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—
KILLING AN ARMENIAN PASTOR 353
influence. The besiegers were a crowd rather than
a mob, a party of old men, young men, and youtlis,
told off as it were to this duty. Old men were
their spokesmen, and the rest kept silence. But
silent or speaking, they sat or stood patiently in the
street before the door with foam on their lips, like
waiting wolves. The Doctor could do nothing with
them. Moslem blood had been shed, their speakers
reiterated, and Armenian blood must follow. To
the Doctor's argfument that much Armenian blood
had flowed already, they answered that there must
be more. They would spare all women and children
and Americans — those might cross the road and
enter the girls' school, where they would be safe
but this building must be cleared. If it were not
cleared, they would presently burn building and
inmates together.
The terms were accepted at last, no better being
possible, the door was opened, and the procession
across the street began, the mob looking on almost in
silence. The Armenian pastor, dressed in American
clothes, a tall hat on his head, his face almost hidden,
at last stepped into the street. He was thought
unrecognisable in this disguise, but something more
than the sense of sight seemed to be at work, for
the instant he appeared, said the Doctor, a strange
thrill ran through the crowd. " There he is," cried
all voices, and the crowd surged towards him.
At that Dr Chambers took the pastor in his arms,
and still pleading, while wrestling and struggling,
endeavoured to work with him towards the school
gate only twenty or thirty feet away. But even so
the mob showed no frantic haste. On their part
they screwed the Doctor and his burden aside from
the gate, pushed them a few yards higher up the
street, and there the pastor gave a gasp and fell
limp in the Doctor's arms ; for the end had come by
knife.
After the massacre law of some kind set up its
courts in Adana, and proceeded next to hangings in
z