behind us was full of the thunder of fleeing cattle, for the Zeitoonli
had looted the owner of the kahveh's cows and oxen along with their
own beasts and were driving them helter-skelter. The crackling flames
behind us were a beacon, whistling white in the early wind, that
we did well to hurry from.

It was Monty who called Kagig's attention to the idiocy of tiring
out the cattle before dawn, and then Kagig rode like an arrow until
he could make the gipsies hear him. One long keening shout that
penetrated through the drum of hoofs brought them to a walk, but
they kept Maga in front with them, screened from our view until
morning by a close line of mounted women and a group of men. The
Turkish prisoners were all behind among the fifty Armenians from
Zeitoon, looking very comfortless trussed up on the mounts that nobody
else had coveted, with hands made fast behind their backs.

A little before dawn, when the saw-tooth tips of the mountain range
on our left were first touched with opal and gold, we turned off
the araba track along which we had so far come and entered a ravine
leading toward Marash. Fred was asleep on horseback, supported between
Will and me and snoring like a throttled dog. The smoke of the gutted
kahveh had dwindled to a wisp in the distance behind us, and there
was no sight or sound of pursuit.

No wheeled vehicle that ever man made could have passed up this
new track. It was difficult for ridden horses, and our loaded beasts
had to be given time. We seemed to be entering by a fissure into
the womb of the savage hills that tossed themselves in ever-increasing
grandeur up toward the mist-draped heights of Kara Dagh. Oftener
than not our track was obviously watercourse, although now and then