"There is the mark. But there were a hundred of us, so the sheikh's hand grew weary ere he finished. I was near the end of the long line, and I only got a hasty gash. I did not even lose consciousness; but I was afraid to stir, so I lay there in my pain, thinking I should bleed to death. By-and-by some soldiers came along, and looked at the bodies. They saw I was not dead, and were going to finish me, when a Turk interposed, and bade them let me alone. He had hard work to protect me from them, nor did he succeed without striking one of them pretty sharply with the butt end of his gun. Then I saw his face, and recognised that Osman we met once or twice--a friend of the Pastor's." "Osman! He told me he rescued an Armenian, an acquaintance. I wonder he did not name you." "Where did you meet him?" "We were together in the prison." "I suppose he suspected some spy within hearing. Well, he took me to his house, bound up my wound, and hid me in an inner chamber. There he left me, promising soon to return; but for three days and nights I saw him not again, nor any one. You may guess what I suffered shut up there, thinking of all our friends." "And you must have been nearly starved." "No; he left me some food, though I was too miserable to care for it. At last he came, and told me he had been imprisoned for assaulting the soldier who wanted to kill me; his relatives, as he suspected, having contrived the thing to keep him out of harm's way, since he knew they thought him lacking in a proper zeal for Islam. But, on my account, and still more on that of the Badvellie's children, whom he wanted to save, he had been very eager to get out, and managed it at last, with large backsheesh. He told me all the terrible news--of those who were dead, and of those who, less happy, were living still." After a sad pause he went on. "For myself, I am grateful to him. He supplied all my wants, and kept me concealed there many days. At last, yesterday, he came to me and said, 'I can hide you no longer. People are beginning to suspect something. If they find you, they will kill you, and kill me also for giving you shelter.' I said, 'For myself I care not, for what have I left to live for?' but added that I could not bear he should suffer on my account. So he said the best he could do for me was to give me a Frank dress, arranged as Mussulmans wear it, and money enough to keep me for the present. Which he did, and may God reward him, and number him--if it so may be with any Turk--amongst His redeemed!" "Amen!" Jack said. He did not like to tell Kevork, what Osman evidently had not told him, that the father of Oriort Elmas had fallen by his hand. There was no need for more, for now they were at the gate of the Mission House. "It is best," Jack said, "that I should bring you first to Miss Celandine; she will know what to do. For we must not tell Gabriel too suddenly; he is ill and weak. You must be prepared, Kevork, to see him greatly changed."