"Only one word more. 'Up, Lord, why sleepest Thou? Awake, and be not absent from us for ever. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our misery and trouble?' That was what I feared--that He forgot--that He did not care." Shushan's head bent low. Jack stretched his hand out to touch hers; she raised her head, and turning her face to his in the dim light, said, "He did not forget _me_, He sent me you. And it is not likely He has remembered Shushan Meneshian, and forgotten all the rest." In talk like this, passing gradually into lighter topics, they rode along, now fast, now slow. Shushan, little accustomed to riding (save to the vineyard on a donkey), grew very tired, though she would not have confessed it for worlds. They had a mountain gorge to go through, where the narrow path, only wide enough for one, winds along the mountain side, a slope above, a deeper slope--almost a precipice--beneath. One false step, and the unlucky traveller would lie, a mangled corpse, in the rocky gulf below. They had only starlight to guide them, and the mountain on the other side increased the obscurity. "Trust your horse, my Shushan," Jack said. "Horse sense is better here than ours." Shushan did so; and though she trembled, no cry, no word of fear, passed her lips. Only she murmured the favourite prayer of her people, "Hesoos okné menk"--Jesus, help us. Her prayer was heard: they emerged safely from the perilous gorge. Then presently, in the soft starlight, there fell upon their ears a perfect burst of song--sweet, liquid notes, rising and falling in thrills and gushes of delicious melody that seemed to fill the air around them. "The nightingale!" Shushan whispered; "Listen, oh, listen!" Hitherto, not a tree had relieved the monotony of the waste and dreary path, which indeed was rather a mule track than a road. Now they were drawing near a couple of stunted thorn-bushes, one of which gave a shelter to the sweet songster. "There is a well here," Jack said. "Kevork tells me travellers always rest and sup--or breakfast as the case may be--beside it. Ah, there it is!" He sprang from his horse, and helped Shushan down from hers. Then he spread the saddle cloths beneath her on the ground, and took from the small bag strapped beside him on the horse the viands it contained--bread, white delicious cheese in small squares, apples, pears, and peaches. He had with him his father's little flask and cup, one of the few things that had escaped the rapacity of the Syrians; and they needed no better beverage than the cold, pure water with which the well supplied them. Very happily they ate and drank together in the starlight. Shushan refused the last peach, saying, "No more, I thank you, Yon Effendi." "My Lily must not call me that again. English wives do not speak so to their husbands. '_Mr. John!_' how odd it would sound!" "I think it has a very pleasant sound--_Mis-ter John_." "No, dearest, you must call me, as my father used--_Jack_."