By Far Euphrates A Tale 17
After a while they drew rein again, that they might talk. "They tell
me"--Jack spoke dreamily, out of a depth of half-realized delight--"they
tell me the Garden of Eden was _here_, in this land of yours."
"So our fathers say," Shushan answered. "And it is lovely enough, at
least in spring, when the flowers are out. If only we were not
afraid,--always."
"That was what struck me," Jack said, "when, after my long illness, I
began to get strong, and to notice what went on about me. Always, over
every one, there seemed to hang the shadow of a great fear."
"But I suppose, in your England also, there are sin and sorrow."
"A great deal of both, my Lily. But in England law is _against_
wickedness and cruelty, and stops them if it can. Then there is the same
law in England for all. There are not two kinds of people, one booted
and spurred to ride, and the other bridled and saddled to be ridden. It
took me a good while to understand that was the case here, and I was
among the bridled and saddled."
"Because you were not born here. You know, Yon Effendi, we always
_expect_ to suffer, because we are Christians. Ever since I can
remember, every one was afraid--afraid of the Turks in the street,
afraid of the Kamaikan, afraid of the zaptiehs, afraid of the Kourds.
Kevork and I were great companions, but I do not think we played much.
Sometimes I played with the little ones, but I liked better to help my
mother, or to hear the talk of the elders. Then came the dreadful time
when Mehmed Ibrahim, our Kamaikan----"
"Don't talk of it! You shall never see his face again, my Shushan."
"I never have seen it, to my knowledge. I was only ten years old."
"When a little English girl would still be playing with her doll, as my
cousins used to do. Poor child!"
"My childhood ended then. They sent me to Urfa, with some merchants from
our town, who were going there. Oh, I was happy there! I had the school,
and the dear foreign ladies, and my cousins the Vartonians, and, above
all, Elmas Stepanian."
"Do you know, my Lily, that Kevork loves Elmas, just a little bit in the
way I love you?"
"How could he help it?" Shushan said, and smiled quietly. "In the
school," she went on, "I learned many things about the Bible, and about
our dear Lord, that I did not know before, though I think I always loved
Him. They helped me to understand why all the troubles came to us. Has
He not said, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'? But He has said
also, 'I am with you always.' If one is true, so must the other be."
"Yes," said Jack thoughtfully, "I think I can believe it now."
"It all seemed so real in the happy years at school; and afterwards,
when I first came back to Biridjik, I felt as if all day long He was
close by me; and then all the fear went out of my heart. There was no
room for it when He was there."
Jack was silent. He feared God, prayed to Him devoutly, and desired
sincerely to do His Will; but this experience of His personal presence
and nearness was beyond him as yet.
"But I could not help seeing how things went on about me," Shushan
resumed. "And for a year and more we have been hearing of worse things
yet. I did not talk of them, for what was the use of frightening
everybody? We could do nothing; we were helpless. But they sank into my
heart. Then the horror--about Mehmed Ibrahim--came again. I began to
think God had forsaken us. Do you know the sad things about that in the
Psalms? They seem just written for us. 'But now Thou art far off, and
puttest us to confusion ... so that they that hate us spoil our goods.
Thou lettest us be eaten up like sheep, Thou sellest Thy people for
nought, and takest no money for them. Thou makest us to be rebuked of
our neighbours, to be laughed to scorn, and had in derision of them that
are round about us. For Thy sake also we are killed all the day long,
and are counted as sheep appointed to be slain.'"
"Oh, Shushan, stop! It is too sad."
"Only one word more. 'Up, Lord, why sleepest Thou? Awake, and be not
absent from us for ever. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest
our misery and trouble?' That was what I feared--that He forgot--that He
did not care." Shushan's head bent low. Jack stretched his hand out to
touch hers; she raised her head, and turning her face to his in the dim
light, said, "He did not forget _me_, He sent me you. And it is not
likely He has remembered Shushan Meneshian, and forgotten all the rest."
In talk like this, passing gradually into lighter topics, they rode
along, now fast, now slow. Shushan, little accustomed to riding (save to
the vineyard on a donkey), grew very tired, though she would not have
confessed it for worlds. They had a mountain gorge to go through, where
the narrow path, only wide enough for one, winds along the mountain
side, a slope above, a deeper slope--almost a precipice--beneath. One
false step, and the unlucky traveller would lie, a mangled corpse, in
the rocky gulf below. They had only starlight to guide them, and the
mountain on the other side increased the obscurity.
"Trust your horse, my Shushan," Jack said. "Horse sense is better here
than ours."
Shushan did so; and though she trembled, no cry, no word of fear, passed
her lips. Only she murmured the favourite prayer of her people, "Hesoos
okné menk"--Jesus, help us.
Her prayer was heard: they emerged safely from the perilous gorge. Then
presently, in the soft starlight, there fell upon their ears a perfect
burst of song--sweet, liquid notes, rising and falling in thrills and
gushes of delicious melody that seemed to fill the air around them. "The
nightingale!" Shushan whispered; "Listen, oh, listen!"
Hitherto, not a tree had relieved the monotony of the waste and dreary
path, which indeed was rather a mule track than a road. Now they were
drawing near a couple of stunted thorn-bushes, one of which gave a
shelter to the sweet songster.
"There is a well here," Jack said. "Kevork tells me travellers always
rest and sup--or breakfast as the case may be--beside it. Ah, there it
is!"
He sprang from his horse, and helped Shushan down from hers. Then he
spread the saddle cloths beneath her on the ground, and took from the
small bag strapped beside him on the horse the viands it
contained--bread, white delicious cheese in small squares, apples,
pears, and peaches. He had with him his father's little flask and cup,
one of the few things that had escaped the rapacity of the Syrians; and
they needed no better beverage than the cold, pure water with which the
well supplied them. Very happily they ate and drank together in the
starlight.
Shushan refused the last peach, saying, "No more, I thank you, Yon
Effendi."
"My Lily must not call me that again. English wives do not speak so to
their husbands. '_Mr. John!_' how odd it would sound!"
"I think it has a very pleasant sound--_Mis-ter John_."
"No, dearest, you must call me, as my father used--_Jack_."
"Shack? Oh, that is so short, so little of a name for a great, tall
Effendi like you!"
"But I love it best, Shushan. And I will love it, oh, so much better!
when I hear it from _your_ lips."
"Now I will say it--Shack."
"Not 'Shack'--_Jack_, like _John_, which you say quite right."
"I will say that quite right too. Don't you think we ought to ride on,
Shack?"
"Not 'Shack'--those naughty lips of yours, Shushan, must pay me a fine
when they miscall me so."
He exacted the fine promptly, saying, "I have the right, you know."
Nevertheless Shushan adhered to the name of "Shack," which she softened
until it sounded like the French "Jacques." Evidently she thought the
harsher sound uncouth, if not disrespectful.
"But don't you think we ought to ride on?" she resumed.
"Presently. In three or four hours we shall come to that queer little
village with the black, egg-shaped mud huts--Charmelik, that is the
name. The people are Kourds, and will want to talk to us. What shall we
do? You do not know Kourdish, any more than I."
"No; but I know Turkish. Some Kourdish tribes speak Turkish, and we can
give them to understand we come from one of these. I will talk for us
both," said Shushan, whose courage was rising to meet the exigencies of
her life. Jack, as yet, knew only the few words of Turkish he could not
fail to pick up in a town partly inhabited by Turks, like Biridjik.
"They will think that odd," he said, "unless I were deaf and dumb."
"_Be_ deaf and dumb then," she answered, after a thoughtful pause. "You
are going to Urfa, to be cured by a wise Frank hakim there; and I, your
young brother, go with you, to be ears and tongue to you."
"A splendid notion!" Jack said. It was not the first time he had had
occasion to admire the Armenian quickness of resource, and dexterity in
eluding danger. These were nature's weapons of defence, developed by
environment, and the survival of the fittest. Yet they had their own
perils. Does the world recognise how hard--nay, how impossible--it is
for oppressed and persecuted races to be absolutely truthful?
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