The last thing Elmas ever saw of that beloved form on the ground, was that some Moslem had brought a mule, upon which he seemed about to place it.
She was dragged from her dead father to the unutterable horror that followed. Oh, that endless walk, with bare, bleeding feet, through the blood-stained streets! Oh, the clinging hands, the terrified faces, the piteous sobs and wailing of the children! Thus the crowd of women and girls, almost without clothing, were paraded through the town between files of brutal soldiers—and every now and then, some of them seized and dragged away, in spite of their shrieks and cries. Vartan pushed his way to his sister, and whispered, "Do not fear, Elmas. I have the knife my father gave me hid in my zeboun. It will do to kill you."
That was all Elmas remembered afterwards with any clearness—that, and the clinging of her baby brother's arms about her neck.
At last they came to streets that had no stain of blood, over which no storm of agony had passed. They were in the Moslem Quarter. On and on they went, until they reached the destined place—one of the great mosques of the city, the Kusseljohme Mosque. The iron gates swung open to receive them, and closed again on that mass of helpless misery, shutting out all mercy, save the mercy of God.
Chapter XVIII EVIL TIDINGS
"It is not in the shipwreck or the strife
We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more;
But in the after-silence on the shore,