"Are saved—SAVED!" Jack cried, pressing his hand in a mighty grasp, and looking in his sorrowful face, his own radiant with thankfulness. "My treasure is safe in heaven, yours still on earth—in the Mission House with Miss Celandine. All the Pastor's children have been rescued, and are there, thank God!"
Kevork Meneshian bowed his head, and did what John Grayson himself had done in the hour of his blessed relief from an anguish too great for tears. Jack let him weep for a while, then he said gently, "Come, brother, let me bring you to our friends, who will rejoice over you as over one given back to them from the dead."
On the way Kevork told his story. "That morning," he said, "when we knew what was coming, I went to fetch our grandfather, that we might all die together. There was no more danger, and no less, in the street than at home; but I was soon caught by the Turks."
"Yes," said Jack; "that we heard; and your throat was cut."
"There is the mark. But there were a hundred of us, so the sheikh's hand grew weary ere he finished. I was near the end of the long line, and I only got a hasty gash. I did not even lose consciousness; but I was afraid to stir, so I lay there in my pain, thinking I should bleed to death. By-and-by some soldiers came along, and looked at the bodies. They saw I was not dead, and were going to finish me, when a Turk interposed, and bade them let me alone. He had hard work to protect me from them, nor did he succeed without striking one of them pretty sharply with the butt end of his gun. Then I saw his face, and recognised that Osman we met once or twice—a friend of the Pastor's."
"Osman! He told me he rescued an Armenian, an acquaintance. I wonder he did not name you."
"Where did you meet him?"
"We were together in the prison."
"I suppose he suspected some spy within hearing. Well, he took me to his house, bound up my wound, and hid me in an inner chamber. There he left me, promising soon to return; but for three days and nights I saw him not again, nor any one. You may guess what I suffered shut up there, thinking of all our friends."
"And you must have been nearly starved."