On another occasion the result was not quite so successful, though the revolutionaries secured a full price for every man they lost.
Eighteen Fedais, their work done, were endeavouring to leave the country, but were forced by sheer hunger to halt near a friendly village, while food was provided for them. Somehow, the fact of their presence leaked out, and the Kurds of the neighbourhood gathered to the prey. The men took refuge in three small caves that stood side by side, serving, as is often the case, for sheepfolds. These were hollowed artifically in loose conglomerate rock, their roof being formed by a comparatively thin shelf of projecting limestone. The Fedais put their bombs in readiness at the cave mouths; these forming their sole weapon: though the fact that they were carrying some £6000 in gold on their persons made them a prize worth winning. One party of Kurds occupied the top of the shelf of rock, while the main body prepared for a frontal attack. As these rushed up the slope, an Armenian in the central cave took up a bomb from the heap that lay ready, and hurled it at the enemy. His aim was not too good, however, for the missile hit the edge of the rock and exploded; the concussion naturally detonating the whole magazine. Of course the six Armenians in that cave were never seen again; though the writer was shown some of the coins that were then in their waist-belts, and which had in several cases been blown clean into the rock, looking as if they had been battered with a hammer on an anvil. If the garrison perished, however, their cave was turned for the moment into a great cannon. Every Kurd in the path of the explosion was killed; and the roof of the cavern, with all the men on it, disappeared into space. Thirty-five Kurds missing altogether, besides a number wounded, was fair recompense for the loss of six men. The assailants had no wish to face the two remaining caves after the reception they got from the first one, and the rest of the party effected their retreat safely.
Nature aided the Tashnakists, by giving them practically inexpugnable strongholds in the land, with ready exits into Persian territory. The great crater of Nimrud, some six miles across, was one of their refuges; and this is paved for much of its area with a maze of corrugated lava whence no man who knows the runs can be dislodged. Here are also hot springs, just of a temperature to sit in comfortably, in which some of these fellows actually lived for weeks during an Armenian winter, with the thermometer far below zero. They had rigged up an ingenious arrangement, so that they could lie in the water and sleep with their heads above the surface.