Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/425

418 The boys actually shrieked with terror and despair, clinging to me more desperately than before. I half rose and asked the Governor to take a seat by my side. The soldiers stood in a row before the door, and the officers sat near to them. After we had exchanged customary greetings, the Governor showed me an official order for the apprehension of the boys, who were crying so convulsively that I could not help crying also; and the Governor himself seemed affected.

I said, as calmly as I could, "Tell me, my lord, to what place are these children to be taken?" He said, "To 'Akka, to the presence of his excellency the Pasha, O lady." The boys cried, "We will not go to 'Akka, unless our English lady, our protector, will go with us. You may kill us here, but you can not take us from her." They said much more, which I could not understand; for they spoke vehemently and rapidly, and all at once.

I tried to calm them, and inquired where the other boys were. The eldest one said, "They are prisoners. We were together, when we heard the footsteps and the voices of the soldiers. We jumped out of a high window into the street, to come to you; but our youngest brother fell and broke his foot, so that he could not run—and he and his cousin, who staid to help him, were taken away by the soldiers—but we escaped to this house."

The Governor then spoke kindly to the children, saying, "Your brothers are quite safe. Come with me, and I will lead you to them. Do not think that you are my prisoners; I will be as a father to you, and you shall be my sons." But the boys refused to be comforted. They had heard that a reward had been offered for the capture of their fathers, dead or alive, and they had no faith nor hope in any Turkish officer.

The Governor would willingly have saved them, had it been in his power, but, as he said, he was only acting as agent, and was bound to convey them all to 'Akka.

I had already explained to the boys that my brother