The days seemed unending, but still they drew towards an end. Ay, and far too quickly for those who looked forward with unutterable dread to what was to come after! The only breaks in the monotony were the jailor's daily visits with bread and water. Generally he came and went without a word; but on the evening of their last day of grace he broke the silence.
"You Giaours had better be learning your 'La illaha ill Allah' to-night," he said, "for if you have not got it off by to-morrow morning, you die like the dogs you are."
Then he shut the door, and left them to themselves.
There was a long silence, only interrupted by a few sorrowful "Amaans!"
It was broken at last by the youngest in the room, a lad of some eighteen years. "I would not be afraid," he said plaintively, "if I thought they would kill us at once. Were it only a shot or a sword-thrust, that were easy to bear. But to be killed slowly—cut in little pieces—or perhaps like some——"
"Hush, boy!" Kaspar Hohanian interrupted. "Whatever they do to us, it must be over sometime. And then—there is heaven beyond."
"Ay," said an older man, "there is heaven for us, after a brief agony. But, friends, we have not ourselves alone to think of; there are our wives and children."
"True," another chimed in; "if we die, they starve."
"If we die, they do worse than starve," the former speaker resumed. "To what fate do we leave our women, our girls? You know it all, brothers. Whereas, if we turn Moslems, they will be safe, and under protection."