By Far Euphrates: A Tale. Deborah Alcock

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СКАЧАТЬ the door of the Meneshians' house. Upon them were packed two tents of coarse black cloth—that cloth of Cilicia which the tent-maker of Tarsus used to weave. Some thin mattrasses and rugs were thrown over the bright-coloured saddles, and in the saddlebags were provisions, cooking utensils, and a few changes of dress. Then the whole family, from old Hohannes down to the youngest child, seated themselves, or were seated, on the animals as best they could find a place; and the yearly visit to the vineyards—the great autumn holiday of the Armenians—began.

      If ever they shook off the deep melancholy which ages of oppression had stamped upon their race, it was in the simple pleasures of those sweet vintage days. The days were all too short for them, so they began them very early, with the singing of a psalm or hymn together. Then they dispersed to the different kinds of work allotted to them. Some stripped the low trees of their wealth of clusters, others trod out the juice in wooden troughs; again, others made it into sherbet, or into a kind of sugar, or mixed it with starch and with the kernels of nuts for the preparation of bastuc. Again, a company of happy children plucked the large grapes singly from their stalks and laid them in the sun, on great white linen cloths, to turn themselves into raisins. Their labours were lightened with talk and song, and sometimes even with jests and laughter.

      One morning John Grayson, gathering grapes apart from the rest, heard a piteous cry for help. The voice was Shushan's; she was in pain or danger. Dropping his basket on the ground, he tore along, leaping over the low vines, making a straight line for the spot whence came the cry, whence came also horrible sounds—the yelps, the snarls, the growls of savage dogs.

      In a corner of the vineyard Shushan and little Hagop clung together, just keeping at bay, with loose stones from the low wall, five or six wild, half-famished, wolfish dogs. Their strength was nearly gone. Another minute and they would be torn to pieces.

      Jack dashed in amongst the dogs, dealing frantic kicks and blows about him. No matter what came next, if only he saved Shushan.

      "Run! make for the tent!" he cried to her and Hagop.

      The brutes being for the moment occupied with him, the thing was possible, and they did it.

      The sunshine flashed on something bright in the belt of his zeboun—the great scissors used for cutting grapes. He seized it, and drove it with all his might into the neck of the nearest dog. Yelping with pain, the creature ran off. But the stoop was nearly fatal; two or three sprang on him at once;—he felt fierce teeth meeting in his flesh.

      "Done for!" he groaned, conscious only of agony and blackness.

      But the next moment a tumult of cries and shouts rang in his ears; the dogs were flying in all directions before the sticks and stones of his friends, who had hurried in a body to his help. They had heard the yelping even before Shushan and Hagop, trembling and exhausted, were able to reach them. The creatures belonged to some Kourdish shepherds, who chanced to be passing that way, and the low wall of the vineyard was no protection against their attacks.

      Jack was brought back to his tent amidst the praises and condolences of the whole company. Mariam Hanum bound up his wounds, weeping and blessing him, and saying many a hearty "Park Derocha" ("Praise to the Lord") for the deliverance of her children.

      Shushan did not say much; but, after they went home from the vineyard, she was observed to be very busy over some choice embroidery. She did not take the time for it from her ordinary work, or from any of her domestic tasks, but she worked diligently all her spare time, and sometimes far into the night.

      At last, one day, she laid a parcel of considerable size at the feet of the astonished English youth, saying timidly, "Yon Effendi, you saved my life. I want to thank you."

      The parcel contained what an Armenian lady considers the most graceful and most appropriate gift she can offer to a gentleman, especially if it be all her own work—a set of beautifully embroidered bath towels!

      But a day was to come when John Grayson would have given all he possessed, nay, his very life, that he had not heard Shushan Meneshian's agonized cry for help in the vineyard, or had heard it too late.

Chapter VII GATHERING STORMS

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      "If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for He that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they."—Eccles. v. 8.

      After this adventure Jack matured much more quickly. His manhood grew in him apace, and with it came courage and energy, and the spirit of enterprise. He thought often of England now, wondering at the silence and inaction of all his relatives. That, before he wrote to them, they made no sign, he would not have wondered at, if he had known all the truth. The Syrian servants of his father, who had abandoned him in his illness and stolen his baggage, brought back word to Aleppo that both father and son were dead of the fever. For obvious reasons they did not remain in the city; but the story came to the ears of the Consul, and he had no reason to doubt its truth. He opened some letters which had been sent to him for Grayson, and having thus discovered his brother's address, wrote to tell him what had happened.

      Ignorant of all this, Jack was sometimes tempted to unkind thoughts of his relatives in England. He even occasionally allowed himself to think, with a touch of bitterness, that they were finding the Grayson money very convenient, and that it might go hard with them to give it up if he should reappear. But the thought, like snow in a warm climate, did not rest. Jack's was essentially a generous nature. It was an added wonder, however, even greater than the first, that they never answered the letter sent them through Thomassian.

      But wondering and watching was idle work; and Jack, now a man grown, began to ask himself why, if he really wanted to go to England, he did not go? It would be difficult, and it might be dangerous, but all the better for that! What hindered his borrowing a horse, asking Hohannes to give him whatever remained—if anything did remain—of his father's money, hiring a Turkish servant, and making a dash for Aleppo? Once there, the Consul would help him; and soon after his return to England he would be of age, and able to act for himself.

      What hindered him? Certainly not the perils of the way, though these were very real. He had passed beyond that stage now, finally and for ever. The thought of peril, far from daunting him, now made his blood tingle in his veins. Then what hindered him? He was an Englishman, and he had his life to live, his inheritance to claim, his birthright to recover. But still more he was something else, and that something—not yet expressed, not yet acknowledged even in the depths of his own heart—held him fast in the little town by far Euphrates.

      At Shushan's first home-coming he had been very shy of her. But in brotherly intercourse that had worn off, and a pleasant "camaraderie" had grown up between them. He read English with her, using the two books he had, his father's Bible and "Westward Ho"; and she had an Armenian Bible which they used to compare with the English. Well she loved its sweet words of promise, and often she would point them out to Jack and to Gabriel, who generally shared the lessons. But their talks were not all grave; they had many a quiet laugh together over her broken English, and sometimes Jack would tell her stories of his own country, and of things that happened there.

      She in return would talk of Urfa: of the dear American school, of her beloved Elmas Stepanian, and her other friends. She would describe the American ladies of the Mission: tall, grave Miss Celandine, revered as a mother, and her bright young colleague Miss Fairchild; Jack's fair-haired lady of the ferry-boat, whom, however, he entirely failed to recognise from her description.

      But СКАЧАТЬ