Barnes. Pdf

 
Chapters 
53
`A punishment?' 
`For disobedience. For fermenting the fruit of Noah's vine. For building a church and then blaspheming within it.' Miss 
Logan looked at Amanda Fergusson cautiously, unsure how to express the view that to her humble and ignorant mind the 
punishment seemed excessive. `This is a holy mountain,' said Miss Fergusson coldly. 'The mountain upon which Noah's Ark 
rested. A small sin is a great sin in this place.' 
Miss Logan did not break her alarmed silence; she merely followed her employer who was pushing on ahead up a gully of 
rock. At the top Miss Fergusson waited and then turned to her. 'You expect God to be like the Lord Chief Justice in London. 
You expect a whole speech of explanation. The God of this mountain is the God who saved only Noah and his family out of 
the whole world. Remember that.' 
Miss Logan grew seriously perturbed at these observations. Was Miss Fergusson comparing the earthquake which had 
thrown down the village of Arghuri to the great Flood itself? Was she likening the salvation of two white women and a Kurd to 
that of Noah's family? When preparing for their expedition they had been told that the magnetic compass was useless on such 
mountains as these, for the rocks were loaded with iron. It seemed evident that you could lose your bearing here in other ways 
as well. 
What was she doing on Noah's mountain alongside a pilgrim turned fanatic and a bearded peasant with whom she could not 
communicate, while the rock below them exploded like the gunpowder they had brought to ingratiate themselves with the local 
chieftains? Everything urged them to go down, yet they were continuing upwards. The Kurd, whom she had expected to flee at 
the first shaking of the ground, was staying with them. Perhaps he intended to slit their throats while they slept. 
They rested that night and continued climbing as soon as the sun rose. Their white umbrellas stood out vividly against the 
harsh terrain of the mountain. Here was only bare rock and 
[p. 164]
gravel; nothing grew but lichen; all was utterly dry. They might have been upon the surface of the moon. 
They climbed until they reached the first pocket of snow, which lay in a long, dark slash on the mountain's side. They were 
three thousand feet from the peak, just below a cornice of ice which encircled Great Ararat. It was here that the rising air from 
the plain turned to vapour and formed the miraculous halo. The sky above them was beginning to turn a brightish green, 
scarcely blue at all any more. Miss Logan felt very cold. 
The two bottles were filled with snow and entrusted to the guide. Later, Miss Logan would try picturing to herself her 
employer's curious serenity of face and confidence of carriage as they started down the mountain; she exhibited contentment 
bordering on smugness. They had travelled no more than a few hundred yards - the Kurd leading, Miss Logan bringing up the 
rear - and were crossing a patch of rough scree, a descent more tiring than dangerous, when Miss Fergusson fell. She pitched 
forwards and sideways, sliding a dozen yards down the slope before the Kurd was able to arrest her progress. Miss Logan 
halted, initially in surprise, for it appeared that Miss Fergusson had lost her footing on a little stretch of solid rock which 
should have afforded no peril. 
She was smiling when they reached her, apparently unconcerned by the blood. Miss Logan would not allow the Kurd to 
bandage Miss Fergusson; she accepted pieces of his shirt for the purpose, but then insisted that he turn his back. After half an 
hour or so, the two of them restored their employer to her feet, and they set off again, Miss Fergusson leaning on the guide's 
arm with a strange nonchalance, as if she were being conducted round a cathedral or a zoological garden. 
They made only a short distance in the remainder of that day, for Miss Fergusson demanded frequent rests. Miss Logan 
calculated how far away their horses were tethered, and was not encouraged. Towards nightfall they came upon a pair of small 
caves, which Miss Fergusson compared to the pressing of God's thumb into the mountainside. The Kurd entered the first of 
them cautiously, sniffing for wild beasts, then beckoned them 
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in. Miss Logan prepared the bedding and administered some opium; the guide, after making gestures incomprehensible to her, 
vanished. He returned an hour later with a few stunted bushes he had managed to prise from the rock. He made a fire; Miss 
Fergusson lay down, took some water, and slept. 
When she awoke she pronounced herself feeble, and said her bones were stiff in her skin. She had neither strength nor 
hunger. They waited through that day in the cave, trusting that Miss Fergusson's condition would improve by the next morning. 
Miss Logan began to reflect upon the changes in her employer since they had arrived on the mountain. Their purpose in 
coming here had been to intercede for the soul of Colonel Fergusson. Yet so far they had not prayed; Amanda Fergusson 
appeared still to be arguing with her father; while the God she had taken to proclaiming did not sound the kind of God who 
would lightly forgive the Colonel's obstinate sinning against the light. Had Miss Fergusson realized, or at least decided, that 
her father's soul was lost, cast out, condemned? Is that what had a happened? 
As evening fell, Miss Fergusson told her companion to leave the cave while she spoke to the guide. This seemed 
unnecessary, for Miss Logan had not a word of Turk or Russo or Kurdish or whatever mixture it was the other two 
communicated in; but she did as she was told. She stood outside looking up at a creamy moon, fearful lest some bat might fly 
into her hair. 
`You are to move me so that I may see the moon.' They lifted her gently, as if she were an old lady, and placed her nearer 
the mouth of the cave. `You are to set off at first light tomorrow. Whether you return or not is immaterial.' Miss Logan nodded. 
She did not argue because she knew she would not win; she did not weep because she knew she would be rebuked. `I shall 
remember the Holy Scripture and wait for God's will. On this mountain God's will is quite manifest. I cannot imagine a happier 
place from which to be taken unto Him.' 

---

J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½