"Horrible!"
"Horrible? If you had seen the Sassoun refugees when they came here last winter, you might talk of horror. I believe the young Mission lady, Miss Fairchild, sacrificed her life to them."
Miss Fairchild, Shushan's friend! "Is she dead then?" Jack asked anxiously.
"They sent her away still hanging between life and death, and we know not yet which will conquer. But, as for massacres—to-day there, to-morrow here."
"Not here, in a great city like this—not here surely," Jack said. "But the villages, the little towns like Biridjik, for them one's heart trembles," he added, his thoughts flying to Shushan.
"She is coming to," said Melkon cheerfully, the duty of the moment shutting out the terrors of the future.
"Well, my lad, what do you want?"—this to a youth who appeared in the doorway. "Oh, I see; you are one of Baron Thomassian's people, and come just in time to fetch what I want. I am out of these drugs," and he handed him a list.
"You shall have them, Melkon Effendi," said the young man. "But my business now is with the other gentleman. I have just met Baron Barkev Vartonian, who told me I should find him here."
"With me?" said Jack, a little excited; for what possible business could Thomassian have with him, except to give him a letter from England; or, at least, a letter or a message from the Consul?