Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary, Volume 1 — Chapter 11: Return to the Caucasus

From Van there came a very dry and admonitory answer to my letter, the gist of which was that men in such a frame of mind were superfluous there, and that standing at the frontier and handing out advice was likewise a superfluous thing. The letter was, in truth, to the point.

After that, of course, I was to leave, to go away and not enter the Land. Vardan too agreed with me. He gave me a letter to Kishmish-Tefik, and another to Mehmed agha at Arablu, so that they might pass me across to the Cau-

casus. He also gave me four qrans^t1 in all, as travel-money as far as Erevan, and letters for Erevan that had come from Vaspurakan.

I changed my clothes to look like a refugee, put charukhs^t2 on my feet and an old Persian kecha^t3 cap on my head, and set off for Kishmish-Tefik. That village was a strange one. You might say the whole village had a single roof, and the houses were joined to one another by holes, so that without stepping out into the street one could pass from one end to the other. It was self-defense, no doubt, that had forced the villagers to build a village of that kind. Bayazet^t4 was not far off, only a few hours' road away.

Here they were telling how there had been fighting at Porun and Mosun, which had left great havoc both among the troops and among the Kurds. Fighting had also, it appears, taken place near the monastery of Gharakilise (Uch-Kilise).

We do not wait long at Kishmish-Tefik, and since a good opportunity offered, we set out for Arablu. Hovsep, who was from that village, leads me, and I go to Mehmed agha's house. I give the two qrans to Melik as tobacco-money, and I stay at Mehmed agha's house only one day. The next day he takes me to the crossing, where I wait two days more. Bales of sugar had been dumped there, and when they make us a sign from the other bank, we shoulder the sugar and cross at once to that side. I had taken two sugar-loaves on my back, but they fall into the water and get soaked. As I climb out, they give me a good blow on the back of the neck.

With two qrans I buy about ten p.^t5 of bread and set off for Erevan on foot. I reach the village of Khanlukhlar, where I hope that the tall, one-eyed man who, together with Nikol, had once patvadz^t6 me will feed me and give me a place to sleep. But he did not know me in my clothes, and I did not care to reveal my identity to him, thinking he was bound to recognize me. He offered me a place to sleep on the stone benches (saku)^t7 of the market. The whole night the mosquitoes

gave no rest, the more so as I was lying in the street. Midnight had not yet come when I, rather than be tormented by the mosquitoes, decide to go on with my road. The next night, at daybreak, I reach Erevan.

In the morning I go to the house where Darvish (Galust Aloyan)^t8 lived. I had left this house a few months before, to set out with Nikol for Persia. But Darvish no longer lived there; he had changed his house. I am obliged to be extremely careful. I cannot question everyone, the more so in my rags and Persian clothes, under which, sewn onto my shirt, were secret letters. I am forced to go back to the "boulevard" (the tree-walk), to find someone I could ask for Darvish's address. To ask the gorodovoys (the street police) was dangerous — and besides, in what language was I to ask? They are Russians, and a man in my clothes cannot speak Russian; he would know only Turkish. But the trouble is that, although I have even shaved my head like a Turk's, I do not know Turkish. And as I sit waiting on one of the benches in a hopeless state, a gorodovoy comes up to me and asks in Russian, saying:

"Clear off — what business have you here..."

Frightened, I get up from my place and slink off, silent as the grave, to another street. Suddenly a student passes by me and calls out to someone in Armenian. An Armenian student would be trustworthy, and I decide, come what may, to ask him for Darvish's address. I was not wrong. The student looked at my clothes and walked with me as far as Darvish's house.

On the way I cannot avoid conversation, and from the few words I let fall he understood, apparently, that I was someone in disguise. His look seemed to say to me: "You, my friend, are no Persian Armenian, and you even look like an intelligent..."

When we reached Darvish's house, I walked boldly in, but they told me he was not at home. The wife did not know me. I

had already stepped into the front room, but the lady turned to me and said, "Don't dirty it — stand outside." My heart was in my mouth; I could bear no more. My clothes had become the cause of misfortune for me. I quickly drew the letters out from under my things and gave them to the lady, telling her to hand them to Darvish.

I went out of the house, enraged and in despair. What was I to do, where was I to go? And here I see that the same student is standing in the street, waiting for me. I was greatly moved by his behavior, and I opened my heart to him. I told him Darvish was not at home, they had not let me in, had treated me worse than a dog, and now I did not know where I was to go or where I was to pass the night.

Who that kind student was, I do not know. He behaved very well toward me.

— You're not hungry, are you? he said.

I answered that I was not.

He took two rubles from his pocket and gave them to me. I thanked him and promised to return the money when I got it from Darvish. Of course, what I said was not true, since I would never meet Darvish again. The student pointed out to me a khan (a common inn) where I could pass the night, and added that he had not given me the money on condition of its being returned. He asked that, in exchange, I tell him about the state of the Land. I promised to do it the next day, and we parted.

The eating-houses (the common cook-shops) I feared to go near — they might question me: who was I, where did I come from, and so on. I preferred to make do with bread and cheese, and I went down to the Ghantar (Erevan's central market) and ate my fill. Toward evening I went to the boulevard (the avenue), where the people of Erevan take their stroll, but I passed by on the side. I saw my former schoolmates, who were now teachers at the Erevan diocesan school, strolling there. I did not dare go up to them, not wishing to betray my identity. I did not care to see Darvish any longer either, and I made my way to the station to leave for Alex-

andropol.^t9 We came to terms with the conductor of a freight train, and I left by that train. I had barely passed a few stations when they put me off, and I was forced to continue my road on foot as far as Alexandrapol.

To finish with the Erevan part — a word or two about the expedition organized by the Central Committee of Mrdastan.^t10

The Bands of Gayl Vahan and Mihran().— In view of the fedayis' failures at the frontier, and attributing them to the Russian frontier-guard troops, the Erevan (Mrdastan) Central Committee of the A.R.F. decides, after the annihilation of the band of Yerkat and Tokhmakh, to carry out several terror-acts against the Russian frontier officials. As a result of that decision, among other things, the Armenian-hating Russian district-governor Pokulavkin is killed at Igdir. At the same time, with the aim of taking revenge for the destruction of the Armenian bands, the Central Committee decides to wipe out the Turkish frontier barracks of Mosun and Zor together with their troops. To carry out this plan, two bands are formed, under the names Artavazd and Masis, made up of 112 fedayis*. The commander of Artavazd becomes Gayl Vahan (Minas Tolpashian), and of the Masis band, Mihran of Bayberd, who later became the leader of the notorious Mihranakan movement. In both these bands there were educated young men as well — such as, for instance, Hovh. Makarian and Nikoghayos Ter-Khachatrian.

The two bands cross the frontier together in safety and reach the height called Unsi-Domeri, where they divide into two parts and press forward by different

() The account of the fighting of the bands of Gayl Vahan and Mihran, as well as of the "Dzhokhk" band and of Touman's band, was reworked by Rouben (Hairenik*, January 1925).

routes. The Artavazd band journeys toward Mosun, under the leadership of Gayl Vahan, and the Masis band, under Mihran, toward Porun, against the Chilantsi ashiret.

At two o'clock in the night the Artavazd band lays siege from a distance to the Turkish barracks of Mosun, having first cut the telegraph wire of Payazit and drawn into the ring of the siege the two military tents a little way from the barracks as well. Four fedayis enter the barracks in the dark and climb up to the roof, where many soldiers, more than a hundred and fifty, lie sleeping. The sentry notices them, but drops on the spot from the fedayis' bullet. At once four bombs are thrown among the sleeping soldiers. The bombs burst, and at that signal the fedayis open fire from all four sides. The Turkish troops, caught by surprise, are thrown into panic, and before an hour has passed the whole Turkish force is turned into a heap of corpses. The Turkish soldiers in the nearby Armenian village are killed as well, so that the Turkish soldiers in the barracks, in the tents and in the village are utterly wiped out. The Armenian villagers, fearing the reckoning of the next day, make for the Russian frontier before the light has broken.

The Masis band, dividing off from the Artavazd band, goes and seizes the hrshakayk^t11 of Zor^t12 and the valley where the Chilantsi Kurds had pitched their oba.^t13 The Armenian fedayis wait for the venture at Mosun to begin, so that they too may attack at the same moment. When, at two o'clock in the night, the sound of bombs is heard from afar, the sentry at Zor hears those sounds and raises the alarm with a crack of his rifle. At that very instant the fedayis lying in ambush open fire and attack the barracks and the Kurds. Before an hour has passed they have taken both the barracks and the obas. A large part of the troops and the Kurds is killed, while the rest escape by flight.

In this way both ventures are crowned with complete success. When the light breaks, the fedayis find themselves faced with new difficulties and far heavier responsibilities. The Armenian villages are uprooted, afraid to remain any longer in their old places, and they make for the Russian frontier; they must be brought safely onto Russian soil. As far as Chinkil^t14 the fedayis escort the Armenian emigrants, keeping the Tatar troops and the Kurdish ashirets from attacking them and cutting off the emigrants' way. With great heroism the fedayis save the people from the enemy's assault, but they give up as sacrifices Gayl Vahan, Nikoghayos (Babgen) and many other selfless fedayis.

Yet a new misfortune meets the fedayis and the emigrant people. This time the Russian frontier-guard troops, the Cossacks and the Kurds, seizing the roads of retreat, open fire on the fedayis and the people. Many fall there under the Russian bullets; some escape and get away, while the remaining part of the fedayis, together with the people, fall captive into Russian hands.

In the course of all this fighting, of the 112 fedayis 36 are killed.

The news of this expedition spreads as far as Kars, and many — among them even some of the comrades, who did not know where I was — supposed that I was the Minas (Tolpashian) who had been killed during the expedition, since my own real name is Minas. In several places, as well as among my own household, they even hold requiem services for me.

⁂

Reaching Alexandropol, I go straight to Vagho's paghlal,^t15 but I do not find Vagho there. In his place his brother was sitting there. When I ask him about Vagho,

GAYL VAHAN WITH HIS COMRADES-IN-ARMS

he answers that he has gone off to Russia. With bold steps I made for Kevork's hotel. Here I was no longer a stranger, as in Erevan, and I had nothing to fear either, since I knew them all. I go into the hotel, tired and tezradz,^t16 and, without hesitating, I present myself not to the servants but directly to Kevork and say, "Give me a nomer (a room)."

He looks at me and says, "Go to the obshchin" (the common room), and orders the servant, too: take him to the obshchin. I say in a loud voice:

— Give me the first nomer.

— Zanita (it's taken), you, hey, what first nomer?

When I insist stubbornly that he give me the first nomer and go straight to it, he curses me, shouting:

— Ghurumsagh,^t17 where are you shoving?

I pay him back in the same coin. Then he comes up to me, looks, and sees that it is, as it were, a familiar face. A moment more and he knows me at once, and, unlocking the nomer — which of course was empty — he gives it over to me. He tells me too that my brother is here. A little later my acquaintances gather, they laugh at my strange clothes and above all at the shaved patch in the middle of my head. At once they take me to the baths and dress me in new clothes. At last I am rid of the lice, and that night I sleep in peace.

*

I am in that room where a few months before we had gathered and worked out our plans for going to the Land, where we made every kind of joke, even about death. Now all those comrades of mine, who used to make a jest even of death, have gone as sacrifices to their ideas. Killed were Kaytsak Vagharshak of Mush, and Padval Vagho of Alexandropol, and the lion-like Rus-Kevork, and Touman — the center of gravity of all our souls — and many oth-

ers of those comrades of ours, such as Yerkat and Hovhannes (Makarian), with whom we used to weave lovely dreams, dreams that were now scattered within me. Abandonment and despair now reigned in my soul. And I was so disillusioned that I now counted it senseless to go the same road and do the same work.

While I lie in a feigned sleep, the blanket drawn over my head, wanting to weep in secret and to rest a little, suddenly Sergei comes in, the last remnant of my comrades. He looks at me in silence, as if he feels the suffering, penetrates into my soul, understands me. Was it, perhaps, because he too feels the same pain, that he too is tormented at the sight of me, who was the last remnant of our little circle?

— How did it end, how did you stay alive? Probably you too have the luck to be a black owl like me.

And poor Sergei began to weep. He had the right to weep, for one after another we had lost the young, idealistic comrades of ours, steeped in one spirit and one idea, working in one direction. In this one year, of our schoolboy or revolutionary lads, with whom we had sworn to work together and die together, nearly all were dead: gone were Yergor,^t18 Isajan, Khachik, Touman, Vagho, Vagharshak, Yerkat, Hovhannes, Rus-Kevork. The others had been arrested or had fled. We who were left were the weak ones; the good ones were all lost. Sergei told in detail all that had passed at Kars, the loss of hundreds of comrades, personal and party, the martyrdom of our bands. What he told was shattering.

First comes the band of Vagharshak of Mush.

The Dzhokhk (Hell) Band.— While the Yerkat-Tokhmakh band was thus being martyred on the road to Akhlat, another band was preparing, in the Basen district of Kars, to cross into Sasun, under the leadership of Vagharshak (Kaytsak).

Vagharshak is already known to us as well; we saw him at Mush and during the fighting at the Monastery of the Holy Apostles.^t19 He was one of the fedayis working in Sasun, and had a great organizational ability besides. He too had gone to the General Assembly at Sofia as a delegate for Duran-Bardzravandak. He was hastening to Sasun again with 29 horsemen, among whom were several university men — Dr. Khachik, Rus-Kevork (of Derbend), who, though he was only half Armenian-speaking, had sworn to die for Armenia. With Vagharshak were also many choice soldiers, such as Vardan of Arakinj,^t20 comrade of Seyo Poghos, Baghtasar of Mush, Gevorg, Nato and others.

In the dark of night, well provisioned, Vagharshak's band crosses the frontier; it is noticed by the enemy; it has a small fight with him, but succeeds in getting across the frontier and resting on a hill, within the old fort of Khorum and Zivin. At early dawn the band is besieged by the frontier-guard troops and the Kurdish ashirets. The Russian soldiers watch from the Russian frontier this fight that has begun with the Armenian fedayis, which goes well until noon, the enemy taking losses and failing to come near the fedayis' positions. After noon the enemy receives fresh auxiliary forces and begins more furious attacks on the fedayis. Vagharshak, mounted on his horse, rides round the positions and gives his soldiers heart to resist to the end; but the fedayis are powerless to hold off the assault of the enemy's thousands of fighters. Vagharshak is mortally wounded; after him a whole row of other fedayis fall shot. The upper positions are taken, while below the resistance still goes on. In the end those left alive make for the Russian frontier.

The Turkish and Kurdish multitude gathered on the hill moves forward, to kill

the fedayis who are still alive as well. Among the bushes there are wounded men of the fedayis, and among them Vardan of Arakinj. This last buries the bombs and the dynamite on the road of the Turks and the Kurds and lights the fuse. The bombs burst, and their fragments send scores of the enemy up into the sky. Vardan himself, creeping through the bushes, through the gaps in the rocks, reaches the Russian frontier two days later all alone.

The remnants of the fedayis, under the leadership of Rus-Kevork, have already reached the Russian frontier before this, where the Russian frontier-guard troops stood. Russian-speaking Kevork, sure that the Russians would not lay a hand on him and his comrades, goes forward; but the poor man was cruelly mistaken. The volleys of the Russian soldiers meet him and his band, and, falling between two fires, Kevork and his comrades are all shot down. Of the 29 men only two wounded escape. Yet, as some maintain, this band of fedayis perished having destroyed 300 of the enemy with it. Even if this number is exaggerated, in any case it can be said with complete confidence that the enemy's loss was more than 90, for so testify the Turkish officials who took part in that fighting. And by the Russians' testimony the Turks' loss was near 250.

So this band, with its whole company, is wiped out, taking precious forces with it, and all of it before Sergei's very eyes. Our men had killed more than their own number of the enemy — Turks and Kurds — but what use, when our loss was the more keenly felt, when the band had not reached its goal? And, what is the chief thing, we had lost several important comrades who held promise for the future.

Then comes Touman.

Touman's Band.— Touman (Torgom), when he returns from the General Assembly, forms with Hunter Gevorg the 61-man

Orskan ("Huntsman") band. This time, however, Touman would not be able to repeat the successful venture of his Mrrik (Whirlwind) mounted band.

Sasun had already fallen. Touman did not want to lag behind his comrades, and thought that if he attacked the Turkish frontiers, he might perhaps draw off part of the Turkish forces toward the frontier, and so ease Sasun's plight.

Into the band come a fair number of intellectuals — a student, a doctor, a priest. There were also sons of wealthy families, such as, for instance, Levon Kalantarian, who had left the oil-wells of Baku and come to fight for Armenia. In the band was Vagho, the man who gave up a high government post. There too were Anushavan and, like him, many selfless men.

As was the accepted custom, the band's banner is consecrated at night, under the dim light of the church candles; all take the oath and receive communion. The next night they set out from the district of Olti. A verst and a half from boundary-post No. 68 they cross the frontier unnoticed, climb a mountain above a spring and take up positions. Four Russian soldiers come to that spring to drink water, and there they see two men with packs on their backs, asleep. They steal the pack of one and carry it to the guard-house. When the porters wake and see that they have been robbed, they climb the mountain at once to bring word to Touman. The hidden Russian soldiers follow the guileless porters and learn the fedayis' position. Some 150 frontier-guard troops surround their positions, at the same time sending word to the Turkish forces. On the Olti side, too, the Russian frontier commander Bikov arrives with reinforcements.

The Russians make the first attack, and force the fedayis to draw back toward the Turkish frontier.

So that no misunderstanding should arise, Touman gives orders not to fire a shot at the Russians,^t21 but to fight the Turks alone. At the same time he sends a delegate to the Russian commander, to explain their purpose and make him understand that their business is only with the Turks. The Russians cut the delegate (Anushavan) down. After Anushavan goes Levon Kalantarian, but he too is led off to prison.

By Bikov's order, the Russian troops besiege our lads from three sides, while on the fourth are the Turkish troops. Caught under a crossfire, the band does not know whom to fire on. The Russians, taking no harm, grow the more heated and open a furious fire. Only the Turks suffer, losing some ten askaris. The fight lasts until four o'clock. At last the fedayis count resistance senseless and decide to surrender to the Russians. The band's priest, cross in hand, goes forward to meet them, but is shot down. Touman too is killed, with 10 comrades. Hunter Gevorg is wounded and gives up his last breath under the bayonet-thrust of a Russian soldier. So the whole band is destroyed or taken captive.^t22 Of the fedayis 27 are killed, 6 are wounded and 14 fall captive; the rest flee through the woods.

Bikov, while halatselov^t23 their corpses, has himself photographed with his soldiers, as a matter of pride, and earns the thanks of both the Russian and the Turkish governments.

This event was significant in that the Russian and Turkish troops fought together against the Armenian fedayis, showing that both governments were hostile to the Armenian liberation movement. It was the expression of Lobanov's^t24 policy, which would later go on in the day of the Lenins and the Ledrans.^t25

Sergei, in his dejection, told the details of the death of those comrades whom he had sent into the Land with his own urging,^t26 and who had nearly all been killed, while he alone had the misfortune of living on after them.

— Their death gives me no rest, he said, and I want to go to the Land and add my own corpse to their corpses. After so many sacrifices, anything more^t27 is a shame for us.

And when I revealed to him my dejection, which had brought me to the opposite conclusion, he did not object, and did not say that I was wrong.

— Do as you judge best; I, for my part, am resolved, at whatever cost, to go by the Ishkhan road to Vaspurakan, and the road you have turned back from, I shall go on. You have already been baptized in battle; I too will try the same in the Land.

We had the same grief, but that grief had divided us and our roads. It had carried me toward dejection, and had driven Sergei to an extreme stubbornness. I gave Sergei the details of the roads and told him that the easiest and most convenient thing was to cross into the Land by way of Thadeos the Apostle, from where I could have crossed, had I wished.

*

Sergei went from Alexandrapol to Tiflis, to receive his instructions for the Land, and from there set out straight for Vaspurakan. And I, together with my brother Yeruand, went to Kars. On the road he told me that he had been elected a member of the Kars Central Committee.

The old body at Kars had undergone changes, and now on the Central Committee were Norhatian, Sev Karo, Karo Kazanjian and, I think, Bznuni too.

My people, as I said, supposed that I had been killed, and had even held a requiem service. My unhappy mother had already made her peace with the thought of my death, the more so as

hundreds of men, in the space of a few months, had been sacrificed before the altar of the fatherland. And that woman had an extraordinary patriotism and was fervent in her faith. Knowing personally all those who had been killed, my death seemed light to her beside theirs, and she was partly consoled that I had been killed for the fatherland. My brother warns my mother, telling her that I am not dead but heavily wounded, and shall reach home alive. This preparing of her does her no harm. After subjecting her for an hour or two to these agitations, they tell her that my wound is not very serious, that I am well, and that I shall be home tomorrow. Tomorrow then becomes two hours more, after which they present me to her.

When she saw me, she turned to stone; standing motionless in her place, she could neither speak, nor rejoice, nor weep. And long minutes passed in a petrified silence. At last she said:

— My son, all your comrades went and were killed, God rest their souls; but when a man takes a road, he must go on with it. I do not curse those who have stayed alive, but whoever does not go on with the dead man's road is unworthy of the dead. You know, oghul, Rus-Kevork too was killed; the chorer^t28 too are near; I will go and embrace his mother, let her be comforted...

And she began to weep.

I tell of this thing that happened within our family, because my mother's words of that day became the one commandment of my life. I began to feel ashamed before my morer.^t29 My mother did not know that I was in despair. From that moment I changed entirely and became convinced that Sergei had been standing on the truer road.

Only a few days had passed since I had returned home when I noticed that I was being tracked, to be arrested. Though matters went on as before, we could no longer walk about as freely and boldly as before. Gone were the days when Sergei was stronger even than the governor, and no one dared lay a hand on a revolutionary.

To escape arrest, I was forced to flee our house again. I took shelter first in Bori-Mahle,^t30 and then in a house in Berdi-Tagh, where Sako of Sev-Kar was in hiding.

Few of my former comrades were left in the province of Kars. Most of my acquaintances had been killed, or arrested and fled. Outsiders were seldom seen in the city. Hagop Zilinkarian was still there, but he too went away, since they wanted to seize him as well. It was new forces that were at work. All of them worked in secret; only Plo Tapalur, as before, with his old shamata and ghalmaghal (bluster and uproar), sewed shrhnik^t31 in his shops and talked freely and boldly. It was as if they forgave him his free talk and, now and then, his free action; they attached no particular importance to him and did not care to arrest him.

Though outwardly under this changed form, inwardly the work went on with the same drive. The Central Committee was planning to take revenge for Touman and his band, both on the Russians and on the Turks. It was for that purpose that Sako of Sev-Kar too had come. It is decided to form a band of five men, who, armed only with ten-shot pistols and bombs, were to go and approach the Turkish barracks in secret, and on a dark night throw the bombs in through the windows. This plan is first proposed to Tubrakh,^t33 but then Harutiun,^t34 come from America, takes it upon himself to carry out — a man who was an expert in preparing and using infernal machines and bombs.

They go to the border, cross it,^t32 fall on the barracks with bombs and do damage, but not as much as they wished. The plan as decided — to raze the barracks and destroy them utterly — was not fully carried out. But that too was a punishment, and the revenge was in part taken on the Turks.

While that operation was being carried out, thought was also being given to Bikov.

One day a young man came to me, wearing greasy and paint-

SAKO OF SEV-KAR

smeared clothes, himself all in paint. I barely recognized that this "painter" was Hamo (Janpoladian). We embraced and were very glad to see each other again. But Sako gave us no peace. Drawing Hamo into the corner, he began to whisper something to him, after which that paint-smeared young man, letting out a single "tsə,"^t35 went out. At first I thought he had probably gone out for a short while and would soon come back. Later we understood that he was going to his death. Just as I had deceived him, making him wait at the Erevan station, so he made me wait at Sako's side. Sako said nothing to me. Only five days later did he reveal that we were to leave Kars for a time. And he told the glad news, too, that Hamo had killed Bikov and taken the revenge for our comrades.

Here a few words about Hamo and that teror. Hamo was the youngest, and, as I said, he was despised as a Frans (pchramol).^t36 He had not managed to get into a band at Erevan and go to be martyred. Neither Vagharshak nor Touman had taken him. He had wept before Touman and complained why they had not taken him into a band, had insisted^t37 that he too was brave and ready to die. But both Touman and Hunter Gevorg had wounded that young man: "Wait, grow a little bigger, and when you leave off weeping, then you will be not a soldier but a band-leader." At that time he had, as it were, prophesied and declared that the one to take the revolutionaries' revenge would be Hamo. And when he hears of Touman's killing, he runs from Tiflis to Kars, to Sako, and tells him his grief, Hagop's opposition to his "martyrdom," begs to be sent on some task, and proposes to carry out the killing of Bikov. Sako, without telling the Central Committee, agrees, lends his help, kə dnē payn.^t38 And Hamo — his face blackened, his hair tangled, yemeni^t39 on his feet, in torn clothes, in the guise of a chimney-

sweep — reaches Olti all alone. Reaching Olti, he sets himself to track Bikov and understands that Bikov keeps himself very carefully. Probably, after the attack made on the local barracks, he had suspected that he too might be subjected to a teror. For that reason he strengthens the watch over the barracks, and himself frequents only the officers' club, which was a few steps away from the barracks. Hamo studies Bikov's comings and goings, and once, when Bikov comes out of the barracks to go to the club, he strikes him with a hunting-rifle and lays him flat on the ground. Not content even with that, he goes up to him and, with a few pistol-bullets, closes his account.

After that he flees and goes into a house and hides in the chimney. When darkness falls, he comes out of his hiding-place and, after three days wandering in the woods and mountains, reaches Kars and reports in person to Sako that he has taken Touman's revenge. Receiving orders from Sako, he crosses from Kars to Tiflis. Both Hagop and the Central Committee remained displeased with this, for though the thing had been necessary, it was punishable for having been irregular.

After this Hamo was no longer a slip of a boy, nor an apaghan "baylsd."^t40 To him is entrusted the carrying out of the responsible terror-acts of Transcaucasia; a whole row of men fall under his bullets, and he becomes a tiger. And, as the pitcher is broken on the road to the water, so too Hamo's pitcher was shattered on the road to the water. Hagop and Hamo, now become equal comrades, both won the martyr's crown in the same year.

Little by little both the governor of Kars and the administrator grow cautious and soften their

excesses. Kars returns again to its former bold state, such as it was in Sergei's time. Soon the soldiers arrested by Bikov's hand, too, are freed one by one.

The Central Committee went on with the same activity we described at the outset. Now too, after the killing of Touman's band, and above all since the Caucasian Project had received the approval of the General Assembly of 1904, it had spread its activity wider, and the idea had grown deeper that the Russian and the Turk had torn away our country and seized our freedom by force. In 1904 the necessity of working in the Caucasus becomes more striking, without forgetting, of course, the interests of the Land. The new Central Committee went on with its activity, following the former way of working, with only this exception, that now they had become less tolerant of the scattered Hunchakian soldiers and the sympathizers of that party. These, though they did not represent a force of their own, yet there was a tendency to settle accounts entirely with that party within the province of Kars. As a consequence of this, certain extremes were committed, and the struggle against the Hunchakians gave way even to killings.

After Hamo, Sako too left Kars, and a few days after Sako I also departed from Kars for Tiflis.