Part 4 (1/2)
After a time she turned to the remaining treasures in the wonder-box.
These consisted of several volumes containing photographs, others full of sketches in pencil and water-colour, and a thick roll of glazed linen scrolls covered with designs in India ink.
The photographs were of all sorts--landscapes, rivers, s.h.i.+ps in dock, dry dock, and at sea; lighthouses, forts, horses carrying soldiers armed with lances and wearing the red fez; artillery on the march, infantry, groups of officers, all wearing the same sort of fez which lay there in Herr Wilner's box of olive wood.
There were drawings, too--sketches of cannon, of rifles, of swords; drawings of soldiers in various gay uniforms, all carefully coloured by hand. There were pictures of s.h.i.+ps, from the sterns of which the crescent flag floated lazily; sketches of great, ugly-looking objects which her father explained were Turkish ironclads. The name ”ironclad”
always sounded menacing and formidable to the child, and the forbidding pictures fascinated her.
Then there were scores and scores of scrolls made out of slippery white linen, on which had been drawn all sorts of most amazing geometrical designs in ink.
”Plans,” her father explained vaguely. And, when pressed by reiterated questions: ”Plans for military works, I believe--forts, docks, barracks, fortified cuts and bridges. You are not yet quite old enough to understand, Ruhannah.”
”Who did draw them, daddy?”
”A German friend of mine, Herr Conrad Wilner.”
”What for?”
”I think his master sent him to Turkey to make those pictures.”
”For the Sultan?”
”No; for his Emperor.”
”Why?”
”I don't exactly know, Rue.”
At this stage of the conversation her father usually laid aside his book and composed himself for the inevitable narrative soon to be demanded of him.
Then, although having heard the story many times from her crippled father's lips, but never weary of the repet.i.tion, the child's eyes would grow round and very solemn in preparation for her next and inevitable question:
”And did Herr Wilner _die_, daddy?”
”Yes, dear.”
”Tell me!”
”Well, it was when I was a missionary in the Trebizond district, and your mother and I went----”
”And _me_, daddy? And _me_, too!”
”Yes; you were a little baby in arms. And we all went to Gallipoli to attend the opening of a beautiful new school which was built for little Mohammedan converts to Christianity----”
”Did I see those little Christian children, daddy?”
”Yes, you saw them. But you are too young to remember.”
”Tell me. Don't stop!”