It was an easy word to say. And he was really Chai[1] from the village Osm.
The sakhi was warm. The snow storm continued. The wind roared like a wounded bull.
“’Twas a night like this when that poor fellow was surprised—yes,” declared Gewo, the magistrate.
“How could he help it?”
He spoke of a peasant who had perished in a snow storm on the mountain a few days before.
“How often have we said it—it is not wise to run about in the snow,” observed another.
“What nonsense you talk! He had to go!” thundered Melikh. “Who can escape fate?”
“True, true, Melikh,” some agreed. “What is written by fate is written.”
They agree that man is the toy of fate. Against this nothing prevailed.
“I don’t believe in fate!” called a voice from the comer by the sakhi. All eyes turned toward him. The surprise was universal.
“Who is this brave man?” inquired Melikh scornfully.
“I am your servant, Mellkh. But I do not believe in fate,” repeated the same voice doggedly.
The men did not know whether to laugh or to be angry. The one who did not believe in all powerful fate was the miserable Chai.
“The meanest goat can lose his temper,” murmured Melikh, half in scorn and half in wrath. The declara-
- ↑ Chai, colloquial for Haj, meaning Armenian.
