“‘Those are the graves of the infidels!’ they answered calmly.
“‘Strange, so many graves for such a little village.’
“‘Oh, you do not understand. Those are the graves of these dogs—those who were brought here first, last August. They all died of thirst.’
“‘Of thirst? Was there no water left in the Euphrates?’
“‘For whole weeks together we were forbidden to let them drink.’
“I arrived at last at the extremity of this vast field of graves. There were two old men there, crouched on the ground, sobbing. I questioned them: ‘Where are you from?’ They made no answer. They were stupefied by suffering. Perhaps they had lost the power of speech. Further on, however, another exile, prostrate on the ground, in the midst of other victims belonging to the same family, did give me an answer. I learnt that the camp contained 5,000 Armenians from Mersina and other Cilician towns.
“But now my two gendarmes came up to me. They pointed to a girl: ‘Effendi, let us take her and carry her with us to Baghdad....’
“Without waiting for my answer they called the poor girl. She approached, shrieking with terror. She said several words to me in French. Before she was deported she had been a schoolmistress at Smyrna. She was dying of hunger. I tried to learn from her precise details about the martyrdom of the exiles, but she could answer nothing but: ‘Bread! Bread!’ Then she fainted and fell down unconscious.
“‘She is dead! the schoolmistress, too, has died of hunger!’ piteous voices cried around us. But the gendarmes were anxious to take advantage of their victim’s unconsciousness to gain possession of her. Already they had seized her and were carrying her towards our raft. I stopped them. Then I poured several drops of brandy between the poor girl’s lips and she came to herself again.
“A mother came to implore me. She offered her honour and her life if I would save her son, who was in agony, devoured by a fever. I gave her a little aspirine.