"They've turned off, and are not coming up the mountain at all," mournfully suggested Karin the son of Artog.
"Oh, if we had only known, sons of dead asses that we are!" wrathfully replied Oglou the son of Kizzil.
"We would have cut his throat and kept the money," they added, simultaneously.
But the good old missionary jogged up the steep incline to Kharput, feeling that he had not lived in vain, and that the mission report for that year of grace, 1880, would contain the first authentic instance of the sudden conversion to Christianity of two Kurd desperadoes.
"Allah is with him" (an Eastern equivalent for stating that a man is mad), said Karin the son of Artog, leaping on his wiry pony and digging his shovel-shaped stirrups into its hairy sides.
"We must have been mad too," suggested Oglou the son of Kizzil, as he galloped down the mountain-side after his friend, "to give him back four liras when I would have cut his throat for a medjidieh!"
II.
HE MADE A VICIOUS THRUST AT HIS FRIEND'S HEART.
A few days later Karin the son of Artog had a slight difference of opinion with Oglou the son of Kizzil. No one knew how the quarrel originated, but it ended in Karin the son of Artog drawing an extremely sharp and crooked sword and rushing upon Oglou the son of Kizzil with the indecorous observation that he would slice out his liver. Although Karin the son of Artog was theoretically acquainted with the position of the human liver he had no practical knowledge of the fact, and, consequently, made a vicious thrust at his old friend's heart. Fortunately for Oglou the son of Kizzil, the point of the sword caught in the cover of the old missionary's Bible, and whilst Karin the son of Artog futilely endeavored to get it out again, Oglou the son of Kizzil, with the neat and effective back-stroke which was his one vanity, cut off the head of Karin the son of Artog. Oglou the son of Kizzil had placed the Bible over his heart as an amulet; hence, this providential instance of its powers more than ever convinced him of its utility as a charm to ward off misfortune. However this may have been, it could not protect the son of Kizzil from the somewhat inopportune attentions of his late friend's clan. The relations, with that blind haste which generally distinguishes the actions of relatives, promptly assumed that Oglou the son of Kizzil had been the aggressor, and demanded "blood-money." Here again arose another difference of opinion. Oglou the son of Kizzil, whilst willing to testify to the admirable qualities of his late friend Karin the son of Artog, felt inclined to rate those qualities at a lower market value than seemed becoming to the dead man's friends. Three liras and a pony seemed to Oglou the son of Kizzil an adequate tribute to the virtues of the defunct warrior. He was willing, as a concession to sentiment, to throw in a praying-carpet with the pony, but was not prepared to do more. As a tribute to old friendship, however, he would marry the widow and take over the household. To this ultimatum the widow, through the medium of a white-haired old chief, her father, replied that Oglou the son of Kizzil had insulted her by supposing that she could ever have married a man whose "blood-money" would scarcely suffice for the funeral expenses, and that it would be well, in view of the circumstances, for Oglou the son of Kizzil to put his house in order and bid farewell to a world which he had too long disgraced by his presence.