How that long night passed, how he watched and waited for the morning, none would ever know. The morning light came at last, though it brought no joy with it. He continued however to hold off the anguish of his soul, as it were at arm's length, while he made himself carefully up to look as like a Moslem as possible, though avoiding the green _kafieh_ for conscience sake. Assuming a tone of indifference, he made his request of the jailor, who, with his mind running on killing Giaours, muttered a careless assent. For a good while he lingered about the court, joining one group or another so as to avoid suspicion. At last the prison gate was opened, and, lost amidst a crowd of Moslem criminals, who were rushing out with tumultuous joy to earn at the same time Paradise and pardon by killing Giaours, John Grayson made his way into the street. Chapter XIX A GREAT CRIME CONSUMMATED "God's Spirit sweet, Still Thou the heat Of our passionate hearts when they rave and beat. Quiet their swell, And gently tell That His right Hand doeth all things well. "Tell us that He, Who erst with the Three, Walked (also) with these in their agony; And drew them higher And rapt them nigher To Heaven, whose chariot and horses are fire." --_C. F. Alexander._ Dread were the watches of that December night, amidst the unutterable agonies of half a city. In the Armenian Quarter the only sleepers were those--thrice happy!--who would never awake again-- "Until the Heavens be no more." They were very many, like the slain in some great battle that decides a nation's destiny. They lay in heaps, in the open street, in the court-yards, in the houses. Tearless, wild-eyed women, strong in the strength of love, came and sought their own amongst them. Sometimes a wife who found her husband, a mother who embraced her son, wept and wailed and made sore lamentation, but for the most part they were still enough. Sometimes they thanked God that they had found them--_there_. It went worse with those who sat in their desolate homes, and watched the slow ebbing, often in cruel anguish, of the lives they loved. The number of the wounded and the dying was enormous. For one thing, the murderers were unskilful, for another they were often deliberately--_diabolically_--cruel. Moreover, it was better economy to hack a Giaour to pieces with swords or knives than to shoot him, since every bullet cost two piastres! It went worse still with the women, the girls, the little children even, who were dragged to the mosques and shut up there, in hunger, cold, and misery, until the murderers of their fathers, their husbands and brothers had leisure to come and take them, and work their will upon them. Oh God of mercy and pity, that these things should be in this world of Thine!