“If you were to bring Turks here, or appeal to Turks,” said I, “Kagig would never get you.”

“How not?”

“Unless he should find your dead carcass after my friends and I had finished with it!”

“What then?”

He lighted his pipe again by way of reestablishing himself in his own esteem, and it glowed and crackled wetly in the dark beside me in response to the workings of his intelligence.

“In case of trouble up here, and our being held prisoner, go and find other Armenians, and order them in Kagig’s name to come and rescue us.”

“Those who obey Kagig are with Kagig,” he answered.

“Surely not all?”

“All that Kagig could gather to him after eleven years!”

“In that case go to Kagig, and tell him.”

“Kagig would not come.  He holds Zeitoon.”

“Are you a fool?”

“Not I!  The other two are fools.”

“Then do you understand that in case these people should make us prisoner—­”

He nodded.  “They might.  They might propose to sell you to the Turks, perhaps against their own stolen women-folk.”

“Then don’t you see that if you were gone, and I told them you had gone to bring Kagig, they would let us go rather than face Kagig’s wrath?”

“But Kagig would not come.”

“I know that.  But how should they know it?”

I knew that be nodded again by the motion of the glowing tobacco in his pipe.  It glowed suddenly bright, as a new idea dawned on him.  He was an honest fellow, and did not conceal the thought.

“Kagig would not send me back to you,” he said.  “He is short of men at Zeitoon.”

“Never mind,” said I.  “In case of trouble up above here, but not otherwise, will you do that?”

“Gladly.  But give it me in writing, lest Kagig have me beaten for running from you without leave.”

That was my turn to jump at a proposal.  I tore a sheet from my memorandum book, and scribbled in the dark, knowing be could not read what I had written.

“This writing says that you did not run away until you had made quite sure we were in difficulties.  So, if you should run too soon, and we should not be in difficulties after all, Kagig would learn that sooner or later.  What would Kagig do in that case?”

“He would throw me over the bridge at Zeitoon—­if he could catch me!  Nay!  I play no tricks.”

“Good.  Then go and hide.  Hide within call.  Within an hour, or at most two hours we shall know how the land lies.  If all should be well I will change that writing for another one, and send you to Kagig in any case.  No more words now—­go and hide!”

He put his pipe out with his thumb, and took two strides into a shadow, and was gone.  Then I went back through the gap in the dungeon wall, and stumbled to the stairs.  Apparently not missing me yet, they had covered up the trap, and I had to hammer on it for admission.  They were not pleased when my head appeared through the hole, and they realized that I had probably held communication with our men.  I suppose Fred saw by my face that I had accomplished what I went for, because he let out a laugh like a fox’s bark that did nothing toward lessening the tension.