Kagig wrote the terms in Turkish by the light of the holocaust in Monty’s ancestral keep, and Mahmoud signed the paper in the presence of ten witnesses.  But whether he, or his brother Turks, have kept, for instance, the last clause of the agreement, history can answer.

Chapter Twenty-two “God go with you to the States, effendim!”

ARMENIA

First of the Christian nations; the first of us all to feel
The fire of infidel hatred, the weight of the pagan heel;
Faithfullest down the ages tending the light that burned,
Tortured and trodden therefore, spat on and slain and spurned;
Branded for others’ vices, robbed of your rightful fame,
Clinging to Truth in a truthless land in the name of the ancient Name;
Generous, courteous, gentle, patient under the yoke,
Decent (hemmed in a harem land ye were ever a one-wife folk);
Royal and brave and ancient—­haply an hour has struck
When the new fad-fangled peoples shall weary of raking muck,
And turning from coward counsels and loathing the parish lies,
In shame and sackcloth offer up the only sacrifice. 
Then thou who hast been neglected, who hast called o’er a world in vain
To the deaf deceitful traders’ ears in tune to the voice of gain,
Thou Cinderella nation, starved that our appetites might live,
When we come with a hand outstretched at last—­accept it, and forgive!

The fighting lasted nearly until dawn, because of the difficulty of conveying Mahmoud’s orders to the Turks, and Kagig’s orders to our own tree-hidden firing-line.  But a little before sunrise the last shot was fired, at about the time when most of the castle walls fell in and a huge shower of golden sparks shot upward to the paling sky.  The cease fire left all Zeitoon’s defenders with scarcely a thousand rounds of rifle ammunition between them; but Mahmoud did not know that.

An hour after dawn Fred joined us.  He had the news of Monty’s death already, and said nothing, but pointed to something that his own men bore along on a litter of branches.  A minute or two later they laid Rustum Khan’s corpse beside Monty’s, and we threw one blanket over both of them.

I don’t remember that Fred spoke one word.  He and Monty had been closer friends than any brothers I ever knew.  No doubt the awful strain of the fighting at the corner of the woods had left Fred numb to some extent; but he and Monty had never been demonstrative in their affection, and, as they had lived in almost silent understanding of each other, hidden very often for the benefit of strangers by keen mutual criticism, so they parted, Fred not caring to make public what he thought, or knew, or felt.

Kagig, not being in favor with the elders, vanished, Maga following with food for him in a leather bag, and we saw neither of them again until noon that day, by which time we ourselves had slept a little and eaten ravenously.  Then he came to us where we still sat by the great rock with Mahmoud under guard (for nobody would trust him to fulfil his agreement until all his troops had retired from the district, leaving behind them such ammunition and supplies as they had carried to the gorge below the ramp).