"But oh, the sadness of it all!" Jack said. And then these two brave, strong men of Anglo-Saxon race did just what the exiles of Israel did so many ages ago, "By the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept." Before they quitted Biridjik John Grayson went, in the early morning, to visit his father's grave. He was greatly relieved to find it had been left undisturbed, for he knew that horrible outrages had been committed elsewhere upon the graves of the Christians. Kneeling on the hallowed spot, he thanked God for his father's noble life and bright example, and for sustaining and preserving himself through so many perils. Then the thought came to him, as it had done so many times before, though never perhaps with such poignancy, that other dust, most precious, had no resting-place in sacred ground. Over the grave of Shushan none might ever weep, nor could any find it, until that day when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man. Bitter it seemed to John Grayson that this solace, the right of the humblest mourner, was denied to him. But presently he rose from his knees with the thrill of another thought--a new one--in his heart. He looked around him. Not far could his eye reach as he stood there; but the eyes of his mind were ranging over the whole beautiful, sorrow-stricken, desolated land, from Trebizond by the northern sea to the rice plains of Adana in the south. "My Shushan has a royal resting-place," he said. "For me, all Armenia is her grave. And, as holding that sacred dust, I will love, and live for, and cherish that land all my life long, God helping me." Throughout their whole route the travellers found heart-rending tokens of the ruin of the country and the misery of the people. Some sights they saw are absolutely beyond description, and would haunt them both until the end of their days. "How long, O Lord, how long!" was the word oftenest on Dr. Sandeman's lips. Still, no man molested _them_, or hindered them in any way. Aintab was first reached, then in due time Aleppo, and John Grayson found himself once more amongst Englishmen. He felt as if he had been dead and buried, and brought to life again in a new world, which he had forgotten, and which had forgotten him. He met however at the Consulate, some who remembered his father, and once he came to know these, his past began to revive within him. At once upon his arrival he wrote to his friends in England; but he did not think there would be time for an answer to come before he left.