"Yon Effendi," he said, "are you ready to die?"
Jack looked at him steadily for a moment, then bowed his head in silence.
"But you would rather live, if it were the will of God? Is it not so?"
"I do not seem to care now, not greatly," Jack said. "It seems easy to die now, with you all. But"—his voice sank low—"but there is Shushan."
"And if I can, in some slight measure, atone for the harm I have done you, you will be glad, for her sake? But do not build on it—it is but a chance. Rather, since there is no chance really, it will be as God wills."
"Hush!" some one suddenly exclaimed.
The key was grating in the door. In another minute it was thrown open, and the jailor entered. He did not waste words. "Come," he said.
The band of confessors rose to their feet, and looked one another in the face.
"One moment, I pray of you," Kaspar said in Turkish to the jailor. Then in Armenian, "Let us bid each other farewell."
"Not so," Thomassian answered, smiling. "It is not worth while, we shall meet so soon with joy in the presence of our Lord."