An Armenian princess

Nestling among the hills of Central Asia Minor is the little village of Ak Hissar, or Aksar, as the natives call it. The name comes from a neighboring old castle, a relic of the...

Dicran’s history was long and mysterious. All that the neighbors knew of his early life was that many years before he had come from an Armenian town in the far east of Turkey, b...

It is only in the larger of the Turkish cities, where you hardly know your next-door neighbor, and where people of the same religious faith collect in quarters, that the Moslem...

The railroad came to Ak Hissar, bringing new prosperity and new customs. The priest, fearing that the influence of the West might turn the Faithful from the truth, spent much of...

Hassan Bey did not forget the insult which had been offered him in sending Armenouhi beyond his reach. Frequent inquiries for her brought him little satisfaction, but they convi...

Perched along the steep shore of the Golden Horn, nearly opposite the ancient land walls of Constantinople, rises the village of Hasskeui. When seen from the water, the rickety...

Herant was at home when they returned from the Sweet Waters of Europe. He was delighted to see Armenouhi, and she pleased them all by her recital of the events of the afternoon....

Two years abroad passed quickly, and Takvor was planning to spend his second summer vacation in Constantinople with his people. His father had written that the Turkish police we...

The prisoners remained silently standing in the spot where the soldiers had left them, too troubled to speak, too frightened to move. They were guilty of no other offense than t...

Dazed by the fall, he was still lying on the ground where the jailor had pushed him, when a prisoner ignited a match to examine the new arrival. His fellow prisoners, whose pale...

Bare-headed and bare-footed, with elbows and knees protruding through the filthy rags that covered him, his face hidden beneath six weeks’ growth of beard, Takvor passed slowly...

Through a hole in one of the shutters Takvor could see all that was happening without. Scores of the dead were lying in the street. The savage brutes, crazed by the sight of blo...

The shortest way from the Ottoman bank to Hasskeui is up the Rue Voivoda to the guardhouse at the corner, and then down the hill through the old neglected Turkish cemetery to th...

Takvor was less than five rods away. He rushed behind the Kurd who was poking his mother’s face with his foot, wrenched the club from his hand, and before the savage had time to...

It was midsummer market day at Ak Hissar. Temporary booths were erected along the street, and awnings of coarse sacking were stretched from roof to roof to protect the people an...

The angry words of a soldier suddenly rang through the market, and the music at the lower end of the street ceased. The people, attracted by the commotion, began to flock in tha...

The chaoush and his soldiers, still guarding the trap door beneath which Dicran and his family were imprisoned, had watched their companions burn the church, and disappointed at...

The four soldiers who were leading Armenouhi and Vassinag away were rough peasants from the distant interior. They were unable to see any refinement or delicacy in their captive...

The first glance at Armenouhi revealed to the chaoush her remarkable beauty. She was not so plump as most Turks wish their wives to be, yet there was something about her which r...

Not for hours after Takvor fell beneath the blow of the chaoush’s gun did he feel returning consciousness. He tried to think where he was, but all was blank. Finally there appea...

It was now nearly midnight. Tired, faint, suffering, pursued like a criminal, Takvor paused outside the door to listen; then on that dark moonless night, he set out in search of...

Takvor left Dicran and Vassinag to care of each other, though both were helpless, and felt his way from the house to continue his search. Again he left the village by the road t...

The traveler will wander far to find more beautiful scenery, quainter houses, stranger customs, and a more peculiar people than in the little city of Brusa, in the valley at the...

Though failing to overtake the chaoush and his captive before they reached the city, Takvor lost no time in going from inn to inn to search for them; and it was late at night, w...

It was late on the day after her arrival in Brusa when Armenouhi awoke from the long sleep into which she had fallen. Unable to understand where she was, or how she came there,...

The sudden disappearance of the white figure that for an instant had been visible behind the lattice, and the quickly uttered words bidding him go back, were sufficient warning...

In most Turkish towns August is called the month of fires, for it is the time of the eggplant, a dish perhaps more delicious to the Turkish palate than any other. The vegetables...

Safe within the inn, Takvor led Armenouhi to his own room, and placed her on the divan by the window. Without a word he lighted a candle, and holding it close to her face, looke...

Daybreak saw our pretended dervishes ready for their difficult journey. The bag suspended from Takvor’s shoulder was well filled with provisions,--pious offerings to Allah’s chi...

Old Dicran lay on the bed where Takvor had left him, when on that moonless night nearly three weeks before he went out to search for Armenouhi. Vassinag was sitting on the divan...

The next morning, while Takvor and the innkeeper were sitting in the room with Dicran discussing the probable outcome of the “question,” as the massacre was called, the girls we...

“I know of no safer place for you now,” he continued; “and the holidays you can spend here. And I shall not feel alarmed about you when I am gone; for I must finish my studies i...

Five years have passed away,--for Takvor five years of hard, serious work, yet successful, happy years, every week of which was shortened by a letter from Armenouhi, the stronge...

Thinking it best not to worry her aunt by informing her of the sudden turn of affairs at the pasha’s, Armenouhi made no allusion to her adventure with Hassan; in two days she wa...

Armenouhi finished her studies in June. Although the rumor of Hassan’s wooing had spread among the students, it did nothing more than arouse the pity of her friends. Nobody coul...

Takvor had graduated and was busily packing his books and other belongings, preparing to go to the city for a year of hospital practice, when his landlady entered with a letter....

Papasian, the priest, found little difficulty in procuring a passport for Armenouhi to return to Ak Hissar; it is only when an Armenian would travel from the interior to the cap...

On the threshold, with uncovered head, stood a tall, straight young man, in fashionable European dress. A beard concealed his chin, but his face, perhaps a trifle more mature, w...

Two days later, on the deck of an outward-bound steamer, sat Takvor and Armenouhi. The Turkish shore was fast receding from sight. Far in the distant east, past the mound of anc...