Page:Ravished Armenia.djvu/265

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THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK
251

When he had gone they told me who he was—the Grand Duke, in command of the armies in the Caucasus. The officer who had visited me first was General Trokin, the Grand Duke’s chief of staff.

When I was well and strong, General Andranik allowed me to help care for hundreds of Armenian children who had been found in the hands of the Turks and Armenian refugees who had succeeded in hiding in the hills and mountains and who now crept in to ask protection of the Russians. I helped, too, to comfort the girls who had been bought out of the harems.

When General Andranik moved on with the advancing Russians the Grand Duke ordered that I be escorted safely to Sari Kamish, where the railroad begins, and sent from there to Tiflis, the capital of the Russian Caucasus. When General Andranik bade me good-by he said:

“The Grand Duke has indorsed arrangements for you to be sent to America, where our poor Armenians have many friends. When you reach that beloved land tell its people that Armenia is prostrate, torn and bleeding, but that it will rise again—if America will only help us—send food for the starving, and money to take them back to their homes when the war is over.”

As I started away with the escort, toward Sari Kamish, General Andranik took from his finger a beautiful ring, which, he said, had been his father’s and his