“Would you kill Fattûḥ and Selîm and Jûsef?” I asked.
“No, no,” said he, “not them. We are brothers.”
“But other Christians you would slay?”
“Eh wallah!” he answered; “in the day of slaughter.”
I ceased my questionings and rode on, but the subject was to come up again. It happened in this manner.
We had journeyed over the plain to Khân Keui and climbed on to a low spur of the hills. Having crossed it, we rode down a long valley with high hills on either hand.[214] It chanced that Fattûḥ and I and a zaptieh were on ahead, and as we went we fell into talk. Now Fattûḥ is a Catholic Armenian, and in the old days we have experienced many a difficulty over his teskereh, owing to the ominous word Armenian which is inscribed upon it. At the end of the last journey he had vowed that he would change his faith, which does not sit very heavy upon him—Fattûḥ being a philosopher touching the finer distinctions of creed—and I now asked him whether he had carried out this determination.
“Effendim,” he replied, “two years ago, when I returned to Aleppo, I told the bishop that I would become Brotestant or Latîn (Protestant or Roman Catholic). And he argued with me and said he would send a priest to pray with me. But I said No, for I and my family are Brotestant.”
“And are you a Protestant?” said I.
“God knows,” replied Fattûḥ. “On my teskereh I am still written down a Catholic Armenian, but that I cannot be, for I refused to let the priest come into my house to pray. Therefore I belong to no religion but the religion of God.”
“We all belong to that religion,” said I.