"We have got them all!" she said.
Those in the room rose up and crowded round. Some said, "Park Derocha!" others wept aloud for joy, for all knew the Pastor's children.
"Oh, if the Badvellie could only look down and see them all safe here!" some one cried.
"He does not want that," Madame Thomassian answered quietly, "for he knows the end of the Lord."
The children were soon seated on the divan. Every one wanted to kiss their lips, their hands, their feet even. Their clothing was an odd mixture; Elmas wore a dress of Miss Celandine's, the rest, whatever garments had come first to hand, for the Turks had stripped them of almost everything.
"My zaptiehs have just found them in a mosque, and brought them to me," Miss Celandine explained. "They are starving."
Indeed the lips of little Ozmo were already quite blue; he seemed unable even to cry. Some one ran to get milk for him, and in a short time all were being fed and tended by loving hands.
Then everybody ate, in a primitive, informal way. Jack had his handful of rice and his piece of bread with the rest, and no food he had ever tasted seemed to him more wonderful than this. He was eating with Christians again. There sat Miss Celandine, in her frail womanhood, a tower of strength to them all; there were the dear Pastor's rescued children, pale and changed indeed from the unfathomed depths of suffering they had passed through, but all there, not one lacking from the little flock. There was the sweet face of Elmas, his Shushan's friend. And Shushan was safe too. God had not forgotten to be gracious, nor had He in anger shut up His tender mercies from them. Jack went over to Elmas.
"Dear Oriort Elmas," he said, "do you know me? I am John Grayson. My Shushan loved you well. And you will be glad to know that she is—safe; so are all the rest, although Gabriel only is with us still."