The Eye of Zeitoon by Talbot Mundy (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗

no, effendi. I know my people. They are good folk. They mistrust me now, and if I were to stay among them where they could see me and accuse me, and where the Turks could make a peg of me on which to hang mistrust, I should be a source of weakness to them. Nevertheless, I am ever the Eye of Zeitoon! I shall go into hiding, and watch! There will come an hour again—infallibly—when the Turks will seek to blot out the last vestige of Armenia. If I hide faithfully, and watch well, by that time I shall be a legend among my people, and when I appear again in their desperation they will trust me."

Will met Gloria's eyes in silence for a moment.

"I've a mind to stay with you, Kagig, and lend a hand," he said at last.

"Nay, nay, effendi!"

"We can attach ourselves to some mission station, and be lots of use,"
Gloria agreed.

"Use?" said Kagig, cracking his fingers. "The missions have done good work, but you can be of much more use—you two. You have each other. Go back to the blessed land you come from, and be happy together. But pay the price of happiness! You have seen. Go back and tell!"

"Tell about Armenian atrocities?" said Will. "Why, man alive, the papers are full of them at regular intervals!"

Kagig made a gesture of impatience.

"Aye! All about what the Turks have done to us, and how much about us ourselves? America believes that when a Turk merely frowns the Armenian lies down and holds his belly ready for the knife! Who would care to help such miserable-minded men and women? But you have seen otherwise. You know the truth. You have seen that Armenia is undermined by mutual suspicion cunningly implanted by the Turk. You have also seen how we rally around one man or a handful whom we know we dare trust!"

"True enough!" said Will. "I've wondered at it."

"Then go and tell America," Kagig almost snarled with blazing eyes, "to come and help us! To give us a handful of armed men to rally round! Tell them we are men and women, not calves for the shambles! Tell them to reach us out but one finger of one hand for half a dozen years, and watch us grow into a nation! Preach it from the house-tops! Teach it! Tell it to the sportmen of America that all we need is a handful to rally round, and we will all be sportmen too! Go and tell them—tell them!"

"You bet we will!" said Gloria.

"Then go!" said Kagig. "Go by way of Persia, lest the Turks find ways of stopping up your mouths. Monty has died to help us. I live that I may help. You go and tell the sportmen all. Tell them we show good sport in Zeitoon—in Armenia! God go with you all, effendim!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eye of Zeitoon, by Talbot Mundy