acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

352 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
at Yeni Khan by Chamli Bel, I
had speculated sometimes
upon the broader details of* massacre. What
outstanding- impressions, for instance, would one
receive who witnessed massacre by these ruthless
Moslems of Anatolia ? My host had seen the Adana
tragedy from first to last and daily risked his life in
it, and I now applied to him for personal impressions.
What, I asked, were the chief sounds ? He replied
that apart from scattered shots there had been
strangely little sound. Grim silence and intentness
on the part of slayers, and the despairing silence
of their victims, had been one of the most impressive
characteristics of the scenes. And next, he said,
had been the innate mercilessness and cruelty revealed
in the character of those who killed ; not in
the way of torturing—of that he saw nothing—but
in the insatiable desire to kill, and satisfaction in the
deed. He told many stories of his experiences—one
of which I set down here as illustrating much. He
told it on the spot, in the narrow cobbled street where
it happened ; where he had been an actor, with the
blood of unhappy Armenians on his garments, so
closely had he pressed his efforts to save—but this
detail I heard from others.
Opposite the main gate of the American School
for Girls was a building occupied temporarily
by the Americans, and here, when the massacre
broke out, many Armenian women and children and
men, among them a pastor of the Armenian Protestant
Church, had taken refuge. American women also
were in the building as a safeguard for the refugees.
The mob respected American buildings, but refused
to regard this one as such ; this one they were
resolved should be no refuge. They were in no
immediate hurry ; they made no attempt to force
the barred door ; but their resolve to have the building
cleared and secure their victims was inexorable.
So among these Moslems came Dr Chambers, a tall
white-bearded missionary, to save the Armenians if
that could be done by pleading and argument and