II.
A week later, a traveler might have been seen making his way along the road that leads from Van to Aghpag. Coming out of the Khoshar valley, he had reached the mountain pass of Choshka-Kalig. The traveler was alone. He was on foot, and pressed forward with such speed that it seemed as if an unseen object drew him onward.
He was a young man, scarcely thirty. His face, without beard or mustache, was bronzed; the smooth cheeks were hollow, and the chin remarkably prominent. Behind his thin, colorless lips appeared snow-white teeth, such as are generally found only among the African negroes. Thick, black, curly hair fell abundantly upon his bare, brown neck. A deep scar on his forehead gave his countenance a certain sinister aspect. But in spite of its irregularity, that manly face had a beauty of its own, expressing at once magnanimity and unflinching courage.
He was tall, thin and spare, but strongly built and with well-developed limbs. He was dressed in full Kurdish costume, and was armed to the teeth. The Asiatic gun, the curved sword, a pair of pistols, the large iron shield and the long lance seemed as if they were part of him.
He walked with long, rapid strides, but often paused and anxiously looked around. It was not the picturesque mountain scenery that attracted his admiration. He had not an artist's love for the beautiful. But he was surprised to find a total change among those familiar hills. It was scarcely ten days since he had traveled that same road. Those beautiful mountains had worn a different aspect. In the green pastures flocks of sheep were grazing; in the shady valleys stood the tents of the Armenian shepherds, and the melodies of their flutes mingled with the early songs of the birds. Then, on the farms and in the plains, the Armenian cultivator was carrying on his daily labor, humming his usual melancholy airs.
Now all labor had ceased, not a soul was in sight; even the road which he was pursuing, that frequented thoroughfare, was empty of its numerous caravans.
