The Armenian whom Kagig had called Eflaton threw himself to the floor
and shrieked in agony of misery. Rustum Khan stepped over him and
came and stood in front of Monty.

"These men are fools," he said. "They know exactly what the Turks
will do. They have all seen massacres before. Yet not one of them
was ready when the hour set for this one came. They say--and they
say the truth, that the Turks will murder all Europeans they catch
outside the mission stations, lest there be true witnesses afterward
whom the world will believe."

"But a woman--scarcely a white woman?" This from Will, with the
tips of his ears red and the rest of his face a deathly white.

"Depending on the woman," answered Rustum Khan. "Old--unpleasing--"
He made an upward gesture with his thumb, and a noise between his
teeth suggestive of a severed wind-pipe. "If she were good-looking
--I have heard say they pay high prices in the interior, say at Kaisarieh
or Mosul. Once in a harem, who would ever know? The road ahead
is worse than dangerous. Whoever wishes to save his life would do
best to turn back now and try to ride through to Tarsus."

"Try it, then, if you're afraid!" sneered Will, and for a moment
I thought the Rajput would draw steel.

"I know what this lord sahib and I will do," he said, darkening three
or four shades under his black beard. "It was for men bewitched
by gipsy-women that I feared!"

Will was standing. Nothing but Monty's voice prevented blows. He