By Far Euphrates A Tale 14
The young doctor answered in broken phrases without stopping his work.
"From one of the villages--Rhoumkali--fugitives--there has been a
massacre--wholesale--of our people--by Turks and Kourds."
"Horrible!"
"Horrible? If you had seen the Sassoun refugees when they came here last
winter, you might talk of horror. I believe the young Mission lady, Miss
Fairchild, sacrificed her life to them."
Miss Fairchild, Shushan's friend! "Is she dead then?" Jack asked
anxiously.
"They sent her away still hanging between life and death, and we know
not yet which will conquer. But, as for massacres--to-day there,
to-morrow here."
"Not _here_, in a great city like this--not here surely," Jack said.
"But the villages, the little towns like Biridjik, for them one's heart
trembles," he added, his thoughts flying to Shushan.
"She is coming to," said Melkon cheerfully, the duty of the moment
shutting out the terrors of the future.
"Well, my lad, what do _you_ want?"--this to a youth who appeared in the
doorway. "Oh, I see; you are one of Baron Thomassian's people, and come
just in time to fetch what I want. I am out of these drugs," and he
handed him a list.
"You shall have them, Melkon Effendi," said the young man. "But my
business now is with the other gentleman. I have just met Baron Barkev
Vartonian, who told me I should find him here."
"With _me_?" said Jack, a little excited; for what possible business
could Thomassian have with him, except to give him a letter from
England; or, at least, a letter or a message from the Consul?
"With you, sir. My master salutes you with all respect, and begs of you
to honour his poor dwelling with a visit, and to drink his black
coffee."
Still under the same impression, and with bright visions floating before
him of bringing his young bride in triumph to England, Jack only waited
to see the poor woman fully restored to consciousness, and to give
Melkon a little money to supply her immediate necessities. He then
accompanied the youth to the house of Thomassian, leaving a message on
his way for the Vartonians, to say whither he had gone.
He was rewarded with the first specimen of genuine Oriental wealth and
splendour he had seen in Armenia. He had thought the house of the
Vartonians a model of luxury, but this was a fairy palace! Muggurditch
Thomassian himself, in a faultless European costume, met him at the
door. He had heard nothing of his illness, which was not surprising, as
he seldom saw his kinsfolk the Vartonians. He explained that he had
taken the freedom of asking him to visit him at the earnest request of
his wife, who had a great desire to see an Englishman once more. "She is
from Constantinople," he said a little proudly. "There she used to have
much intercourse with the Franks, and especially with the English, whom
she greatly esteems." Then he led his visitor across the spacious marble
court, with its beautiful fountain in the midst, its bushes laden with
fragrant roses, its flowers of many kinds and hues. Some of them, which
were rare and newly brought to the country, he pointed out to the
Englishman.
Jack admired them duly, and expressed the satisfaction he would have in
waiting on "the Madam"; but, the claims of courtesy thus fulfilled, he
could not help adding, "I hoped you might have a letter to give me from
my friends in England, or at least a communication from the Consul."
"Have you had, yourself, no answer to your letter, Effendi?" Thomassian
asked, as he stopped to gather for his guest some roses he had
particularly admired.
"None whatever."
"Djanum!" (my soul! a common exclamation) "Then I fear it must have gone
astray in the post. You know how often, unfortunately, that happens
here."
"But the Consul?" Jack asked eagerly; "you spoke to him, did you not?"
"He was absent when I went to Aleppo," Thomassian answered. "I wrote to
him about your matters; but I fear that letter may have miscarried, like
the other one."
"That Consul is always _somewhere else_," Jack thought despairingly, as
he took off his shoes at the beautifully carved and polished door that
led to the apartment of the ladies. He found himself, on entering, in a
large room heavy with perfume. Silken hangings, richly embroidered,
adorned the walls. Silk and satin cushions of all colours, often heavy
with gold and silver, lay about in profusion. The only other furniture
the room contained was the long satin-covered divan which occupied one
side of it, and upon which there half sat and half reclined a very
handsome lady. Her dress was of the costliest materials, and of a
fashion partly Eastern and partly European. Jack made the usual
compliments in his best style; and was invited to sit upon luxurious
cushions, and by-and-by to partake of choice coffee, sherbet and
sweetmeats, which were handed to him on silver trays by pretty,
dark-eyed girls in silk zebouns and jackets. Meanwhile his host
entertained him with what he could not help calling, in his disappointed
soul, vapid and uninteresting commonplaces, the lady putting in now and
then a languid but courteous word or two. His heart full of his own
perplexities and of what he had just seen of the wretched fugitives
from Rhoumkali, he began a question about the massacres there, but his
host, with a warning glance directed towards his wife, turned the
conversation immediately. Jack could understand his not wishing to alarm
her, or to wring her heart with terrible details; especially as she did
not look very strong.
But the time seemed long to him; and as soon as he thought it consistent
with good manners, he rose to take his leave.
The lady called one of her attendants, and gave her a brief direction.
The girl left the room, and speedily returned, bearing a pretty
card-board box about a foot square, covered with coloured straw wrought
in patterns. "Will you do me a kindness, Mr. Grayson?" said "the Madam."
"Will you take charge of this box of Turkish sweetmeats from
Constantinople, and present it, with my salutations, to the little
Vartonians, the cousins of my husband? But, I pray you, take toll of it
in passing. Open the box, and eat the first sweetmeat yourself." As she
said this her dark eyes, for one instant, met and _fixed_ the English
blue eyes of Jack Grayson; the next, she was bidding him good-bye with
perfect Eastern courtesy, just touched with the dignified nonchalance of
the typical fine lady.
When Jack was once more alone with Thomassian, he spoke again of the
horrors of Rhoumkali. Thomassian shrugged his shoulders. "It is very
dreadful," he said.
"Can nothing be done?"
"_Nothing_, Mr. Grayson. Foolish people, who run about talking of things
they do not understand, only get themselves and other men into trouble.
Here is what happens many a time--there is some wild talk going of help
from England, or some such nonsense, and on the strength of it some
hot-headed fellow kills a Kourd, or resists a zaptieh, and then all hell
is let loose upon us."
"But if the zaptieh is torturing his father for not paying a tax he does
not owe, or giving up a rifle he has not got? Or, if the Kourd is
taking--well, you know what I mean; the word chokes me," said Jack,
thinking of Shushan.
"Let be! let be! 'Speech is silver, silence is golden.' 'The heart of
the fool is in his tongue, the tongue of the wise man is in his
heart.'--Mr. Grayson, I thank you for honouring me with a visit. I beg
of you to salute my cousins in my name. I hope old Father Hagop's cough
is not so troublesome now? And how is the little one? Does he begin to
walk yet? I hope to have the pleasure of visiting them very shortly, but
business is pressing just now." With such talk as this he led Jack once
more to the outer door; and he, as he took his final leave, remembered
an English word which he had hardly thought of since he left the shores
of his native land. He confessed himself decidedly "bored."
As soon as he got home, he opened the box of sweetmeats and looked
anxiously for what the giver might mean by the "first." Each of the
dainty morsels was wrapped up separately in thin paper; but one of them
looked, on close inspection, as if the paper had been removed, and then
carefully replaced. He took it off, and found--traced upon it in very
fine, faint handwriting--the following words:
"MR. JOHN GRAYSON.--Shushan is in danger. The chief wife of Mehmed
Ibrahim is my friend. She does not wish Shushan to be found. She tells
me Mehmed has discovered the name of the village where she is, and will
set on the Kourds to attack it, and to make her a prisoner. There is no
safe place for her, except the house of the American missionaries
here--if only you can bring her to it secretly, in some disguise--for
the Turks do not dare to enter it. I may not write to the Mission ladies
myself, as my husband forbids me to have any communication with them,
therefore I write to you. You will know what to do. God bless
you.--YEVNEGA THOMASSIAN."
Chapter X
AN ARMENIAN WEDDING
"'Till death us part'--oh, words to be
Our best for love the deathless."
--_E. B. Browning._
At Biridjik, in the house of Hohannes Meneshian, and in the very room
where John Grayson had caught his first glimpse of Armenian domestic
life, two women sat at work. Mariam, looking old and careworn, was
behind her wheel as usual; Shushan was bending over her beautiful
embroidery. The room looked much barer than in the olden days, most of
the curtains and rugs had disappeared, and there was no sign of any
cooking in progress. This mattered the less however since grapes were in
season now, and a basket of great, luscious clusters lay in the corner,
destined to form, with rye bread, the evening meal of the family.
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