Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/299

Rh will remove the most distant cause of complaint against you, and Mohammed Pasha will be convinced of your sincerity."

Mar Shimoon had scarcely ended this spirited address when a villager announced that two armed Coords were descending the mountains from Serspeedho. "Watch if no more follow," said the Patriarch. In the course of half an hour two Coordish sheikhs, accompanied by a Nestorian priest who had been sent with them from the adjoining village, entered the hall. The priest came forward, knelt on one knee while he kissed the Patriarch^s hand and received his benediction. The Coords first made a low bow at the door, then approached most reverently, and after having placed a letter on the ground before Mar Shimoon, stood with folded arms until directed to sit. The Patriarch, who seemed to know at once that the message came from Noorallah Beg, the Coordish Emeer of Hakkari, rose for a moment with the letter in his hand in token of respect, and then resumed his seat. The purport of the embassy was a request on the part of Noorallah Beg that Mar Shimoon would appoint some place mid-way between Chamba and Julamerk where both might meet in order to effect a reconciliation and to cement their friendship. On hearing this, Shammâsha Ishâk, the Patriarch's brother, broke out into a furious invective. "What," said he, "send to make friends with us whom he has driven forth to wander about the mountains for the last nine years? Mighty fine terms he will doubtless propose! Is not Noorallah Beg the man who has oppressed us as we were never yet oppressed? Is it not he who has sullied our honour in the face of our people?" (Cries of "Never, never," from the villagers.) "Is it not Noorallah Beg who burnt our paternal dwelling, and made us vagabonds in our own land? No, the land does not belong to us or to him, but to these," snatching down my Turkish fez, putting it upon my head, and pointing to me as I sat a silent spectator of the scene. "And now he would make peace to