"When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change
in his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly
after light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard
fighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in
his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After
an hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the
cart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp
breaths--and I was alone."
So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug
the grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life
in defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the
grave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead
grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy.
* * * * *
The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had
braved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But
the great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the
Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies
there dreamless on the mountain side.
These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they
heard of his death:
"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the
last breath of his life.
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