Jack answered his questions, marvelling the while at the mixture in his character. Shrewd, practical, and almost selfish in the pursuit of his ambition as he used to think him, he had served Elmas Stepanian with a delicate, self-sacrificing chivalry of which any lover might have been proud. "I think," said Barkev, "you would do well to go to the Badvellie. He is very learned, and might give you the lessons you have missed." "I will not trouble the Pastor _yet_," answered Kevork with decision--"not until I can go to him for something else. No; I shall beg of Miss Celandine to give me work, teaching the boys that come to her school, and study for myself in the evenings." "You'll get on," said Barkev approvingly. "For you know what you want. 'A polished stone is not left on the ground.'" "I might, in any other country. But," lowering his voice, "what is this I hear of fresh massacres?" "Oh, rumours, rumours! There are always rumours. I would not think too much of them--not until we hear more." "You may well talk of rumours," Kevork returned. "Some of the things people say are past thinking for foolishness. Do you know I heard in Aintab that some people say in Europe it is _we_ who are massacring the Turks? As if we _could_, even suppose we would! Without firearms, or weapons of any kind, so much as to defend ourselves from the Kourdish robbers--good for _us_ to think of killing Turks! 'Twould be striking the point of a goad with one's fist." "The wolf eats the lamb, and cries out that the lamb is eating him," said Barkev. "But," he added, glancing round apprehensively, "is there any talk of the English coming to help us?" "Much talk there is of the Sultan's having consented, moved thereto no doubt by the English and the other Christians, to grant us certain privileges." "We do not want privileges," said Barkev; "we want _justice_. We want security for our lives and properties, and, above all, for our women." "Well, that is what these reforms are intended to give us." "I'll believe in them, when I see a Moslem punished for a crime against one of _us_. And that is what my grandfather, in his seven and eighty years, has never seen, nor I think will little Nerses, who is not weaned yet, live to see it." "Where is the use of that kind of talk, true though it be?" said Kevork; "it only brings trouble." The heart of Kevork Meneshian was not just then attuned to trouble. The deepest gorges of the Alps have every day their gleam of sunshine, though it be but for one short hour; so even in the most shadowed lives there is usually some brief, golden moment, when the light in a soft eye or the smile on a dear lip is more than the fate of nations or of empires. It was such a moment now with Kevork; and it ought to have been such a moment with John Grayson, only, for him, it was love itself that hung suspended in the balance of fate.