How long he wandered in that ghastly scene of death he could not tell.
Some desultory plundering was still going on; parties of Turks, chiefly
of the lowest class, sometimes met him, but no one thought of killing
him. The killing was over, and even if it had been otherwise, his
supposed madness would have secured his safety. Sometimes he saw an
Armenian in the distance, gliding ghost-like in the shadow of a wall;
but if he hailed the phantom, it would vanish instantly into some
hiding-place near at hand. He barely noticed the change of day into
night or of night into day again. As the claims of his physical nature
asserted themselves he took food, almost without thinking; plenty of it
lay about, uncared for, in the desolated homes. The one thing he did not
dare to do was to sleep. He feared the dreams that would be sure to
come--he feared still more the awakening.
After what seemed to himself a long time, he thought he heard a faint
cry from the interior of a house in the courtyard of which he was
standing. He went in, and was guided by the sound to a store closet,
where food had been laid up. There, on the ground, her head upon a sack
of bulghour, lay a woman quite dead, beside her a little baby, probably
dying also.
Better let it die so, reason would have said, and perhaps kindness too.
Nature is stronger than either. Jack stooped down, took up in his arms
the little wailing babe, and tried to soothe its cries. Evidently it was
starving. What should he do? He could not give it rice or bulghour, and
hard, dry bread, even dipped in fruit syrup, would not be more suitable.
How could he feed a baby? Then all at once he thought of the Mission
House. Miss Celandine would know what to do. He had often thought of her
before; but either he supposed her out of reach, as for some time past
she had almost been, or else unconsciously he shrank from going where he
used to find Shushan. Moreover, for aught he knew, she might by this
time have left the place. He thought Osman told him she had got her
passport at last.
However, he soon found himself treading the familiar way by which he had
gone so often to visit Shushan. How clearly he saw her now, in all her
winning loveliness, her sweet eyes full of joy, coming to meet him with
her little hand stretched out, English fashion, and on her lips the one
word, "_Shack!_" He had not seen her so clearly since Osman's tale
turned his heart to stone.
As he went he held the little babe close to his breast to keep it warm,
and half feared it would die by the way. He found the great gate of the
Mission House, and saw forms, like shadows, creeping in and
out--wretched objects, most of them with bandaged limbs or heads. The
spacious courtyard seemed turned into a hospital; men, women and little
children sat or stood about, waiting to be treated. He asked some one
where he might find Miss Celandine, and was directed to the Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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