I suggested that we should buy a little ether and send them to their long sleep. My companion was shocked beyond words.
"Poor beasts," he exclaimed, "have not they as much right to be on God's earth as we? Who are we that we should dare to cut short their existence?"
Naturally I did what I could to express all the sympathy his words aroused; determining, nevertheless, in my own mind, that I would beg the Englishman or the Italian to accomplish this errand of mercy.
At the same time, the incident only further excited my deep interest in the strange mentality of a people who claim the full rights of existence even for maimed cats and dogs, and are yet held guilty by the whole world of massacring millions of Christians for mere sport.
Later that day I was for the moment extremely puzzled by the strange behaviour of all the inhabitants within sight, which certainly seemed most un-Turkish. "I have known your people for fifteen years," I said (only intending a mild joke), "and this is the first time I have ever seen a Turk hurry! What is the matter?"
"They are going to blast the ruins," was my companion's calm reply.
To my thinking it was, indeed, time to be off; and I hopped away like the others, in and out among the charred ruins, at one moment catching my heel, at another tearing my skirt and coat. When, panting and breathless, we at last reached comparative safety, I laughingly asked my guide why he had given me no warning. "You could have no idea whether I could run like this at the last moment."
"His Excellency told me that you were to be treated with the utmost respect," was the solemn reply!
It was true that the day before I had been informed that it was forbidden to take photographs among the ruins, and I at once closed my Kodak. But in the evening an apology arrived from the Chief of Police:—"I might photograph, when and where I pleased."
I can only suppose my guide believed that "Allah
