"But to have made your way down here from Urfa, with those two, was a perfect wonder," he said. "How did you do it?"
"I had help. I told you of the Turk, our acquaintance, who tried to save me before? I went to him with my tale of misery. He promised to help me, and he did. He took into counsel a friend of his, one Osman Effendi, whom you know. Together they managed matters so well for us, that, after many difficulties too long to tell of, we came safely to Alexandretta. There we mingled with the crowds who were making holiday in the plain of Issus, and tried to slip with them on board the steamer. But the zaptiehs were after us."
"Can I help you when we come to England?" Jack asked.
"No doubt, by-and-by; and I shall be thankful. But at first we have friends to go to. A brother of my mother's went long ago to a place they call Man-jester, to trade in Turkish goods. He will receive us, I am sure. The gold coins Markeret has about her will pay our passage, and may leave something over, to bring us there."
"Come to me for whatever you want," John Grayson said cordially.
Kaspar thanked him, and dropped into silence. His face showed excessive weariness, and all the more plainly because of the reaction from extreme terror. However, he roused himself to say: "I want to tell you something rather odd. One day Osman shut me up for safety in his private room. I saw a book lying there, and noticing that the characters were Arabic, I took it up to look. It was a Bible in Turkish. He came in and found me reading it. He said to me, with a kind of carelessness that I think hid some real feeling, 'Yes, I got a loan of that. I wanted to find out the secret of your people's patience under all that has come upon them.' I asked if he had found it. He answered me, 'I think I have. It is the spirit of Hesoos, your Prophet. He was like that.'—Oh, I am very tired!"
"Well, then, my friend, lie down here under the stars, and sleep. Think that now no enemy's hand can touch you, or your brother, or your sister any more. Sleep safe under the flag of England, the dear old 'Union Jack.'"