had to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Finally, when it was found that torture and imprisonment would not make
us yield our secret, the Turks resorted to the final test--the ordeal
which we could not withstand. They announced that on a certain date a
number of our young girls would be carried off and handed over to the
officers, to be kept until the arms were disclosed. We knew that they
were capable of carrying out this threat; we knew exactly what it meant.
There was no alternative. The people of our village had nothing to do
but dig up the treasured arms and, with broken hearts, hand them over to
the authorities.

And so the terrible news was brought to us one morning that we were
free. Personally, I felt much happier on the day I was put in prison
than when I was released. I had often wondered how our people had been
able to bear the rack and thumbscrew of the Spanish Inquisition; but
when my turn and my comrades' came for torture, I realized that the same
spirit that helped our ancestors was working in us also.

Now I knew that our suffering had been useless. Whenever the Turkish
authorities wished, the horrors of the Armenian massacres would live
again in Zicron-Jacob, and we should be powerless to raise a hand to
protect ourselves. As we came limping home through the streets of our
village, I caught sight of my own Smith & Wesson revolver in the hands
of a mere boy of fifteen--the son of a well-known Arab outlaw. I
realized then that the Turks had not only taken our weapons, but had
distributed them among the natives in order to complete our humiliation.
The blood rushed to my face. I started forward to take the revolver away
from the boy, but one of the old men caught hold of my sleeve and held
me back.

[ILLUSTRATION: IN A NATIVE CAFE, SAFFED/A LEMONADE-SELLER OF DAMASCUS]

CHAPTER VI

THE SUEZ CAMPAIGN

I have already spoken of the so-called "requisitioning" that took place
among our people while I was working at Saffed. This, of course, really
amounted to wholesale pillage. The hand of the Turkish looters had
fallen particularly heavy on carts and draught animals. As the Arabs
know little or nothing of carting, hauling, or the management of horses
and mules, the Turks, simply enough, had "requisitioned" many of the
owners--middle-aged or elderly men--and forced them to go south to help
along with the tremendous preparations that were being made for the
attack on Suez. Among these were a number o