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CHAPTER XIV

THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK

nights went by before Old Vartabed came again. But each night he signaled and I answered. On the third night, his face was framed again in the window casement.

“Be ready, little one—I shall lift you out soon,” he whispered. He had brought a steel bar with which to pry aside the iron bars in the window. The bars were very old—perhaps for a hundred years or more they had served to shut in the prisoners that once had been confined in this same dungeon room in Ahmed Bey’s big house. I knelt to pray, and I was on my knees when Vartabed whispered:

“Come, little one—reach Old Vartabed your hand—he will lift you.”

The bars were bent aside. There was room for the shepherd to lean inward and reach down. I caught his hands and he lifted me until I could catch hold of the iron and help myself. In a moment I leaped down to the stump which the shepherd had brought to stand on, and from this to the ground. The sheep, which were resting all about, stirred and bleated when I fell 239