CHAPTER X

THE BUYUK ZAPTIEH

“Hosh geldi, hosh geldi! welcome, welcome!” were the only words which Takvor could distinguish in the medley of voices.

Dazed by the fall, he was still lying on the ground where the jailor had pushed him, when a prisoner ignited a match to examine the new arrival. His fellow prisoners, whose pale, haggard faces in the flickering light seemed like ghosts emerging from the surrounding darkness, gathered about him and began to ply him with questions. Why had he come? What crime had he committed? Had he money, and would he buy them food? The cell in which they were huddled together was scarcely fifteen feet long and half as wide, yet in it were eighteen men. There was not enough room for them all to lie down. A little hole in the wall, which served as a window, was far too small for ventilation, and the air was foul. Perceiving from Takvor’s appearance that he was unused to hardship, and hoping perhaps to share his money, they treated him kindly, and gave him a place beneath the window, where the air was not quite so tainted with the stench of the room.

There was no sleep for Takvor that night. He sat in a stupor, while rats ran along the beams of the ceiling or over the bodies of the sleeping prisoners. At last a faint light announced the approach of morning. The prisoners sat up one by one and scrutinized him. Among them was an old man who had been in confinement half his life. He was permitted to sell food to those who had money. To the less fortunate a small loaf of black bread and a rusty tin of water were given daily. The old man asked Takvor whether he was hungry and had money, and then from a dark corner produced a wooden plate of beans cooked in fat, too filthy to be eaten, for which he charged him ten piasters.

In the increasing light, Takvor could see his fellow prisoners. They were lean and haggard, with untrimmed beards and matted hair. The filthy rags clinging to their half-naked bodies were swarming with vermin. Huddled in that cell were persecuted Armenians, thieves, brigands, and murderers. A Bulgarian had been in prison there for twenty years; ignorant of the police regulations, he had, upon the night of his arrival, gone into the street without a lighted lantern. With no friend to search for him, he was lost to the world, and forgotten even by the prison authorities.

To Takvor, sick and discouraged, the morning brought little hope. Should he fail to communicate with his father, his fate might be as evil as that of any of his fellow prisoners. His first thought was to find means to smuggle out a message, but he learned that he was in a cell to which visitors were forbidden. He wondered if the big Turk could be bribed to take a message to his father, and if his few remaining liras would suffice. When the jailor again appeared, Takvor was standing by the door, and he held out a gold lira. The Turk seized it greedily and promised to obey his instructions. Encouraged by the promise, Takvor patiently sat on the floor to await the coming of his father. Hour after hour passed, and night came, bringing with it only increased despair. The next morning, when the jailor’s face appeared behind the grated window, Takvor inquired if he had sent the message.

“Give me another lira, and I will send it at once,” was the answer.

Takvor gave him not one lira, but several, keeping only a few silver pieces to pay for food. Again he waited in vain. On the third morning he gave the jailor his watch in return for another solemn promise; but this promise was kept no better than the others.

Thus to Takvor the slowly passing days brought nothing but despair. The few clothes which the jailor had left him were covered with filth. His money was gone, and his only food was the insufficient black loaf which the jailor threw to him. He quenched his thirst with the tepid water of the rusty tin from which the others drank. But his hardships were slight when compared with the sufferings of the others. The jailor would drag some political prisoner into the passageway to be questioned. If the answers were not sufficient, he received blows or some more terrible punishment.

Unnerved by witnessing the tortures of others, in constant fear for his own safety, poisoned by foul air and filthy water, and starved by the scant prison fare, Takvor grew thin and weak. Four of the prisoners had already died. Another poor fellow, an Armenian lad of his own age, would soon be the fifth. To prolong his life, Takvor shared with him his small prison loaf. One morning, when the jailor was looking through the grated door, the groaning of a prisoner caught his attention. He called his superior, and the pompous official, poking the boy with his foot, was heard to mumble something about throwing him into the street, that he might die elsewhere. Takvor awoke in the night and spoke to the boy, but received no answer. He reached out his hand to touch him, and found that the body was cold. A thought suddenly flashed through his mind. Why should not he himself be released in the morning? He sat up and listened to the heavy breathing of the prisoners. Hearing no other sound, he exchanged his clothes for those of the dead boy, and unwinding the cloth from the boy’s head, wrapped it about his own. Then after dragging the body to his own place beneath the window, he lay down where his friend had died.

In the early morning, unrecognized by his fellow prisoners, Takvor lay groaning, when the grating of the door announced the presence of the jailor. The big Turk, followed by half a dozen guards, seized the Armenian prisoners, one by one, and dragged them through the long passageway, to a fate unknown to the others. At last Takvor was seized and dragged to the light, where he was recognized in the dead boy’s clothing.

The jailor suspected that some attempt had been made to deceive him, and he flew into a passion.

“Sick, are you? I’ll teach you to groan,” and he dealt Takvor a cruel blow.

To exchange good clothes for a dead man’s rags, could deserve nothing less than extreme punishment. The more the jailor reflected, the greater was his anger, and he continued to administer blows until the groans, now become real, were silenced; Takvor was unconscious. Several hours later, when he came to, a great Kurd lifted him carefully to his feet and conducted him to the outside wall of the prison. Still faint, and half blinded by the light of the day, to which his eyes had so long been unaccustomed, yet amazed at his unexpected freedom, and pondering what evil it foreboded, he paused for a moment, and then, looking about to convince himself that he was really free and alone save for the Kurd who had assisted him, slowly staggered away like a drunken man. The Kurd followed.