This I asked the surgeon to do, and as gently as he could he removed it. This was not all, for the old man had a little to say, which he could only do gradually. I caught the words as they came from his lips:
“Geundir Tarabulusda, har- ... bir shai ... var. Allah! Allah! oghlu ... oghlu ... san insanidin ... baqi ... haivanlar. Tav ... akkul ... ullah, Allah, Al ...”
His life passed, his last breath calling God.
“Send to Tripoli all that there is,” he had said. “God, God ... son! ... son! ... thou wert human ... the rest ... savages ... I resign myself to God ... God...!”
Matti, who stood a little distance away, was gulping and weeping, for he had a soft and true heart, and the little Greek snivelled as he began to prepare the body for removal. I sat a space away off and wept, for I had loved the old man. Only the Kurds stood around unmoved: they had seen worse than this, and might do or suffer it any day.
The surgeon, who was a capable little man, had already ordered a coffin, and this, hastily prepared, now arrived, and we left the caravanserai to the washers of the dead, who had arrived. We should return when the work was done. Because there is nowhere else to wait, we went to the coffee-house, and there heard how it happened.
Ghafur Agha, who owned the caravanserai, had been “Rais-i-Baladiyya,” or Mayor, till a short time ago, and while holding that post had fallen out with the shaikhs. Now he had been deprived of his office, and the Shaikh family lost no time in showing him their open hostility by raiding his caravanserai. There were in the place one or two business offices, of which that of Haji Fattah was a prey they hoped to seize. The robbers had also known that one of the Jewish merchants had brought to his office the day before a thousand tomans in silver, and they hoped to loot this. How they got into the caravanserai no one seemed to know, the doorkeeper waking to find his heavy portals open. The noise of their breaking into the office of Haji Fattah had awakened Mustafa Beg, who slept in an old palanquin on the opposite verandah, and impetuous as he always was, he commenced shouting loudly for Hasan the doorkeeper. The robbers came to see who it was, and found him sitting there, and warned him if he made any more noise they would kill him. So for a moment he was silent. But he emerged from his palanquin, apparently to see that the door of his cell was locked, and could not restrain his inclination to advise the outside world of what was going on. So he shouted loudly for the night-watchmen of the streets; but before a moment had passed, a Turkoman, one of the robbers, had clasped him round the neck, and with his long, curved dagger ripped him and left him where he fell.
MUSTAFA BEG’S MURDER
This we learned from the people in the coffee-house, one of whom had heard the deposition which the doorkeeper had made to the police; and we learned with considerable satisfaction that the robbers had got away with nothing of value, for the Jew’s money had been too well concealed, and Haji Fattah’s valuables were in a heavy iron box; and as the night-watchmen appeared soon after the murder of Mustafa Beg and roused the town by firing, they had been forced to climb to the roof and escape that way. The men were recognised by the doorkeeper, who had told their names to the police. This had been kept quiet, but it was known that they were shaikhs’ people, so when one arrived and told us that the police commissaire effendi was examining the roofs for footmarks, a smile of derision went round, for the roofs were almost as hard as stone, and no footmark could possibly leave a trace, and if it could, would have been obliterated by those of the people who had already passed and repassed the course of escape, for in Sulaimania the women use the roofs as a thoroughfare.
As no one came to inform us of the readiness of the body, we went to Matti’s office there to wait. Matti was much affected by the sad event, and seemed to have no inclination for business that morning, and as the talk was bound to turn upon the ways and means of getting out of Sulaimania, we once more got to the subject of my leaving, and we arranged that if it were possible I should do so as soon as any opportunity offered, by caravan to Keui, whence I could get to Altun Keupri, or by one of the Shuan donkey-owners, who struck away from Sulaimania and reached Kirkuk by a long detour through their own country.