CHAPTER XIV
THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK
Two nights went by before Old Vartabed came again. But each night he signaled and I answered. On the third night, his face was framed again in the window casement.
“Be ready, little one—I shall lift you out soon,” he whispered. He had brought a steel bar with which to pry aside the iron bars in the window. The bars were very old—perhaps for a hundred years or more they had served to shut in the prisoners that once had been confined in this same dungeon room in Ahmed Bey’s big house. I knelt to pray, and I was on my knees when Vartabed whispered:
“Come, little one—reach Old Vartabed your hand—he will lift you.”
The bars were bent aside. There was room for the shepherd to lean inward and reach down. I caught his hands and he lifted me until I could catch hold of the iron and help myself. In a moment I leaped down to the stump which the shepherd had brought to stand on, and from this to the ground. The sheep, which were resting all about, stirred and bleated when I fell among them, but Old Vartabed whistled and they were quiet.
“We must go quickly; the gate is not locked. You must be far away, to a place I will tell you of, before morning comes and you are missed,” Old Vartabed said as he hurried me across the yard.
When we were outside the gate, Old Vartabed wrapped his coat around me, for it was cold. Then we struck out across the plains, away from the town and toward low hills in the distance.
Old Vartabed did not talk much. He was so old he needed his strength. He was anxious that I get far away before dawn. When we came to the hills the shepherd showed me a path and told me to follow it, and go on alone until I came to the hut of a friendly Kurdish family.