Our condition is becoming desperate. The fire threatens us. The fury of the mob may lead them to attack us. We are sheltering more than four thousand refugees, a wailing, terror-stricken mass, all trying to get out of bullet range.
We have not been able to get any word to the outside world: we realize now that Adana is cut off and we feel sure that our husbands are in as desperate a plight as are we. Word must go to Mersina. We have a Turkish hand-writing teacher, a Moslem, who is faithful to us. We have sent him to-night by horse with Harutun, the senior whose courage was thoroughly tested this afternoon. They rode into the jaws of death perhaps, but there is nothing else to do. Not only our lives but those of the refugees are at stake.
Nearly midnight.
We have prepared a few things in case we have to leave the place suddenly. Run? Where? Somebody or other remarked grimly enough: "Fix only what you can carry by yourself."
I came into the bedroom, and here I sit on Herbert's steamer chair. The wood fire has gone out. The room is chilly and looks so very large. One candle gives such a little light. The big blue rugs have been carried off for bedding. How bare the place seems. Oh, how lonely! The chafing-dish stands there unwashed and tilted crooked in its stand. I have torn the bed to pieces to get a blanket for my bundle. The baby basket all dainty and waiting is on the steamer trunk beside our bed. Will it cradle my little one? If it is born out in the open, at least it won't be cold, for I have taken from the basket the knitted blanket you sent me and the package of fragrant clothing inside the tiny sheet. For some time I have had clothes ready there for after the first bath. I tied up the bundle with our double blanket, but it was too heavy for me. I have rearranged it with a small blanket, tied corner-wise. In it are diapers, a piece of tape sterilized and a pair of surgical scissors wrapped in gauze, a length of uncut flannel, and that is all. This will be heavy enough: for I must save Herbert's thesis, and that in its filing case is a pretty solid weight. Precious thesis—it won him his fellowship, and if there is any future, that thesis must go to Paris. Poor little Mariam out there in the carriage house—how I pitied her this evening. Was it only a few hours ago they brought her in? I envy her now. Her baby is born.
My reason tells me that this bundle beside me is necessary: but it seems futile. Everything has gone. One support after another has been removed. Humanly speaking, the fact of safety is gone. Am I cold-blooded, that the sense of it remains? Sufficiency of food? Gone. Human ties? Gone. No sister, no brothers, no mother, no husband. Railway communications? Gone. There is no Consul at Mersina. No protection from my own Government. Did you ever wonder which end of your life you are living? Kevork was right a bit ago about the future looking five minutes long. My religion has suddenly become like a solid rock, and I have planted my back right against it. Religion is simple, and it works.
Tell Herbert I have not cried once, that I am not afraid. Tell him possessions mean nothing. What good can things do? There are hundreds of gold liras in the safe. What good are they? I see where life stretches beyond the place money can signify.
All this time I have boosted myself up by saying, "Don't break down yet, wait for something worse." If you wait for real trouble—then you are so busy, you have no time to worry. My religion has in one night become vitally subjective. I know—because when I reason about it, I marvel at my own calm. Shall it be with me as it was with Elsie Hodge, the Bryn Mawr girl who was killed in the Boxer uprising? All day I have been thinking about her. I am writing this and shall leave it here—in case. I cannot write the words needed to describe the fate of women in my condition at the hands of these fiends. Maybe some day I can tell you.
* * * * * * *
Sitting on the floor in Mary Roger's room, writing with my paper on my knee. When I left our room, I went to Herbert's wardrobe and put his overcoat on. In one pocket I stuffed Educator crackers out of the box you sent. Some fell on the floor and I left them there. A wee knitted hug-me-tight went into another, and into a third pocket I put the silk American flag Clement gave me when I was married. Miss Talbot is lying down on a cot in our study. Being a Britisher, she is able to sleep. Before I left her in the study, I got out the filing case containing Herbert's thesis. I put it down by the door here in Mary's room, right close to my feet. Then I lay down on the floor with my bundle as a pillow.