Next morning we arose before daylight, called for our hotel bill, paid it (it was only fifteen cents for the whole company), mounted our horses and rode out of the front door with a long day’s journey of forty-five miles before us, a blazing sun above us, and the River Pyramus flowing by our side. The memory of that day is like one of those winterbird’s nests swinging on the tree, frozen stiff with rain and dreary enough, without a warm feather in it or a note of song. I have a confused recollection of a sun that was unmistakably hot, a white road that made it hotter, and a desert wind that was “Hottentotter.” I recollect, too, that I rode a horse that was never happy unless he was ahead, and I was never happy unless he was behind. I remember that I carried a sun umbrella, and every time a horse tried to go ahead of mine he would elevate his hind feet and lift me into the air, still holding on to my umbrella, until I had all the experience of going up in a balloon. But I do have a very distinct recollection of every time I came down again. It seemed to me that that saddle was all pommel, for though I went up and came down perhaps a hundred times, I never could land anywhere else.
We passed trains of camels, herds of donkeys, men and women on foot, and here and there a Mohammedan under the shade of a tree or wall going through with a gymnastic performance of standing on his head, which is the way he prefers to say his prayers. On every side was wilderness, parched and withered, without a spear of grass or a green leaf. But all things must have an end, and so must our journey. We made up our minds when we went to bed on the third night that next morning we would get up at three o’clock and push through, a journey of a day and a half, to Marash.
And what a morning that was!
We had pitched our tent in a valley, between the high perpendicular walls of two mountains. The moon rode full overhead and passed along just on the broken edge of one of them, now leaping a chasm, now dodging behind a crag, now looking down through a leafy gorge with a brilliancy of glory such as our moon never attains, except in the frostiest nights of winter, by the aid of a ground covered with snow. I was able to read a newspaper with ease. I tried it, holding it off at a natural distance. I could see distinctly every feature and line of a photograph of my mother which I took from my inside vest pocket and gazed at, as I thought possibly for the last time. I could even see to read my own writing as I penned what I thought might possibly be my last words. What made me think so was this: We were to start that morning through a mountain pass infested by robbers. Now, I hope my readers will meditate on this, and try to be as scared as I was. It was the same pass in which Mr. Montgomery, of Marash, with a friend, had been robbed but a short time previous. They had passed a group of Circassians, the highwaymen of that region, lying by the roadside, holding their horses and waiting for someone to come along. They had gone but a short distance when there was a clatter of hoofs around the bend of the mountain, a flashing of pistol barrels leveled straight at their heads, and a command to dismount and give over. And there was nothing else to do. The five Circassians stood over them with knives and made them empty their pockets and give up their weapons. Then they took their horses and left them to make the best of their way home on foot, some twenty or thirty miles across the mountain. And now we were entering that same pass. And it was night.
We had not gone far, groping our way up the narrow trail in single file over rough stones, not speaking above a whisper, and wishing that our horses’ hoofs were shod with velvet, when Lee turned about and said: “Have you got your shooting-irons ready? We must be pretty near the place now where Montgomery was robbed.”
Oh dear! I felt awful. I wanted to go back. It wasn’t what I came for, to be shot down on that cold mountain in the dark by a shirtless Circassian. The next moment we came where there was a big tree right ahead of us and oh, horrors! we could hear distinctly the voices of several men in conversation. At the same time I thought I heard something in the bushes beside me. Then I was sure of it. Then I saw it move. Then a man stepped out into the road close to me. I drew my pistol and held it where he could see the flash of the barrel in the moonlight.
He stood still and I passed him, turning round in my saddle to keep my eye on him.
We all had our pistols out and were ready with pale cheeks, and hearts that thumped like drumsticks.
But we passed by unmolested.
Lee said afterwards that if we had not been well armed and looked so formidable we should probably have been attacked and robbed. I was glad that I looked so.