Tweet
Dying Every Minute. This story is written by Sempad Shahnazarian a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Mr. Shahnazarian was born in Turkey and attended the Armenian College in Constantinople where he received his AB degree shortly before the war began. He was drafted into the Turkish Army and served as an artillery officer until the Turk’s treatment of the Armenian people drove him to desert. He was arrested... escaped again... and joined the French Legion d’Orient fighting the Turks until the end of the war. After the war Mr. Shahnazarian immigrated to America and lived till the age of 96, he passed away on September 22, 1985, in Brownsville, Texas. - This story is an accurate representation of the atrocities carried out by the Turks against the defenseless Armenians. Mr. Shahnazarian writes from his first hand experiences during his service with the French Legion d’Orient, his pen is fluent and poetic, describing every small detail in a graphical manner with an elegant and graceful style.
Dying Every Minute
By Sempad Shahnazarian
he end of the first world war was in sight. The Turkish resistance on the Palestine Front was shattered, and the British forces, assisted by the Legion d’Orient, were in hot pursuit of the demoralized enemy.
It was autumn. A battalion of Armenian Legionnaires was being transported on board a French cruiser, from Cyprus to Cilicia to bolster the Allied occupational forces there.
The night was clear and windy, and the ship plowed relentlessly through the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
The masts stood high, silent and watchful; and the guns, like huge logs, elevated on steel platforms, craned their necks toward the dark, wet and hissing distances.
The rolling billows crashed continually against the heavy sides of the ship; and at times, the sky seemed so low over the heaving and raging sea, that the waves were tempted to reach higher and higher to splash their cool and foamy shower at the jewel-studded face of the night.
Innumerable sparks danced graciously in the curves of the breaking waves, -- countless tiny animals with minute lanterns, that breathed and pulsated with life.
Sitting on the deck, at the base of a big gun, Vartan gazed wistfully, now and then, in the direction where the vessel was moving, and read the story he was working on.
“It was about two years ago, when that terrible thing happened; and it happened with Mustapha’s strange dream.”
A ghost stood on the bank of a river that flowed blood, and watched in a trance, an immense conflagration that crashed through cities and towns and ripening wheat fields.
Through the cracks in the smoke and flames, one could clearly see the frames of the buildings burning brightly and entire cities and villages turning into heaps of embers.
The ghost said:
“Mustapha! My son! Behold this beautiful sight of our world! Isn’t it just enchanting? You know you were born on the bank of this river and bathed in its crimson waters...But why are you looking so surprised?...Oh, those voices!...Those muffled sounds!...They are but the sighs and sobs of the dead left behind in the folds of this infernal river.
Come now!...Closer...Give me your hand!...I shall immerse you in it...Your ancestors were all born here, and all were good swimmers...It requires talent to swim in the sluggishly flowing thick and slimy river...It’s here where Tamerlane, Genghiz Khan, Abdul Hamid and many others were born. Be worthy of your ancestors!...Feel, it’s so warm and comfortable!...Dive in...Go deeper and deeper!...I know you will like it!...
Come out now! See? The heat is caking the blood on you...Magnificent! You look like a red statue...
Here are your tools;...Take them! They’re the things you need the most in your life...A dagger and a hatchet...Their blades have been tempered in the dark waters of the Styx.
Look again, at this magnificent panorama of fire...Look and feel its charm and beauty!...Open your arms and embrace my world; the world of your ancestors!...
Wake up, effendi! Wake up, Mustapha effendi! Someone knocked excitedly on the door.
Mustapha jumped from his sleep and sat motionless in bed. He looked around dazed and confounded. Then, he shook the sleep off of him, got up, opened the door and saw one of his men waiting outside with a letter in his hand.
Without opening it, he snapped his fingers joyfully and exclaimed, “This is it!...This is what I’ve been waiting for...”
He opened the letter and read it. “Just what I thought.” He exclaimed with joy. “Get the boys ready! Quick! We have important business to tend to...”
He went back into his room, got dressed, and put on his high boots, spurs and sheepskin hat. From his leather belt hung a dagger and a pistol; and two bands of cartridges crossed his chest over his shoulders.
When he came out, his men and his horse were waiting for him.
He said: “Men! An exact copy of this letter has been sent to every governor and mayor by Talaat Pasha, the Minister of Interior. Armenians are to be deported from their homes to Arabia...You know what that means...We are all going to be rich...We shall inherit everything they posses; Money, land and business. Today is the day!...Get on your horses!” And they rode away.
The sight of the burning towns and fields depicted in his dream, inspired and intoxicated him. The glorious ocean of flames, and the rolling billows of smoke haunted his avid imagination, and he took great pride in having found the path his ancestors had followed ever since the dawn of their history.
Riding at the head of his gang, Mustapha spurred his horse, and trotted on, drunk by the prospect of their exploits.
It was Sunday; and the people of the village had gathered in the church for morning service.
A heavy scent of incense and burning candles filled the air. An undertone of prayer rose from the congregation like a thin veil of mist from the slumbering lake.
The lights of the torches and altar reflected in the silver candlesticks and the sparkling cross and the jewel-studded sacred vestment of the priest, and show red colorful lights upon the ceiling, the walls and the congregation, giving everything the air of unearthliness.
Madonna’s motherly smile radiated from the loft with a caressing and comforting warmth.
At this moment, the crash of horses’ hooves was heard at the entrance. A sudden commotion, and everyone’s eyes turned toward the door.
Mustapha followed by some of his men, suddenly barged into the church. The curses and the clatter of their footsteps drowned the service.
He went up the stone steps to the altar, with a whip in his hand. He stood insolently by the priest, an ironical smile on his face, and his hands on his hips, while his men scattered around in the church, they all awaited his signal...
“...Stop the service right away and follow my men out!” said Mustapha.
The church sunk in silence. The old priest, with the silver cross in his hand, said calmly, “What do you mean, Mustapha effendi?”
“... Just what I said.”
“...But this is a crime.”
“...Shut up! Do as I said.”
“...But this is a crime, an unpardonable crime...The way you’re acting in the presence of God.” said the priest.
“...Shut up you bloody beggar.”
Raising the cross solemnly before his eyes, the priest continued quietly.
“...You will, someday, be punished by this Holy Cross for your horrible attitude here.”
Mustapha, knocking the cross out of his hand, kicked him down the steps of the altar.
A chorus of hair-raising screams came out of the congregation, like the crash of huge waves breaking against the reefs of the ocean.
Arsen, a youth of twenty, dashed with an uncontrollable rage, to the altar and threw himself upon Mustapha. But sensing the sacredness of the spot, he stood before him with clenched fists, and his eyes stared at him like the steel blade of a knife.
“What do you mean by all this?”
The corners of Mustapha’s mouth curled up, and with a diabolical glint in his eyes, he spit in his face.
“...Come on out, you coward,” said Arsen. “I can’t fight in the church.” And he walked down the steps to the door.
Outside, the congregation clashed with Mustapha’s men. Women and children were xxxxxled over. Screams and terror filled the air; and soon everything subsided, leaving several fatally wounded men and women on the ground.
At the edge of town, the priest and many prominent men were overpowered and, with their hands tied behind them, they were slaughtered with hatchets.
Children screamed, terrified, and took refuge behind their mother’s aprons and shut their eyes tightly, so the Turks couldn’t find them.
The sun went down, and the caravan, surrounded like storm-driven sheep, moved on to an unknown destination, joining on the way, other caravans and other bands.
After marching for three days, they arrived at Ayran, in the Amanos ridges. Many women and children had already died from hunger and exhaustion, and their corpses had been thrown away in the bushes.
The sun was on the meridian. The sky clear and bright and the heat torturing. Arsen’s hands were tied behind his back and he managed as much as he could to walk with Hasmik and her mother, carrying on his shoulder Hasmik’s baby brother, Armen.
They came down the rocky slope limping and panting. Avalanches of shattered stone and gravel went down the mountainside. Perspiration had caked the chalky dust on their faces. To protect the chastity of their daughters, mothers had smeared mud on their faces with the hope of making them repulsive.
Mustapha and his men kept the caravan moving under the cracks of their whips. Babies who couldn’t keep pace with the grown-ups, were left behind to be taken care of by the beasts.
Armen had been crying for water all day. A bluish haze of heat shimmered over the woods and the valley, down below. Brownish metallic rocks poured out inexhaustible heat, and Armen cried persistently for water. He hadn’t eaten anything for two days. They coaxed him to have a little patience...Soon they would have some...Just a little patience and everything would be all right. His fingers clung tight to Arsen’s hair, and his soft thighs pressed against his face. He was quiet now; they were glad. He didn’t cry any more for water....He had become patient...He knew everything would be all right....He even tried to cooperate in torture...bad as it was...He even stopped squirming...
Then, suddenly, his grip loosened, his legs got cooler against his cheeks and with a muffled moan he fell off onto the ground, with a small avalanche of gravel and stone rolling with him down the rocky slope.
His mother and sister screamed frantically and tumbled down after him. They took him in their arms, and kissed him, coaxed him, implored him.
In vain.
Their reviving efforts were futile, and suddenly, they both burst into tears. He was dead.
Mustapha’s whip cracked on their heads with obscene cursing.
“...Move on! Get going! You bloody xxxxxes!”
Not very far from there, in a secluded hollow, hordes of Turks and Kurds dashed from behind the bushes and chaparral, and swooped down upon these unfortunates with knives and hatchets.
The crowd charged with their bare hands, kicking, biting, cursing. But the knives and the hatchets proved to be far more sharper...The slaughter was under way. Mustapha successfully tested how sharp his knife and hatchet were. With one stroke of his hatchet, he chopped the head of Hasmik’s mother off into the ditch.
Hasmik screamed and lunged after her, unnoticed, beneath the headless heap of corpses, pressing her breast against the bleeding head of her mother.
After everything was over, Mustapha, accompanied by two of his men, took Arsen to the nearby town, Islahie.
Why didn’t he kill him? Why all this extra trouble?
They stopped in front of a one-story building. Two guards stood at the gate, with fixed-bayonets. They entered the courtyard. His clothes were gray from the chalky dust of the road, and his face was caked with dirt.
.
.
. They walked across the court, then through a door in the opposite wall. They entered into a spacious room, stone-floored, bare and desolate. In one corner stood an ordinary, unpainted table, with a chair before it, occupied by an armed Turk. Not very far from him, two Anatolian brutes sat on the floor, with their backs against the wall. They were in short sleeves, wearing baggy trousers of dirty white cotton, and long lashes curled in their laps.
Dying Every Minute (Continued)
As they entered, one of the men got up walked across the room to the wall, bent down, and pushed a small sliding door open. A dark hole gaped in silence.
He called out in a harsh voice “...Come on out you dirty swine!”
No answer was heard from within. He came down to his knees and peeped into the hole. An offensive smell pinched his nose, and his nostrils quivered.
“...It’s to you I am talking! You dirty rat! What are you lying on your back for? Can’t you hear me?”
Again, he didn’t get an answer. Then, holding his breath, he stuck his head into the opening, and reaching with his right hand, he dragged something out; a shapeless mass of a human being. He dragged him out by his leg to the center of the room, joining his men, who stood on each side of the dying unfortunate. He commanded: “...Ready!” The men uncoiled their long black lashes and let them lay a moment on the floor. Then, to the rhythm of the sergeant’s harsh voice, they went into action “...One...Two...Three...Four...”
The lashes whined and cracked on the dying man’s body. They coiled and uncoiled like rattlesnakes and their black marks girdled his bare, emaciated and faintly breathing chest.
He couldn’t scream, nor cry. He had no strength left for that.
After the sergeant reached the hundred and fiftieth time, he stopped, and with a disdainful motion of his hand, he said: “Drag him out and throw him into the ditch, with the others.” And turning to Mustapha, said with an ironical smile. “The floor is yours now...” And he left the room with his men.
Mustapha, a satanic glint in his eyes, took the stand, nodded to his men to get ready, and beckoned to Arsen to take the dying man’s place on the floor.
A few minutes later, they dragged him, unconscious, threw him in the dark hole and closed the door behind.
Mustapha suddenly remembered he had forgotten a very important matter and he hurried back to the hollow where the massacre had taken place. He took a big stick from the bushes, stuck it into the ditch, and began pushing the corpses to one side, trying to discover Hasmik’s body.
The sun had gone down, and the dusk, like a thin black haze, covered the valley. The ditch was a gruesome sight. Indescribable sounds came out of the disfigured , dismembered and bleeding bodies. Here an arm jerks spasmodically; there a leg. The muscle of an eye twitches, as if the dead persons were winking, and a lifeless convulsion breaks the thickening blood in the throat with muffled gurgles.
Someone stirred in the bushes. Mustapha turned and listened. He listened and slowly approached the suspected spot. His pistol in his hand, he got closer and peeped into the thick chaparral, then, with a broad smile on his face he stopped and looked at his men who were scurrying the countryside.
“...Here she is!...Right here!” Slowly, and dejectedly, Hasmik came to her feet, dishevelled and bloody.
He rode to the village, high in the mountains. He dismounted and carried her into a deserted house and flung her on the bed. She kicked and bit and scratched, and struggled violently.
He finally overpowered her.
Her unconscious state didn’t bother Mustapha...A moment later, he stood looking at the still unconscious body of Hasmik who lay on the bed. A fiendish smile curled the corners of his mouth.
“...It will take time to tame her...Just a little patience, and everything will be all right...” Then he curled his mustache and walked out humming a cheerful song.
The little village was situated in one of the upper recesses of Amanos ridges, overlooking a vast scene of deserted towns. He stood in front of his house and gazed at the desolate distance: at the fields with no workers, at the houses with no dwellers, at the churches with no worshippers, and chuckled.
An immeasurable mass of human avalanche was being rolled down to the burning sands of Arabia. An entire race was being thrown into the crackling flames. Mustapha, remembered his dream and felt fine.
Dying Every Minute
By Sempad Shahnazarian
he end of the first world war was in sight. The Turkish resistance on the Palestine Front was shattered, and the British forces, assisted by the Legion d’Orient, were in hot pursuit of the demoralized enemy.
It was autumn. A battalion of Armenian Legionnaires was being transported on board a French cruiser, from Cyprus to Cilicia to bolster the Allied occupational forces there.
The night was clear and windy, and the ship plowed relentlessly through the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
The masts stood high, silent and watchful; and the guns, like huge logs, elevated on steel platforms, craned their necks toward the dark, wet and hissing distances.
The rolling billows crashed continually against the heavy sides of the ship; and at times, the sky seemed so low over the heaving and raging sea, that the waves were tempted to reach higher and higher to splash their cool and foamy shower at the jewel-studded face of the night.
Innumerable sparks danced graciously in the curves of the breaking waves, -- countless tiny animals with minute lanterns, that breathed and pulsated with life.
Sitting on the deck, at the base of a big gun, Vartan gazed wistfully, now and then, in the direction where the vessel was moving, and read the story he was working on.
“It was about two years ago, when that terrible thing happened; and it happened with Mustapha’s strange dream.”
A ghost stood on the bank of a river that flowed blood, and watched in a trance, an immense conflagration that crashed through cities and towns and ripening wheat fields.
Through the cracks in the smoke and flames, one could clearly see the frames of the buildings burning brightly and entire cities and villages turning into heaps of embers.
The ghost said:
“Mustapha! My son! Behold this beautiful sight of our world! Isn’t it just enchanting? You know you were born on the bank of this river and bathed in its crimson waters...But why are you looking so surprised?...Oh, those voices!...Those muffled sounds!...They are but the sighs and sobs of the dead left behind in the folds of this infernal river.
Come now!...Closer...Give me your hand!...I shall immerse you in it...Your ancestors were all born here, and all were good swimmers...It requires talent to swim in the sluggishly flowing thick and slimy river...It’s here where Tamerlane, Genghiz Khan, Abdul Hamid and many others were born. Be worthy of your ancestors!...Feel, it’s so warm and comfortable!...Dive in...Go deeper and deeper!...I know you will like it!...
Come out now! See? The heat is caking the blood on you...Magnificent! You look like a red statue...
Here are your tools;...Take them! They’re the things you need the most in your life...A dagger and a hatchet...Their blades have been tempered in the dark waters of the Styx.
Look again, at this magnificent panorama of fire...Look and feel its charm and beauty!...Open your arms and embrace my world; the world of your ancestors!...
Wake up, effendi! Wake up, Mustapha effendi! Someone knocked excitedly on the door.
Mustapha jumped from his sleep and sat motionless in bed. He looked around dazed and confounded. Then, he shook the sleep off of him, got up, opened the door and saw one of his men waiting outside with a letter in his hand.
Without opening it, he snapped his fingers joyfully and exclaimed, “This is it!...This is what I’ve been waiting for...”
He opened the letter and read it. “Just what I thought.” He exclaimed with joy. “Get the boys ready! Quick! We have important business to tend to...”
He went back into his room, got dressed, and put on his high boots, spurs and sheepskin hat. From his leather belt hung a dagger and a pistol; and two bands of cartridges crossed his chest over his shoulders.
When he came out, his men and his horse were waiting for him.
He said: “Men! An exact copy of this letter has been sent to every governor and mayor by Talaat Pasha, the Minister of Interior. Armenians are to be deported from their homes to Arabia...You know what that means...We are all going to be rich...We shall inherit everything they posses; Money, land and business. Today is the day!...Get on your horses!” And they rode away.
The sight of the burning towns and fields depicted in his dream, inspired and intoxicated him. The glorious ocean of flames, and the rolling billows of smoke haunted his avid imagination, and he took great pride in having found the path his ancestors had followed ever since the dawn of their history.
Riding at the head of his gang, Mustapha spurred his horse, and trotted on, drunk by the prospect of their exploits.
It was Sunday; and the people of the village had gathered in the church for morning service.
A heavy scent of incense and burning candles filled the air. An undertone of prayer rose from the congregation like a thin veil of mist from the slumbering lake.
The lights of the torches and altar reflected in the silver candlesticks and the sparkling cross and the jewel-studded sacred vestment of the priest, and show red colorful lights upon the ceiling, the walls and the congregation, giving everything the air of unearthliness.
Madonna’s motherly smile radiated from the loft with a caressing and comforting warmth.
At this moment, the crash of horses’ hooves was heard at the entrance. A sudden commotion, and everyone’s eyes turned toward the door.
Mustapha followed by some of his men, suddenly barged into the church. The curses and the clatter of their footsteps drowned the service.
He went up the stone steps to the altar, with a whip in his hand. He stood insolently by the priest, an ironical smile on his face, and his hands on his hips, while his men scattered around in the church, they all awaited his signal...
“...Stop the service right away and follow my men out!” said Mustapha.
The church sunk in silence. The old priest, with the silver cross in his hand, said calmly, “What do you mean, Mustapha effendi?”
“... Just what I said.”
“...But this is a crime.”
“...Shut up! Do as I said.”
“...But this is a crime, an unpardonable crime...The way you’re acting in the presence of God.” said the priest.
“...Shut up you bloody beggar.”
Raising the cross solemnly before his eyes, the priest continued quietly.
“...You will, someday, be punished by this Holy Cross for your horrible attitude here.”
Mustapha, knocking the cross out of his hand, kicked him down the steps of the altar.
A chorus of hair-raising screams came out of the congregation, like the crash of huge waves breaking against the reefs of the ocean.
Arsen, a youth of twenty, dashed with an uncontrollable rage, to the altar and threw himself upon Mustapha. But sensing the sacredness of the spot, he stood before him with clenched fists, and his eyes stared at him like the steel blade of a knife.
“What do you mean by all this?”
The corners of Mustapha’s mouth curled up, and with a diabolical glint in his eyes, he spit in his face.
“...Come on out, you coward,” said Arsen. “I can’t fight in the church.” And he walked down the steps to the door.
Outside, the congregation clashed with Mustapha’s men. Women and children were xxxxxled over. Screams and terror filled the air; and soon everything subsided, leaving several fatally wounded men and women on the ground.
At the edge of town, the priest and many prominent men were overpowered and, with their hands tied behind them, they were slaughtered with hatchets.
Children screamed, terrified, and took refuge behind their mother’s aprons and shut their eyes tightly, so the Turks couldn’t find them.
The sun went down, and the caravan, surrounded like storm-driven sheep, moved on to an unknown destination, joining on the way, other caravans and other bands.
After marching for three days, they arrived at Ayran, in the Amanos ridges. Many women and children had already died from hunger and exhaustion, and their corpses had been thrown away in the bushes.
The sun was on the meridian. The sky clear and bright and the heat torturing. Arsen’s hands were tied behind his back and he managed as much as he could to walk with Hasmik and her mother, carrying on his shoulder Hasmik’s baby brother, Armen.
They came down the rocky slope limping and panting. Avalanches of shattered stone and gravel went down the mountainside. Perspiration had caked the chalky dust on their faces. To protect the chastity of their daughters, mothers had smeared mud on their faces with the hope of making them repulsive.
Mustapha and his men kept the caravan moving under the cracks of their whips. Babies who couldn’t keep pace with the grown-ups, were left behind to be taken care of by the beasts.
Armen had been crying for water all day. A bluish haze of heat shimmered over the woods and the valley, down below. Brownish metallic rocks poured out inexhaustible heat, and Armen cried persistently for water. He hadn’t eaten anything for two days. They coaxed him to have a little patience...Soon they would have some...Just a little patience and everything would be all right. His fingers clung tight to Arsen’s hair, and his soft thighs pressed against his face. He was quiet now; they were glad. He didn’t cry any more for water....He had become patient...He knew everything would be all right....He even tried to cooperate in torture...bad as it was...He even stopped squirming...
Then, suddenly, his grip loosened, his legs got cooler against his cheeks and with a muffled moan he fell off onto the ground, with a small avalanche of gravel and stone rolling with him down the rocky slope.
His mother and sister screamed frantically and tumbled down after him. They took him in their arms, and kissed him, coaxed him, implored him.
In vain.
Their reviving efforts were futile, and suddenly, they both burst into tears. He was dead.
Mustapha’s whip cracked on their heads with obscene cursing.
“...Move on! Get going! You bloody xxxxxes!”
Not very far from there, in a secluded hollow, hordes of Turks and Kurds dashed from behind the bushes and chaparral, and swooped down upon these unfortunates with knives and hatchets.
The crowd charged with their bare hands, kicking, biting, cursing. But the knives and the hatchets proved to be far more sharper...The slaughter was under way. Mustapha successfully tested how sharp his knife and hatchet were. With one stroke of his hatchet, he chopped the head of Hasmik’s mother off into the ditch.
Hasmik screamed and lunged after her, unnoticed, beneath the headless heap of corpses, pressing her breast against the bleeding head of her mother.
After everything was over, Mustapha, accompanied by two of his men, took Arsen to the nearby town, Islahie.
Why didn’t he kill him? Why all this extra trouble?
They stopped in front of a one-story building. Two guards stood at the gate, with fixed-bayonets. They entered the courtyard. His clothes were gray from the chalky dust of the road, and his face was caked with dirt.
.
.
. They walked across the court, then through a door in the opposite wall. They entered into a spacious room, stone-floored, bare and desolate. In one corner stood an ordinary, unpainted table, with a chair before it, occupied by an armed Turk. Not very far from him, two Anatolian brutes sat on the floor, with their backs against the wall. They were in short sleeves, wearing baggy trousers of dirty white cotton, and long lashes curled in their laps.
Dying Every Minute (Continued)
As they entered, one of the men got up walked across the room to the wall, bent down, and pushed a small sliding door open. A dark hole gaped in silence.
He called out in a harsh voice “...Come on out you dirty swine!”
No answer was heard from within. He came down to his knees and peeped into the hole. An offensive smell pinched his nose, and his nostrils quivered.
“...It’s to you I am talking! You dirty rat! What are you lying on your back for? Can’t you hear me?”
Again, he didn’t get an answer. Then, holding his breath, he stuck his head into the opening, and reaching with his right hand, he dragged something out; a shapeless mass of a human being. He dragged him out by his leg to the center of the room, joining his men, who stood on each side of the dying unfortunate. He commanded: “...Ready!” The men uncoiled their long black lashes and let them lay a moment on the floor. Then, to the rhythm of the sergeant’s harsh voice, they went into action “...One...Two...Three...Four...”
The lashes whined and cracked on the dying man’s body. They coiled and uncoiled like rattlesnakes and their black marks girdled his bare, emaciated and faintly breathing chest.
He couldn’t scream, nor cry. He had no strength left for that.
After the sergeant reached the hundred and fiftieth time, he stopped, and with a disdainful motion of his hand, he said: “Drag him out and throw him into the ditch, with the others.” And turning to Mustapha, said with an ironical smile. “The floor is yours now...” And he left the room with his men.
Mustapha, a satanic glint in his eyes, took the stand, nodded to his men to get ready, and beckoned to Arsen to take the dying man’s place on the floor.
A few minutes later, they dragged him, unconscious, threw him in the dark hole and closed the door behind.
Mustapha suddenly remembered he had forgotten a very important matter and he hurried back to the hollow where the massacre had taken place. He took a big stick from the bushes, stuck it into the ditch, and began pushing the corpses to one side, trying to discover Hasmik’s body.
The sun had gone down, and the dusk, like a thin black haze, covered the valley. The ditch was a gruesome sight. Indescribable sounds came out of the disfigured , dismembered and bleeding bodies. Here an arm jerks spasmodically; there a leg. The muscle of an eye twitches, as if the dead persons were winking, and a lifeless convulsion breaks the thickening blood in the throat with muffled gurgles.
Someone stirred in the bushes. Mustapha turned and listened. He listened and slowly approached the suspected spot. His pistol in his hand, he got closer and peeped into the thick chaparral, then, with a broad smile on his face he stopped and looked at his men who were scurrying the countryside.
“...Here she is!...Right here!” Slowly, and dejectedly, Hasmik came to her feet, dishevelled and bloody.
He rode to the village, high in the mountains. He dismounted and carried her into a deserted house and flung her on the bed. She kicked and bit and scratched, and struggled violently.
He finally overpowered her.
Her unconscious state didn’t bother Mustapha...A moment later, he stood looking at the still unconscious body of Hasmik who lay on the bed. A fiendish smile curled the corners of his mouth.
“...It will take time to tame her...Just a little patience, and everything will be all right...” Then he curled his mustache and walked out humming a cheerful song.
The little village was situated in one of the upper recesses of Amanos ridges, overlooking a vast scene of deserted towns. He stood in front of his house and gazed at the desolate distance: at the fields with no workers, at the houses with no dwellers, at the churches with no worshippers, and chuckled.
An immeasurable mass of human avalanche was being rolled down to the burning sands of Arabia. An entire race was being thrown into the crackling flames. Mustapha, remembered his dream and felt fine.
Comment