads; the Christian, like the
Moslem, prostrates himself in prayer. Allah and Elohim were originally
the same name of the same God, revealed to the one through the prophet
Mohammed, to the other through Christ. The Christian children play
with the little Moslems in the courtyard of the mosque, and the little
Moslems join their Christian comrades in their games about the holy
well, and drink the holy water. The Moslem buys his goods of the
Christian merchant, and the merchant trusts him when he cannot pay.
Moslem and Christian work together in the field, and when their labor
is over, sit side by side in the inn to listen to the story-teller. The
one never asks the other whether he be Moslem or Christian; and the
friendship existing between them is often quite as enduring as if they
worshiped together.
All this was true of the people of Ak Hissar, and their unity of
purpose and unity of labor brought flourishing days to the little
village. Herant had his full share in the general prosperity; for his
mulberry trees throve, his business increased, and he became known
throughout the country, even as far as Constantinople, as a successful
raiser and buyer of cocoons. It was he who produced the silk for the
beautiful rugs and hangings for the Sultan’s palace at Yildiz, and for
the presents which His Majesty was pleased to bestow upon visiting
foreign princes. The Sultan recognized the services which he rendered,
honored him with a decoration, and invited him to the capital, to
become the manager of the various silk factories throughout the Empire.
The prospect of living in Constantinople appealed strongly to Takvor,
for he was studious, and had long ago absorbed the teachings of the
simple village school. Now at the age of fourteen, it was his one
great hope that in some way or other he might fulfill his first and
greatest ambition of becoming a physician. His single unhappiness was
that of leaving Armenouhi. Perhaps he should never see her again.
Although she was but ten years of age, she was far more developed
than a Western girl of those years, and already had been asked for in
marriage by the young money changer Badiark, who offered a suitable
dowry; but, contrary to custom, he was told that when she was older she
might answer for herself. The rejected suitor, seeing her the constant
companion of another, knew full well what that answer would be.
Armenouhi was greatly depressed by the thought of losing Takvor.
Naturally the few remaining days were spent together in their favorite
haunts. For the day preceding Takvor’s departure, the village priest
arranged a farewell picnic, to which all the children were invited.
Early in the morning the party climbed the eastern mountain, and upon
reaching the summit at noonday the priest’s good wife spread the long
white cloth upon the ground and heaped it with food for their hungry
mouths. Takvor was given the seat at the head of the table.
“Who shall be the lady of honor to sit with Takvor?” asked the priest.
“Armenouhi!” shouted the children, in concert, as if there could be no
other answer.
It was a happy party, and their peals of laughter rang over the
hillside. Takvor and Armenouhi alone were sad.
“Come,” he whispered, when dinner was over and the children began to
play; and the two wandered away from the others and sat down in the
shade of a tree, where the silence of the gentle spring day was broken
only by the distant voices of their playmates and the tinkling bells
of the sheep grazing on the mountain slopes.
The field was dotted with white anemones, and Takvor began to pick them.
“Oh, there is a happy omen for us,” cried Armenouhi, and she pointed to
a magpie hopping about in the grass.
“But yonder comes his mate, and the good omen is turned to bad,”
replied Takvor; “and there is a third magpie, and that foretells
calamity.”
“But what evil can be greater for us than your going on the morrow?”
There was no answer this time, and Armenouhi sat in silence and
watched Takvor picking the little white blossoms. As if to help, she
occasionally picked a flower and gave it to him.
Takvor made a wreath of the flowers and was placing it on her head,
when the red ribbon that held her hair became loose and fell. Both
reached for it, and for an instant both held it; they pulled, and the
ribbon parted. With her piece Armenouhi rearranged her hair; Takvor
put the other in his pocket.
That evening at home, when nobody was by to see her, Armenouhi selected
the largest and best of the blossoms, bound them together with the
ribbon from her hair, and laid them away between the leaves of a book.
CHAPTER IV
THE TAX COLLECTOR
The railroad came to Ak Hissar, bringing new prosperity and new
customs. The priest, fearing that the influence of the West might turn
the Faithful from the truth, spent much of his time with the mayor,
considering such weighty problems as how near the mosque might pass
the new telegraph wire, which every Moslem thought conveyed the voice
of Satan. Dicran was no longer consulted in these intricate questions,
for he was a Christian; and how could any Christian understand such
matters? Sometimes now the Moslem children called their Christian
playmates infidels or Christian dogs, evidently repeating the words
which the priest had taught them in the mosque. The governor was now
more frequently seen in the village, for his cupidity was aroused by
its unusual prosperity. The tax collector was ordered to double the
taxes of the Christians, but, being a man of honor, he hinted that an
increase of taxation would be an injustice; for his disobedience he was
dismissed, and his office was offered to the highest bidder.
The collector’s pockets are always capacious, and the taxes must yield
a sufficient amount to fill them. He is an industrious man and watches
carefully the fields of the peasants. As soon as the seed is sown he
may fix the value of the future crop to assess the tax. For him no
years are bad; no rain or hail or frost destroys. Many a peasant has
carefully tilled the soil, and brought his crop to maturity, only to
find that its value is less than the tax which he is ordered to pay; if
he refuses, his property is confiscated.
The new tax collector at Ak Hissar was known as Hassan, or Hassan
Effendi; but he was none other than Badiark, the Armenian money
changer, now become a Moslem, and to all appearances a Turk. He fully
justified the Oriental proverb that ten Christians are required to
outwit a Jew, and ten Jews to outwit an Armenian. Like every other
Christian of the village, Badiark had suffered from the Turkish
oppression, and he shrewdly exercised his active brain to devise a
means of escape. He cultivated the friendship of the priest and the
mayor; he displayed unusual interest in the teachings of the Koran; he
frequented the mosque at the hours when formerly he was seen in the
church; and finally forswore the religion of his people by publicly
declaring, “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”
He cringed with fear at the ceremonial which made him one of the
Faithful and allowed him to receive a Moslem name, yet he endured it
for the sake of future gain. His motives were so transparent that he
was openly jeered at by his cast-off Christian friends, whom he now
designated as dogs, and the Moslems themselves secretly despised him.
With apparent sincerity he performed punctiliously his prostrations in
public; and after the example of the fanatical priest, he mingled pious
ejaculations with his conversation. During the sacred month of Ramazan
he pretended to fast, and from daylight till sundown never permitted
himself the pleasure of a puff of the forbidden cigarette. In the garb
of a dervish he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, kissed the black stone
in the Kaaba, and drank of the water of the sacred pool of Zemzem; and
when he returned with a great green turban wound about his fez, he
was known as the hadji, or pilgrim. No longer doubting his piety, the
Moslems thought him one of the most faithful of the Faithful. Had he
not kissed the holy stone that fell from paradise? Had not his hand
touched the tomb of the Prophet? And all one afternoon he stood in the
mosque, holding out that hand for the less fortunate of the Faithful to
kiss. Thus Badiark the money changer became Hassan the hadji, and with
the funds which he had acquired as money changer, he bought the office
of tax collector.
His only thought now was to extort money by every method which he could
devise. As banker and private citizen, his ill-gotten gains were many;
but as a Moslem and an official, supported by the government, and with
soldiers to enforce his demands, his greed was boundless.
The tax collector in Turkey expects a welcome wherever he goes, for the
peasant who refuses him shelter is punished with increased taxation.
Hassan, fond of good food and a soft bed, frequently spent the night
with old Dicran, who welcomed the opportunity to influence him for the
better regulation of the taxes and to lighten somewhat the burdens of
the people. But it was not always the good food or the soft bed that
brought the collector. Hassan had never abandoned his purpose to marry
Armenouhi, and now, having become an influential official, with his
wealth rapidly increasing, he determined to win her. He would coax her
to him with sweet lokoum, or with the promise of a story, to which
she seldom listened. With his bulging eyes he followed her about her
household duties. When she returned from school he was there, and when
she went into the street, he followed her. When he asked her to go
with him to the spring on the hillside, and she refused, he growled
an unintelligible threat which caused her much alarm. Dicran’s eyes
were at last opened, and he decided that she must be taken immediately
beyond his reach to the mission school in Ada Bazaar. Even Hassan, an
artificial Turk, when his pride was wounded, was a sensitive being, and
believing that her sudden departure was in some way connected with him,
he was deeply incensed, and resolved to have revenge.
Two nights later he was lying on the floor of Dicran’s hall, gazing at
the rafters which were visible in the roof, as in most Armenian houses.
“Fine rafters you have up there, Dicran. Fourteen of them. Just the
number I want.”
“They are fine rafters,” replied the old man; “I cut them with my own
hand twenty years ago, and they have seasoned well. But I have others
just like them, out behind the stable. They are well seasoned, too, and
you may have them if you wish.”
“It is unusually difficult to collect the taxes this year,” complained
Hassan; “and while I need the rafters, I can’t afford to buy them.”
“Take as many of them as you will, and pay for them at your
convenience.”
“Yallah! but it is those in the roof I want.”
“You are a great jester,” laughed Dicran.
Next morning Hassan disappeared early, only to return in a few minutes
with soldiers from the guardhouse, armed with axes.
“Why these soldiers?” asked Dicran.
“We have come for the rafters,” said Hassan, and he pointed to the roof.
“I told you I had others to which you were welcome.”
“I want those up there,” growled Hassan, ordering a soldier to climb to
the roof.
In vain Dicran sought to reason with him; none but those particular
rafters would answer, and already the soldier was tearing up the tiles.
“I will give you their cost if you will but leave them,” cried the
alarmed Dicran, taking a gold lira from his pocket.
Though the gold piece was more than ample, Hassan looked at it with
apparent disgust.
“It is too little,” he sneered. “A lira for fourteen, good, straight,
seasoned rafters!” and he laughed loud at the absurdity. “One rafter,
one lira; fourteen rafters, fourteen liras, and cheap at that,” he
added.
In a moment Dicran was bargaining for his own property.
“I will give you five liras.”
“Fourteen,” shouted Hassan, unabashed by the injustice of his
exorbitant demand. “You can afford to send your girl to a foreign
mission school, and you shall pay for those rafters. Cut them out,
soldier,” he cried, turning to the man on the roof.
The soldier began to chop, and Dicran saw that his house would soon be
ruined.
“Here! here!” he cried, and began to count out the fourteen gold pieces.
Without rearranging the tiles which he had displaced, the soldier
climbed from the roof and joined his companions. Hassan, chuckling at
his success, ordered his men back to the barracks.
Thus the tax collector began a system of persecution worthy only of
himself. The prosperous days of the villagers were over. Taxes in
lump sums were demanded of them, and to enforce their payment, the
shady trees on the hillside were cut down, the spring was filled, the
sheep and cattle were driven away, the mulberry groves were burned,
ancient family jewels and rich old embroideries were confiscated, all
for taxes, all for the greed of one man who had purchased from the
government the right to practice open brigandage.
According to the official report, the people of Ak Hissar had
voluntarily paid their taxes in full. The valuable service which Hassan
was rendering his government was recognized by the Sultan, and he was
rewarded with a decoration. The tax collector was now no longer Hassan,
nor Hassan Effendi, but Hassan Bey.
Armenouhi could not yet understand why she had been sent away so
suddenly to the mission school. Just before the spring vacation she was
summoned by one of her teachers. When she entered the room, her bright
eyes were sparkling with the hope of going home.
“Your grandfather thinks you should remain here during this vacation,”
said the teacher, kindly.
“Why was I sent here? and why may I not go home? Does Dede not want to
see me?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.
“Hassan is still there,” explained the teacher, wiping the tears away.
Armenouhi was beginning to understand.
CHAPTER V
THE LETTER
Hassan Bey did not forget the insult which had been offered him in
sending Armenouhi beyond his reach. Frequent inquiries for her brought
him little satisfaction, but they convinced her people that her return
to the village would again expose her to his persistent wooing. Dicran
went to see her during the spring vacation. Throwing her arms about the
old man’s neck, she smothered him with kisses; and then, sitting on his
knee, she gently stroked his rough face. She had a thousand questions
to ask concerning her sister Vassinag and her father, and a thousand
little things to tell about her teachers and her school, so that he
could scarcely say a word. But he gave her a letter bearing the simple
inscription “Armenouhi.” She opened it and near the bottom in a large
boyish hand read Takvor’s name.
“I am going to England to study,” the letter concluded, “but I shall
always think of you, and when I return my first wish will be to see
you. If you ever need me, send for me and I will come.”
“Dede,” she said finally, looking up into the old man’s face, after
finishing the letter.
“Yes, child.”
“Why doesn’t Takvor come to Ak Hissar again?”
“He came, but you were not there; and so he sent you the letter.”
Armenouhi’s eyes returned to the paper in her hand, and once more there
was silence.
“Dede,” and again she looked into his face.
“Yes, child.”
“Am I going home for the long summer vacation?”
“No, child; not if Hassan is there.”
“Must I stay here in school all summer?”
“Yes, Armenouhi, it would be better.”
Again a silence.
“Dede.”
“Yes, child.”
“May I spend the summer with Aunt Vartouhi in Stamboul?”
“Perhaps,” replied Dicran, smiling in sympathy with her unspoken
thought.
Again Armenouhi threw her arms about his neck, and called him her dear,
good Dede.
When Dicran was gone, she read the letter over and over until she could
repeat it by heart. It was the first she had ever received, and she put
it away between the leaves of her book with the anemones and the red
ribbon.
CHAPTER VI
A VISITOR
Perched along the steep shore of the Golden Horn, nearly opposite the
ancient land walls of Constantinople, rises the village of Hasskeui.
When seen from the water, the rickety wooden houses appear to be piled
one upon another in the wildest confusion. The winding streets, paved
with rough, uneven stone, are so narrow that you can reach across them,
and so steep that no beast of burden can climb them. Hasskeui is the
home of the descendants of those Jews who were expelled from Spain in
the year 1492. It is now a veritable ghetto. The streets and courts
abound in filth swept from the houses, and with children whose pale,
pinched faces tell tales of hunger and poisonous air. In the market,
along the water’s edge, the venders expose for sale heaps of decaying
vegetables, lemons and oranges white with mold, and meat discarded by
the Moslem merchants of the city.
On the hill back of the village is the Ok Meidan, or archery field,
dotted here and there with tall marble shafts to mark the places where
the arrows of former sultans fell. The pure cold air from the Black Sea
sweeps over the hill, and the Jewish families, wrapped in fur-lined
coats, spend the sunset hours walking back and forth breathing the pure
fresh air.
For one reason or another, prosperous Armenians occupied the upper rows
of houses near the summit of the hill; but occasionally poverty drove
some of them down among the Jews. When Herant, the silk merchant of Ak
Hissar, moved his family to Constantinople, his friends persuaded him
to purchase one of the higher houses; and there, among his own people,
he made his home.
One afternoon, ten days before Takvor’s departure for England, when he
was sitting alone in his room, with his thoughts turned to Ak Hissar
and Armenouhi, to the old white castle, and the hillside spring, which
he had left three years before, he was startled by hearing a familiar
voice inquiring for his mother. He rushed down stairs, and seized
Armenouhi by the hands, for it was she and her aunt Vartouhi.
“Why, how tall you have grown!” he cried; “and prettier than ever! Oh,
how good of you to come and bring her. And mother will be so glad to
see you. You must remain till I go away,” and he turned to his mother,
who just entered the hall. “Mother, you will have her stay, won’t you?”
he pleaded.
Yester was scarcely less delighted to see Armenouhi, for she loved her
as her own child, and at once asked that she be allowed to remain with
them.
“We will let Armenouhi decide that,” finally said the aunt.
“Will you stay?” he eagerly asked.
“Yes.”
Armenouhi had never been in the city before, and now she should see
whatever she cared to, and he would be her guide. That very afternoon
he took them to the Sweet Waters of Europe. He procured a boat, and as
they made their way among the long shapely kajiks which nearly covered
the Golden Horn, he told her stories of the passing people. Near the
Sultan’s country villa they laughed at the little group of Turkish
women squatting on the grassy shore. They landed at the bridge and
walked about, gazing at the carriages of the white-veiled ladies from
the Sultan’s harem, and at their tall black guards, awkwardly mounted
on Arabian horses. He brought them ices and pistachio nuts, and they
sat down on the grass to rest among the Turkish women.
At the base of the opposite hill, some festive Greeks were holding
hands, and executing in a circle the steps of their national dance to
the music of a hurdy-gurdy. In an approaching kaiyik laden with Turks,
a young man, standing with hands to his mouth, was straining out long
wavy sounds in a minor key, improvising a monotonous Oriental chant,
while his companions were clapping their hands in unison, to mark the
time. From the opposite shore came the weird strains of a Turkish
lute, accompanied by the rhythmic beat of the pompoms; and a passing
juggler, shaking his tambourine, added to the musical medley a song
announcing that he had tricks to perform. A strolling dark-skinned
gypsy girl, clad in a long, bright-yellow gown, was passing from group
to group selling lavender blossoms, or telling fortunes.
Takvor nodded to her.
The gypsy squatted on the ground before them and poured from a small
black bag a collection of beans, beads, buttons, horse-chestnuts,
stones, and lobster-claws, with which she told the past and revealed
the future.
Armenouhi selected a lobster-claw. The gypsy put it among the other
objects belonging to her craft, and began to talk in a jargon of Greek
and Turkish.
“You have many friends,” and she spread out her long henna-colored
fingers over the white beans and stones about the claw. “That is a very
wicked man,” she continued, placing her finger on a large black button
that was resting against the edge of the claw. “He wishes to marry
you, but you do not care for him, and now he is trying to injure you.
Beware of him. And that is your lover,” touching a round white stone
near the larger end of the lobster-claw. “He is going on a journey, and
it will be a long time before he returns.”
“When will he return?” put in Takvor, who was listening to every word
of the gypsy’s lingo.
“It will be a long time; perhaps years,” and she counted the beads
about the stone.
“What is his name, and what is he like, and where is he going?” asked
Armenouhi, pretending ignorance.
“He is a fine, honest boy, but I cannot tell you his name; he is going
far away in a ship across the water.”
“Trouble is coming,” continued the gypsy, spreading her fingers over
the big horse-chestnuts, which nearly surrounded the beans. She paused,
and her black eyes were fixed on the little objects on the ground.
“Go on,” said Takvor, who had been watching her fingers so intently
that he had not observed the change in her manner.
Again she placed her finger on the white stone.
“All your friends will--will be--,” and she gathered up the scattered
objects, and returned them to the small black bag.
“Will be what?” asked Takvor.
“Tammam! it is finished,” she replied, and sprang to her feet; and
refusing the silver piaster which he offered her, she hurried away.
“How strangely she acts!” said Yester, somewhat troubled by the gypsy’s
story.
“The police there have probably frightened her away, mother. Shall we
be going?”
CHAPTER VII
THE PADISHAH
Herant was at home when they returned from the Sweet Waters of Europe.
He was delighted to see Armenouhi, and she pleased them all by her
recital of the events of the afternoon. Badiark, now Hassan Bey, was
mentioned, and as if she saw some reference to him in the story of the
gypsy, she spread a handful of pistachio nuts in her lap, and repeated
what the fortune teller had said.
“Gypsies often say strange things, Armenouhi,” said Herant, “but they
seldom refuse money. How should you like to see the Padishah?” he
asked, changing the conversation to dispel from her mind the unpleasant
thought of Hassan and the gypsy.
“Oh, may we?”
Like other high officials who wish to retain the favor of the Sultan,
Herant frequently attended Salamlik on Fridays, when His Majesty
leaves Yildiz and goes to the mosque of the Hamidieh, adjoining the
palace grounds, to witness the weekly prayer in his behalf. To please
Armenouhi, it was decided that on the morrow they should all attend the
ceremony.
When Herant and his little party neared the Galata bridge, they found
long lines of powerfully built soldiers, headed by wildly screeching
buglers and a military band, flying the sacred green flag of Islam,
marching toward Yildiz. At Dolma Bachtche the streets were crowded
with carriages conveying tourists, closely veiled Turkish ladies, or
gorgeously decorated officials, all of whom were ascending the hill to
Yildiz.
Herant found a place in the front row of carriages, facing the street
that leads from the palace to the mosque. Column after column of
cavalry and infantry came marching in from every direction. The crowd
of spectators was rapidly increasing, and occasionally a carriage
with a picturesque kavass perched on the high seat with the driver,
approached the stand opposite the mosque to leave an ambassador and
his family. Shabbily dressed spies worked their way among the crowded
people, peering about to confiscate any opera glasses or cameras;
for they are not allowed at the ceremony. The hurrying workmen were
sprinkling sand along the street over which the Sultan would drive, and
the soldiers were packing themselves more tightly together, to protect
His Majesty, as by a solid wall, from those who had gathered there to
see him.
When the sun approached the zenith, the spectators stood up in their
carriages to obtain a better view. The soldiers cast their eyes to the
ground, forbidden as they were to glance at the face of the “Shadow of
Allah” as he passed. Takvor and Armenouhi, from the driver’s box, were
straining their eyes to see every detail, while Herant and Yester were
standing on the seat behind them.
“Here they come,” said Takvor in a whisper, when the great white gate
at the end of the street swung open.
Horsemen appeared, followed by a carriage. Shrinking back as if hiding
from the eyes of his subjects, was a small dark figure. Only once did
it lean forward to bow as it passed the ambassadors’ stand. It was a
slight, hollow-chested, round-shouldered form; the great, round fez
was jammed down over the head to the ears; the eyes were deeply sunk;
the under lip protruded; the immense hooked nose pointed to Armenian
ancestry; the cheeks were hollow, and the skin sallow; and the beard,
dyed brown with henna, was long and unkempt.
“Can that shriveled old man be the great Padishah?” thought Armenouhi.
“Why should he seem so timid when so many of his soldiers are here to
protect him? And I thought he was handsome and brave!”
“Should you not like to be a houri in the Padishah’s paradise?”
whispered Herant, as he noticed her expression of surprise.
Armenouhi shuddered.
The Sultan’s carriage passed quickly through the gateway into the yard,
stopped before the entrance to the mosque, and the slight, stooping
figure quickly disappeared within, not to pray, but to sit by a little
latticed window, whence unseen he might observe the multitude gathered
without, while others prayed for him.
The week following their visit to Salamlik passed all too quickly for
Takvor. Late in the afternoon of the day preceding his departure,
he was strolling with Armenouhi over the height of the Ok Meidan.
Everywhere, as usual, little groups of Jews were gathered on the
hilltop. In the distance, two Englishmen, followed by their caddies,
were playing golf. The girls from the Scotch mission school were
removing their tennis net, preparing to return. Takvor and Armenouhi,
wishing to be alone, went to the farthest slope of the hill.
“There is the Wishing Stone,” and Takvor pointed to a marble column
enclosed by four other columns. “The Moslems say that if you can kiss
the inner column, your wish will be fulfilled. Do you want to try it?”
“Yes, indeed;” and they took their way to the spot.
Armenouhi sought in vain to press her face between the outer columns
and kiss the one within, and she gave it up in despair. They were about
to pass on when Takvor noticed that the outer columns tapered toward
the top. He climbed the pedestal and was able to touch the inner column
with his lips. Armenouhi’s wish should also come to pass; climbing on
his back, she too kissed the stone. Without either asking the other
what had been wished, they ascended the height overlooking the Golden
Horn. The glorious rays of the setting sun cast their brilliant hue
over the beautiful landscape at their feet, and myriads of birds were
flying in the valley.
“To-morrow, Armenouhi, I am to leave all this; will you write to me
often?”
“As often as you write to me.”
He put his arms about her and drew her to him, and their lips met for
the first time. He then took her hand, and they went silently down the
hill.
CHAPTER VIII
ARRESTED
Two years abroad passed quickly, and Takvor was planning to spend his
second summer vacation in Constantinople with his people. His father
had written that the Turkish police were making it difficult for
Armenians to travel in their own country, or to return from foreign
lands, and he took his passport to the Turkish consul, to be assured
that it was in perfect order.
The steamship from Marseilles was moored to the Galata quay, near the
custom house, and Takvor, with traveling bag in hand, started down the
gangway. It was in the early morning, and though he was not expecting
anybody, he scanned the faces of the crowd below. To avoid delay, he
held his passport open for inspection, and the Turkish official, polite
as he always is to the well-dressed stranger, examined it; and then
motioning to a policeman standing near, he gave it to him with the
single word “Armenian,” and directed Takvor to follow the officer.
“Is my passport not correct? Is it not properly viséed?”
The official only shrugged his shoulders, and the policeman gave a
coarse laugh.
He could therefore do nothing but follow the officer to the little
building near the custom house. A guard was standing at the entrance,
and at the farther end of the room sat the chief inspector of
passports, a fat, surly old Turk, who glanced up as Takvor entered,
and without interrupting his work motioned him to be seated. Presently
a second policeman led in another Armenian, clad in rags, one of the
miserable creatures of his race. He was not told to sit down.
An hour passed.
“I must be going home,” said Takvor; “will you not kindly examine my
passport and release me?”
“Presently,” replied the Turk, politely enough, but without looking up
from his papers.
Before noon two other Armenians were brought in. The official ate his
lunch, and resumed his work. Takvor, disgusted, took up his bag and
started toward the door; a soldier stepped before him, and he sat down
again. It was four o’clock when the official ceased his work and looked
about the room.
“What is your name?” he asked, looking first at Takvor and then at the
passport.
“Takvor Bedirian.”
“Where have you been?”
“In England.”
“Hm,” said the official, making a wry face. “What were you doing there?”
“I was at a university.”
“At a university, eh? Isn’t our university good enough for you? What
were you doing at a university? You went there to learn anarchy, did
you?” exclaimed the official, in assumed anger, and he plied question
after question so rapidly that Takvor could not answer.
“How did you earn your living?” he continued, when his pretended wrath
had subsided.
“My father paid my expenses.”
“Your father paid your expenses, did he? Who is your father?”
“Herant Bedirian, the chief superintendent of His Majesty’s silk
factories.”
The official hesitated.
“How long have you been away?”
“Two years.”
“Were you supported in England by an Armenian committee?”
“No; I have already said that my father paid my expenses.”
“Does your father give money to any Armenian committee?”
“No.”
“Have you any weapons?”
“No.”
“Search him.”
The soldier to whom the order was directed went through Takvor’s
pockets, took out his purse, gazed at it as if he would appropriate
the contents, and then, seeing the eyes of his chief upon him, slowly
returned it. A small pearl-handled penknife excited the official’s
suspicion.
“You said you had no weapons,” he roared. “Soldier, make a note of
that.”
The traveling bag was opened, and every scrap of paper was examined;
but as nothing more seditious than a suit of clothes was found, the
examination came to an end, and the Turk, motioning to Takvor to be
seated, turned to the next Armenian.
“But is my passport not in order?” insisted Takvor. “Why should I be
detained longer?”
“Presently,” was the reply.
The other Armenians were questioned and searched with less civility
than had been shown to Takvor, for they wore the dress of the peasant.
They were poor harmless fellows from small villages in the interior.
One had come to Constantinople to see a sick mother, another to visit
a brother. Finally, when they had all been examined, the official
approached Takvor, and took up his traveling bag.
“I will keep it for you.”
“But I am going home, and I shall take it with me.”
“You are going to Stamboul, and I shall keep it until you return.”
“And why to Stamboul?”
“I have no power to release you; you must explain to the authorities
why you went away.”
Takvor expostulated in vain. Almost before he realized it, several
soldiers were marching him and the other Armenians along the quay to
the police boat, which was waiting to take them across the Golden Horn
to Stamboul. They disembarked and entered a narrow street. It was
then that Takvor realized where he was going; for just ahead were the
great, dingy stone walls of the Buyuk Zaptieh, one of the most horrible
prisons in the Turkish Empire. They turned in at the gate. Passing
through the courtyard, the soldiers pushed Takvor and his companions
into a gloomy cell, fastened the door, and went away.
CHAPTER IX
THE TRIAL
The prisoners remained silently standing in the spot where the soldiers
had left them, too troubled to speak, too frightened to move. They
were guilty of no other offense than that of being Armenians, yet the
tales which they had heard of Turkish prison life made them shudder,
and they wondered what their punishment was to be. When their eyes
became accustomed to the darkness, they looked about them. The cell was
absolutely bare, without even a plank for a bed, and the stone floor
was damp.
Takvor tried to think. Had his father known when he was coming, he
would have been on the quay to meet him, and he would have sought
influence to obtain his freedom, but now all communication with the
outside world was severed, and weeks or months might pass before
relief came. Tired and hungry, for he had eaten nothing since the early
morning, he was thoroughly discouraged. Reaching out his hand to touch
the wall, that he might lean against it, he felt a moving object. He
started back and saw a great black scorpion crawling along the slimy
bricks. Fearing he should be stung, he groped his way to the other end
of the cell, where the wall itself was as damp as the floor. At last,
wearied with waiting, he sank down exhausted on the wet stones.
The other prisoners tried to be cheerful, for to them life had ever
meant little more than persecution. The sun went down; light no longer
entered the cell, and the men crouched on the floor in silence.
Late in the night the harshly grating door of the cell was opened and
two soldiers, flashing a light in the prisoners’ faces, ordered them to
follow. They filed from the room, up the stairs, and into the office,
where a pompous Turk was to examine them again, thinking that in their
dazed condition they might be brought to confess complicity in some
plot for the overthrow of the government. Takvor, whose European dress
again secured for him more consideration than was shown to the others,
was the first to be searched. He was asked the same questions as in the
afternoon. When the examination was finally ended, a soldier seized him
by the arm, and led him down stairs, where the jailor, a gigantic Turk,
stood grinning with delight at the prospect of another prisoner.
“Here is a good one for you,” the soldier called out.
“I can find room for him.”
He pushed Takvor through a doorway, into a narrow passage, and holding
the lantern close to his face, scanned him closely.
“Off with that coat!” he growled; and as Takvor did not obey, he set
his lantern down, and stripped it from him; and then, seizing him by
the neck, forced him along the passage and into a cell guarded by a
heavy grated door.
“In there, you dog of a Christian!” and he gave him a push.
Takvor stumbled and fell; from the darkness about him arose a din of
voices, some of laughter, others of pity.
CHAPTER X
THE BUYUK ZAPTIEH
“Hosh geldi, hosh geldi! welcome, welcome!” were the only words which
Takvor could distinguish in the medley of voices.
Dazed by the fall, he was still lying on the ground where the jailor
had pushed him, when a prisoner ignited a match to examine the new
arrival. His fellow prisoners, whose pale, haggard faces in the
flickering light seemed like ghosts emerging from the surrounding
darkness, gathered about him and began to ply him with questions. Why
had he come? What crime had he committed? Had he money, and would
he buy them food? The cell in which they were huddled together was
scarcely fifteen feet long and half as wide, yet in it were eighteen
men. There was not enough room for them all to lie down. A little
hole in the wall, which served as a window, was far too small for
ventilation, and the air was foul. Perceiving from Takvor’s appearance
that he was unused to hardship, and hoping perhaps to share his money,
they treated him kindly, and gave him a place beneath the window, where
the air was not quite so tainted with the stench of the room.
There was no sleep for Takvor that night. He sat in a stupor, while
rats ran along the beams of the ceiling or over the bodies of the
sleeping prisoners. At last a faint light announced the approach of
morning. The prisoners sat up one by one and scrutinized him. Among
them was an old man who had been in confinement half his life. He was
permitted to sell food to those who had money. To the less fortunate a
small loaf of black bread and a rusty tin of water were given daily.
The old man asked Takvor whether he was hungry and had money, and then
from a dark corner produced a wooden plate of beans cooked in fat, too
filthy to be eaten, for which he charged him ten piasters.
In the increasing light, Takvor could see his fellow prisoners. They
were lean and haggard, with untrimmed beards and matted hair. The
filthy rags clinging to their half-naked bodies were swarming with
vermin. Huddled in that cell were persecuted Armenians, thieves,
brigands, and murderers. A Bulgarian had been in prison there for
twenty years; ignorant of the police regulations, he had, upon the
night of his arrival, gone into the street without a lighted lantern.
With no friend to search for him, he was lost to the world, and
forgotten even by the prison authorities.
To Takvor, sick and discouraged, the morning brought little hope.
Should he fail to communicate with his father, his fate might be as
evil as that of any of his fellow prisoners. His first thought was
to find means to smuggle out a message, but he learned that he was
in a cell to which visitors were forbidden. He wondered if the big
Turk could be bribed to take a message to his father, and if his few
remaining liras would suffice. When the jailor again appeared, Takvor
was standing by the door, and he held out a gold lira. The Turk seized
it greedily and promised to obey his instructions. Encouraged by the
promise, Takvor patiently sat on the floor to await the coming of his
father. Hour after hour passed, and night came, bringing with it only
increased despair. The next morning, when the jailor’s face appeared
behind the grated window, Takvor inquired if he had sent the message.
“Give me another lira, and I will send it at once,” was the answer.
Takvor gave him not one lira, but several, keeping only a few silver
pieces to pay for food. Again he waited in vain. On the third morning
he gave the jailor his watch in return for another solemn promise; but
this promise was kept no better than the others.
Thus to Takvor the slowly passing days brought nothing but despair.
The few clothes which the jailor had left him were covered with filth.
His money was gone, and his only food was the insufficient black loaf
which the jailor threw to him. He quenched his thirst with the tepid
water of the rusty tin from which the others drank. But his hardships
were slight when compared with the sufferings of the others. The
jailor would drag some political prisoner into the passageway to be
questioned. If the answers were not sufficient, he received blows or
some more terrible punishment.
Unnerved by witnessing the tortures of others, in constant fear for his
own safety, poisoned by foul air and filthy water, and starved by the
scant prison fare, Takvor grew thin and weak. Four of the prisoners
had already died. Another poor fellow, an Armenian lad of his own age,
would soon be the fifth. To prolong his life, Takvor shared with him
his small prison loaf. One morning, when the jailor was looking through
the grated door, the groaning of a prisoner caught his attention. He
called his superior, and the pompous official, poking the boy with his
foot, was heard to mumble something about throwing him into the street,
that he might die elsewhere. Takvor awoke in the night and spoke to the
boy, but received no answer. He reached out his hand to touch him, and
found that the body was cold. A thought suddenly flashed through his
mind. Why should not he himself be released in the morning? He sat
up and listened to the heavy breathing of the prisoners. Hearing no
other sound, he exchanged his clothes for those of the dead boy, and
unwinding the cloth from the boy’s head, wrapped it about his own. Then
after dragging the body to his own place beneath the window, he lay
down where his friend had died.
In the early morning, unrecognized by his fellow prisoners, Takvor
lay groaning, when the grating of the door announced the presence of
the jailor. The big Turk, followed by half a dozen guards, seized the
Armenian prisoners, one by one, and dragged them through the long
passageway, to a fate unknown to the others. At last Takvor was seized
and dragged to the light, where he was recognized in the dead boy’s
clothing.
The jailor suspected that some attempt had been made to deceive him,
and he flew into a passion.
“Sick, are you? I’ll teach you to groan,” and he dealt Takvor a cruel
blow.
To exchange good clothes for a dead man’s rags, could deserve nothing
less than extreme punishment. The more the jailor reflected, the
greater was his anger, and he continued to administer blows until the
groans, now become real, were silenced; Takvor was unconscious. Several
hours later, when he came to, a great Kurd lifted him carefully to his
feet and conducted him to the outside wall of the prison. Still faint,
and half blinded by the light of the day, to which his eyes had so long
been unaccustomed, yet amazed at his unexpected freedom, and pondering
what evil it foreboded, he paused for a moment, and then, looking about
to convince himself that he was really free and alone save for the Kurd
who had assisted him, slowly staggered away like a drunken man. The
Kurd followed.
CHAPTER XI
THE TURBANED MOLLAH
Bare-headed and bare-footed, with elbows and knees protruding through
the filthy rags that covered him, his face hidden beneath six weeks’
growth of beard, Takvor passed slowly by the outer guards of the
prison and down the street. As usual in the early afternoon, lines
of carriages were taking the Turkish officials to their offices in
the Sublime Porte. Through fear that some former acquaintance might
recognize him, he clung to the inner side of the walk. Occasionally
he followed a less frequented street, but always came back to the
tramway and the rows of carriages. To his old friend, Hadji Bekier,
who was standing in the doorway of his lokoum shop, he seemed but a
passing beggar, only more ragged and more filthy than others. When he
reached the Galata bridge, he noticed the familiar white-gowned toll
gatherers busily reaching out their hands for the ten para pieces,
or making change with the passing pedestrians. He stopped, for he
remembered that he had not even a penny required for toll. Often with
other boys he had passed the collectors unnoticed, but to do so now
seemed impossible. While he stood trying to think how he might succeed
in crossing the bridge, the sound of coins in the little booth of a
money changer caught his attention. He saw lying on the ground a narrow
board which had apparently been split from a packing box. Remembering
that a cripple was free to pass the bridge, he picked up the board, and
using it as a crutch, hobbled along. The toll gatherer, merely glancing
at him, allowed him to pass. Takvor limped along some distance before
glancing back; then, convincing himself that none but the tall Kurd was
watching him, he dropped the board and crossed the bridge.
He could reach home by the less frequented street along the Golden
Horn, but he disliked to grieve his mother by appearing in such a
miserable condition. He looked at his hands. They were black with
dirt. He looked at his feet. They were still blacker. He stopped
before a jeweler’s shop to catch his reflection in the window. The
streets seemed unusually crowded that day. Albanians, Kurds, and Lazis
in their peculiar costumes, were standing about; groups of soldiers
were collected before the guard-house, as if awaiting orders; and the
police were peering into the faces of the passing crowds. To avoid
these, Takvor made his way through the dingy inn which the Europeans
have nicknamed “The Bourse,” and climbed a narrow street near the lower
entrance of the tunnel. At a little café half way up the hill to the
tramway was seated a group of Albanians, strong muscular fellows like
the gladiators of ancient Rome; their dark-brown embroidered costumes,
and their wool fezzes, half concealing the long locks of braided hair
springing from the crown of their cropped heads, were evidence that
they had recently come from the far interior. Farther up the street,
at another café, a group of Lazis, bloodthirsty savages who valued
the life of a man at less than that of a sheep, seemed to have just
arrived from the wild coast of the Black Sea. Still farther on, a line
of garbage carts and their brute-like drivers stood as if waiting for
orders before going about their work. At the head of the street stood
a beardless Turkish mollah, whose long, blue, collarless coat and
spotless white turban marked him as a student from the theological
school of Saint Sophia. To Takvor it seemed that the young priest
was nervously glancing down the street at the groups of Lazis and
Albanians, and watching another white-turbaned priest at the corner
below. They were evidently in communication. Along the main street
filed a line of Armenian porters carrying bags of newly coined gold
from the mint to the bank, while armed guards were marching beside
them, to prevent their disappearing with their precious burdens in
some dark passage way. The passing of the porters, though a daily
occurrence, seemed to excite the young priest, for he stood staring at
the bags of money as if his eyes would penetrate to their contents.
Again he turned to the waiting groups, and to the other priest below,
and raising his hand, pointed upward. The porters and their guards
passed into the bank to deliver their burden. Takvor, dismissing the
scene from his mind, continued up the street, closely followed by the
Kurd who had released him from prison.
He had hardly reached the door of the English store when there came
from the direction of the bank the report of an explosion. It was
followed by a second and a third. People from the houses and shops
crowded into the streets.
“The Armenians are blowing up the bank,” somebody shouted.
From the steps Takvor could see above the heads of the people. At the
street corner beyond the bank, the white-turbaned mollah was still
standing, with both hands in the air, waving frantically to the people
below. Almost instantly, as if by magic, soldiers sprang up from
everywhere. They climbed the steps on the opposite hills, and leveled
their rifles at the bank windows, ready to fire if the head of an
Armenian porter appeared. At the entrance to the bank, with his back to
the street, stood the old Montenegran doorkeeper, with a revolver in
each hand, preventing the porters from leaving the building; already he
had laid out half a dozen of them on the stairs before him. Others who
had tried to escape to the roofs of the neighboring houses were shot
by the Turkish soldiers. The faithful bank coachman, an aged Armenian,
glanced from the window to see if his horses had taken to flight,
but he never knew, for a bullet passed through his head. An Armenian
cobbler, with a last in his hand, was standing in the doorway of his
shop; a soldier aimed at the gray head and fired, and the cobbler
dropped dead. Scarcely ten minutes had passed since the porters entered
the bank, when, from the street where the turbaned priest had stood,
hundreds of Albanians, Lazis, and Kurds, all armed with rough wooden
clubs, were rushing madly at the crowd. They seemed to spring from the
ground, and like savage beasts, selected, as if by instinct, their
victims for the slaughter. As they worked their way along, their clubs
made no mistake by descending on the head of Greek, Jew, Levantine,
or even catholic Armenian; a massacre of the protestant Armenians had
begun. The white-turbaned priest at the corner below stood for a moment
watching the bloody scene, and then with a brutal smile of triumph, as
if his part of the work were over, disappeared down the side street.
A stampede for safety began, and although the crowd understood that
the massacre was directed against the protestant Armenians, the people
of all nationalities fled to the shops or the houses, or to the side
streets. Wherever an Armenian appeared, an Albanian or a Kurd stood
ready with a club to strike him. Too dazed to move, like dumb animals,
the victims waited to die. Takvor now understood why he and others of
his race had been released from the Buyuk Zaptieh; the great Kurd who
was still following him, had brought him to the street only that he
might the more readily perform the task to which he had been appointed.
When the knowledge of his awful situation flashed upon him, he dashed
into the store, which was already filled with his terrified countrymen.
The faithful Turkish porter, to barricade the property which he
guarded, pulled down the iron shutters of the windows and doors, and
the neighboring merchants immediately followed his example. Only
those who heard the din of the hundreds of screeching iron shutters,
hurriedly hauled down at the same moment, can realize the horror
which seized the people. It seemed as if the Turks had put in motion
some infernal machine to grind them to pieces. Men and women with
strong nerves fainted at the terrifying sound; and even now, when some
harmless merchant closes his shop for the night, men shudder and women
faint at the recollection of that awful day.
CHAPTER XII
BEFRIENDED
Through a hole in one of the shutters Takvor could see all that was
happening without. Scores of the dead were lying in the street. The
savage brutes, crazed by the sight of blood, turned this way and that,
uncertain what to do next. From around the corner came men with iron
bars, to break open the fastenings of the Armenian shops. As soon as
the shutters of a shop were pried open, Kurds with clubs in their
hands, dragged out the victims and left their bodies in a heap on the
sidewalk.
The great Kurd who had shadowed Takvor approached the English store and
placed his bar beneath the fastenings of the shutters. The fugitives
within, who had believed themselves safe, heard the sound, and rushed
behind the counters or to the cellar, to conceal themselves, and
only a few clerks and the half-conscious Takvor remained visible. The
faithful Turkish porter who was still outside, stepped before the Kurd,
and declared on oath that only Englishmen were within. It was the word
of one Moslem to another, and the store with all in it was spared.
Takvor was still gazing into the street when he felt a hand laid on his
shoulder and heard a voice speaking his name. He raised his eyes and
stared inquiringly into the face of his old Greek friend and college
mate, Taviloudes.
“Here, Takvor, drink this,” and he held a glass to his motionless lips.
When Takvor had swallowed the draught, the Greek took him by the arm
and led him through the store and up the stairs to a little room
overlooking the Golden Horn. He made him lie down on the bed, and sat
silently at his side until finally the vacant stare began to disappear
from the boy’s eyes.
“Do you know where you are, Takvor?”
“Yes, I know now,” came the faint reply; but it was some time before he
was able to explain that he had just escaped from the Buyuk Zaptieh.
Taviloudes bathed his hands and face, and placed before him a steaming
cup of chocolate and such food as the circumstances would permit him
to prepare. And then the afternoon was spent in removing the traces of
prison life.
Darkness came, and the Armenians below were persuaded to leave their
hiding places and eat the food which the Turkish porter had made ready.
With a substantial meal Takvor’s strength and courage returned. At
midnight, when the fiends in the streets had become quiet, the porter
slowly raised the iron shutters of the door, and listened. Not a sound
was heard, and Takvor stepped out into the black night. The shutters
were again drawn down and fastened, and he listened again. The street
was as silent as the grave, and he slowly groped his way through the
darkness.
CHAPTER XIII
HOME
The shortest way from the Ottoman bank to Hasskeui is up the Rue
Voivoda to the guardhouse at the corner, and then down the hill through
the old neglected Turkish cemetery to the pestilential quarter of Kasim
Pasha; thence the road, hugging the dingy arsenal wall for nearly half
a mile, leads up the hill over the fallen stones of another cemetery,
to the lower edge of the Ok Meidan. Even in daytime the way is lonely
and often unsafe. In the shadow of the arsenal wall many a pedestrian
has been waylaid by the idle soldier, and gruffly ordered to empty
his pockets; even if he yields, but has not enough to satisfy his
assailant, he may receive the thrust of a knife. The Jew, returning
from his day’s labor in Galata or Stamboul, walks home that way to save
the boat hire; if sunset overtakes him, he stops at a little café in
Kasim Pasha, to wait for others belated like himself; when a dozen or
more have collected, they continue their way, relying upon their number
for safety. The guardhouses, which seem to be more for the protection
of government property than for the safety of the people, are arranged
within sight and shouting distance of each other. Should you venture
there at night, you would be stopped by the guard, and if ignorant of
the usual password, would be arrested and thrown into prison.
Takvor almost felt his way up the hill through the darkness. Not a
street lamp shed its usual flickering ray on the walk; in not a window
was a light visible; only the stars looked faintly down. The watchman,
fatigued by the grewsome work of the day, forgot to thump with his
resonant wooden club the hours of the night. Once and only once did a
sound in the distance break the silence. A garbage gatherer was still
at his work. He had stopped his rumbling cart to increase its burden,
and again all was silent. Unobserved by the sleepy sentry, Takvor
slowly felt his way past the first guardhouse, and then down the hill
and into the cemetery. Beneath the thick cypress trees the stars were
no longer visible, and in the extreme darkness the faint outlines of
the marble tombstones, with their great turbaned heads, seemed like
white-robed ghosts arrayed along his path. At the foot of the hill he
was able to avoid the guardhouse by making a detour. On he went through
Kasim Pasha to the arsenal. Here he removed his shoes, hoping to escape
the guard’s attention, and silently passed along, hugging the wall.
“Kim der o? Who is that?” gruffly cried the Turkish sentinel, running
his words together into a monosyllabic grunt.
“Yavanji deyil! It is not a stranger,” replied Takvor, imitating the
gruff voice of the soldier.
The old password that he had learned years before seemed to be still
in use, for the sentinel was silent, and he passed on. By the faint
light of the olive-oil lamp at the next guardhouse he could see the dim
form of the sleeping sentinel leaning against a post, and he walked
noiselessly by. To avoid the two remaining guards, he followed the
valley through the cemetery, picking his way among the fallen stones
and bushes to the Ok Meidan, and then in a moment he was on the hill
overlooking Hasskeui and the Golden Horn.
He was extremely tired. His nerves, weakened by his confinement in
prison, were all unstrung by the experiences of the day. He dropped on
a stone to rest,--on the very stone where he had sat with Armenouhi two
years before,--and turned his eyes apprehensively in the direction of
his home.
At two o’clock in the morning, two hours after leaving the English
store, Takvor was still on the hilltop, undecided whether he should
awaken his father and mother, or remain where he was until daybreak.
The rising moon was dispelling the darkness and revealing the outlines
of the towering minarets in Stamboul and the dark waters of the
Marmora. He gazed beyond the dull roofs of Hasskeui to the bit of the
Golden Horn reflecting the moonlight, and seemed to see a dark object
moving along the surface of the water. At last he distinguished the
form of a large kaiyik. In a moment a second boat glided across the
illuminated spot, and was followed by several others so closely that
he could not count them. It seemed strange to him, for boats were not
permitted at night. The splashing of the oars could now be heard, for
the boats were approaching Hasskeui. Perhaps they were bringing Jews
and Armenians, who, like himself, had escaped death, and were returning
home in the darkness. He listened in vain for the sound of feet.
Five minutes passed, and then, simultaneously, in almost every part of
the town, the air was suddenly filled with the crashing of doors and
windows, followed by the shrieks of women, and the despairing “Aman!
aman!” of men.
He could see the Armenians fleeing from their houses toward the hill,
and there was yet time for him to escape across the valley to Shishli;
but he must in some way warn his parents, that they might escape with
him. When he reached the village, he found in the streets the same
tall, sinewy Kurds and Lazis going on with their fiendish work.
“O merciful Heaven!” he cried on approaching his home; “have I come too
late?”
Two gigantic Kurds were dragging his unconscious father from the house,
while his mother begged piteously for his life. One of the savages
tried to calm her with promises of safety.
“Take our money, but spare him,” she pleaded; “if you kill him, kill me
too.”
The Kurd only laughed.
“No, my beauty; we have a better use for you.”
The Kurd’s club descended on the unconscious man’s head. Yester threw
up her arms and dropped dead on the body of her husband.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SILENT APPEAL
Takvor was less than five rods away. He rushed behind the Kurd who was
poking his mother’s face with his foot, wrenched the club from his
hand, and before the savage had time to turn, struck him lifeless to
the earth. With incredible quickness he aimed a blow at the other Kurd,
but the great fellow, seeing his companion fall, was already on his
guard. Their contest was unequal. Takvor’s club was struck from his
hands. He sprang back and dashed down the street. The Kurd followed. A
long-bearded, pious-looking Jew who had been watching them chuckled as
the two figures were disappearing down the street, and then entering a
vacant house, hurriedly filled the spacious pockets of his long black
coat with whatever money and jewelry and silver he could find, locked
the door and sealed it, and went away to seek other plunder.
The Kurd and Takvor raced toward the Golden Horn, one for vengeance,
the other for life. In and out they went, through the crowds of Jews
engaged in moving furniture from the houses of the Armenians. Only a
few yards separated them. The Kurd seized a stone from the pavement and
hurled it at Takvor’s head, but missed him. Takvor rushed on. Unable
to turn the sharp corner at the lower end of the street, he dashed
through the narrow passage to the landing. The Kurd had been steadily
gaining on him, and now seemed to have him in his grasp; for the water
of the Golden Horn cut off escape in that direction. A kaiyik which had
brought the savages from Stamboul was just ahead.
If Takvor could but reach its oars, there might yet be a chance to
escape. He sprang for them. The boat, struck by his full weight, broke
loose from its mooring and darted forward. The Kurd gave a leap. The
kaiyik was so far from the shore that he missed it; but as he plunged
beneath the water, he caught the dragging rope. Takvor seized an oar
and brought its blade down on the cropped head of the Kurd the moment
he appeared on the surface. A Turkish soldier in his sentry box stood
silently watching the fight; he raised his rifle and aimed at Takvor;
then slyly glancing about to satisfy himself that there was nobody to
inform on him for neglect of duty, he lowered his gun and resumed his
beat.
Takvor fastened the oars to the locks and pulled out to the middle of
the stream. There were yet two hours before sunrise; until then he
was safe in the kaiyik; but what then? His distracted mind refused to
act, save to rehearse the scenes he had just gone through. When he
became calmer, he realized where he was, and felt the hopelessness of
his position; he was now an orphan, and homeless, pursued by the very
government which should have protected him. When daylight came, his
sorrows might soon be ended forever; but if not, what could he do? or
where could he go? Possibly for a time he might hide in the mountains,
or in some village in the interior. The quiet Ak Hissar and the face
of his little Armenouhi arose before him. He instinctively put his hand
to his pocket, and found the purse which Taviloudes had left there. Its
discovery decided him; he would remain in the kaiyik until daylight,
and then row to Haidar Pasha for the early train. He had no passport,
but in some way he might manage to elude the officials; if not, he
might bribe them. He allowed his boat to drift, seeing ever before him
the picture of his parents lying in the street. Could he leave them
unburied, to be thrown into a pit, or into the sea? The rattling sound
of a cart, borne across the water by the quiet morning air, suggested
that already they might have been taken away. Once again an almost
irresistible desire to look upon the face of his mother seized him.
Then the vision of Armenouhi pleaded with him to go to her. The appeal
was so real that he caught up the oars and headed the boat downstream.
Now that he was beyond the reach of voices from Hasskeui, he took one
last look at the village. In the east, above the hill, the first rays
of light were appearing; and there on the horizon, silhouetted against
the morning sky, were hundreds of moving figures. It was the Armenians
who had fled from their houses, surrounded by their pursuers and
falling beneath their blows. To shut out the horrible sight, he fixed
his eyes on the bottom of the kaiyik and pulled vigorously at the oars.
Half an hour later he passed beneath the Galata bridge and around
Seraglio Point, into the Marmora. At sunrise he left the kaiyik at
Haidar Pasha, and started toward the station. Groups of Kurds were
sitting idly here and there, and soldiers impatiently walked about the
street. His first thought was to return to the kaiyik, and row far out
into the Marmora, when a horse and rider dashed round the corner of the
street and stopped.
“I will shoot the first person who touches an Armenian,” shouted the
horseman, who was Fuad Pasha, the military governor of Haidar Pasha.
By his prompt, bold action, he saved the lives of thousands of people
who lived on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. Poor Fuad! he paid
dearly for thwarting the will of his imperial master. His military rank
was taken from him; his property was confiscated; he was arrested as
a traitor, exiled, and put to torture. A few years later he died in a
military prison in Damascus. The name of Fuad, Turk and Moslem, should
be enrolled among the martyrs.
Takvor’s courage revived and he again started for the station.
CHAPTER XV
MARKET DAY
It was midsummer market day at Ak Hissar. Temporary booths were
erected along the street, and awnings of coarse sacking were stretched
from roof to roof to protect the people and their wares from the
scorching rays of the sun. Peasants from the neighboring villages came
trooping in; some carried their marketable possessions in little packs
balanced on their heads or their shoulders; others, more thrifty,
followed their heavily laden donkeys, and if fortunate enough to
own a horse, perched on the high packsaddle between the well-filled
baskets. The wealthier peasant pulled his unwieldy buffaloes along
by a rope attached to the nose, while the cart wheels, which were
merely circular blocks sawed from the trunk of an ancient oak, groaned
beneath the weight of luscious melons and plump white-gowned females
of the harem. The peasants, all turning merchants for the day, spread
out their goods, each in the place that his forefathers had occupied
from time immemorial. What quantities of melons, onions, garlic, long
squashes sold by the cubit, delicious white grapes, the first figs of
the season, dried mulberries, eggplants, cherries, shucked walnuts,
curded buffalo’s milk, and other delicacies familiar to the Anatolian!
The old junk dealer arranged artistically his stock of rusty nails,
pewter forks, padlocks, hinges, and old clock wheels. The grocer
displayed before his shop a box of dirty rock salt, and a few glass
jars half filled with lump sugar, Turkish delight, and cigarette
papers. Suspended from the roof of the saddler’s booth were rope
halters, strings of blue glass beads for the buffaloes, and bunches of
evil eyes, which were good to bind about the necks of children as a
preventive of accident or disease. The money changer, the successor of
Badiark, had arranged his piles of silver coins to tempt the people to
buy or to borrow. And Dicran, removing the wooden shutters from his
shop, spread out his gaudy English prints.
The peasants had turned out in large numbers. Although the Lazis from
the hamlet over on the mountain side had nothing to sell nor money with
which to buy, they were there in a body, and the chaoush, or corporal,
with his four soldiers of the military patrol had abandoned the long,
lonesome beat over the country roads, to join the crowd for a holiday.
By nine o’clock business was at its height. The dispenser of drinks was
winding his way through the crowd, shrilly crying, to the accompaniment
of his clanking glasses, “Limonata sowuk, chok sowuk, buz gibi!
lemonade, cold, very cold, like ice!” although for an hour the sun
had been pouring its rays into his unprotected can. The butcher stood
before the suspended leg of mutton, and with a horse’s tail mounted on
a stick brushed away the clouds of flies. The baker balancing a large
wooden tray on his head, and carrying a tall tripod with which to erect
a temporary stand, was crying “Semit!” to tempt the hungry to buy his
hoop-shaped bread. The vender of ices, with buckets of cherry and
cream suspended from a pole swung over his shoulder, was drawling out
his nasal “Dondurma!” and the little children, begging their closely
veiled mammas for ten paras, looked longingly at the cold sweets.
The barber had placed his chair in the middle of the street, and was
thumping his copper basin to remind the people that their hair was
long, or that they needed a shave. A Jew, a stranger to the village,
went round chanting in a nasal, singsong tone the virtues of his cheap
Manchester prints, which he called “Americani.” At the lower end of
the street were the two village musicians, one improvising weird minor
strains on a crude clarionet, the other beating time on terra cotta
pompoms, while in a circle about them were soldiers, who, with guns
raised above their heads, were performing the peculiar Oriental dance
that to the European seems a series of contortions without rhyme or
reason.
The old Armenian women went from booth to booth, poking their long bony
fingers into the fruit, complaining that it was unripe, or sour, or
too dear, and bought nothing. The swarthy Armenian girls, clad in their
bright-colored baggy trousers, or skirts gathered about the ankles,
and decked with all the family jewelry, walked back and forth, making
eyes at the young men, or stopping for a moment to talk and titter.
Everywhere little groups of fat Turkish women were squatting on the
ground, peeking out through the openings of their veils, and whispering
secrets to each other.
It was the first time since she had been away to school, that Armenouhi
was spending her vacation at home; for the unscrupulous Hassan Bey had
married a Turkish girl, and from him no more trouble was anticipated.
When she and her sister Vassinag wandered about the market, examining
the goods which the peasants were offering for sale, the eyes of the
marketers followed them, for of all the girls in the village they alone
wore European dress. The rough soldiers stopped in the midst of their
dance to stare; the Lazis, to whom European clothes were strange,
stood transfixed, as if gazing at an apparition from their celestial
paradise; the girls from the other villages turned and looked with
envy; and the gossiping women, nudging each other, whispered that
Hassan Bey could not be blamed for trying to win her even by force. The
sisters stopped before their grandfather’s shop, and while pretending
to admire the lack of skill with which he displayed his heterogeneous
stock of axes, silks, and cigarettes, they were listening to one of his
stories. Although the recital was intended to excite their laughter,
Dicran himself was watching the changing expression on Armenouhi’s
face. How like his own mother she was! Suddenly looking up, he met the
staring gaze of a strange white-turbaned priest standing before his
shop. The priest dropped his eyes in confusion and moved on to the
group of dancing soldiers.
CHAPTER XVI
THE REWARD
The angry words of a soldier suddenly rang through the market, and the
music at the lower end of the street ceased. The people, attracted
by the commotion, began to flock in that direction, for a fight was
one of the features of market day. At a sign from the priest, the
soldier raised his rifle and knocked down the Armenian with whom he was
quarreling. The other soldiers immediately sprang to their feet; and
the Lazis, taking from beneath their cloaks the long knotty clubs which
they had secreted, crowded about as if to join the fray.
“Why are those mountaineers here in such numbers? and why are they
armed?” whispered the terror-stricken people.
There was some comfort in the thought that the unusual number of
soldiers in the village would afford some protection, should there be
trouble, yet the alarm spread through the market. The lemonade man no
longer clanked his glasses; the butcher forgot to switch the flies from
his mutton; the unknown Jew ceased to chant the praises of his cheap
“Americani” goods. The noisy bustle of the market suddenly became an
intense silence; the blow that felled the Armenian was apparently the
beginning of the rumored massacre. The excited Lazis stood for a moment
watching the mollah; and at a motion of his hand they rushed at the
crowd.
Beneath the floor of Dicran’s shop was a small cellar-like hole, to
which a trap door gave access. It was so seldom used that few of the
villagers knew of its existence. While the terrified people were trying
to escape from the pursuing Lazis, Dicran hurriedly raised the door,
lifted Armenouhi and Vassinag down, and then following with Vartan,
fastened the door from below; he hoped they might remain concealed
until the trouble was over. The shrieks and groans of the victims
pierced their ears. Crouching in the far corner against the dirt wall,
and trembling with fright, the girls threw their arms about each other,
while the men stood ready to defy entrance, if they were discovered.
They presently heard the heavy tread of soldiers on the boards above.
“And where is Dicran, chief of them all?” the priest demanded of the
tax collector, who was close at his heels.
Hassan Bey, half dead with fright, fearing that some Laz would kill
him for the Armenian that he was, and hoping to secure his own safety,
was encouraging the massacre of his own people. He knew of the place
beneath the floor, over which the mollah was at that moment standing,
and he believed that Dicran was hiding there. He hesitated, but only
for an instant. Had not old Dicran refused him Armenouhi? Was not
vengeance sweet? and he pointed to the door beneath the priest’s feet.
“Leave him down there, and we’ll keep him for the last,” cried the
priest, finding that the door was securely fastened; and to prevent
escape, he stationed the chaoush and his four soldiers in the shop.
The mollah’s savage words alarmed the captives beneath. Vassinag
fainted in Armenouhi’s arms; Vartan was dazed and silent, but the old
man set his teeth with a firm resolve to sell his life as dearly as
possible. They heard the sound of retreating steps, and the shuffling
of the soldiers’ feet on the boards above their heads.
It would be distressing to describe half the horrors enacted in the
village on that market day. Some of the Armenians escaped to the
mountains. Others concealed themselves in their houses, and were
dragged out and beaten to death before their wives and children. Others
sought refuge in the church, hoping that the sanctity of the place
might save them. A heavy blow against the door turned their hope to
alarm. A second blow burst the door open, and in rushed the frenzied
savages. It was but a moment’s work to thrust the old women and
children into the street, and bid them be off, while the fairest of
the young women were seized to become the slaves of the soldiers, a
reward for their services. The church door was then closed and barred,
imprisoning a score of defenseless men.
“Straw! Straw!” shouted the priest.
A dozen men, among them Hassan Bey, rushed to the neighboring stables,
and in a moment returned with great bundles of it. They stuffed it into
the openings beneath the building.
“Gaz!” again shouted the mollah, and three men who had anticipated the
order came running from the grocer’s shop with large cans of Russian
petroleum.
The oil was quickly poured over the combustible materials; the mollah
took from his turban a box of matches, ignited one, and threw it into
the straw. The flames darted upward and soon enveloped the building.
The Moslem waited until he was satisfied that none within could be
alive, and then slowly walked along the street to the old well on which
the village depended for water; if the dead were to be buried, there
was a grave already dug; and bidding the Turks collect the bodies, he
watched them as they fell splashing into the water.
CHAPTER XVII
CAPTIVES
The chaoush and his soldiers, still guarding the trap door beneath
which Dicran and his family were imprisoned, had watched their
companions burn the church, and disappointed at not having a part in
it, gave expression to their discontent.
“Bring out the old man,” ordered the mollah, who had now joined them.
The chaoush looked at the soldiers; the soldiers looked at the crowd;
the crowd looked at the priest. Nobody moved; for nobody cared to
venture into the hole to grapple with Dicran. A grin spread over the
faces of the crowd, and the chaoush, feeling himself to be the object
of their ridicule, pried open the door, and with a revolver in his hand
stepped down the ladder. When halfway to the bottom, a powerful hand
suddenly tightened about his arm. He tried to shoot; but before he
could aim, his revolver was wrenched away. Defenseless, he hurriedly
scrambled out, to the amusement of the jeering crowd. Angered by the
raillery, he seized his rifle and pointed it into the hole, ordering
his soldiers to follow his example. They fired again and again in all
directions until it seemed that nothing below could be alive. But
Dicran, having foreseen what would happen, had placed the girls in the
far corner, and partly protecting them with the empty boxes, he and
Vartan stood before them. The chaoush, followed by his soldiers, again
climbed into the hole. On the ground lay the bodies of the two men,
while in the far corner, almost out of the range of the rifles, was
the white dress of a woman. Striking a match to light up the darkness,
the chaoush stood gazing at the upturned, beseeching eyes of Armenouhi
holding her unconscious sister in her arms. The soldiers seized the
wounded men, dragged them to the floor above, and then carried out the
girls.
“Leave the old man till the last,” shouted the mollah, pushing Dicran
into the corner, while the soldiers stretched Vartan on his back on the
floor.
Armenouhi buried her face in her hands to shut out the sight, while the
old man, bleeding profusely, sat in the corner, apparently unmoved.
“Why should they torture a dead man?” he thought. Slowly his eyelids
sank and closed; his head dropped to one side; he fell over face
downward on the floor, and his arms were stretched out as if lifeless.
“Yallah! the old dog is dead,” cried the mollah, and gave Dicran a kick
to verify his remark; not a muscle of the old man’s body moved; the
disappointed mollah had uttered the very words of Dicran’s thought, for
he left him lying where he was.
The sound of a whistle announced the approaching noon train from
Constantinople. Takvor, the only passenger for Ak Hissar, was wondering
what would happen when he should attempt to enter the village without a
passport. He nodded to the German station agent, who seemed strangely
excited, and then approached the gate, only to find the guard absent.
Congratulating himself on passing so easily, he started for the town.
A thick volume of smoke was rising, and the houses seemed deserted.
Turning into the street, he saw the charred timbers of the church. Then
he caught sight of the bare-headed Dicran contending with a group of
soldiers and felled to the ground. The soldiers were leading away two
girls, one dressed in white, the other in black. He recognized them and
sprang forward.
“Armenouhi! Armenouhi!” he shouted.
The chaoush lifted his rifle and brought it down on Takvor’s head. One
blow was enough; then seizing Armenouhi by the arm, he dragged her on.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHAOUSH
The four soldiers who were leading Armenouhi and Vassinag away were
rough peasants from the distant interior. They were unable to see any
refinement or delicacy in their captives; for them such things did
not exist; and they were acting in obedience to the Prophet. What the
great Padishah bade, or what the religion of the Prophet sanctioned,
could be no crime. Moreover, woman had no soul; she was made for man;
and what mattered it who the man might be? As for those giaours, those
Christian women, who were not even worthy of being the slaves of the
soulless Moslem wives, what difference did it make what became of them?
The Koran and the state were indulgent; they placed no restraint on
the passions of their subjects. Such would have been the soldiers’
thoughts, if they had had any. But why should they think? The foolish
Franks might do that; but for a good Moslem to think,--the Padishah
forbade it.
The chaoush was of a somewhat better type of man than were his
soldiers, for he came from an old family which could trace its history
back to the conqueror Mohammed’s time, when Brusa was the Turkish
capital. He began his active life in a regiment of the Imperial Guard
at Yildiz. There he had an opportunity to see something outside the
life of the ordinary Turkish soldier. Fridays, when the Sultan went to
Selamlik, he had stolen glances at the distinguished foreigners and the
beautiful women who were on the ambassadors’ stand. When on guard, he
had often seen the ladies of the royal harem driving about the park;
and sometimes, when their veils were thrown aside, he had glanced at
their faces. Eight years in Constantinople had taught him to think.
He envied the position and wealth of his superiors; he would compare
the large houses on the Bosphorus with his own big ruin in Brusa;
and he often dreamed of doing the Sultan some great favor, that with
the baksheesh which he was sure to receive in return he might restore
the old house, and, like his forefathers, live the life of an idle
country pasha. But when his regiment was disbanded, he was as far from
being a pasha as ever, and returned home almost penniless. Two objects
militated against his life of ease and idleness,--his mother and his
poverty; and forced by them both, he enlisted as a chaoush in command
of the military patrol which guarded the country roads about Ak Hissar.
CHAPTER XIX
FOR THE PADISHAH
The first glance at Armenouhi revealed to the chaoush her remarkable
beauty. She was not so plump as most Turks wish their wives to be, yet
there was something about her which reminded him of the wealthy Frank
ladies and the wives of the Sultan’s harem. She was exceedingly pale;
her cheeks were stained with tears; her hair, no longer held together,
fell in profusion about her shoulders; and her dress was soiled; yet
never had he imagined a dark-eyed houri of paradise half so beautiful.
The great, blue eyes, which some called evil eyes, looked into his for
just an instant when he lighted the match in the dark cellar; there was
no trace of evil in them. Now they seemed to lack that deep expression,
and were staring vacantly. What had the young man called her? Was it
“Armenouhi?” He wondered if that could be her name. He spoke it aloud,
and looked into her eyes to read the answer. Her head was drooping, her
face half concealed by the flowing hair, and her eyes gave no response.
Moved by pity, he brushed the hair from her forehead with his big rough
hand, and while doing so, one of his soldiers made as if he would touch
her.
“Leave her alone,” growled the chaoush, striking the uplifted hand.
A coarse grin spread over the faces of the soldiers. Then one of them
pinched her arm.
“I tell you to leave her alone; she is mine,” roared the chaoush; and
pointing to the one who had pinched her, he commanded him to bring a
horse. He lifted Armenouhi to the saddle, sprang up behind, and hitting
the horse with the butt of his gun, rode rapidly toward the mountain.
Vassinag was left with the four brutal soldiers; her eyes closed, her
head fell forward, and she slipped through the arms of her captors to
the ground.
The chaoush had abandoned his post, but that mattered little; for in
the general excitement he would hardly be missed. Moreover, his mind
was too occupied to think of such a trivial matter, for visions of
great wealth and royal favor were fast rising before him; and it seemed
to him that at last he could restore the old home, and be a pasha, as
his father had been. He would place Armenouhi in his house in Brusa,
under the care of his mother, and at Beiram, when the Sultan added a
wife to his harem, he would present her to him. The Padishah had great
wealth, and for such a wife the reward could not be small. It would be
well for the girl too, and at the thought a feeling somewhat akin to
kindness possessed him. If she but knew that some day she was to be
the wife of the great Padishah, how happy she would be! In his newly
found hope he had already forgotten the scene of an hour before, and
was unable to understand why his captive should lean so lifelessly upon
him. He would not harm her, not even touch her, for she was reserved
for the Padishah. He would speak comfortingly to her, and then she
would be happy and talk to him.
“Armenouhi,” he began, as gently as his guttural voice would allow.
She seemed not to hear.
“Armenouhi,” he repeated, a little louder.
Still there was no response; and thinking that perhaps it was not her
name, he again looked into her face.
“The little Armenian!” he mumbled half aloud. “No other name could suit
her better,” and that he decided it should be.
“Armenouhi,” he repeated, “you are safe. Nobody shall harm you. You
shall be the wife of the great Padishah, and live at Yildiz. You
shall have silk dresses and diamonds; and slaves and carriages; and
go to Selamlik; and some day perhaps you may be the Valide Sultana.
You should be happy now, Armenouhi, for never again shall you live
at Ak Hissar with dirty Armenians. I will take you to Yildiz, to the
Padishah.”
For just an instant Armenouhi piteously raised her eyes to the
soldier’s face; her lips moved as if she would speak, but no sound
came. The horrors she had witnessed that day had robbed her of her
speech. The chaoush could not understand her silence; for what
Circassian or Albanian would not leap with joy at such a proposal?
Disappointed, yet not discouraged, he redoubled his efforts to win her
confidence, and stopping his horse by the wayside, he broke a leafy
branch from an overhanging tree that he might protect her head from the
scorching rays of the sun.
It was a journey of twenty-two hours from Ak Hissar to Brusa; but with
two on the horse the chaoush did not hope to accomplish it in less
than three days. It was late in the afternoon before they reached the
spring on the summit of the mountain. He dismounted and looked into the
valley from which they had ascended. A thin column of smoke was still
curling up from the dying embers of the church. Before him, by the
lake on the other side of the mountain, lay the little town of Isnik,
two hours away. Not wishing to reach the village before dark, he led
his horse into the shade of a large tree, beneath which was a spring
bubbling up through the sand and rocks, and lifted Armenouhi from the
saddle. She sank to the ground, burying her face in her hands. He stood
for a moment looking at her, and then going to the spring, washed the
old gourd which the shepherds used for a drinking cup, filled it with
water, and carried it to her.
“Drink, Armenouhi; it will do you good.”
She remained silent and motionless. Again he offered her the gourd, but
there was no response.
“Don’t be afraid, child; I would not harm you; and Yallah! if anybody
so much as puts a finger on you, he shall take a short road to
paradise.”
At this suggestion of kindness Armenouhi slightly raised her head, but
immediately hid it as before. Encouraged by the movement, he drew a
handkerchief from his belt, moistened it, and in his clumsy way bathed
her forehead. Then for the first time he noticed how big and red were
the stains on her white dress. He refilled the gourd and tried to wash
them away. When his efforts only increased their size and ugliness, he
ceased, and stood wondering where he could take her for the night. If
they remained in the fields, they could probably escape observation,
but the brigands who infested the region might steal her from him;
besides, she was not a rough soldier like himself, who could sleep
in the open. If he should seek protection in Isnik, he feared what
the people might say of her helpless condition and of the traces of
blood. Pulling off his coat, he wrapped it about her, but it scarcely
concealed the half of her skirt. He recalled an old shepherd hut down
on the slope of the mountain, where he might find something to cover
her. With this new hope he again bathed her forehead, and lifting her
to the saddle, started down the mountain.
“My sister has met with an accident,” he mumbled to the old woman he
found spinning before the hut, “and I have nothing to protect her; can
you not let me have something to wrap about her?”
She had lived too long among brigands to express any astonishment
at Armenouhi’s appearance. At the same time she would have refused
his request if he had not been a chaoush. Groaning of her poverty,
she hobbled into the hut and presently returned with a long black
cloak, which she put about the girl. Without even a word of thanks,
the chaoush rode on, leaving her staring after him, indignant at his
ingratitude.
It was dark when the chaoush, with Armenouhi on the saddle before him,
passed through the ancient, crumbling gateway of Isnik, and stopped
before the door of the inn. To the innkeeper he explained that he was
carrying a sick girl home to her mother in Brusa; and the one vacant
chamber was placed at his disposal. He lifted Armenouhi from the horse,
carried her upstairs, and laid her on the bed. He went and prepared hot
milk and rice, and took them to her. Before he left her for the night,
he removed the long black cloak, and again bathed her face. He then
went out and closed the door, spread his coat for a bed in front of
it, lay down, and was soon fast asleep.
At dawn he stood at the door and listened. No sound came from within.
He knocked; but there was no answer. He opened the door and entered.
Armenouhi was lying on the bed as he had left her the night before, and
the food at her side was untasted. He spoke, but her half-opened eyes
betrayed no consciousness of his presence.
“Why doesn’t she speak to me?” he mused, as he removed the untasted
food and placed fresh coffee at her side.
Though she seemed unconscious, he urged her to drink, for soon they
must continue their journey. Half an hour later, again finding her in
the same position, he placed the coffee to her lips; she only raised
her sad eyes, and left it untasted. Wrapping the cloak about her, he
lifted her and carried her to the horse waiting below.
They passed the second night at an inn at Yeni Shehir; but Armenouhi
took no food. It was only toward the evening of the third day, when she
was cooling her head with water from a spring near Brusa, that she ate
two of the grapes he had picked from a vineyard by the roadside. It was
the first food she had tasted for sixty hours.
“That is right, Armenouhi,” he said kindly. “Eat more; for we have had
a long ride to-day.”
Not yet had the chaoush heard his captive speak. Not one of his many
questions had she answered; and only occasionally, when he brought her
water or fruit, did she turn her eyes to him. The stories which he told
her brought no smile, nor had she shed a tear since they left Ak Hissar.
Again it was dark when they climbed the narrow street in Brusa.
Stopping before a large wooden house with latticed windows, he
dismounted and knocked. The door was opened by a tall black eunuch, who
lifted Armenouhi from the saddle and carried her within; the chaoush
followed leading his horse.
CHAPTER XX
AS FROM THE DEAD
Not for hours after Takvor fell beneath the blow of the chaoush’s gun
did he feel returning consciousness. He tried to think where he was,
but all was blank. Finally there appeared from the deep obscurity of
his mind the childlike face of a little girl. He had seen the face
before, but where? It slowly faded away, and in its place came the form
of an old gray man. Then followed the sweet face of a little woman
seated in a richly furnished room. The picture slowly transformed
itself into a dingy prison cell. How familiar it seemed! Haggard faces
peered at him from the semidarkness. What was that awful ringing in his
ears, like the whirring of wings of myriads of swiftly flying birds?
Finally he remembered that he had come to Ak Hissar. But where was he
now? How his head throbbed and ached! He opened his eyes; save for a
single dim star above him, darkness was everywhere. It was a peculiar
position to be in, so doubled up, with one arm painfully bent beneath
him. He raised the other arm, but it fell helplessly back against the
damp stones which rose like a wall above him. He had been thrown into
the well with the dead.
Shuddering at the discovery, he again looked up. The faint ray of
light from a passing star, which just for an instant had been visible
through a crack in the boards covering the well, had disappeared,
and the darkness above was as dense as that about him. To extricate
himself, he painfully drew his left arm from beneath his back; how numb
it was! Then he discovered that his feet were bare; the shoes and the
clothes that Taviloudes had given him were gone, and he was naked. He
raised his hands and found he could touch the loose boards above him.
Cautiously lifting one of them aside, he listened. Though convinced
that no watchman was guarding the well, Takvor still listened long
before placing the boards aside to climb out. No nightingale broke the
stillness with its customary song; no cricket chirped; no breath of
air rustled the leaves; not a light was visible; only the stench-laden
smoke, as from a sacrificial altar of old, was rising from the embers
of the church.
Presently he saw emerging from the darkness about Dicran’s house the
form of a man. It approached the well, passing almost within arm’s
reach. It was Hassan Bey. His first thought was to call to his old
acquaintance for assistance. In a moment the tax collector, carrying a
large bundle, disappeared in the darkness beyond. Again he listened,
and as all was silent, he moved toward Dicran’s house.
Entering the door, he groped his way to the large hall which served as
a living room. His bewildered mind seemed to recall that Dicran had
fallen beneath the stone hurled by the Turkish soldier, and that the
girls had been dragged away, but he thought the old servant might be in
the house. At the hall door he paused.
“Dede,” he said, instinctively using the name by which Armenouhi had
always called the old man.
“Here, child,” faintly came a voice from a corner of the room.
Though Dicran was seriously injured, he had managed to creep to his
house unobserved, and there he was lying, bleeding and helpless, when
he recognized Takvor’s voice.
“Where are they?” asked Takvor, speaking the words which were uppermost
in his mind.
“They have been taken away; the soldiers have taken them to the
mountain,” groaned the old man. “Go, child; go and find them; go, go,”
and frantic with grief and pain, he kept repeating the command.
“Yes, yes, Dede, but I must take care of you first.”
He groped about in the dark for a candle, lighted it, barred the door,
and went to the corner where the old man was lying.
“What has happened to you, child? Where are your clothes?” asked
Dicran, seeing by the dim light of the candle that Takvor was naked.
While relating his experiences of the day, Takvor was tending the old
man. From a wound in the arm a little stream of blood was trickling
down the dirt floor. He quickly bandaged it. Then bathing his face and
hands, and dressing him in such clean clothes as he could find, he
assisted him in crawling along the floor to his bed.
“Go now, and take care of yourself, child,” whispered Dicran.
Takvor washed away the stains that nearly covered him, and dressed
himself in Dicran’s clothing.
“Take that bottle,” added the old man, turning his eyes to a niche in
the wall.
Takvor first placed the bottle to the old man’s lips, and then put it
in his pocket.
“Under the stone,” again came Dicran’s feeble voice.
He followed the direction of the old man’s eyes to a stone in the
middle of the floor, projecting a little above the others. In the hole
beneath he found an iron box, empty save for a few tattered papers and
a broken padlock, with which it had once been fastened.
“What is it, Dede?” he asked.
“Take the money and go.”
“There is none,” he replied, again searching among the torn papers.
“He has taken that too,” mumbled Dicran to himself; then, after a
moment’s reflection, he added, “Look beneath the box.”
Lifting the box from its hiding place, Takvor discovered beneath it
another nearly concealed by the dirt. It contained money. He took two
of the gold liras, extinguished the candle, and felt his way to the
street.
CHAPTER XXI
VASSINAG
It was now nearly midnight. Tired, faint, suffering, pursued like
a criminal, Takvor paused outside the door to listen; then on that
dark moonless night, he set out in search of the two girls, who, if
not dead, might still be in the village, or already slaves in some
inaccessible harem; or they might be miles away on the wild mountain
side, in the stronghold of a brigand. His was no easy task. Not knowing
which way to turn, he slowly approached the place where he had seen the
soldiers leading the girls away; there again he stopped to think, but
his memory could guide him no further. Dicran said the soldiers took
them to the mountain, and he left the village by the road to Isnik.
He could hardly find the path before him. He was faint, almost too
faint to walk, and the road was rough and full of holes. He stumbled
and fell, but arose and dragged himself forward. Again he fell, and
almost too weak to rise, he remained on the ground to rest and ease his
aching head. Thinking that in an hour or two the moon would appear, he
remained lying where he had fallen.
Suddenly he sat upright, greatly excited.
“What was that? Was it a cry of distress?” and he strained his ears to
listen.
Again there came a sound like the moaning of a woman. With heart
beating violently, he crept toward a distant cluster of bushes. He
hesitated a moment, and then lighted a match; in its flare he saw the
unconscious form of Vassinag. Raising her head, he wet her lips with
the liquor he had brought. Thinking that Armenouhi must be near, he
peered into the darkness for the white dress which he remembered she
wore, but he could see nothing. He listened, but could hear nothing.
“Armenouhi! Armenouhi!” he called, but there was no response.
He crept about the bushes, feeling through the dark places, but he
found nothing. Summoning all his strength, he took Vassinag on his back
and started for the village, a quarter of a mile away. The limp form
would have been a light burden for a well man, but for him, weak as he
was, it was beyond his strength. Once he fell; several times he laid
her down to rest; at last, thoroughly exhausted, he staggered into the
room where Dicran lay, and placed her on the bed beside him. Neither he
nor the old man spoke until he brought a candle to the bedside.
“Poor, poor girl!” sighed Dicran.
Takvor bathed her face and hands until she finally opened her eyes.
When she came to herself, she began to weep as if her heart would break.
“Oh, why did you not let me die?” she cried. “Why did you find me?”
Dicran sought to divert her by inquiring for Armenouhi, and from her
reply, broken by violent sobs, he gathered that the chaoush had ridden
with her to the mountains.
CHAPTER XXII
THE ANSWERED PRAYER
Takvor left Dicran and Vassinag to care of each other, though both were
helpless, and felt his way from the house to continue his search. Again
he left the village by the road to Isnik. He passed the group of bushes
where he had found Vassinag, and hastened up the mountain path, he
hardly knew whither. Again and again he asked himself why the chaoush
carried Armenouhi away on a horse, if he did not intend to take her to
a distance. Unable to answer, he hurried on as fast as his strength
would allow him, constantly calling, “Armenouhi! Armenouhi!” and
hearing only the echo of his own voice. Higher up the mountain the moon
rose above the horizon, lighting his way. At the summit he stopped at
the spring, and throwing himself down beside it, quenched his thirst.
He lay down a moment to rest. His eyes closed, and he fell fast asleep.
The sun was already high in the sky when he was awakened by the
bleating of sheep crowding about the spring. He inquired of the
shepherd if a soldier with a girl riding a single horse had passed
that way. The rough mountaineer, whose intelligence hardly equaled
that of the sheep he was tending, merely shrugged his shoulders, and
Takvor started down the southern slope of the mountain. He asked the
same question of the shepherd’s wife, whom he saw at the hut, but to
no purpose. Although she refused to give him information which might
incriminate a soldier, she saw his need and brought him a dish of
curdled milk. It was noon when he dragged himself into Isnik. To his
inquiry if a mounted soldier had entered the village, the passing
people gave a toss of the head and a cluck with the tongue, which was
equivalent to a gruff and emphatic “No.” He loitered about the inns,
sipping coffee and conversing with the idle Turks, hoping to obtain
some clew. He wandered about the narrow streets, staring into the
courtyards of the houses, but in vain. He crept into the dark recesses
of the old walls,--walls built when Isnik was the ancient Nicaea,--for
the chaoush might be hiding there. He entered beneath the great
arches of the amphitheater, where in early days the wild beasts of
the gladiatorial contests were confined, but he met with no success.
The ruined church of Saint Sophia was the only spot in the village he
had not searched. Entering the dismantled nave, and peering into its
darkest corners, he saw nothing but a crippled Moslem beggar lying fast
asleep.
In despair he sat down on a fallen marble column to collect himself.
Night was approaching. In the solitude of the deepening twilight his
thoughts, suggested by the ruins about him, ran over the historic
associations of the ancient place. On the very spot where he was
sitting, Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and the bishops
of the Christian churches met in council and formulated the Nicaean
Creed, which since that day has been repeated by millions of people. In
that very building another council of the early church declared that
the Holy Virgin interceded for mankind, and that her image should be
worshipped. If the Holy Virgin listened to the petitions of suffering
humanity, on what spot could he more fittingly seek for her mediation
than in the church where her worship was sanctioned? Raising his eyes,
he prayed Heaven to protect Armenouhi, and lead him to her; then he
covered his face with his hands, and burst into passionate weeping.
At last he returned to the inn and asked for a room; and climbing the
rickety stairs, wearily threw himself on the bed.
Bright sunlight was streaming through his window when he awoke, but
the despair of the previous night had not vanished with the darkness.
He tried to collect his thoughts, and to form some plan for the day,
but how hopeless it all seemed! The evidence that Armenouhi had been
taken to Isnik was very slight, and after all he might be following the
wrong trail. His eyes were suddenly attracted by the light from a small
object in the bedclothes, and he reached out his hand to take it. How
his heart beat! It was an enameled pin similar to one he had given
Armenouhi. Leaping to his feet, he hurried down the rickety stairs to
the landlord, and asked who had occupied the room the night before.
“What business is that of yours?” growled the surly Turk.
He ran to the stable, and calling the boy, held a large silver coin
before his eyes.
“Tell me what I wish to know,” said Takvor, “and it is yours.”
“What do you want?” asked the boy, opening his eyes at the prospect of
possessing the money.
“Who slept in my room night before last?”
“A Turkish girl.”
“How was she dressed?”
“In a black firadji.”
“Are you sure she wore a black firadji, and not a white one?”
“She wore a white dress beneath the black one. I saw it when the
soldier lifted her from the horse.”
“Did they come on one horse?”
“Yes.”
“Where did the soldier sleep?”
“At the head of the stairway, in the passage before the door.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I watched him.”
“Where was he going?”
“He said he was on his way to Brusa with his sister.”
“Which way did he take?”
“He went toward Yeni Shehir.”
“Are you telling the truth?”
“By the beard of the Prophet, and now give me my money.”
Takvor had learned enough, and tossing him the silver piece, rushed to
the innkeeper to order the fastest horse in the village. Encouraged by
the hope of finding Armenouhi safe, he ate a hearty breakfast, sprang
on the horse, and dashed through the western gate. At noon he was in
Yeni Shehir; and to his inquiry if a chaoush and his sister had passed
that way, he was told that they had started for Brusa early that
morning. The moment the horse had finished its grain, he again hurried
on to overtake them. He reached Brusa fully two hours after the chaoush
had imprisoned Armenouhi in his harem.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN THE HAREM
The traveler will wander far to find more beautiful scenery, quainter
houses, stranger customs, and a more peculiar people than in the little
city of Brusa, in the valley at the foot of the snow-capped Bithynian
Olympus. He who has seen the spot, no longer wonders that Hannibal, the
great Carthaginian, chose it as the place of his exile; or that Prusias
made it the capital of his kingdom; or that the younger Pliny, its
Roman governor, was inspired to write to his countrymen descriptions of
its beauty. Indeed, says the Turk, Brusa has a mosque and a pleasant
walk for every day of the year. First Pagan, then Christian, and now
Mohammedan, it has had a checkered history. The Phrygians, the Greeks,
the Arabs, the Seljuks, the Crusaders, the hordes of Tamerlane, the
Osmanli Turks, all have made it their field of battle; ruthless fires
have devoured it; earthquakes have thrown it down and buried it. Yet
it lives. The archæologist searches about its ancient Roman walls
and citadel for inscriptions. The architect sketches its Byzantine
churches. The pious Moslem makes pilgrimage there to pray at the tombs
of the early sultans. The sick of all the empire seek health in its
far-famed sulphur baths. And the ever-present tax collector haunts the
thrifty peasant to extort from him the produce of his fertile fields.
The town stretches from the valley far up the mountain side, where
the upper rows of houses, perched in almost inaccessible places, are
reached by steps. Two torrents, rising in the heart of Olympus, have
rent deep gorges on the mountain side, the wild shrubbery that fringes
them half concealing the rushing, foaming water. Long rows of old
Turkish houses, huge wooden structures, line the ravines. To the west
of the town an underground mountain stream of boiling, sulphurous water
breaks out here and there, sending volumes of steam high into the air,
and emptying itself into the baths of the valley below.
The house which the chaoush called home, and to which he had taken
Armenouhi, was halfway up the hillside overlooking the eastern slope
of the mountain. It was a rambling affair of the old Turkish type, a
huge square box with smaller boxes at its sides for wings. The first
floor of the main part consisted of one large hall, with a stairway
leading to the rooms above. At its two sides were doors opening into
narrow passageways that led to the living rooms in the wings. In the
days of its owner’s long-past prosperity, the part toward the mountain
was the selamlik for the men; the lower wing was the haremlik. But the
house, declining as it were from sympathy with the family’s departing
fortunes, had become a ruin. The upper story was now abandoned, for
the roof had fallen in. The selamlik would long ago have refused to
stand, had it not been supported with great wooden props; the hall
had been stripped of its divans; its windows were broken, and its
present occupants were a few hens, the goat which supplied the family
with milk, and the horse that carried the chaoush and Armenouhi.
The haremlik, consisting of a few small rooms arranged along the
passageway, was the only habitable part of the entire house. Here the
family lived; it was now selamlik, haremlik, kitchen, pantry, workshop,
all in one.
The occupants of the old house were as near collapse as the building
itself. The head of the family was the mother, a corpulent old lady,
who had been corpulent even in her earlier days. Her small eyes,
half concealed by the greasy folds of skin encasing them, seemed to
penetrate whatever came within their vision. What passed for a dress
was once of a brilliant red, approximately matching her complexion.
For the past few years, since her husband had been fortunate enough to
be killed while smuggling tobacco, she had eked out a living for the
family by weaving on a crude hand loom Turkish towels. She toiled from
morning till night, for it was easier to go on with her labor than to
rise from her stool; but while her hours of work were long, the two
piasters a day that her industry brought her were scarcely sufficient
for the barest necessaries of life; and so, to supplement her scanty
earnings, she sold piece by piece the old embroideries, the jewels, and
other family heirlooms of more prosperous days.
Shareef, the chaoush’s sister, was a round-faced, buxom girl of
fifteen, who gave promise of rivaling her mother in the precious
virtue of magnitude. Her pleasant, dimpled face reflected only a mind
of ordinary intellect, her dark eyes not yet having acquired such
penetrating sharpness. Her fresh, clear skin, clarified by a daily
bath in the hot spring, betrayed a glow beneath that in time might
develop into the brilliant red of her mother’s complexion. Her plump,
soft hands were forbidden to be soiled by labor, and she spent her
days hopefully waiting for the mothers of marriageable sons to inspect
her charms and select her to grace the harem of some fortunate youth.
Prospective mothers-in-law came, inspected, and for some inexplicable
reason went; and still she was waiting for one whose insight would
recognize in her the germ of the desirable qualities already developed
in the person of her industrious mother.
A third member of the family was an aged female servant who had been
connected with the house from time immemorial. Compared with her
mistress in point of corpulence, she had gone to the other extreme.
Beneath the white firadji that concealed her hairless head, two sharp
eyes and an aquiline nose protruded as if keeping strict guard over
the tightly closed, toothless mouth below. It was the servant’s duty
to milk the goat, bring the water, cook the food over the coals in the
brasier, and to attend to such other household duties as could not be
left undone.
The remaining member of the family was a tall, slim, black eunuch, a
relic of better days. Ali was his name. He had been stolen as a child
from his African home among the jungles, and taken to Jedda. His cheeks
were branded to designate him as a slave, and he was sent to the
market to Stamboul, where, more than seventy years before, he had been
purchased by the chaoush’s great grandfather at public auction, and
brought home to guard his bride. This duty he had performed for four
generations; and with his beardless, shiny face, more and more wrinkled
and distorted as his age increased, and his high-pitched, squeaky
voice, he was the pride of the family, and the envy of the neighbors.
The entrance of the eunuch with a woman in his arms, followed by the
chaoush with a horse, occasioned no little excitement in the household.
Shareef was the first to reach the scene; behind her hobbled the
ancient servant; the mother, having finished the work of the day,
and trying to summon sufficient strength to convey her enormous self
to bed, laboriously arose and brought up the rear. The eunuch laid
Armenouhi down on the ruin of the ancient divan, while the chaoush,
leaving the horse to wander about the hall as it would, brought a
candle from the harem.
“Look, Ana,” he said to his mother, holding the light to Armenouhi’s
face.
“Oh! oh! How beautiful!” cried Shareef, clasping her hands. “Who is
she?”
The entire family bent over the prostrate figure of the girl, whose
disarranged hair half concealed her pale, sad face.
“Oh, the sweet face!” again cried Shareef, with admiration; and
brushing the hair from her forehead, she bent down and kissed her.
Armenouhi, perceiving kindness in the voice and the caress, opened her
eyes.
“Her eyes are blue,” exclaimed Shareef, excitedly.
“She is a Frank girl,” interrupted her mother, fixing her gaze on her
son and chiding him for the danger it brought the family. “We shall be
arrested, and left to die in prison,” she cried, and begged him to take
her immediately from the house.
“She is not a Frank girl, Ana,” replied the chaoush. “She is an
Armenian. Her people have been killed, and I have saved her for the
Sultan.”
The mother stood critically examining Armenouhi’s face, and the
sidewise movement of her head indicated her full approval. The eunuch,
who enjoyed an unusual reputation as a judge of beauty, felt her arm
with an air of an expert, and his old eyes lighted up as he squeaked,
“Pek guzel,” to add his approval to that of his mistress. In the
meantime Shareef had drawn aside the black cloak, uncovering the
stained white dress, and moved to pity, was gently stroking the girl’s
forehead.
“Poor child!”
Armenouhi only opened her eyes.
“Why doesn’t she speak?” asked Shareef.
“She has not spoken since her father was killed,” replied the somewhat
discouraged chaoush.
“She has been too much frightened,” squeaked the eunuch. “She will soon
be all right.”
Shareef wished to take the entire care of her, in her own room.
During the seven months before Beiram, she would teach her to forget
her sorrows. With kind treatment, her speech would return, and she
might even become a Moslem. To Shareef’s delight her brother made no
objection, but charged the eunuch to be on the alert, threatening
that if harm came to her, or if she escaped, his life would be the
penalty. Helping her up from the divan, and placing her arm about her
waist to support her, Shareef led her to the little front room at the
far corner of the hall. The eunuch, elated that once again in his old
age he had been entrusted with a fair young girl, bustled about with
self-importance, heated for her bath a jug of sulphur water from the
spring, and poured it into the large earthen basin. The bath finished,
warm milk, grapes, and fresh figs were brought, and Armenouhi, urged
to eat, tasted them. Apparently satisfied with his charge, the eunuch
arranged the bed on the floor, and after carefully trying the strength
of the iron grating at the window, withdrew from the room, and bolted
the door. For more than an hour Shareef sat by Armenouhi’s side,
stroking her head to induce sleep, and had nearly succeeded, when the
clattering of hoofs was heard in the street. Takvor had arrived in
Brusa. Armenouhi listened, for it seemed to her that the late rider
might be more than a passing traveler.
CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE TRAIL
Though failing to overtake the chaoush and his captive before they
reached the city, Takvor lost no time in going from inn to inn to
search for them; and it was late at night, when, completely exhausted,
he left his horse in charge of the innkeeper, who was to return it to
its owner in Isnik, and went to bed. The next morning he was again
roaming about the streets, studying the rider of every passing horse,
peering into the carriages, and staring rudely at the Turkish women. He
was at the station when the daily train left for Mudanieh. He searched
the bazaars where women congregated. And again he made the round of the
inns. Thinking that possibly Armenouhi would be taken to the hot baths
without the city, he spent the afternoon wandering up and down the
road. Then in the evening he sat in the inns, seeking the acquaintance
of every soldier who he thought might be the chaoush of Ak Hissar.
The next day, the day after, and the day after that, he continued his
search with an ever decreasing hope, yet with no thought of abandoning
it. He loitered for hours in the streets before the latticed windows of
the houses, thinking that if Armenouhi was behind one of them she might
see him. A week passed, and in all the city there was not a street or
an inn or a house that he had not examined. In his despair, he began to
believe she had been taken farther away, and he would have returned to
Ak Hissar to begin his search anew, had he not felt that his one clew
would lead him back to Brusa.
Another week passed, and wearied with roaming about the streets, he
seated himself in a conspicuous place at a popular café, to see and
be seen, for he felt sure that sooner or later, if Armenouhi was in
the city, she would pass that way, and if veiled beyond recognition,
she would at least be able to recognize him. One morning, just as he
was taking his customary seat, he saw a soldier leading Dicran’s old
horse down the street. At least he thought it was Dicran’s horse. The
soldier’s face seemed familiar, too, and he tried to recall when and
where he had seen him. Could he be the chaoush who had struck him at Ak
Hissar? Waiting until the soldier had passed, he followed him through
the bazaars to the little open square that served as a horse market;
the soldier had apparently come to seek a purchaser for the horse.
The more Takvor looked at the animal, the more he was convinced of
its identity; but to make sure, he approached and began to stroke the
horse’s head; he then opened his mouth and found the broken tooth.
Without betraying the emotion which the discovery had caused him, he
stood critically examining the animal, and then, as if not wishing
to purchase, watched the soldier from the café on the opposite side
of the square. The chaoush had not long to wait for a purchaser, for
the four liras he asked was a small price. Wrapping the gold in his
handkerchief, he started away, followed by Takvor, now through the
bazaars, now up the street along the eastern ravine, to the big old
rickety house in which Armenouhi was imprisoned. When the chaoush had
disappeared within, Takvor seated himself on the edge of the ravine as
if to watch the bounding water below.
CHAPTER XXV
BEHIND THE LATTICE
It was late on the day after her arrival in Brusa when Armenouhi awoke
from the long sleep into which she had fallen. Unable to understand
where she was, or how she came there, she stared, bewildered, at
Shareef, who was sitting at her side. For some time her eyes wandered
about the room, until finally she recalled that she had been carried to
Brusa. Her expression of perplexity suddenly turned to intense sorrow.
The massacre, the torture of her father, the unexpected appearance of
Takvor, and his fall beneath the chaoush’s gun, the three days’ journey
over the mountain, the horrible, wrinkled face of the old eunuch, the
thought of being a slave kept for the Sultan, that monster whom she had
been taught to hate more than any other, all seemed like a horrible
nightmare. To convince herself that she was not dreaming, she pressed
the nails of her fingers into the palms of her clenched hands, and
again she looked at the face of Shareef and at the grated window. Thus
awaking from her long stupor to the realization of her misfortune, she
buried her face in the pillow, and wept for the first time. Shareef
tried to comfort her, but for such sorrow as hers there was no comfort.
The eunuch, hearing a voice in the room, entered to examine his charge
by daylight. His opinion, based on long experience with women, was that
crying would do her good, and he left her to obtain whatever benefit
she might derive from her tears. Shareef, however, tried to impress
her captive companion with the thought that she was safe, bathed her
forehead with cold water, stroked her hands, and brought coffee, fruit,
and various dishes which the old servant tried to make tempting; but
she met with little success. The next morning she placed her white
dress before her, from which the stains had been washed, and sitting
by her on the divan at the window, sought to bring to her the peace of
mind that would restore her strength and voice.
The time dragged slowly by. From morning till night Armenouhi reclined
on the divan by the window, apparently listening to the small talk of
the warm-hearted Shareef in a vain effort to drive from her memory the
horrors of the past. Down beneath the bushes, in the ravine across the
street were the rushing waters; how she longed to lie beneath them!
Sometimes, under the observing eye of the eunuch, she was permitted
in the hallway, where, on the floor with Shareef, she watched the
shuttle of the loom traveling slowly back and forth, or listened to
the droll stories of the old servant as she roasted the mutton on the
brasier. Continuing speechless, and being an indifferent listener, she
was more and more frequently left alone. Relieved by the quiet which
the increasing absence of the simple Shareef brought her, she would
sit on the divan, dreamily looking through the latticed window at
the passing people. Early one morning while alone at the window, she
noticed a man sitting by the edge of the ravine thoughtfully looking
down into the water. Although she could see only his back, his figure
seemed familiar, and she watched, hoping to catch sight of his face.
Presently she saw the man turn as if to glance at the house. She no
longer doubted. Trembling with emotion she pressed her face closer to
the lattice.
“Takvor! Takvor!” she cried, unable to restrain herself.
Her speech, taken from her when she saw him fall beneath the soldier’s
blow, had returned with his unexpected appearance. He sprang up and ran
toward the house, unmindful of the danger to them both.
“Go back, quick!” and she calmly resumed her seat on the divan; the
door opened, and the eunuch, who had heard the voice, entered, looked
sharply at her, and started across the room to the window.
Armenouhi was trembling with excitement, and her face, which had been
pale, was now flushed with mingled joy and fear. She knew that if the
eunuch reached the window in time to discover Takvor, her newly found
hope would be destroyed; and stepping boldly before him, she placed
her hand on his arm, and looked smilingly up at the old wrinkled face.
“My voice has returned. Did you not hear me just now? I was trying to
see how loud I could speak?”
The eunuch was satisfied with the explanation, and a feeble light of
joy came to his old eyes; indeed, his young master was right; the fair
young girl could not fail to restore the ruined fortunes of the family.
It was evident that the suspicions of the eunuch, if any existed,
were removed, for hurriedly leaving the room, he returned followed by
Shareef, the old servant, and finally the mother, who had succeeded
in rising from her stool at the loom. Shareef ran to Armenouhi, and
throwing her arms about her neck, poured out a flood of questions.
“You must tell me just how you happened to find your voice. Could you
feel it returning? What did you say first? Is it just the same as it
was before? Now you will tell me all your troubles? Why don’t you
speak?” Thus she went on without waiting for a reply, and at last
turned to the eunuch to upbraid him for having deceived them.
“Give her a chance to speak,” squeaked the eunuch, at the first pause
in her abuse; “give her a chance, and she will speak.”
Had the chaoush been present at that moment, his hope of a generous
reward for presenting Armenouhi at Yildiz would have been prodigiously
strengthened. Her face was lighted with joy; her eyes had suddenly
become wonderfully bright; and like the brave little woman she was, she
endeavored to appear in full sympathy with their wishes, for thus she
could best play her part in the rescue.
“Do you know what I should like to say first?” she asked.
“O, she can really speak,” exclaimed Shareef, in her excitement,
pouring out another flood of questions. “What is it? What would you
say?”
“I was wishing that you would take me to the bath; for then I might
become stronger.”
The openness of her manner concealed her motive, and it carried the
conviction that she was in full accord with the chaoush’s plan.
“You dear child, of course you shall go.”
It was immediately arranged that on the next day they should all go to
the bath.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN DISGUISE
The sudden disappearance of the white figure that for an instant had
been visible behind the lattice, and the quickly uttered words bidding
him go back, were sufficient warning to Takvor. Almost overcome with
joy, he hurried down the street, keeping close to the wall. Having gone
some distance, from where, unobserved, he might see all who entered or
left the house, he stopped and forced himself to sit down and wait. He
had discovered Armenouhi, but could scarcely convince himself that he
was not dreaming. Still it was true; there stood the big, old house,
just the kind in which he should expect to find her, and the sound of
her voice was ringing in his ears. Her rescue was now but a matter
of time, for sooner or later the means of escape would be found. But
his excessive joy was abruptly terminated by the torturing questions
that began to rack his brain. For more than an hour he sat watching
the house; and when nobody appeared, he slowly walked past the window,
but heard no sound. The whole afternoon the old house seemed deserted;
only once, just at nightfall, was the door opened, and the old servant,
hobbling with her stick, crossed the street to the goat which was
tethered there. Unable to remain after dark without exciting the
suspicion of the watchman, Takvor returned to the inn for the night.
In the doorway was the innkeeper, a good-natured, sympathetic Greek,
to whom Takvor had confided his troubles. He noticed Takvor’s hurrying
steps, and the changed expression on his face, and he heard with
delight the result of the day’s search. Late that night they were awake
planning the rescue. They agreed that to use force, or to appeal to
the authorities, would surely result in failure; and they decided that
the wisest course was to watch the house, cultivate the friendship of
its occupants, if possible, and then at some unguarded moment steal
Armenouhi away. It was the time of the year when the Turkish women,
so completely concealed by their veils that even their own husbands
often failed to recognize them, delighted to pass their leisure hours,
singly or in groups, in some shady spot outdoors. The edge of the
ravine, cooled by the rushing water below, was one of their favorite
haunts; for there they might sit unobserved from morning to night. It
was the innkeeper’s suggestion that Takvor, dressed as a female, should
sit before the chaoush’s house, to find some way to communicate with
Armenouhi. The innkeeper’s wife provided the necessary clothing, and
carefully drilled him in the manners of an old Turkish woman.
The next morning a slightly built female figure, piously veiled, and
leaning on a long stick, slowly shuffled up the street, and sat down
in a shady nook by the ravine, not ten yards from Armenouhi’s window.
The high-pitched voice of a eunuch could be distinctly heard within,
interrupted occasionally by lower softer tones that were lost in the
sound of the tumbling waters.
Early in the forenoon the old servant led out the goat to graze along
the ravine. A little later the chaoush went down the street, and soon
returned, driving a covered carriage. He stopped before the door and
called to the eunuch, who soon appeared, followed by three women. The
plump Shareef was there, with face but partly covered. The second, a
slight, graceful form, but completely concealed beneath a heavy black
firadji, seemed to be Armenouhi. The one with head wrapped in a white
yashmak was the ancient servant. They climbed into the carriage, and
the chaoush drove them slowly over the rough stones down the hill.
When they were disappearing round the corner, the bent figure rose and
shuffled down the street as fast as an old Turkish lady could travel,
yet always keeping the carriage in sight. It soon became evident where
they were going, yet the figure followed. Half the afternoon the old
woman spent by the roadside near the bath, and then followed the
carriage back to the house. At sunset she shuffled down the street and
was lost to view.
Early the next morning, Takvor, for it was he, was again at his post,
and again he heard the voices within, one chatting merrily, the other
responding cheerfully. Toward noon the voices ceased; evidently
Armenouhi was alone, and he watched eagerly for the white form behind
the lattice. Presently, when he thought somebody was approaching the
window, he turned toward it, and with a pious ejaculation suddenly
removed the veil as if to rearrange it. The form within moved still
closer to the lattice. Again he lifted the veil, and slowly allowed it
to fall back to its place. Almost instantly he heard a low soft voice
singing a familiar air.
“Takvor, is it you? Is it you, Takvor?” were the words fitted to the
melody.
Again uncovering his face, and leaving it exposed somewhat longer than
before, he was bending forward to indicate that he had understood, when
the song was interrupted by another voice.
“I was singing,” Armenouhi explained, in answer to the almost
unintelligible squeak of the eunuch. “Surely you cannot forbid that.”
“No, child, sing all you please.”
Takvor sat looking down through the bushes to the water. Presently he
again heard the low singing.
“Be careful, be careful, for I am closely guarded.”
But before he had time to indicate that he had understood, he heard
Shareef’s voice. Satisfied with his morning’s work, for the ability
to communicate with Armenouhi was another step toward her rescue, he
returned to the inn to rest. Later in the day when he was again in his
customary place, he heard Armenouhi’s voice singing so softly that the
words were hardly audible.
“Is it you, Takvor?”
He swayed forward in reply.
“You must be very careful, and come only in the afternoon, when I am
sometimes left alone.”
Thus, as the song continued, Takvor learned the purpose for which the
chaoush detained her. She was already trying to persuade her captor
to permit her to sit by the ravine, and perhaps in time, when she had
greater freedom, she could escape. The singing, which had continued for
some time, once more apparently aroused the eunuch’s suspicions, for he
again entered Armenouhi’s room, this time with his master.
“Let her sing as much as she likes,” said a deep voice, which Takvor
recognized as belonging to the chaoush; “it shows that she is happy.”
“She sings in Armenian,” piped the eunuch; “and who can tell what she
says?”
“Then let her sing in Turkish.”
“It shall be only in Turkish,” assented Armenouhi; “or if you wish, I
will not sing at all.”
Takvor had already learned what he most desired. If Armenouhi was
destined for the royal harem, her person was sacred; her care and food
were the best the chaoush could afford, and would remain the best until
she was taken to Yildiz, or the soldier changed the purpose for which
he intended her. The day had brought him success, and at the sound of
Shareef’s voice in the room, he rose and hobbled down the hill to share
his joy with the innkeeper.
Following Armenouhi’s instruction, Takvor did not appear about the
house during the morning, but spent the time in making inquiries about
the soldier and his family. In the afternoon he was again at the
ravine, waiting for a sign of recognition. He waited in vain. The sun
set; the old servant led the goat into the house; the little groups of
Turkish women were leaving the hill; and Armenouhi had not appeared. At
last he thought he saw a form behind the lattice, and presently his ear
caught the humming of a Turkish air. It gradually grew louder, until he
could distinguish the words of the familiar proverb, “Patience is the
key of joy.” He was now assured of her safety, and he returned to the
inn.
The following afternoon the continual stream of talk coming from the
window informed him that Armenouhi was still there. He made no effort
to attract her attention, and was sitting looking into the ravine when
the door opened and the chaoush, followed by a closely veiled figure
and the plump Shareef, crossed the road, and sat down almost at his
side. Not a sign of recognition passed between them. “To-morrow,”
thought Takvor, “she may be left for a moment unguarded, when I can
speak to her; and then very soon may come the opportunity to carry her
away.” All that afternoon until sunset he did not move, fearing that
his manner might arouse suspicion; and it was only after the chaoush
had taken Armenouhi into the house, that he returned to his lodging.
CHAPTER XXVII
FIRE
In most Turkish towns August is called the month of fires, for it is
the time of the eggplant, a dish perhaps more delicious to the Turkish
palate than any other. The vegetables, cut into long thin slices, and
rolled in flour, are fried in mutton fat over a charcoal brazier.
The Turkish cook is often careless; the frying pan tips over, and
the mutton fat, falling on the live coals, ignites; in his effort to
extinguish the flames, the cook upsets the brazier; the streams of the
burning liquid run over the floor, and into the cracks between the
boards; and almost before you can realize what has happened, the little
room is a mass of flames. Long before the firemen come to the rescue,
the dry wooden house has become a heap of ashes.
Soon after dark Takvor bade the innkeeper good night and was mounting
the stairs to his chamber when he heard the resonant thump of the
watchman’s club on the pavement.
“Yangin var-r-r-r-!” the wild, jackal-like howl, or cry of fire, rang
out through the night, and soon the report of guns, and the tread of
feet hurrying over the paved street, gave promise of unusual excitement.
“Somebody has been frying eggplant,” thought Takvor, looking from the
window of his room to discover whether he was near the fire.
From a house at the foot of the eastern ravine the flames were already
darting high into the air, lighting up the darkness. A strong north
wind, blowing toward the mountain, carried the sparks along the street
and scattered them here and there as if to spread their destructive
work. The wailing cry of the watchman was taken up by dozens of others
throughout the city; and although the shooting of guns increased, the
roaring and crackling of the flames deadened all other sounds. In the
street before the inn a crowd of half-naked, shouting firemen, with a
useless pump on their shoulders, were rushing on at a mad pace, to
be the first to plunder, rather than to save, the burning house; and
following them, crowds of people were hastening toward the ravine.
Within fifteen minutes of the first cry of the watchman half a dozen
houses had caught; and the fire, rapidly getting beyond control, swept
up the hill.
The magnificent spectacle, the ruined homes, the sufferings of the
people, the probable loss of life, scarcely moved Takvor, as he
stood at the window within sight of the darting flames; his eyes
were directed to the darkness beyond. If the fire extended far up
the ravine, to the big old house, what would become of his little
Armenouhi, who was confined behind barred window and bolted door?
Would her keepers in their excitement forget her? Or if the fire did
not reach so far, might there not be an opportunity to steal her away?
Rushing down the stairs, and taking the friendly innkeeper by the arm,
he pulled him into the street, and together they made their way through
the crowd to the ravine. About the burning houses women and children
were screaming hysterically. Vicious-looking men, whose lack of
clothing marked them as firemen, were rushing about, not with what they
had saved, but with what they had stolen, while others had succeeded
in throwing on the flames a stream of water so small that its effect
was hardly noticeable. Higher up the hill another group of firemen were
tearing down a building to check the progress of the conflagration, but
already the flames had leaped over the space which they were making
vacant, and had caught the house above. Before the threatened building
a third group of firemen stood bargaining with its owner for the price
he should pay them for saving his property, and demanding the money in
advance. All along the ravine the men were hurriedly stacking their
furniture in the street, while the women were guarding it.
Takvor and the innkeeper hurried on through the crowd and up the
hill to the chaoush’s big house, whose great bare wall was already
reflecting the light of the fire below. In the street before the
door were gathered the entire family, anxiously watching the sparks
that had begun to fall through the broken roof. There was no longer
a doubt that the old house must go with the others, and following
the example of his neighbors, the chaoush began to bring the scanty
belongings of the family and put them in the street. As the fire came
nearer, the crowd about the house increased so rapidly that Takvor,
unnoticed, approached the latticed window. He could neither see nor
hear Armenouhi. He thought of calling to her, but fearing to attract
the attention of the watchful eunuch, he remained with his eyes fixed
on the lattice. The fire came nearer and nearer, and now the house next
below was ablaze. The chaoush, redoubling his efforts to save his few
remaining possessions, filled his arms with old furniture and hurried
with it to the women; and when suddenly from the fallen roof of the
main building a flame shot high into the air, he rushed in for his
last load. Now that the house was on fire, everything remaining within
became the lawful plunder of the firemen, who ran inside, followed
by Takvor and the Greek. Takvor and his friend paused a moment in
the great hall to locate the part of the house where Armenouhi was
confined, and were about to make their way to the door of the harem,
when they were met by the chaoush, leading the closely veiled figure of
a woman.
Unobserved in the crowd and semidarkness, they turned and followed the
soldier and his companion to the street. To their surprise, instead
of taking Armenouhi to the other women of the household, the chaoush
led her up the hill to the first cross street, and there turning to
the right, left the burning district. Still unobserved, they followed
him through the less frequented and darker streets to the western side
of the city. Here the chaoush turned with his captive into a narrow
dark lane, apparently nearing the end of his journey, when Takvor,
quickening his pace, stepped silently behind him, raised his heavy
walking stick, and felled him with a single blow.
“Armenouhi!” he cried.
Frightened almost to death, but restored by the sound of Takvor’s
voice, she sprang to him and threw herself into his arms. Releasing
himself, but keeping his arm about her, he led her down the less
frequented streets to the inn, while his friend remained at the
street corner to make sure that the fallen chaoush did not regain
consciousness until they were well on their way.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE DERVISHES
Safe within the inn, Takvor led Armenouhi to his own room, and placed
her on the divan by the window. Without a word he lighted a candle,
and holding it close to her face, looked anxiously into it to read the
effects of her captivity. She was pale, and her cheeks were thinner
than when he last saw her, more than two years before; her eyes lacked
their usual luster, but never were they so mild and so deep; her
lips bore an expression which he had never seen on them before, the
expression of sweetness and sorrow that comes from deep grief silently
and patiently borne. But now she smiled, and tears came to Takvor’s
eyes.
“My poor, poor, little Armenouhi!” and he gently stroked her face. He
drew her to him, and her arms found their way about his neck.
Half an hour later the innkeeper knocked at the door, to announce, he
said, that if Takvor would bring the young lady below, his wife would
prepare her some tea and give her a room next to her own, where she
would be comfortable.
There was little sleep for Takvor. Happy because Armenouhi had been
unexpectedly rescued, yet overwhelmed by the difficulties that still
lay in his path, he tossed all night long. Of the two liras from
Dicran’s iron box, only one remained, and it would hardly suffice to
pay what he owed at the inn. He had come to Brusa without a passport,
a thing quite impossible except at a time of unusual excitement, when
a solitary traveler would not attract the attention of the officials.
The country was again at rest, and should he even apply for a pass, he
would be imprisoned. Forbidden by law to go by rail or by carriage, or
even afoot, threatened at every moment with arrest or death, to save
the innocent girl whom he loved, he must travel with her more than
sixty miles through a country swarming with soldiers and legalized
brigands. All this would drive sleep from more tired eyes than his.
Great as his difficulties were, they were much magnified by the long,
dark hours of the night; and when for a moment he drove them from him
and fell into a doze, they towered above him like some monster, and
forced themselves upon him. At the first approach of dawn he dressed
and went below to lighten his troubles by imparting them to his Greek
friend.
He was discussing with the innkeeper and his wife how the journey to
Ak Hissar might best be made, when Armenouhi appeared and sat down at
his side on the divan. While she was drinking her coffee, and listening
eagerly to the conversation of which she was the principal subject,
there suddenly came from the street a loud, nasal drawl, begging alms
in the name of Allah. Staring through the windows was a wandering
dervish. His dark face was nearly concealed by a heavy, black, shiny
beard, and his matted hair reached below his shoulders. His clothes
were patches roughly stitched together, while his shoes were but rags
wound about his feet. A bag was strung to his shoulder. In his hand he
carried an axe. And about his neck was suspended a long string of beads
representing the nine and ninety names of Allah.
“Can’t we be dervishes?” suggested Armenouhi.
“Does a dervish have big blue eyes, and a fair soft skin?” smiled the
innkeeper’s wife.
“Blue eyes can be closed, and fair skin can be colored,” came the quiet
but assuring answer.
The two men looked inquiringly at each other, and the innkeeper nodded
his head in approval, taking a silver piaster from his pocket to throw
to the beggar.
“We will be dervishes, Armenouhi,” said Takvor; “it will be safest for
both of us.”
Of all the peculiar peoples of the Mohammedan world, the loathsome,
fanatical, and oftentimes hypocritical and vicious dervish enjoys the
greatest freedom. To whatever order he belongs, he may wander at will.
His real or pretended piety, his implements of torture, his beads,
his long prayers in public, his pious ejaculations, his blessings for
those who give him alms, and curses for those who refuse,--these are
his passport, and he requires no other. Hair filled with vermin, filthy
skin, rags scarcely sufficient to cover him, exposure to heat and cold,
self-torture for Allah’s sake, long wanderings across burning deserts
and through dangerous mountain passes,--why, or whence, or whither,
nobody knows,--these are his virtues. Among robbers and brigands he is
safe, for he has nothing worth stealing, not even himself, since nobody
would pay the ransom. No soldier will arrest or harm this favorite of
Allah, suffering as he does for the world, and in return the world owes
him a living.
Takvor and Armenouhi were to return to Ak Hissar as dervishes, as two
homeless wandering men, for no dervish ever traveled with a woman. The
innkeeper went busily searching for the proper dress. Takvor squeezed
the juice from green walnut shucks and painted Armenouhi’s face and
hands; and then she painted his, imparting to them the dark tan which
is evidence of long exposure to the scorching sun.
Armenouhi chose for herself an Arab costume. Her long, greenish,
dirt-colored tunic reached to the ground and entirely concealed her
form. Through the ragged openings of her outer dress could be seen the
equally ragged trousers clinging tightly to her ankles and extending
into her worn-out shoes, which were far too large for her little feet.
Her hair, fastened securely on the top of her head, was concealed
by a large white cloth that fell about her shoulders and gave her
half-hidden face the appearance of a fine-featured Arab boy. Only her
eyes betrayed her; but to show what a perfect dervish she could be, she
closed them, and taking Takvor’s hand, blindly followed him about the
room.
Takvor’s costume resembled hers, save for the yards and yards of faded
green cloth wound about his head, the evidence of frequent pilgrimages
to Mecca, or of lineal descent from the Prophet; and these suggestions
of extreme piety were emphasized by a string of enormous beads and a
long staff reaching above his head.
The innkeeper and his wife pronounced their disguise perfect, for
everything in their appearance seemed to indicate that they had
descended from an ancient dervish family.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WANDERERS
Daybreak saw our pretended dervishes ready for their difficult
journey. The bag suspended from Takvor’s shoulder was well filled with
provisions,--pious offerings to Allah’s children, so the innkeeper’s
wife said. Takvor offered his friend his one remaining lira.
“Keep it until we are in trouble,” was the hearty reply. “You may need
it on the way.”
The innkeeper’s wife kissed Armenouhi on her dark-stained cheeks, while
Takvor extended his hand to her husband.
“Not yet,” said the Greek, with a smile; “I am going too;” and leading
them to the window, he pointed to a carriage waiting in the street.
When it was once decided that the young people should travel as
dervishes, he had gone and obtained a passport, as any Greek might
do, to visit Ak Hissar on business. Thus he planned to carry them
the entire distance, excepting past the guardhouses and through the
villages where the passport might be demanded; there they would be
obliged to walk. They were to start afoot, and he would follow,
overtaking them when they had passed the last guardhouse of the city.
Again saying goodby to the innkeeper’s wife, Takvor took the hand of
the blind Armenouhi and led her through the doorway to the street.
Of the few people who were astir in the early morning none seemed to
bestow on them other attention than the look of pity. The soldier on
duty at the first guardhouse merely glanced at them. A porter leaning
against the wall eating his breakfast of stale bread, moved by their
wretched appearance, or attracted by the great green turban, broke his
loaf in two, and gave them the larger part.
“Here, pilgrim, here is half my breakfast for you.”
Takvor mumbled an Arabic blessing that he had learned from his Moslem
playmates of earlier days, and taking the bread, put it into his bag.
When they were leaving the town, the rattling of wheels caught their
attention, and they glanced back to see if the innkeeper was coming. A
carriage was visible in the distance; but far in advance of it was a
man in soldier’s uniform, now rapidly nearing them. Armenouhi’s hand
began to tremble, and on her dark-stained face was an expression of
fear. Again looking back to learn the cause of her agitation Takvor
recognized the approaching soldier as the chaoush. They hesitated a
moment, undecided whether to stand their ground, or to attempt to
escape by flight. Even were a hiding place at hand, he had already seen
them, and could trace them to it. To stand and fight meant an unequal
struggle, for a weaponless boy was no match for an armed soldier.
Takvor held Armenouhi’s hand still tighter, and slowly led her on.
“Be blind,” he whispered; “and be deaf and dumb if he speaks.”
Trembling violently she hung back, and closed her eyes as if to shut
from her vision all that she feared might follow. Takvor grasped his
long stick in preparation for an attack, and led her to the roadside,
where beggars were wont to stand when their superiors passed. Without a
word, without even glancing at the ragged creatures who were paying him
homage, the scowling chaoush hurriedly strode on. Still trembling with
fear, they remained on the roadside and watched the soldier’s rapidly
disappearing form, until the cracking of a whip and the rattling wheels
of a carriage announced the approach of the innkeeper.
“Hey, dervishes,” cried the good-natured Greek, stopping his horse;
“let me help you on your way.”
The two frightened wanderers climbed into the carriage.
Six times that day the dervishes alighted to walk past a guardhouse,
and six times was their friend required to present his passport, while
they went by unnoticed. One guard, perhaps because he was stationed in
a lonely place, rather than because he was moved by charity, invited
them to share the rice which he was preparing. Takvor muttered a
blessing, adding that such food was not for poor dervishes like them,
and led Armenouhi on. When they neared Yeni Shehir, the sun had already
set, and again alighting for the last time that day, they slowly
entered the village.
Following the instructions of the Greek, who had gone ahead, they
walked along the street until they came to the inn where their friend
was standing in the doorway. Without a sign of recognition they passed
within to beg a night’s lodging. A buxom Greek woman, to whom the
innkeeper had explained their coming, received them kindly, and led
them to an inner apartment. When Armenouhi removed her headdress,
she presented a most incongruous picture. The rich hair, knotted on
the top of her head, the gentle blue eyes, and the delicate features
contrasting with the dark-stained skin and ragged costume, caused the
hostess to burst into laughter. The day had been so successful, and
their reception had inspired such a feeling of security, that the laugh
became contagious. And while the little party was gathered about the
dish of steaming rice, they listened to Armenouhi’s rehearsal of the
experiences of the last few days.
The second day on the road was nearly a repetition of the first. The
stableboy at Isnik was surprised when the dervishes offered to pay for
a bed. He led them to the same room they had each occupied.
“What became of your pin, Armenouhi?” Takvor asked, when they were
alone.
“It was in a ribbon about my neck when the chaoush took me away; but
in Brusa it was missing. The loss of it made me sad, for I thought you
were--gone,” she added, hesitating to speak the word of her thought.
“It told me where to find you;” and he produced it from beneath his
ragged coat.
Like the chaoush before him, Takvor securely locked the door from
without, and laid himself down on the floor before it. Late at night,
when the stableboy mounted the stairs and stumbled over him, he was
heard to mumble something about the crazy dervish for whom a bed was
too good. “But perhaps he is doing penance,” he muttered, feeling his
way along to his bed of straw.
The third day’s journey from Isnik to Ak Hissar was short, the
guardhouse on the mountain side presenting the only danger. Starting
early, they soon reached the spring on the mountain top, and there,
within sight of home, they waited in the shade till twilight. When the
first stars were appearing, they made their way down the familiar road,
and with beating hearts, eager, yet dreading to learn the fate of their
people, they silently entered the village. Many of the windows from
which lights should have been shining were dark. Many of the houses
were abandoned; and the streets were deserted, save for a few Turks
idling at the inn. The two dervishes, unobserved in the dark, passed on
toward the lighted window in Dicran’s house. They approached the door.
It was closed, but not locked. Armenouhi, trembling with excitement,
pulled the latchstring, and leading the way across the dark hall to the
door of Dicran’s room, opened it and entered.
CHAPTER XXX
MINGLED JOY AND SORROW
Old Dicran lay on the bed where Takvor had left him, when on that
moonless night nearly three weeks before he went out to search for
Armenouhi. Vassinag was sitting on the divan by the window. Startled at
the unexpected appearance of the dervishes, the old man raised himself
and stared wildly at them.
“Don’t you know us, Dede? We have come home,” cried Armenouhi, starting
toward him.
At the sound of her voice, he bounded from the bed, like one restored
to life. He pulled the cloth from her head and gazed inquiringly into
her face. The little, dark, ragged dervish was surely Armenouhi; and
with his arm about her, he had her sit down by him, and tenderly
caressed her, while Vassinag with a faint smile of recognition on her
pale face, remained motionless on the divan.
Touched by her sister’s sadness, Armenouhi went to her, stooped to kiss
her forehead, and returned to her grandfather, to whom she now related
how she had been carried away.
“Dervishes who have come so far must be tired and hungry,” suggested
the grandfather after he had gazed at her to his satisfaction, and he
called to the servant to bring food.
“No, Dede, we are not tired,” declared Armenouhi. “We have driven most
of the way.”
“Do dervishes drive?” he asked, smiling.
The sound of approaching wheels announced the arrival of the innkeeper,
and Takvor explained how a friend had driven them from Brusa. The
innkeeper’s horse was put in the stable. The good-natured Greek, who
now joined them, brought much cheer; with Takvor he assisted the
servant in preparing the food, and while eating, amusingly related the
adventures of the way. The meal was over, and Armenouhi, again at her
grandfather’s side, went on describing her experiences. She pictured
the old house, the talkative Shareef, and the fat mother; and she
grotesquely described the ancient eunuch Ali, and Takvor disguised
as an old Turkish lady, seated by the ravine. Her story, frequently
supplemented by the humorous remarks of the innkeeper and Takvor,
excited mingled laughter and tears.
“Dede, do you know what it was that helped Takvor find me?”
“What was it, Armenouhi?”
“It was this, Dede;” and she took from her dress the little enameled
pin. “And, Dede,” she continued, “you should be very glad that I came
back, for I might have been the Padishah’s wife, and lived in the great
palace.”
Again in her joy she shook her grandfather by the shoulders, and kissed
him. “But I liked you best, Dede.”
Her story was ended. For a moment she sat in silence, while her gaze
wandered about the room, first to Vassinag, then to Takvor, then to the
innkeeper, and then back to her Dede. Suddenly her eyes became moist;
the happy expression on her face turned to sadness, and her bosom
heaved.
“Poor papa!” she murmured, and breaking into unrestrained sobbing,
threw her arms about the old man’s neck, burying her face in his
breast.
CHAPTER XXXI
DRIVEN ON
The next morning, while Takvor and the innkeeper were sitting in the
room with Dicran discussing the probable outcome of the “question,”
as the massacre was called, the girls were standing in the doorway,
looking toward the village square, where they saw the mollah with a
few of the Faithful peering into the well. The labor of bringing water
from a distant spring had at last driven the Turks to remove the dead.
The girls shuddered, for the group of men vividly recalled the horrible
scene which they sought to efface from their minds. Suddenly the heavy
tread of the approaching patrol caught their attention. Armenouhi
turned and saw the chaoush, rifle in hand, rapidly approaching. With a
scream she darted into the house.
“The chaoush! the chaoush!” she gasped. “Don’t let him take me away.”
The men within, hearing the cry, rushed to the hall, while the chaoush,
who had already entered, sulkily stopped at the appearance of the
unexpected encounter.
“I’ll have you yet,” he muttered, as he slowly returned to his soldiers.
It had occurred neither to Takvor nor to Armenouhi that there could
still be danger in Ak Hissar. It seemed to them that when once they
had reached home, everything would continue about as it had before
the massacre; the Armenians might still be closely watched, or their
freedom be somewhat restricted, yet life, they thought, would be safe.
The chaoush had made little effort to recapture Armenouhi in Brusa; he
reasoned rightly that she would return to her people and that if he
were ever to retake her, it would be at Ak Hissar. Moreover, should
he not find her, the post which he had deserted, if still vacant,
would afford him a livelihood; and leaving his family to shift for
themselves, he set out on foot, passed the two dervishes, and reached
Ak Hissar a day before them. His absence had not yet been reported;
his soldiers were still awaiting his return; and he continued his work
as if it had not been interrupted.
The three men in Dicran’s house watched the chaoush until he joined
the group of men at the well, and then returned to the room where
Armenouhi, trembling with fear, was sitting on the divan. From the
window they could see her enemy loitering as if to witness the raising
of the bodies from the well, but the frequent glances he cast in their
direction disclosed his real intention of watching for the girl. There
was little to prevent his seizing her. Even to the government no appeal
could be made. Indeed, the very person who should have aided her was
he from whom she sought to be protected. Should the chaoush succeed
in his attempt, there would be no redress; no court or judge would
condemn a Turkish soldier in a case against a Christian. If Armenouhi
would be saved, she must be taken away, and at once. While the three
men stood at the window silently watching the chaoush, each was trying
to think of some plan for her escape. The priest’s work at the well
was progressing, and by noonday the last load of the dead was driven
away to the final resting place outside the village; but the chaoush
remained sitting in the shade of the plane tree, with his eyes fixed on
Dicran’s house.
“My child,” began the old man, after having spent half the day in
trying to come to a decision, “you must again disguise yourself as a
dervish and go to Constantinople. You will be safer with Aunt Vartouhi
than here.”
The plan commended itself better than any other, and the remainder of
the day was spent in restoring to the faces and hands of Takvor and
Armenouhi the stain they had been trying so hard to remove. By dark
they were again in their dervish costumes, ready for their journey,
while the chaoush was still sitting before the inn. Whether it was his
purpose to attack the house during the hours of darkness, or merely to
see that Armenouhi did not again escape him, was uncertain. Though the
lights in Dicran’s house were extinguished as if all within had retired
for the night, the soldier remained at his post. It was midnight when
the watchers at the window saw him enter the inn. The time for the
dervishes to start on their journey had come. It was a sad parting. The
old man embraced Armenouhi, and fondly kissed her as if he were never
to see her again.
“Take this for her, and if you need it, for yourself,” he whispered to
Takvor, handing him a small bag of gold liras. “It is nearly all that
Hassan has left me. I need not ask you to protect her,” he continued,
“nor bid you care for her when I am gone; she has always been yours
more than mine.”
As if to express her full approval of her grandfather’s words,
Armenouhi placed her hand within Takvor’s and together they silently
passed through the open door into the darkness without. Only the stars
lighted their way as they noiselessly left the village by the road to
Ismid.
At daybreak the next morning, when the innkeeper went to the stable to
hitch his horse to the carriage, the chaoush, satisfied that Armenouhi
could not escape him, was already at his post, patiently watching
the house. He seemed to regard the innkeeper as one of Armenouhi’s
protectors; for he watched all his movements and was rejoiced to see
him leave the village by the road that led to Brusa. Had he continued
his watching, he could have seen him cross the fields to the west of
the village, and hasten on toward Ismid. If at midday, his vision,
instead of being confined to the house before him, could have reached
fifteen miles or more westward, he would have seen two tired, hungry
dervishes, sitting by the roadside waiting for an approaching carriage.
Could his ears have caught sounds so remote, he would have heard the
Greek’s hearty laugh, and two deep sighs of relief as the dervishes
hastily climbed into the carriage to increase the distance that
separated them from Ak Hissar.
After a difficult journey of two days, the innkeeper and his two
dervish passengers reached Haidar Pasha in time to catch the last boat
across the Bosphorus. Mingling with the crowds on the Galata bridge,
they passed unnoticed. At Stamboul the innkeeper motioned to a Greek
driver, and hurrying the dervishes into the closed carriage, climbed to
the seat beside him. A few minutes later they stopped before Vartouhi’s
house in Kum Kapu. The house seemed deserted. The shades were closely
drawn, and no light was visible. The innkeeper alighted, and struck
the iron knocker. No answer but the resounding echo. Again he struck,
louder than before, and waited. Presently the corner of a window shade
moved slightly as if somebody were stealthily peeking out. Once more he
struck, and a woman’s voice faintly inquired who was there.
“Aunt Vartouhi!” called Armenouhi, from the carriage; “Takvor and I
have come.”
The key turned, the bolt slid back, and the door slowly opened. Takvor
and Armenouhi entered, followed by the innkeeper. Aunt Vartouhi,
refastening the door, led the way through the dark hall to a dimly
lighted room in the rear of the basement. Here for the first time she
noticed the strange appearance of her unexpected guests.
“Mashallah! What is the meaning of all this?” was her anxious inquiry.
“Don’t be alarmed, auntie. We have had so much trouble, and poor father
is gone, but we are here safe and sound,” and Armenouhi went on to
relate the awful experiences that had befallen them.
The aunt was deeply affected by hearing of the death of her brother
Vartan, and in reply to Armenouhi’s inquiry concerning uncle Varhan,
Vartouhi’s husband, she gave way to tears. For three long weeks he had
been absent, ever since the morning of the massacre, and though she
sometimes feared he too had been lost, she was still waiting and hoping
to hear his familiar knock at the door. As the long weary days passed,
she grew more timid and lonely, and now she seldom ventured from the
little basement room. She was glad to have Armenouhi with her, to help
wear away the dreary hours while waiting for the husband who was never
to return.
In the morning the innkeeper took his leave of his friends to return to
Brusa.
Sometimes in the lowest walks of life, among people who are strangers
to culture and humanizing influences, a great, kind soul is found.
Such was this Greek. Rough and uncultured, his neighbors called him
unchristian, and the parish priest had often told him that his soul,
never purified by prayers and by offerings to the church, was in
constant danger. This was the man who neglected his business, spent his
money, and ran the risk of arrest, imprisonment, and death, to assist
a helpless girl of another race. It was in vain that Takvor tried to
recompense him for his kindness.
“Some other time,” was his only reply.
Takvor pressed the hand of his great-hearted friend, and watched him
till he was out of sight, tears of gratitude filling his eyes.
CHAPTER XXXII
HOPE
On the evening following the departure of the innkeeper, Takvor made a
welcome announcement to Armenouhi.
“I have been to Scutari, to see Miss Ireland, principal of the American
school for girls, and she will receive you at once.”
“Oh, how thoughtful, how good of you, Takvor!” and she threw her arms
about his neck; “but how can I leave you and Aunt Vartouhi?”
“I know of no safer place for you now,” he continued; “and the holidays
you can spend here. And I shall not feel alarmed about you when I am
gone; for I must finish my studies if I am to become a physician. You
would have me go, would you not, even if we are lonely for a time?”
“Yes, dear, yes. I will try to be brave until you come back--and
then--and then you will not leave me any more, will you, Takvor?”
“No, Armenouhi, never any more,” and he held her close and kissed her
good night.
Having thus arranged for Armenouhi’s future, his thoughts, for the
first time since his parents’ death, turned to himself and his own
ruined prospects. Until long after midnight he lay awake, asking
himself questions which he could not answer. Was his father’s property
waiting for him to claim it, or had it been plundered and confiscated
by the police? Should he find that he was penniless? Should he have
the means to return to his studies? If not, what then? Never would he
use a single one of the liras that Dicran had entrusted to him; they
were Armenouhi’s. What mattered it if he had nothing but a few piasters
remaining to him? Others had succeeded, and why not he?
Early the next morning he crossed the Golden Horn to Hasskeui, and with
beating heart climbed the hill to the spot which was once his home.
Every trace of the massacre had been removed. The dirty Jewish urchins
were playing their games in the streets, and the venders were hawking
their decaying fruits and vegetables, while squalid women were chatting
on the doorsteps as happily as ever. From a rickety house half way up
the hill came the rich tones of a piano. Surprised at this sign of
wealth amid such squalor, he glanced in at the open door. At the sight
of the piano he stopped amazed, for it had been his mother’s.
“What do you want?” asked the child, in words that were half Jewish,
half Spanish.
“I was listening to the piano,” he replied absently. “It is a good one.
Where did you get it?”
“Padre bought it of a soldier.”
“How much did he pay for it?”
“Five piasters; it was too heavy for them to carry away.”
Takvor looked into the child’s face to see if he was telling the truth.
There was little doubt of it. Enraged at the idea that his mother’s
piano had been stolen and sold to a Jew for twenty cents, and that
there was no redress, he hastily climbed up the street. Finding the
shades of his own home drawn and the door fastened, he knocked and
listened; then he knocked again. A soldier who was watching him from
across the street approached while he was knocking the third time.
Convinced that entrance by the front door was impossible, he made his
way to the narrow lane leading to the garden. The garden gate was
locked. He scaled the high wall, only to discover that the rear door
was also fastened. He tried the windows. They would not yield, but
through one of them he was able to look into the large hall. Furniture,
carpets, draperies, books, everything was gone; the house was as empty
as if its occupants had moved away.
“What are you doing here?” thundered a rough voice behind him.
He looked round. The garden gate, which a moment before had been
locked, was now open, and before it stood the soldier whom he had seen
in front of the house.
“It is my father’s house; I have just come home.”
“Get out of here,” roared the soldier, starting toward him, gun in hand.
“But it is my own home,” Takvor insisted.
“Get out of here,” again shouted the soldier, raising his gun in a
threatening manner.
There was nothing to do but to obey. His worst fears were realized;
for evidently the house and its contents had been confiscated, and his
father’s valuable papers were lost. Closely followed by the scowling
soldier, he left the garden, and turned down the narrow lane toward the
Golden Horn.
“Nice furniture, very cheap,” cried a Jew, from the doorway of a shop
down by the water.
Takvor looked in. Stuffed chairs, plate glass mirrors and marble-topped
tables were heaped in confusion about the room. A glance sufficed to
convince him that they were stolen from the houses of the missing
Armenians. He entered, not to purchase, for he had but ten piasters,
but to see if he could recognize any objects from his own home. Half
hidden in the corner was his father’s writing desk. Its price was
one mejidieh, one twenty-fifth of its original cost. In a box along
with various knickknacks his eye fell on the bright gold frame of his
mother’s miniature. Thinking from his silence that he was admiring it,
the Jew urged him to buy.
“The gold frame is worth four liras,” continued the merchant, “but you
may have it for one.”
“It is a pretty face, but a useless thing,” observed Takvor, and threw
it back into the box as if he did not care to purchase.
“What will you give?” pursued the Jew, not at all discouraged by his
customer’s indifference.
“Ten piasters,” answered Takvor, naming the entire amount of money he
possessed.
“You may have it for sixty,” and the merchant held the picture
temptingly before him.
“Ten,” repeated Takvor, moving toward the door.
“Thirty,” cried the Jew.
“Ten,” and Takvor had reached the doorway.
“Twenty,” wheedled the Jew, approaching and patting him on the
shoulder, as if the concession were a mark of special favor.
“Keep it,” rejoined Takvor, stepping into the street.
“Fifteen,” cried the Jew, pretending to be exasperated at his obstinacy.
Takvor was leaving the premises.
“Give me eleven, and it is yours,” shouted the Jew, following him.
“Ten!” called back Takvor, as he turned the corner.
“Come back then, and give me the ten,” mumbled the Jew.
Takvor slowly returned, and indifferently taking the ten piasters from
his pocket, exchanged them for the miniature for which his father had
paid twenty liras. Happy that he possessed as a souvenir of his mother
the very thing which he valued more than all else, he hurried from the
shop lest by some chance it might be taken from him.
His money was gone. He had not even the ten paras required for toll
to cross the Galata bridge. Though he could return to Kum Kapu afoot
by way of the Sweet Waters of Europe, his next duty was to show his
gratitude to his friend Taviloudes, of the English store, and he made
his way along the arsenal walls to Galata. The Greek had long given him
up for dead, and was greatly surprised when he saw him enter. He ran
to meet him, and took him up to his little room, where, uninterrupted,
he might learn from him all that had happened. The long story was
concluded by Takvor’s gently taking his mother’s miniature from his
pocket, and remarking that he had purchased it with his last ten
piasters.
“It is not quite so bad as that,” Taviloudes assured him. “Your father
was a shareholder in this store, and we recently deposited a check to
his account.”
To verify the statement, they went below to the manager of the store
and then to the bank.
“Your father has an account of twelve hundred liras with us,” explained
the director, who appeared to be acquainted with the circumstances.
“The rest of the property is lost beyond recovery; according to a
recent law, Armenian houses remaining unoccupied for three months are
confiscated by the government, and soldiers are stationed to see that
they shall not be occupied before the expiration of that time. The
furniture and papers of your father have been stolen.”
Twelve hundred liras from a fortune of as many thousands seemed little,
yet Takvor was not penniless; with the five thousand dollars he could
at least complete his education.
Three days later, when he had finished all the preparations for his
departure save the passport which he could not obtain, he went to
Scutari to bid Armenouhi farewell.
“Armenouhi, do you remember our playhouse in the old white castle at Ak
Hissar? I was the hakim, and you were the hakim’s wife.”
“Yes. Could I ever forget?”
“When I come back, I shall be a real hakim. Will you be the hakim’s
real wife?”
Her eyes were gazing tenderly into his.
“When we played together in the castle,” she whispered, “and you were
the hakim, I was always your wife. I am still yours. And when you come
back a real hakim, I can be only yours.”
Takvor seized her in his arms and covered her face with kisses; then he
released her and hurried from the garden to the street. Only once did
he look back. She was standing motionless where he had left her.
Late that night, dressed as an English sailor, he was smuggled into a
vessel bound for Athens; he was on his way to England.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PASHA’S PROPOSAL
Five years have passed away,--for Takvor five years of hard, serious
work, yet successful, happy years, every week of which was shortened
by a letter from Armenouhi, the strongest tie that bound him to his
native land. Armenouhi had been favored too. She was taller now than
when he left her, taller than most Armenian women. Her face, if not
so round as in her childhood days, bore that tender, sympathetic
expression which has often been described as the type of most perfect
beauty. She had the same great innocent eyes, yet deeper and bluer.
Her voice was low and gentle, and when she spoke English, though with
grammatical correctness, it was with a slight Oriental accent, which,
especially when accompanied with smiling dimples and beautiful teeth,
added an irresistible charm to her conversation. Five years of study
had developed her gifted mind. She was the favorite of the school.
The students from the college on the opposite side of the Bosphorus
agreed in designating her as “the angel,” and religiously attended
every concert and reception at the girls’ school. They had sighed, and
pleaded, and hoped, but the weekly letter went regularly to Takvor.
Armenouhi had spent the greater part of her vacations at Kum Kapu,
with her aunt Vartouhi, who was still hopefully awaiting her husband’s
return. The houses in the neighborhood, once owned by Armenians,
were gradually being occupied by Turkish families. A great rambling
mansion on the opposite side of the street was at last being thoroughly
overhauled. The new lattices of the windows indicated that its future
occupant possessed an extensive harem, and a large Arabic motto from
the Koran, framed in conspicuous gilt and suspended beneath the eaves,
gave evidence of the owner’s piety.
It was in the early spring of Armenouhi’s last year at Scutari that
the family, consisting of a corpulent, thrifty young pasha, his two
wives, two children, two gorgeously dressed eunuchs, and a small
retinue of servants, took possession of the great structure. Aunt
Vartouhi, whose idle hours were occupied chiefly with watching her
neighbors, found a new pastime in studying the young pasha, and she
seldom failed to see him when he drove to his business in the morning
and returned in the early afternoon. She was lonely during Armenouhi’s
absence, and the Turkish wives across the street, like most Turkish
wives, were also lonely. Smiles were exchanged. The smiles gave way to
salutations, the salutations to conversation; and hardly a week passed
that Vartouhi was not a visitor at the young pasha’s. The whispered
reports of his wealth and piety seemed true, for numerous costly rugs
and hangings decorated the harem, brilliant jewelry adorned its fair
occupants, and picturesque scrolls containing extracts from the Koran
covered the walls. Vartouhi was so pleased with her new acquaintances
that when Armenouhi came for the Easter vacation she at once
introduced her to them.
It was rather late in the afternoon of Armenouhi’s first visit to the
harem, that the pasha returned from town in his carriage. He kicked
off his outer shoes in the hallway, threw his coat to a servant, and
at once entered by the door which a eunuch held open for him. The
ladies arose to show proper respect to their husband and master, and to
present the visitors. When he approached Armenouhi, an expression of
recognition appeared in his eyes, and she in turn searched his face,
for it recalled the days of her childhood. He directed his entire
attention to her. While seeming to listen, she was trying to recall
where she had seen him. The face lacked the refinement which was to
be expected in a person of his rank, and his pronunciation of Turkish
resembled that of an Armenian. She repeated his name, recalling all
the Hassans she had ever known, the most prominent in her memory being
the converted Armenian, the former money changer and tax collector of
Ak Hissar. It was indeed he, and she wondered she had not recognized
him before, although he was so changed that he was little like his
former self. His once smooth, thin face, now full and round, was half
concealed beneath a thick well-kept beard; his long, crooked nose
had increased in width; his eyes bulged still farther from their
flabby sockets; and the lean body of earlier years had assumed large
proportions. Now that Hassan had become a man of wealth and position,
the master of wives and children with whom he appeared to be contented,
it seemed to Armenouhi that she no longer had cause to fear him, yet
she betrayed no sign of recognition.
The sudden rise of Hassan Pasha resembled that of many another Turkish
official. As tax collector, he had been unusually successful. But
when he had drained the district to which he had been assigned, and
found it impossible to draw milk from a stone, he sought a more
lucrative field of labor. Constantinople alone offered an opening of
sufficient promise, and thither he went. With the five thousand liras
which he had wrung from the people in taxes, he bought the office of
building commissioner. To this office was attached a monthly salary
of four liras, which was never paid, a matter of little importance
to the farseeing Hassan. He was no architect; but it was his duty to
examine the plans of all buildings to be erected in the great city of
Constantinople, or of repairs to be made; he should decide whether
the buildings or the repairs would increase the general welfare of
the public, or be a menace to the government, and his decision was
final. If the builder’s application was accompanied with a satisfactory
fee, Hassan’s approval was obtained; if the fee was lacking, the
application was rejected. The amount of the fee depended on various
conditions,--the size and location of the building, the nationality
and wealth of the builder, and other considerations, which only Hassan
himself was able to comprehend. Permission to replace the tiles on a
roof perhaps cost a lira. To cut a door or a window through a wall
might be worth several liras. His approval of the plans of a new house
could be purchased at a cost of hundreds of liras, or by a mortgage
of half its value. There was no fixed law. Hassan himself was the
law. The five thousand liras which he had paid for his office quickly
returned, and with them came interest at a hundred per cent, compounded
in a manner defying computation. The jealousy of his subordinates and
fellow officials was easily quieted, and the favor of the Sultan was
purchased with a substantial check to the secretaries of the palace.
Badiark, who had been successively known as Hassan, Hassan Effendi,
and Hassan Bey, finally became Hassan Pasha, a trusted official of
His Imperial Majesty. With his rapid rise to fortune and royal favor,
he appropriated the large house at Kum Kapu, adorned his harem with a
second wife, and added to his dignity by the purchase of eunuchs and of
all other things necessary to a well-appointed household. The few years
of prosperity and the lack of physical exercise had imparted gigantic
proportions to his overfed body, while his conscience, also for want of
exercise, had grown insignificantly small; but through his associations
at the Porte and the palace he had acquired a veneer of culture that
concealed the iniquity within.
Armenouhi and her aunt were again at the pasha’s house on the following
afternoon. Hassan, assuming all the suavity of manner he possessed,
entertained them with his wit. When they were leaving, he suggested
that on the next Friday, they should drive with him to the Sweet
Waters of Europe. For every afternoon of the first week of Armenouhi’s
vacation he arranged some entertainment to bring her into his presence,
that the time might pass more pleasantly for his dear wives, as
he expressed it. His kindness was such that she began to believe
prosperity had softened the hard traits of his character.
One day he entered the harem with two gold brooches, one for his
youngest wife, and the other for her, because they were such good
friends. Unwilling to displease her aunt, Armenouhi accepted the gift.
On another occasion, while she was passing through the hall to the
harem, the pasha asked her to be seated a moment, and then taking from
his pocket a small plush case, opened it and placed in her hand a
necklace of magnificent pearls. She examined it, remarked its unusual
beauty, and returned it to him.
“It is yours. Keep it.”
“It is too valuable; I cannot accept it;” and she laid it on the divan
at his side.
For just an instant the pasha lost control of his assumed mildness. His
jaws set, and upon his face appeared the hard, determined expression
that vividly recalled the Badiark she once knew. Alarmed by the sudden
change in his manner, she arose to leave him. His smile immediately
returned, and again motioning her to a seat, he beamed upon her.
“Armenouhi,” he said abruptly, “you shall marry me.”
“Marry you?” she laughed. “You already have two wives; what could you
do with a third?”
“Yes, Armenouhi, you shall marry me,” he continued, irritated that his
proposal had been received so lightly.
With the same suavity with which he obtained large fees from
prospective builders, he pleaded that after seeing her he could no
longer love another; and had not the Prophet declared that every good
Moslem might have four wives? As he spoke, he reached to take her hand.
She withdrew it with disgust. Again his mild expression turned to
extreme hardness. Rising from his seat while still pleading, he moved
slowly backward toward the door.
Suspecting his intention, Armenouhi sprang past him, and trembling
with excitement, hurried from the house, and across the street to her
aunt’s.
CHAPTER XXXIV
REJECTED
Thinking it best not to worry her aunt by informing her of the sudden
turn of affairs at the pasha’s, Armenouhi made no allusion to her
adventure with Hassan; in two days she was to return to Scutari, and
then her aunt’s relationship with her neighbors across the way might
continue as if nothing had happened.
Toward evening of the following day, there was a knock at the door.
Armenouhi went to answer it, and found the pasha standing there. He was
dressed in his most gorgeous uniform; the long sword suspended at his
side was trailing on the ground; and numerous gaudy decorations nearly
covered his breast. Unbidden, he stepped into the hall, entered the
library, and seated himself on the divan. When Vartouhi appeared, he
arose and bowed with profound respect, explaining that he had honored
himself by calling to present his compliments. Coffee was served. To
Armenouhi’s relief, the conversation seemed to indicate that the topic
of the day before had been entirely forgotten. The pasha, however,
thinking that he had ingratiated himself into the aunt’s good will,
abruptly remarked that the object of his visit was to ask for the hand
of her niece, and to request her aid in winning Armenouhi’s affections,
which, he added, would soon come after marriage.
Aunt Vartouhi’s love for Moslems was never conspicuously deep, and
when suddenly there flashed upon her somewhat inactive mind the motive
of the pasha’s pretended kindness, she flew into a rage and heaped
upon his head the wrath that had been pent up in her bosom since her
husband’s disappearance. Never, she declared, would she consent to
Armenouhi’s marriage with a Moslem. Never to a man who already had two
wives. Never to one of that race of murderers who had killed her people
and taken away her husband. She would see her in her grave first.
In spite of Armenhoui’s efforts to calm her, her anger increased. Had
her language, which was far plainer than Hassan was accustomed to
hear, come from a man, he would have felt that he was outmatched; but
coming as it did from a woman, it was not to be endured. The assumed
smile left his face; his great body trembled with rage; and his eyes
projected farther than ever from the flabby folds about them.
“If she does not marry me, you will see her in her grave,” he hissed,
as he brought down his big fist for emphasis, and then glared at the
two women to watch the effect of his words. “If she does not marry me,”
he slowly repeated, apparently enjoying the terror which overspread
their faces, “if she does not marry me within four months, you will see
her in her grave; and if you oppose me, you shall be the first to go;”
and with a haughty grunt he left the room and crossed the street to his
own house.
The two dazed women, remaining as Hassan had left them, stared vacantly
at each other. Too well did they know that his threats were not mere
idle words, for many a Moslem of far less power had forced a Christian
girl to a repulsive marriage. The only course possible for Armenouhi
was to return immediately to the school, where she would be beyond his
reach.
The next morning, as she stepped into the carriage which was to take
her to the boat, she saw a man on the opposite side of the street
watching her. He seemed to be one of those hard-faced, shameless
creatures who swarm the streets of Constantinople to dog the steps of
every stranger, now peering into a closed carriage, now listening to a
whispered conversation, transporting themselves hither and thither with
marvelous rapidity, and appearing in all places and at all times when
least expected.
The Turkish spy is unmistakable. His clothes, usually of a European
pattern, are shabby; his fez sits jauntily on one side of his head; his
nose is flat, as if it had too often poked into the business of others;
his eyes bulge, as if to search deep for secrets; and about his mouth
is a suggestion of a revengeful smile. Though haunting every frequented
place, he seldom speaks, for few will speak with him; he wears no
disguise, and makes no effort to conceal his purpose, for he lacks
all sense of shame. Of all the peculiar specimens of humanity which
Constantinople has ever produced, he is one of the most abominable.
Armenouhi at once recognized the agent of the pasha; but apparently
ignoring him, she climbed into the carriage, and drove away. At the
bridge she glanced back; the spy was following, not ten yards behind.
She bought her ticket for the boat and took a seat on deck; he was
sitting opposite, staring into her face. At Scutari she told the driver
to hurry; yet when she alighted at the school, the spy appeared round
the corner. She ran up the garden walk to ring the bell, and he was
approaching the gate. The powerful porter saw him on the point of
entering, and recognizing what he was, sprang before him.
“Keep out of here,” he called out; “this is American property.”
The spy stood complacently outside the gate and watched Armenouhi
until she disappeared within the building. He then returned to make
his report. Hassan Pasha was not one to abandon his purpose; failure
only sharpened his wits and strengthened his determination. Armenouhi
might be out of his reach for the moment, but he would wait patiently
until the close of the school, and when she was no longer under its
protection, he would force her to yield. To keep himself informed of
the plans of the aunt, he adopted the Turkish method by which he was
rapidly increasing his own fortune, that of bribery, and set his spy to
dog the steps of the Armenian orphan boy whom the charitable Vartouhi
had taken into her home. One day the spy followed the boy to the
market, and with a few well-put words and a big silver mejidieh loosed
his tongue. The kindnesses which the lad had been daily receiving were
forgotten, and he became the pasha’s active agent, repeating all the
thoughts and plans which the confiding aunt whispered in his ear.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE CHARM
Armenouhi finished her studies in June. Although the rumor of Hassan’s
wooing had spread among the students, it did nothing more than arouse
the pity of her friends. Nobody could do aught for her. The school
could no longer shelter her; no foreign government could prevent one
Turkish subject from marrying another; and her own government would not
protect her. Singly and alone she might resist the pasha for a time,
but at last she would be forced to yield.
Hoping that the pasha had forgotten his fancy, Armenouhi returned to
her aunt Vartouhi. While standing in the doorway, as the driver lifted
her box from the carriage, she saw the spy watching her from the
opposite side of the street. Her heart sank, and hurrying within, she
closed and bolted the door, as if to shut out her fears.
Not again that day did the spy appear; nor did Hassan make himself
conspicuous by staring across from his window; and the aunt expressed
the opinion that his affection had probably reverted to his wives.
Armenouhi’s peace of mind, however, was of brief duration; for on
the next day, the pasha, unannounced, was ushered by the Armenian
servant into the room where she and her aunt were sitting. As on his
former visit, he was dressed as if to attend a ceremony of state, and
bowing politely, moved to a seat. Whatever coldness appeared in the
conversation of the two women was removed by his extreme affability.
With diplomatic skill he worked his way to the subject foremost in his
mind, until it seemed to the aunt that he had come to dispell the harsh
impressions which his previous visit had occasioned, when he suddenly
asked if she had reconsidered his proposal. The question, though
occasioning no great surprise, was put so unexpectedly that Vartouhi
hesitated. Her face reddened, and her nervous fingers dug their nails
into the palms of her clenched hands. When she finally spoke, she
repeated what she had said before. Hassan listened politely, and smiled.
“You are in my way, are you?” he asked, as he arose; and bowing
courteously, he left the room.
The Oriental mind is prolific when devising methods to remove an
obstacle that interferes with the accomplishment of a purpose.
Principle, conscience, and justice are not to be considered; deceit,
theft, and even murder, are regarded legitimate means. The pasha found
Aunt Vartouhi an obstacle in his way. Why should he not remove that
obstacle, and at once? A little powdered glass in a cup of coffee, or,
better still, the old aristocratic way, a pulverized diamond, would
accomplish the end. Such methods, though sure, were too slow; a few
drops of a tasteless drug were far more speedy.
Following the Armenian servant to the market, the pasha’s spy placed
a big mejidieh and a small vial in his hand. The boy looked at them,
grinned at the mejidieh, bound it in the corner of his girdle, and then
looked inquiringly at the vial.
“It is a charm for your old mistress,” said the spy.
“A charm?” asked the credulous boy.
“It will make her kind to you and to me, and she will treat us better
after she has drunk it.”
The boy hesitated.
“If you don’t wish to give her the charm, let me have the mejidieh,”
and he held out his hand for the money.
“I will give it to her,” came the quick reply, for the lad feared he
should lose the silver piece.
“It is only for the old woman,” whispered the spy; “not for the girl;
if you give it to her, the charm will be broken. Pour it all into the
old woman’s coffee, but the girl must not touch it. Here is another
mejidieh.”
He bound the second coin with the first, and purchasing a few
vegetables for the evening meal, returned home to work the charm which
would transform the occasional impatient words of his mistress into
words of perpetual kindness and love.
“Oh, what pain, what pain!” groaned the aunt, when Armenouhi entered
her room the next morning.
Hot poultices and massage were applied, but her distress steadily
increased. The servant boy was sent to a neighboring house for a
physician. A quarter of an hour passed, then half an hour, and an hour,
yet neither the boy nor the physician appeared, and the poor aunt was
no longer able to speak. There was one more agonizing groan, one last
spasm, and the contracted muscles of her distorted face relaxed. The
charm had worked; Aunt Vartouhi was dead. Horrified at the suspicion
that she had been poisoned, Armenouhi was leaning silently over the
body when the boy entered.
“We could not find a doctor.”
“Where have you been?”
“Everywhere. The pasha’s servant knows all the doctors, but he could
not find any of them at home.”
He walked over to the motionless form on the bed.
“She is dead,” said Armenouhi. “She must have been poisoned.”
With terror stamped on his ashen face, the boy staggered to the door,
and left the room and the house to lose himself in the great city; he
had learned the meaning of the charm.
The funeral took place that very day, for in Turkey the dead may not
remain unburied after sundown.
“Shall you return to that house to-night?” asked the priest, when the
brief service was ended.
“I must,” replied Armenouhi, “for I have nowhere else to go.”
“Then you shall come with me,” and he led her to his waiting carriage.
CHAPTER XXXVI
TOO LATE?
Takvor had graduated and was busily packing his books and other
belongings, preparing to go to the city for a year of hospital
practice, when his landlady entered with a letter. It ran as follows:
CONSTANTINOPLE, 15 June, 189--
Dear Takvor,
To-day Aunt Vartouhi was buried. Last night when she retired,
she seemed perfectly well, but early this morning she awoke with
severe pains, and before medical aid could be called, she died
during a violent spasm. My conscience is troubling me, for I feel
that I may have been in a manner responsible for her death. Not
long ago our neighbor, Hassan Pasha, whom you knew in Ak Hissar as
Badiark, called to renew his proposal for my hand. Aunt Vartouhi
very indignantly rejected it, and the angry pasha threatened us. I
may be doing him a great injustice by leading you to infer that he
poisoned her; but Papasian, the priest who attended the funeral,
shared my suspicions, and believing that I could not safely remain
alone in Kum Kapu, insisted on my going to his home. In a day or
two I shall go to Ak Hissar, and again be with dear old Dede and
Vassinag, whom I have not seen since we left, five years ago. The
spy whom the pasha set to watch me was at the funeral to-day, and
now he is in the street before the house. My greatest fear is that
I may not be able to escape him when I go home. But do not worry,
for Dede will protect me until you come.
As ever, I am yours,
ARMENOUHI.
Takvor read the letter, reread it, and then stood lost in meditation.
Armenouhi’s letters from the school had been filled with such happiness
that a thought of danger to her had never entered his mind. He looked
at the date. The letter was written a week before. He was dazed trying
to think of all the things that might have happened to her since she
wrote. If she continued to resist the pasha, perhaps already she had
suffered the fate of her aunt, or more likely she was an unwilling wife
in a Turkish harem, forever beyond his reach. He took out his watch. It
was nine o’clock. To his landlady’s surprise, he left his boxes half
packed, hurried a few articles into his suit case, announced that he
must make the boat for Calais, and ran to catch the train. How slowly
that express traveled! Several times in his impatience he prepared a
cablegram to Dicran; but convinced that it would not get beyond the
hands of the police, he destroyed it. That night the Oriental Express
was flying with him across Europe to Constantinople.
CHAPTER XXXVII
DARKNESS
Papasian, the priest, found little difficulty in procuring a passport
for Armenouhi to return to Ak Hissar; it is only when an Armenian would
travel from the interior to the capital that the government raises its
inexplicable objections. Early the second morning after Vartouhi’s
funeral, when for a moment the pasha’s spy seemed to be absent from
his place of duty, Armenouhi left the priest’s house and started for
her old home. Frequently she glanced about to see if she was being
followed. Observing nothing to arouse her suspicion, she thought she
had at last made her escape from Hassan. But to leave no clew by which
he might trace her to her destination, she purchased a ticket to Eski
Shehir, a junction far beyond Ak Hissar, where travelers to the distant
interior pass the night.
It was shortly after noon when the train stopped at Ak Hissar, and she
alighted and passed through the gate to the village. Even here five
years had wrought changes. Adobe houses for the railroad employees had
sprung up near the station, and the ruins of the old white castle, long
used as a quarry, had entirely disappeared. The well still provided the
village with water, but the big plane tree which formerly shaded it was
no more. On the sacred spot where the little church once stood was a
larger building, its lofty minaret towering above the roof with an air
of mocking triumph. Only the old narrow street was familiar, though the
faces were strange. Stranger still seemed her grandfather’s shop; for
it was closed and securely fastened with iron bars. She approached the
old home that had filled her thoughts and dreams during all the years
of her absence, and it too had a strange appearance of dilapidation.
With beating heart, she entered the half open doorway and was asked by
an aged female servant, a stranger to her, what she wished.
“Is Dicran here?” she asked almost in a whisper.
The old servant merely pointed to a door.
The silence was oppressive. Armenouhi hesitated and then slowly pushed
the door open. There on the bed, just where she had left him five years
before, lay her grandfather, but how changed! His great strong body had
wasted away until only its frame remained; his long white beard was
unkempt and scraggy; his once rugged cheeks were hollow; and his glassy
eyes stared vacantly toward her.
“Don’t you know me, Dede?” and her voice choked as she bent over him.
Slightly raising himself that he might see better, a sign of
recognition came to his eyes.
“Armenouhi!” he said in a husky, almost inaudible voice.
She bent down and tenderly kissed his forehead, and sitting by the
bedside, caressed his hand. He was too weak to talk much, but a strange
new light of joy, shining in his eyes, gave expression to his thoughts.
“Why did you come?”
“Just to see you, Dede,” was her answer, for she was unwilling to
grieve him with the truth. “Where is Vassinag?” she asked, hoping to
turn his thoughts from the questions she feared he might ask.
Closing his eyes as if unable to answer, the old man remained silent.
Armenouhi rested her hand on his forehead. Presently his eyes opened.
“She has gone. She is with her mother.”
Armenouhi understood; poor Vassinag was dead.
Little life remained in the old man, too, and that little was rapidly
ebbing away. Armenouhi watched over him day and night to make his last
moments comfortable. How glad she was that she had come in time to
see him once more! and in her great love for him she forgot her own
troubles. Now and then the simple village physician came, but Dicran
was already beyond the aid even of the most skillful. He grew rapidly
weaker, and ten days after Armenouhi’s arrival his body was laid to
rest in the little cemetery behind the village.
Armenouhi stood at the open grave weeping as if her heart would break.
Her Dede was gone, and she was comfortless. The priest was performing
the last rites, annointing the body with oil, and sprinkling earth upon
it, to consign it to the dust from which it came. Unable longer to look
at the silent form, Armenouhi raised her tear-filled eyes. Directly
before her, on the opposite side of the grave, and steadily watching
her with a mocking look of triumph, stood the spy. Her heart seemed to
stop beating. She took one long last look at the half covered body of
the dead, and then seizing the arm of the old servant, hastened home.
From the doorway of the now vacant house she looked back. The spy was
following. With her last strength, she hurriedly closed the door and
fastened it with the heavy iron bolt, and then half threw herself, half
fell, on her grandfather’s empty bed.
How dark and dreary the world seemed! Dede, her protector, was no more;
her aunt was dead; Vassinag was dead; Takvor was beyond her reach; the
spy from whom she had escaped had again found her, and now, alone and
unprotected, she would soon be dragged away. Why could she not die and
end it all? Nobody would mourn her, except Takvor; and after these
five long years perhaps he would no longer miss her. Darkness came;
and still longing for the end, she remained motionless on the bed; at
midnight relief seemed no nearer, and she was still awake and thinking.
Must she not attempt to escape by flight before the morrow, when the
spy would come with soldiers to carry her away? Yet where could she
go? Even had she a place of shelter, or a friend to protect her, she
would soon be found and forced into Hassan’s harem. She was glad that
Dicran was dead, for now he could never know her sorrow. How her heart
ached! If the long line of proud Armenian kings of whom Dede had often
spoken could but now behold her, their last descendant! but they could
not; they were dead; their country was dead; their people were dying;
and if only she too might die! When it was nearly daylight, sleep came
mercifully to her.
At midday she awoke with a start, and bewildered, sat staring vacantly
about her. Suddenly the agonizing thoughts of the night returned, and
in despair she again fell back on the pillow. Courage usually comes
with rest and food, and so it was with Armenouhi. After drinking
the coffee which the servant had brought her, she arose with the
determination of forming some plan of action. Presently her eyes fell
on the stone in the middle of the floor, beneath which Dicran used
to conceal his papers and money. She pried it up and opened the iron
box. It was empty. Lifting the box from the hole, she opened the one
beneath. It contained a few worthless papers and three gold liras
wrapped in a faded cloth, all that remained of a fortune acquired in
a lifetime of strenuous work and careful saving. Three liras stood
between her and starvation, and she shuddered to think what would
become of her when they were gone. But such thoughts were useless, for
long before that she would be in the pasha’s harem.
The whistle of the approaching train from Constantinople startled her,
for the pasha himself might be coming. While timidly crouching in a
corner of the room, she heard a rapid step approaching the house, and a
hurried knock at the door. A thrill of terror shook her weakened body.
She heard the ancient servant slowly shuffle across the hall and open
the door, and then caught the words, “She is in that room.” Now the
steps were in the hall by her door. How she trembled! She covered her
face with her hands, giving no answer to the repeated knocking. The
latch was raised, and the door was pushed open.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE REAL HAKIM
“Armenouhi,” called a deep, rich voice.
On the threshold, with uncovered head, stood a tall, straight young
man, in fashionable European dress. A beard concealed his chin, but his
face, perhaps a trifle more mature, was the face that had lived in her
thoughts for the last five years.
“Oh, Takvor!” and she sprang to his arms. The dream of her life was
realized; the real hakim had come.
Aware that any delay in taking Armenouhi to a place of safety might
be disastrous, Takvor urged her to gather at once whatever souvenirs
she cared to retain of the home of her childhood, while he went to the
government building to have his passport viséed for Constantinople.
“I can not visé this passport,” said the official, curtly, after
scanning the document as if searching for hidden instructions.
“Why not?”
“I have orders from Constantinople not to do so.”
“I am a British citizen, and I demand that you visé it.”
“Olmas! impossible!” exclaimed the official, rubbing his thumb and
forefinger together to express that money would cancel all superior
orders.
Takvor took a lira from his pocket. The official clucked with his
tongue, and threw up his head in disgust at the smallness of the bribe.
Takvor took out a second, a third, and then a fourth lira. The official
seemed to be yielding.
“It is a great deal of money,” remarked Takvor, adding a fifth gold
piece to the others.
“Let me see the passport again,” said the Turk, hesitating.
He examined it closely, and then with a knife carefully scratched away
a seemingly insignificant mark beneath the initial letter of Takvor’s
name. To satisfy himself that the erasure could not be detected, he
held the paper to the light, and then, as Takvor directed, added the
words, “and wife,” to the name already on the passport.
All difficulties in the way of leaving Ak Hissar being thus removed,
and Armenouhi’s few valueless mementos hurriedly packed together, they
took the next day’s train for Constantinople. Alighting at the Pera
Palace, they saw the pasha’s spy waiting as if to welcome them.
“His game will soon be up,” muttered Takvor, sharply returning the
spy’s bold stare.
Leaving Armenouhi secure in an upper parlor, Takvor hurried away in
search of the priest Papasian and the British consul. Soon he returned
with them, and there, in the consul’s presence, as the law required, he
and Armenouhi were married. If at that moment Hassan could have seen
the radiantly beautiful bride, clinging to the arm of her husband, his
evil heart might have been persuaded to pursue her no farther. And
Hassan did see her; for the door suddenly opened, and the big, pompous
pasha, entered unannounced, with his spy and a policeman.
“There is the girl,” he began, pointing to Armenouhi.
“What do you want with her?” asked Takvor, stepping before him.
“Out of the way, boy! She is mine.”
“Effendim, you are mistaken; she is my wife, and a British subject. And
this gentleman is the British consul.”
For the briefest instant Hassan paused in amazement; his eyes bulged,
but he was not baffled, and again he moved toward Armenouhi.
“I am too old to believe such tales,” he sneered. “She is an Armenian
girl, and a Turkish subject. Out of the way, you fool!”
Takvor seized him by the throat and pushed him backwards through the
doorway, crowding the astonished spy and policeman out before him, and
then sent him sprawling. The ponderous pasha’s fall fairly shook the
building, while audible amid his grunts and the rattling of his sword
was the titter of the pompous hotel porter, who for the moment had
forgotten himself. Well aware that laughing at a pasha’s discomfort
might prove expensive, he helped him to rise, and sympathetically
escorted him to his carriage.
It was Armenouhi’s wish that before leaving the country she might take
some of her belongings from the home of her aunt in Kum Kapu. On the
afternoon of the day of their marriage they drove to the house, only to
be received by a Turkish policeman, with Hassan at his heels.
“What do you want here?” demanded the pasha, in a tone that indicated
he had not forgotten his recent lesson.
“This house is mine; it was left me by my aunt.”
“It is no longer yours,” the policeman assured her; “it has been
confiscated by the government.”
Hassan was still pursuing Armenouhi. As a boy he had marred the
innocent games of her childhood, and later drove her from home. He
ruined her village by extortionary taxation, murdered her father by
torture, and caused the death of her sister. He robbed her grandfather
of wealth accumulated by years of industry, and brought to his last
days almost abject poverty. He poisoned her aunt, and set on the
girl’s track a spy to pursue her as hounds would slaves, to bring
her against her will into his harem. And now, since his purpose was
thwarted, he robbed her of her home and all that was in it.
“Yes,” added Hassan, with a sneer, peering over the policeman’s
shoulder; “it is the law that no foreign subject may inherit property
in Turkey.”
“It is true,” murmured Armenouhi, staring vacantly before her. “It is
all gone.”
She turned her eyes to Takvor. He took her hand and drew her toward the
carriage.
CHAPTER XXXIX
FORWARD
Two days later, on the deck of an outward-bound steamer, sat Takvor
and Armenouhi. The Turkish shore was fast receding from sight. Far in
the distant east, past the mound of ancient Troy and beyond Mount Ida,
thick, black clouds were rapidly gathering. Thicker and blacker they
rolled up from the horizon, enveloping the land, as if to exclude the
face of heaven, while occasionally, darting through and intensifying
their blackness, came a flash of lightning, like a mighty sword of
vengeance.
Before them on the western horizon, a few fleecy clouds, gilded by the
last rays of the setting sun, formed, as it were, a beautiful mirage.
There were rivers and lakes, and golden islands of fantastic shapes.
Grassy fields and shady trees, suggestive of peace and rest, seemed to
beckon them thither to dwell forever.
Armenouhi turned and looked back. The dark, threatening clouds, darker
and more threatening than ever, had completely hidden the land. From
their intense blackness burst forth a great ball of fire, illuminating
them, and seeming to transform them into a vast sea of blood.
She shuddered; Takvor drew her close to him.
“Not backward again, Armenouhi. It is over forever. See the bright
lakes, and the islands, and the cool shady trees, and the green fields
before us.”
She nestled closer to him and looked forward.
Transcriber’s Note:
Except as follows spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been
retained as they appear in the original publication:
Page 43
kaiyiks which nearly covered the Golden Horn _changed to_
kajiks which nearly covered the Golden Horn
Page 104
them as they fell spashing into the water _changed to_
them as they fell splashing into the water
Page 143
feradji that concealed her hairless head _changed to_
firadji that concealed her hairless head
Page 154
she was permited in the hallway _changed to_
she was permitted in the hallway
Page 186
apartment When Armenouhi removed her _changed to_
apartment. When Armenouhi removed her
Page 197
the carriage, the chauosh, satisfied _changed to_
the carriage, the chaoush, satisfied
Page 199
before Vatouhi’s house in Kum Kapu _changed to_
before Vartouhi’s house in Kum Kapu
Page 203
Was his father’s propperty _changed to_
Was his father’s property
Page 207
along with various knicknacks _changed to_
along with various knickknacks
Page 210
“Twelve hundred liras from a fortune _changed to_
Twelve hundred liras from a fortune
Page 227
loosed his tonge. The kindnesses which _changed to_
loosed his tongue. The kindnesses which
Page 248
Effendim, your are mistaken; she is my _changed to_
Effendim, you are mistaken; she is my
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