But it did better than put us in rising spirits.  It convinced the Armenians!  That foolish jargon, picked up from comic papers and the penny dreadfuls, convince more firmly than any written proof the products of the mission schools, whose one ambition was to be American themselves, and whose one pathetic peak of humor was the occasional glimpse of United States slang dropped for their edification by missionary teachers!

“By jimminy!” remarked an Armenian near me.

“Gosh-all-hemlocks!” said another.

Thenceforward nothing undermined their faith in us.  Plenty of amused repudiation was very soon forthcoming from another source, but it passed over their heads.  Fred and I, because we used fool expressions without relation to the context or proportion, were established as the genuine article; Will, perhaps a rather doubtful quantity with his conservative grammar and quiet speech, was accepted for our sakes.  They took an arm on either side of us to help us up the hill, and in proof of heart-to-heart esteem shouted “Oopsidaisy!” when we stumbled in the pitchy dark.  When we were brought to a stand at last by a snarled challenge and the click of rifles overhead, they answered with the chorus of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, a classic that ought to have died an unnatural death almost a quarter of a century before.

Suddenly we smelt Standard oil, and a man emerged through a gap in ancient masonry less than six feet away carrying a battered, cheap “hurricane” lantern whose cracked glass had been reenforced with patches of brown paper.  He was armed to the teeth—­literally.  He had a long knife in his mouth, a pistol in his left hand, and a rifle slung behind him, but after one long look at us, holding the lantern to each face in turn, he suddenly discarded all appearances of ferocity.

“You know about pistols?” he demanded of me in English, because I was nearest, and thrust his Mauser repeater under my nose.  “Why won’t this one work?  I have tried it every way.”

“Lordy!” remarked Will.

“Lead on in!” I suggested.  Then, remembering my new part, “It’ll have to be some defect if one of us can’t fix it!”

The gap-guard purred approval and swung his lantern by way of invitation to follow him as he turned on a naked heel and led the way.  We entered one at a time through a hole in the wall of what looked like the dungeon of an ancient castle, and followed him presently up the narrow stone steps leading to a trap-door in the floor above.  The trap-door was made of odds and ends of planking held in place by weights.  When he knocked on it with the muzzle of his rifle we could hear men lifting things before they could open it.

When a gap appeared overhead at last there was no blaze of light to make us blink, but a row of heads at each edge of the hole with nothing but another lantern somewhere in the gloom behind them.  One by one we went up and they made way for us, closing in each time to scan the next-comer’s face; and when we were all up they laid the planks again, and piled heavy stones in place.  Then an old man lighted another lantern, using no match, although there was a box of them beside him on the floor, but transferring flame patiently with a blade of dry grass.  Somebody else lit a torch of resinous wood that gave a good blaze but smoked abominably.