Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in panic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the mountain passes.  They passed on to the plain, and then as they were in a village guns began to be fired.  Three hundred Turks and Persians were attacking under Majdi—­Sultana of Urumia.  Dr. Shedd, riding his horse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and stayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women drove on.  He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but without thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it.  For he felt like a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his duty to protect.

Panic seized the people.  Strong men left their old mothers to die.  Mothers dropped their babies and ran.

“One of my school-girls,” Mrs. Shedd says, “afterward told me how she had left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through the river when the enemy were coming after them.  She couldn’t carry both.  The memory of her deserted baby is always with her.”

The line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road.  The enemy fired from behind boulders on the mountain sides.  The Armenians and Syrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase them.  It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr. Shedd’s object was to hold them off till help came.  So he went up and down on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over the wagons.

“I feared,” said Mrs. Shedd, “that the enemy might get the better of us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives.  While they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away.  I looked about me to see what we might carry.  There was little May, six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap.  I wrapped a little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag of money so that I should be ready on a moment’s notice for Dr. Shedd if they should swoop down upon us.”

All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired horses pulled along the rough trail.  The sun began to sink toward the horizon.  What would happen in the darkness?

Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in khaki.  They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under Captain Savage.  They had come ahead from the main body that had moved up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession.  The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved forward.  That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther on was attacked by hundreds of Turks.  All day they held the road, like Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp.

“Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?” asked one of the Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety.