"D'you mean to say," demanded Fred, "that they're going to be shot
like bottles off a wall without rhyme or reason?"

"That's how it was before," said the consul. "There's nothing to
stop it. The world is mistaken about Armenians. They're a hot-blooded
lot on the whole, with a deep sense of national pride, and a hatred
of Turkish oppression that rankles. One of these mornings a Turk
will choose his Armenian and carefully insult the man's wife or daughter.
Perhaps he will crown it by throwing dirt in the fellow's face.
The Armenian will kill him or try to, and there you are. Moslem
blood shed by a dog of a giaour--the old excuse!"

"Don't the Armenians know what's in store for them?" I asked.

"Some of them know. Some guess. Some are like the villagers on
Mount Vesuvius--much as we English were in '57 in India, I imagine
--asleep--playing games--getting rich on top of a volcano. The difference
is that the Armenians will have no chance."

"Did you ever hear tell of the Eye of Zeitoon?" asked Will, apropos
apparently of nothing.

"No," said the consul, staring at him.

Will told him of the individual we had talked with in the khan the
night before, describing him rather carefully, not forgetting the
gipsies in the black tent, and particularly not the daughter of the
dawn who schooled a gray stallion in the courtyard.