CHAPTER I

A cold spray blew over the deck of the steamer as it left the calm waters of the Bosphorus, making for the open and wind-swept expanse of the Black Sea. Although it was springtime, and the promise of summer had made Constantinople a city of warmth and cheerfulness, the wind cut through the shivering crowd on the deck of the Austrian-Lloyd boat. A north-easterly gale was blowing from the Russian Steppes, and at intervals, through mists and clouds closing and parting, the passengers caught glimpses of the Anatolian coast with its long mountainous barricade rising from the surf-beaten strip of shore. In lee of the deck-houses there was also a nurse, a fresh-complexioned English girl, in charge of a boy of seven, evidently the son of the Englishman and his wife. The Captain of the steamer, an Austrian, regarded the strange party from time to time, for it was rarely that Englishmen came to this part of the world, and seldom were they accompanied by their women folk. Impelled by his curiosity, he approached the tall stranger who had now risen and was surveying his fellow passengers with amused interest.

"You make to Trebizond, sir?" he asked, in broken English.

"No, for Samsoon."

"Ah--then you are of those who make the harbour there. It is a good scheme. The English have much wisdom, but it is a terrible land," he continued, and swept his hand expressively toward the grey coastland. "Barbarians there--Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, Circassians, Kurds, and some Americans, they go everywhere, like the English. Ah, a terrible land." He shuddered and drew his fingers across his throat, and then rolled his eyes as if the country transcended all words at his command.

"Do you know Asia Minor?" asked the stranger. "I am going to Amasia."

"That is inland--a place of the wolves, the bandits--no, I would never tread that soil. It is enough to sail the sea. The Black Sea--ough!" And once more he shuddered. "The lady--is it that she goes there, and the child?"

"Yes, I have business in Amasia."

"That is the illness of the English,--business, for this they come to these lands. They are great fools, and brave fools, sir! The sea is more safe. I hope soon never more to see this coast. I will live in Vienna. Ah! one can live in Vienna, but there!--" He gave a short laugh and then went about his work.

But as Charles Dean leaned over the taffrail and watched the flowing coastline dimly streaming into distance, it was not without a stirring of deep interest. This was the classic land of great adventure; they were near the coast of Phoenicia; behind that range was Sidon, looking towards Palestine. This sea had seen Jason and his Argonauts searching the coast of Colchis for the Golden Fleece. All the ancient world of the Greeks was here, and the tides of barbaric splendour had swept over that land; Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman rulers had shaped its destiny. It was the great battlefield of the world; the Greeks sailing for Troy, the Ten Thousand, had all known that shore and the mountains still slept by the thundering seas as in the days of Alexander and of Caesar. Peak after peak of those mountains with their historic names arose and looked inland, the mountains of Ionia, Ida and Casia, of Bithynia, Pontus and Paphlogonia; violet and blue and amethyst, they stretched like sleeping animals in the March sunlight, clothed with a forest growth and fringed with pine trees.

So all day long the little steamer went along its pathway of foam; during those hours, Charles Dean and his wife were sustained by the excitement of their entry into a new world. The last four years of their lives had been spent in journeying from city to city, from country to country. Amsterdam, Berlin and Bordeaux had held them for a short time. Eastwards then Charles Dean received a call from the trading company employing him, this time to Constantinople. That had been the pleasantest of all their sojournings in foreign lands. The city of mosques and minarets, with its beautiful gardens and golden sea, had seemed like a dream from one of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. And now the gradual extension eastwards of business, was carrying them to Amasia, the city unknown, dwelling inland behind that great mountain barrier. It was a strange life, yet not without its fascinations. Mary Dean insisted upon accompanying her husband. She had the choice of remaining in England, but she swept it aside unhesitatingly. Devoid of fear and devoted to her husband, she went with him from land to land. With them also went their young son, John Narcissus Dean. Narcissus! exclaimed everybody, hearing the name. "Yes, Narcissus," answered handsome Charles Dean solemnly, while the light of humour danced in his grey eyes; and then followed the story of that honeymoon in Naples, when Mary, after seeing the famous statue of "Narcissus listening to Echo," had pleaded with her young husband, assisted by a Jew curio shopkeeper, for a copy she coveted. "But I want a real Narcissus," whispered the young man, pressing her hand quietly, while the Jew dusted the expensive bronzes on his counter.

"You shall have one--if I can have this," she answered roguishly. He nearly kissed her in boyish ecstasy. "Done!" he cried--"and we'll call him 'Narcissus.'"

Charles Dean was not only a man who kept to his word, but also to his joke. The announcement of the birth of John Narcissus at the historic manor of "Fourways" filled old Sir Neville, the grandfather, with delight and protest; a boy--excellent, Narcissus--preposterous! But Charles was obstinate, Mary amused, and Sir Neville protested anew. It was like Charles--independent, obstinate Charles, who had always been so irrational. It might have been expected of a man who had thrown up a diplomatic career to breed horses, which he could not afford to breed, who had married penniless Mary Loughton, his land-agent's pretty daughter. Charles had always been the fool in contrast with Henry, his level-headed elder brother. Sir Neville did not protest long,--he died one month after the coming of the grandchild with the freak name; and although all babies seem to look alike, many ladies, calling on the young mother, vowed the child was a veritable Narcissus--so handsome, so bonnie, so--

The new baronet made one formal protest, but Henry knew well he could do nothing with his odd-minded brother; still, as uncle, head of the family, and sixth baronet, he felt he had some right to protest against "Narcissus," if not for himself, then for his own boys, who were cousins to this piece of Greek mythology. The young parents only laughed, and John Narcissus, as if seeing the joke, gurgled whenever he was shown the statue and told to grow up like it--not altogether of course, for the statue proved to be cracked over the left breast, where the dealer had carefully kept his thumb.

Sir Henry, annoyed, kept aloof. When he heard that Charles had ruined himself and lost "Fourways" in a mad scheme to sink a shaft, over-persuaded by a gang of company promoters, he declared he was in no way surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and waited to see what would happen now. The sale of "Fourways," its contents and its horses, must have been a hard blow for Charles, but he certainly gave no sign when he called to say "Goodbye," before taking a position as continental agent offered him by an old friend.

"And--the boy?" asked Sir Henry, unable to make himself pronounce the ridiculous name.

"He is going with us."

"What--all over the Continent!" cried the astounded baronet. "You can't take a boy there--why not send him to school?"

"He's too young--we want him--and I don't believe in preparatory schools."

"Crank!" exclaimed Sir Henry to her ladyship when his brother had gone.

Thus came John Narcissus Dean to be swinging his sturdy legs on a box aboard an Austrian-Lloyd steamer bound for Samsoon. He was a fine boy, well matured for his seven years, and already he had a manner of command which made a slave of his devoted nurse Anna, a big fresh-coloured country girl, one of the small group that had gathered, seven years before, at the foot of the staircase at "Fourways." Anna had never intended going to Asia Minor, which she looked upon with the same horror as she did the South Sea Islands. Her first excursion, to Amsterdam, had been taken with great daring. Only love of the child she nursed and the mistress she served, could have prevailed upon her to leave England, for as all the peasant class, she had a loathing of foreigners. But from Amsterdam to Berlin had not seemed so far, and then the change to Bordeaux was like coming half-way home, so she remained with the family, and, as the years went by, became more tightly bound by affection to her young charge. For, however much she admired her mistress, she never doubted for one moment that, without her, young John Narcissus could not live. She had nursed him from a baby, was familiar with all his complaints, and also his moods, which were peculiar and trying.

It was Anna alone who could curb those terrible fits of passion which so alarmed the fond parents. The child had a way of working himself into a fanatical frenzy when pleased by anything. At first these moods had been attributed to infant naughtiness and had been punished, but without result. An eminent Berlin specialist, whom they had consulted in distress, had said that the child's brain was abnormally developed. He was to be humoured and closely watched. With time and careful guarding he would outgrow those storms of passion and ecstasy. So Anna immediately took the specialist's words to heart. Without her the child would not live. When the change to Constantinople was announced, her first intention was to give notice. She did not object to France or Holland, but Turkey was a barbarian country where Christians were crowded together and shot at with bows and arrows, or cut to a thousand pieces with terrible knives like those which grocers used for carving hams. But she could not think of leaving the child; and, after all, she had been to Berlin, which was almost half-way across Europe. She decided to go to Constantinople, for the more she considered the matter the firmer grew her conviction that her master and mistress were mad.

When therefore, one morning, seated on the deck of the steamer as it entered Samsoon roads, she was told by Mr. Dean that the white path, climbing past the squalid little houses up the mountain side, winding in and out like a ribbon, was the way to old Baghdad, the ancient city of Haroun-al-Raschid and Sinbad the Sailor, she wondered whatever her people, far away at home, would think when they heard she was travelling in these fairy-tale lands. The only real things in her amazing life were John and his father and mother. She looked at John as he sat swinging his brown legs on the side of a box, and wondered that such a morsel of life should drag her across the world into strange and terrible lands.

The passage ashore was made in a small boat, and the adventure was a somewhat perilous one, for the frail craft was swept by the waters. They were finally landed on the beach some distance away from the town. Here a small crowd of customs officials and Turkish luggage porters met them; then they were driven along the front of the town in an _arabya_, a native conveyance with curtains for warding off the sun, drawn by one horse in the control of a Turkish driver.

And now the irresistible glamour which the East throws over the hearts of all who venture into her domain, entranced the small party as it was driven for some two miles along the edge of a sandy yellow beach into the town of Samsoon.

The buildings were low and inelegant; the streets narrow and filled with that accumulation of smells and filth that are to be found in all cities under Ottoman rule. But there was, despite these disadvantages, a definite charm in the little town of forty thousand souls. Samsoon is the one accessible port lying on the fringe of a tableland containing the richest cornfields and tobacco country of the world. The city itself was built at the great gate of the mountains over which the roads wind through the few low passes along that impregnable coast. It was the gate of that great historic highway running through Turkey in Asia, along which all the traffic had rolled for centuries. It was traffic that had scarcely altered in any detail since the day of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid; the sight which met the eyes of Charles Dean and his family was one that had greeted the traveller for the last ten hundred years.

As the _arabya_ climbed up the steep road leading to the centre of the town, it breasted a stream of traffic coming down from the high pass. Young John shouted with glee as the solemn camels trudged by, their bells tinkling, their backs loaded with great bales of merchandise. Wagons, bullock-carts, donkeys, packhorses, _arabyas_ and men carrying great bundles, all seemed destined for one place, the block of warehouses above the harbour. Here and there a tired camel knelt for rest in the shade of a wayside tree. The drivers were vivid figures in their white cloaks, dusty and travel stained, while beside them moved, talked, and gesticulated such a mixture of races and colours that the eye was dazzled with the indistinguishable medley of blue, scarlet, gold, yellow and green gowns and cloaks, nearly all richly embroidered; and above all, rose the noise of innumerable bells in all keys, some ringing deep and slow, others tinkling incessantly as the donkeys wound by, urged on by cries and blows.

Sounds, colours, smells, all mingled in this small town, along this crowded highway, and Charles Dean was not slow to notice the prosperity of the place. Every man and animal was burdened with merchandise of some kind. Carts rolled by with shrieking axles, loaded with wheat and barley. The camels were weighed down under great bales of wool, tobacco, mohair and boxes of fruit and nuts. Brown-legged boys from the hills drove their flocks down the main street. They had started for the town at early dawn, and by eleven were in Samsoon, a distance of twenty miles. They were chiefly Turks, but occasionally one noticed the sharp features and clear skin of a Syrian youth, or the dark lean profile of a Circassian, always mounted and belted with daggers and pistols. The Greeks too were in evidence, walking about with a superior air of possession, for they and the Armenians were the chief citizens. They kept the shops and ran the small hotels and cafés.

That night, Dean and his family slept in Samsoon, but they were early astir, and after a short call at the local office of his company, Dean, with his wife, child and nurse, were seated in the curtained _arabya_ with a Moslem driver urging his two cream ponies along the high street. They were now travelling on the Baghdad road, and they had for companions on the way an unending line of betasselled camels, with great bells clanging as they lurched forwards, caravans winding slowly up the mountain side, and many _arabyas_ loaded with human beings or boxes, which once, to Dean's amazement, included American sewing machines destined for Baghdad. There were also many picturesque pedestrians or travellers on the humble donkey. For miles the broad road climbed up the side of the great ravine. Early in the afternoon they passed through Chakallu, the Place of Jackals, a village in the deep valley, and twilight found them at their first halting place. The town of Marsovan lay amid vineyards, orchards, and walnut groves. Above the flat-topped houses towered the slender minaret, rose tinted with the flush of waning light. Around the town, beyond the open plains, stretched the dark mountain ranges running north and south. As they descended into the town the driver pointed with his whip to an enormous blue precipice which towered up on the distant horizon some thirty miles away.

"Amasia," he said briefly, and Charles Dean and his wife looked at the distant horizon where lay the city in which they were destined to abide. In Marsovan they were fortunate in finding an American Medical Settlement where they were hospitably entertained for the night. It was with regret that they set out next morning for Amasia. It had been a great delight to live for a space among English speaking persons, to exchange opinions with the cheerful nurses and listen to the tales of the resident doctors. There was even an English garden, a fresh, green, home-like space within the walled compound, bordered with cherry trees and Easter lilies. Here at least was a place of refuge when the solitude of Amasia became unbearable, and as Mary Dean drove out of the courtyard and waved farewell to the little group of women gathered to speed their guests, she looked back with a feeling of comfort. She would be but a day's journey from them, and those who know what the sound of one's native speech means in an alien land will realise the comfort Mary Dean derived from the workers of the Mission.

The road to Amasia was a gradual crescendo of delight. The soft blue mountain ranges towered up above the travellers as they approached the entrance of the gorge. Here and there a column of smoke wound up the mountainside from the fires of the charcoal burners, whose little tents were pitched on the slopes. It was afternoon when they entered the ravine along which the white road wound into the town. Above them they saw the Baghdad road, on the opposite side of the ravine, half obscured by the clouds of dust thrown up by the miscellaneous traffic of carts, herds, camels and donkeys driving into the town. Now the plain appeared, and the vision stretched before them was like a new garden of Eden, a land flowing with colour, and scents from luxurious gardens. The smooth, quickly flowing river tumbled over its weirs; they could hear the singing of the water and the creaking of water mills built along the banks. The great crags stretched sheer to the sky, blazing with crimson shrubs in the bright, hot sunlight, and the further they progressed, the richer, the more varied grew the colours of this wonderful land.

Presently with a sharp turn in the road, they emerged from the rocky ravine into a tremendous gorge, with Amasia nestling between the folds of the towering mountains. The town itself was a maze of little white houses, dotted here and there in the small fertile valley, and stretching along the two banks of the Yeshil Innak. A dozen bridges, all of quaint design, some going back to Roman times, spanned the bright river, and above the banks rose the minarets of the mosques, khans, colleges and public buildings. The best houses built along the river each possessed wonderful hanging gardens blazing with luxuriant growths of semi-tropical plants and fruits, but the wonder of Amasia lay, not in the gardens or buildings, but in the immense cliffs that walled in the town from the outer world. These precipices, scarcely a mile apart, rose up on each side of the town to heights of three thousand feet on the western and more than a thousand on the eastern side. They did not rise as mountains, but seemed to be walls of rocks guarding the town. A castle stood boldly silhouetted against the bronze sky, perched on a frowning crag dominating the town. This was indeed an ancient dwelling place, an old world town of wonder, where history seemed to sleep, for Amasia was once the capital of Pontus, the home of the great Seljuks, the birthplace of Mithridates the Great. On the face of the western precipice there were still the five rock-hewn Tombs of the Kings. When Strabo wrote of them in B.C. 65, he was telling an ancient story, yet they remained untouched as when he had seen them.

As Charles Dean and his family drove into the town it was early afternoon, but already one half of the place was in shadow, the other half blazed with sunlight streaming over the western precipice. They were driven through the main street, a well observed party, giving as much interest as they found. The company employing Dean had a house for its agent on the outskirts of the town and to that they made their way. Presently they turned off from the road and went down a slope which led them through a beautiful garden into a small courtyard. Here, their home came into view, and as the large, low, white-faced building rose up among the trees, they all gave a cry of delight. On one side ran a large pergola built of yellow stone and black wood, leading to a garden which, even at this early time, rioted in colour. Beyond the pergola, approached by broad stone steps, lay the river, bordered with trees beneath which several boats were moored. One end of the house, raised upon piles, overlooked the river, with a wonderful view down the gorge towards the dazzling minarets and towers of the town.

They had scarcely noticed this enchanting vista when the _arabya_ pulled up in front of a large porch, screened with a swinging rush curtain. Before it, with a smile of welcome on their faces, stood the bronzed Englishman and his wife, whom Dean had come to relieve.

Greetings exchanged, they were led into a large, yellow room with French windows opening on to a verandah. Passing through the windows they were confronted once more with the view down the gorge. Tea was laid, and the travellers were soon exchanging the news. The agent, Mr. Price, and his wife had been in Amasia for twelve years. It was six years since they had had their last holiday in England. Now they were going there, never to leave it again.

"And to think--in six weeks we shall walk down Piccadilly!" cried Mrs. Price, the delight of anticipation in her voice. "It is just the same I suppose--the same crowds, the same lights and hurry?"

They laughed like children. It was so good to think they would be in England again. It was a little cruel to show their joy in view of the new exiles. But six years away from England had filled them with irresistible longing. Their questions too were all of home. The political crisis--was it over? The new Premier, how long did they think he would be in power? They had a boy at Winchester--was the tone there still considered good? He was sixteen--his mother fetched a photograph from the drawer to show them. He was going into the consular service.

And then Mrs. Price turned to the little boy standing beside Mrs. Dean. Until now, his whole attention had been divided between the novelty of his surroundings and the piece of cake he held in his hand. They hoped the summer heat would not be too intense for the child.

"The poor little chap will find it lonely here," said Price, "unless he makes friends with the Turkish children." Privately he wondered what insane motive had caused that couple to bring a child to this extraordinary land.

"John has always been with us," remarked Mrs. Dean, as if reading his thoughts. "The child seems to be quite happy without playmates, though of course, I devote most of my time to him."

And then they passed to business matters; the two women discussed domestic arrangements, the men their own trading affairs. Dinner was served in the long yellow room that evening. It was only six o'clock and yet it was quite dark. The light departed rapidly from the gorge, for the moment the sun had dipped below the precipice, the valley below was plunged into darkness. But as they sat at dinner, and looked out westwards over the mountain barrier, they could still see the daylight lingering in the glowing sky. A few stars glimmered in the twilight, their brightness and the light blue sky contrasting vividly with the black gorge and the dark running river.

They were waited upon at dinner by two Armenian boys clad in white jackets with brass buttons.

"We have practically brought them up in our service," said Price. "Their parents were killed in the last massacre."

"Massacre!" Mrs. Dean dropped her hand on to the table and looked across at the speaker--"When did the last occur?"

"Four years ago--it was a bad one too. Some squabble in a bazaar began it, I believe. The Armenians here are skilful in trade. They make hard bargains, and the Turks never forget the fact. There was a dispute in the bazaar; it set a light to smouldering passion, and the town was ablaze in half an hour. These Moslems are curious people, they kill deliberately, and though the massacre begins with a frenzied outbreak, it goes on with a dispassionateness which is terrible. The Armenians immediately flocked to the bazaar. It's in a walled compound with strongly barred gates. I had been out in the country that morning and knew that something was astir. The Turks looked askance at me and were sulky whenever I spoke to them. On returning my wife begged me to go down to the bazaar and see what I could do, for it is wonderful the weight we English have here. The Turks will listen to an Englishman, for they have never forgotten our Consuls and their firm, honest treatment of them.

"So I went. In front of the bazaar door, I found a horde of Moslems, rifles and pistols in hand, waiting for their victims to emerge. The outbreak had occurred at ten o'clock that morning. It was now four in the afternoon and they showed no signs of dispersing. I knew they would wait there five or six days if necessary. It was useless to argue with them. Moslem blood had been shed. The Armenians would have to bleed for it. Finally I succeeded in obtaining a concession. They would allow the women and children to go to their homes. But not the men, they said. So the door was opened and the terrified women and children passed out between a sullen crowd of Moslems. When the last appeared in the gateway there was a rush, and I saw a helpless woman surrounded by a mob of angry faces. Pushing my way towards her, I attempted to give her my protection but before I could reach her, she fell forwards, stabbed in the back, and as she fell, I saw that the Turks had not broken their word. Under the folds of the garment covering her was the Armenian pastor who had tried to escape in disguise. There was a murmur of intense satisfaction at this slaying of the leader of the hated community. In all these affairs, the pastor is the first to go; they seek him out as the figurehead, and these poor leaders of a timid flock know that; you can see perpetual melancholy in their faces, hear it in their voices. But they are brave men, and there is never any lack of pastors. These two boys who wait on us are the sons of that unfortunate man."

There was a long silence; then, fearing he had alarmed his guests, Price added in a cheerful voice--

"Still, they never touch us you know. European blood is sacred to them, and I have always found the Turks very docile, but if you are wise, you will keep in when the drums begin to drone."

"The drums?" asked Dean, eager for information, although he could see his wife was being unnerved.

"Harry," interposed Mrs. Price, "don't you think this is very trying for Mrs. Dean--she has only--"

"Oh! please go on!" cried Mrs. Dean, "--there's no safety in ignorance."

"Well--you can generally surmise that trouble is brewing when you hear the drums begin to drone. They start at sunset and grow louder towards midnight. It is an awful sound, weird, oriental. You will probably hear a few of them to-night, there's always a strolling drummer entertaining at one of the khans. When trouble is brewing however, there's not one drum, but hundreds. They sound everywhere. You hear them in the streets, down the gorge, up the mountain-side. They sound as if Timur the Terrible was gathering his army again." He broke off with a laugh, "Really, Dean, I shall give you all the creeps--you are quite safe being English and life is very pleasant here, but lonely at times. You will find even Constantinople a change--have you lived there?"

"We have been there two months," answered Dean.

"Two months!--then you will know Therapia--lovely Therapia! We took a bungalow there for two months each year. I have a cousin at the Embassy. We had a delightful time--nights on the Bosphorus, gay little parties embarking in _caiques_, sunset beyond Therapia, the house parties at Buyukdereh. Oh, it was enjoyable, but to think now--Piccadilly, Oxford Circus, Henley week--days in Surrey!--there's no place like England."

With a boyish gesture of delight, he pinched his wife's arm who laughed gaily in response.

"We are now going to leave you to talk business," she said, rising. "I am sure Mrs. Dean is tired and wants to go to bed, and we two will have a busy day tomorrow." And with that the two women said good-night. When they were gone, Dean and Price sat smoking for a time.

"Come on to the verandah," said Price, leading the way. "The moon will be up soon, and moonrise here is one of the wonders of Asia."

They seated themselves in low wicker chairs. It was so dark that it was impossible to distinguish anything clearly. There was a sound of running water, and a muffled roar came back on the wind from the place where the river leapt its weirs down in the gorge. Price's cigarette glowed red in the darkness with each draw he took. The air was perfumed and warm. There was something in the atmosphere which made the senses very acute. It seemed as if one was waiting for something to happen--the singing of the stream, the wandering breeze, the perfume and the impenetrable darkness were all a prelude to the first act of an unknown drama. The silence grew so oppressive that Dean felt he would have to speak or cry out. He was about to force a remark to his lips when his host suddenly sat erect, intently listening, his face turned towards the valley.

"Listen!" he said after a pause. "Can you hear anything?"

Even as he spoke, the other man heard a subdued sound. It was borne on a wind which died down, but gradually its note was more insistent, deepening in tone until it seemed to make the darkness tremble. As Dean listened, he experienced a strange thrill creeping over him. There was something so weird, so redolent of the strange land in that music as it was borne along the gorge and gave expression to the mystery of the night. Such a sound it was as had been heard many centuries ago when the invading Turkish hordes had swept over the land. Those drums had heralded the approach of Timur the Terrible on his devastating march across Asia, leaving a track of blood behind, his name sending terror in advance of his ruthless army. The drum now throbbing down the gorge had the same barbaric note, the same sinister significance, and as Charles Dean listened he knew that this city of old Asia had never changed from the days when the Seljuk sultans ruled or Haroun-al-Raschid kept his court in Baghdad.

And then, as if to add to the wonder of the night, the two men became aware of a slow change in the scene before them. The objects in the garden grew into vision slowly. Along the gorge they could see the houses and under them a chill light on the black swirling river. The dim minarets changed from blue sentinels of the darkness to long white fingers pointing skywards. And above the black edge of the precipice it seemed no longer dark, for even as they looked and wondered, the moon came up over the edge, round and full, with its white face peering over the great wall shutting in the gorge. The scene before them was now one of indescribable beauty. The little white flat houses, the mosques and minarets and gardens, all glimmered brightly in the serene light flooding the gorge. As the river ran between the banks, leaping the weirs and rocky obstructions, it flashed silvery under the rays of the moon, and as if to keep measure with this revelation, the drum-beats grew louder and louder, throbbing in the perfumed air until the sound seemed to be closing in from all sides.

How long they sat spellbound before this magic of the East they knew not, but their inactivity was broken at last by the noise of a footfall on the gravel below the verandah. Instantly Price was on his feet, peering over towards the garden. His companion too had heard the noise, and jumped up just in time to see a white figure turn in the path and pass from sight under the darkness of the cherry trees.

Both men looked at one another for the space of a second.

"I'm sure there's some one moving in the garden," said Dean.

"No one has any right in here."

They listened. The drum droned louder than before and as the sound died with the veering of the wind, they heard a footfall again, less distinct. The trespasser was going in the direction of the drum.

Without hesitation, Price vaulted lightly from the verandah to the path below, his companion following. Quickly they traversed the downward slope until they reached a grove of cherry trees into which Price plunged. Behind him, Dean, following silently, heard his guide give a short cry; peering into the shadow, he saw a small figure some ten yards ahead, garbed from head to foot in a loose white gown, which fluttered ghostlike in the moonlight. Price, running now, had caught the white form; when Dean came up, he turned to him with a nervous laugh. As the latter stopped, he gave a short cry of surprise, wondering what trick the enchantment of the night was playing upon his senses, for there, firmly held by Price, was his own boy, barefooted, in his white nightgown, looking up with startled eyes.

"John! what are you doing here?" The father stooped and lifted up his boy. The child's face wore a half puzzled expression as if he had suddenly been awakened from sleep and was dazzled by the light. For a moment or so he gave no answer, but clutched the lapels of his father's coat, his small frame shaking with fright.

"Daddy, I had to come! Something called me, something--" and as if unable or afraid to give words to the fear in his heart, he sobbed violently in his father's arms. It was in vain that Dean tried to sooth the child; he shook from head to foot and clutched at his father's hand in wild terror. They carried the sobbing child indoors, and when they had gained the lamplit drawing-room, calmness had once more come over the child. He looked about him and blinked in the brilliant light like one waking from a dream.

Price pinched the boy's ear playfully--

"A nightmare, old son, eh?--you've been having too much cake!"

"How did you get out of bed?" asked the father, looking anxiously at the boy.

"I don't know, Daddy--I can't remember until you found me." It was obvious that the child was speaking the truth.

"Well, we can't have you sleep-walking like this, John. You'll frighten your mother to death."

"Take the boy up to his room, Dean," said Price. "What a good thing it hasn't roused Mrs. Dean! Come along, I'll show you the way, he's sleeping next to your room."

They took the boy upstairs and placed him in his bed. The child was quite calm now and his head sank on the pillow as if heavy with sleep. For a minute Dean waited in the room and then stooped over the bed.

"Will you be all right now, John?" But there was no answer for John was already fast asleep again, his head buried in the pillow. The two men tip-toed silently out of the room. When they had gained the verandah Price mixed himself a whiskey and soda.

"Drink?" he asked, with an ill-concealed attempt to be at his ease.

"No thanks."

There was a long silence; the two men were thinking. Price knocked the ash off his cigarette and watched its end until the glow died down.

"Is John subject to those--er--to sleep-walking?" he asked at length, making his enquiry as casual as possible.

"No, he's not. I have never known him to do this before."

"H'm, perhaps the journey's upset him--the excitement; children are easy victims of nightmare."

"Yes--do you think it was nightmare?" asked Dean. His tone plainly conveyed the belief that he thought otherwise.

"Of course!--why not?--the child has no reason for going down the garden."

"Where does the path lead?"

"To the river--there's a footway into the town--it cuts off the bend in the road."

"To the town?--towards the drum?"

Price started. Dean had noticed then! He gave a short laugh, and got up and stretched his arms.

"Perhaps you'd like to turn in now?" he asked, and then as if changing his mind, he sat down suddenly.

"Look here, Dean," he said earnestly, "I'll be quite frank--it is perhaps better. You've guessed what drew the boy out of his bed?"

"The drum?"

"Precisely--and you're right, I think, though we may be making a silly mistake. I would never have believed it myself, but it is certainly curious."

"What?--the sleep-walking?" asked Dean. "Because I'll say plainly that I'm sure the boy wasn't sleep-walking, he was wide awake."

"You noticed it?"

"Yes, I did--but I can't account for his expression."

"His half-dazed look?"

"Yes--it was uncanny. I've never seen John look like that before. He seemed almost--" Dean paused as if reluctant to use the word upon his tongue.

"Hypnotised?" suggested Price. The other nodded, and they both relapsed into silence.

"I don't want to alarm you," said Price quietly, after a long pause, "but this thing makes me half inclined to believe what I would never credit. Now, remember what I am going to tell you is only an old legend. There's hundreds of silly tales you will be told by the natives here, if you encourage them to talk. They spend nights embellishing these yarns in the khans until they believe in their own imaginations. But it is as well you should know, in case to-night's event may be repeated. You noticed the boy went in the direction of the drum? Well, it's said that there are certain souls which can be allured by the _saz_--that's the name of the drum. They cannot always be allured, only when the moon is full can the sound attract the souls of its victims, but when that condition is fulfilled, there is no power, save intervention by a person not under the influence, which can break the spell--it's a silly tale of course, these old khan entertainers always make the flesh creep."

"But the victims--you say they are allured--where?"

"I don't know, these old legend-spinners never say."

"But surely there is some point in this hypnotic influence--why are they drawn by the sound?"

"It's a mystery--as I've said, there's no sense in the whole story. What an ass I am to tell you all this. It's late, hadn't we better turn in?"

The change in the conversation was clumsy, and it did not deceive Dean.

"You're keeping something back, Price--what is it?"

Price looked steadily at his interrogator. It was evident that Dean would go to the bottom of the subject.

"Oh,--er, there's not much else to be told, only a silly sort of nightmare ending, that's all."

"What kind of ending--death?"

"Yes."

"Violent--dreadful?"

"Oh no, in fact, I should think rather sudden, or peaceful, that's how it seemed to me."

"Then you've seen it? Tell me all about it, Price."

"Really, Dean, you know this sort of thing is very stupid--a coincidence, that's all, and I may have been mistaken."

"Perhaps so, but I want to hear."

"It happened three years ago, just such a night as this--full moon, those damned drums droning away--when my _kavass_--the fellow who takes me about the villages here, came running in. He was in a fearful state, so excited he could hardly speak. Had I seen Hafiz? he asked,--that was his son. I told him I hadn't. He said he had seen him crossing the bottom garden, going towards the river path."

"Towards the drums?"

"Yes, we had heard them at dinner. They were very loud that night. I told the _kavass_ he was mistaken. Hafiz couldn't have gone that way, it was full moon and we should have seen him, but the old fellow wouldn't be denied. It was the drum of Timur, he said--no one could resist it who heard. I didn't know the story then, but the old father was so distressed that I offered to go with him along the path. So taking my revolver, we set out. We had gone about a mile along the river's edge when we came to an old khan. The drum was being beaten inside, so we thought, but my _kavass_ said it was impossible because the khan was roofless and no one lived in it. Anyhow, we could hear the _saz_ droning away. So we pushed open the creaking old gateway.

"Inside the courtyard there was a pool, and a fountain that never flowed. The moon shone down on the pool which was so still that it reflected the stars. Round the old khan buildings ran the galleries, in rectangular form. The moon threw a deep blue shadow half across the courtyard, and as we stood there, peering into the deserted place, it seemed as if we had entered into a strange world where only the shadows moved. We stood there, I should think, for quite a minute, transfixed by the silent beauty of the place, when the old man suddenly gave a cry. I followed his gaze and saw what he had seen. There, on the other side of the fountain, lay the naked body of a youth. At first I thought it was a marble statue, it was so white and perfect in form, but the old man ran forward and as I came up to him, I saw the head of the youth was covered with a mass of loose, black curls. The poor old father flung himself on his knees and gathered up the body in his arms, sobbing as he did so.

"I never saw such a youth as Hafiz. He was quite naked and the whiteness of his flesh was intensified by the moonlight bathing his body, and the head of black hair. He had fallen sideways, with one hand resting on his thigh, the other clenched and stretched out towards the basin. There was no sign of any struggle. The face was composed, just as if he had fallen asleep, and there was nothing on the ground or anywhere about to suggest violence, but his clothes were all missing and to me this was conclusive proof that robbery had been the motive of the crime; no doubt he'd been strangled. The poor old father who had been speechless with grief for some time, shook his head when I spoke of strangulation. 'No, effendi,' he said quietly, with a touch of fatalism in his voice, 'It is the drum of Timur--look!' His finger pointed to the left breast of the youth, and I saw what had escaped me in the first hurried examination. Just over the heart there was a short, red line, not the incision left by a dagger, but such as a penknife might make.

"There was hardly any blood, a little stream had trickled down the breast and dried. I told the old fellow that his son had been shot, but he only repeated, 'The drum of Timur,' and that was all he could be got to say. The _zaptiehs_ searched the khan the next day. They were stupid fellows, and shared the old man's conviction. The fact that the unfortunate youth's clothes were never found proved conclusively, in my mind, that robbery had been the motive. You mustn't believe a tenth of all you hear out here. Anyhow, Dean, when the moon's full, watch your boy if you really think there's anything in the tale. I don't. Why should John be attracted by the drum of Timur, even if there were such a thing?--he's English, born in England! This is a native spell and only works upon those of Moslem blood."

The two men talked on for a short time and Price watched his companion closely; he was greatly relieved when he saw, on retiring, that Dean had dismissed his strange apprehension.