PLANNING A FUTURE
As the hours passed the hill country awoke to restless activity. On
several prominent peaks the beacon fires blazed, summoning the
followers of Take Larescu. From all sides they began to troop in,
silent, grotesque, armed to the teeth. The glen, along the ridge of
which Fenton had carried his bride earlier that night, was soon crowded
with the hill men. By midnight more than a thousand had assembled, and
from all directions they were still coming at the urgent summons of the
flaring beacons.
Take Larescu took charge of the situation and skilfully wrought order
out of chaos. He organised his followers into detachments, and to each
allotted positions along the stretch of foot-hills where the Austrians
would be awaited. On receiving their instructions from the gigantic
master of ceremonies, the detachments moved off into the enshrouding
darkness as silently as they had come. The oddly garbed figures coming
and going in the flickering light of torches, the war-like gestures,
made the whole proceedings seem a phantasm of the imagination, a wild,
strange dream.
Fenton, wearing the military cloak of Miridoff, watched proceedings
from a vantage point in the rear. He had early found that Take Larescu
was master of the situation, and had discreetly withdrawn into the
background. Larescu had fought through several campaigns, and had
gained a reputation as the Napoleon of mountain warfare. He could be
counted upon to give the Austrians a warm reception.
A light touch on the Canadian's arm caused him to turn. Olga had come
quietly behind him. She was muffled snugly and warmly in a heavy cloak
with a hood, so that Fenton could discern little else but a pair of
glowing eyes.
"We have much to talk about, my lord," she said happily, placing an arm
through his. "Could you not give me a few minutes now?"
"I am at your service for eternity," he replied. "There is nothing for
me to do here in any case. Larescu has taken everything into his own
hands."
The night air was cold. Fenton guided his wife up a steep and rocky
path that led to the foot of the beacon light, in which the fire was
now dying down. At the foot was a smooth rock of some size, and here
they seated themselves. Fenton's arm found its way protectingly around
the slender form of his princess-bride, and the lovely hooded head
nestled back against his shoulder.
"I have won you after all!" exclaimed the Canadian exultingly. "It is
hard to realise that you are really my wife--and yet I felt right from
the first that nothing could keep us apart. We were intended for each
other, even if half the globe did separate us."
"One can see the hand of Fate in it all," whispered Olga. "I think it
must have all been planned by One Who is mightier than we are. For you
see I had made up my mind to give you up. Nothing could have induced
me to marry you, dear, of my own free will."
"Olga!" cried Fenton indignantly. "Then you don't love me after all?
If you really loved me, nothing could have kept you from me in the end."
"Yes, dear boy, I loved you--from the first, I think," she replied,
looking up.
Seating directly beneath the beacon, they were partly in the shade, and
Fenton could not see her very clearly, but he discerned enough of the
loving message in her eyes to bring about an extended interruption of
the conversation.
"That will do, Donald," she said finally. Then she laughed--the happy,
light laugh of one who loves and is loved, which begins without cause
and ends as suddenly as it begins. "It is the first time I have said
your funny name, husband mine. Did I say it right?"
"I hope I never hear anyone else uttering the name," said Fenton
ecstatically. "After hearing it on your lips it would seem profanation
from any other source."
"It is rather a nice name, although it seemed so strange at first," she
said judicially, as she repeated it over several times almost in a
whisper. "I used to wonder if I could ever come to call you that."
"Now you've given yourself away," cried Fenton triumphantly. "If you
wondered that, you couldn't have made up your mind that you would give
me up."
"I have indulged much in day dreams since I met you, dear," she said,
"but--it would have made no difference. My father would never have
consented to my marrying you, not even if you had saved his life many
times and had been a thousand times too good for an ignorant little
Ironian princess--as you are. And I would never have disobeyed him.
You do not understand us, my own. We Ironians are bound by custom, by
traditions of which you have no conception in your free country. It
would have broken my heart, but--I would have remained Princess Olga
all my life."
Fenton was silent, pondering this thought, terrifying to him even in
negative perspective.
"But I am now quite free in my conscience," she went on. "I thought to
save my father's life by marrying the man I feared, and the good Father
of all gave me instead the man I loved. It must have been Mis will
that I should come to you. And so I look forward to the future before
us with no misgivings, dark though it may be at times. And I am so
happy."
There was another and longer interruption. The suggestion of future
troubles contained in her words was welcome to Fenton, for it promised
an opportunity to protect her, to assert his right and power to shield
her. His arm about her tightened almost fiercely.
"I begin to see that after all I owe a lot to Miridoff," he said.
"You will have to take me away from Ironia," said Olga, a little out of
breath from the ardour of her husband's embrace. "I could never go
back to court. My father will refuse to forgive me at first, and will
perhaps talk of having our marriage set aside. But in time he will
perhaps learn to forgive his wayward girl." She paused for a moment.
"You see what you have done," she went on with a gaiety that did not
entirely mask the strain of sadness beneath. "Tell me, my lord and
master, what you are going to do with me now? I begin a new life with
you."
"The future will be in your hands as much as in mine," replied Fenton.
"When the war is over we shall travel all over the world. Then will
come the question of settling down, of building a permanent nest. I
hope when the time comes you will have found no place more to your
liking than my own country."
"I would go anywhere with you," she said confidently. "I have made up
my mind on one thing, never to let you out of my sight. If you go
where the fighting is to-night I go too."
"That you do not," said Fenton, laughing with cool masculine
assumption. "Darling, I am going to take you back at once to the
lodge, and you must go right to bed and to sleep. You need rest. And
in the morning I shall bring you news of the repulse of the invaders."
"No," said Olga determinedly, "I could not sleep. I must go with you.
There will be no danger. There are many women down there in the glen.
And, see--I came prepared. I shall be quite safe with you in this
costume."
She threw back her cloak and stood revealed in the dress of a woman of
the hills. She made a pretty gipsy figure in her bright-coloured garb.
Fenton took her face in both his hands and shook his head at her
adoringly, submissively.
"You shall have your own way," he said, "in this and, I am afraid, in
most things. I begin to realise how well fitted you are for the new
world, where women have found the way to get everything they want."
They returned slowly to the glen below, and Larescu greeted Fenton with
a roar of exultation.
"They come!" he cried. "One of my men has brought the word. The
Austrians are crossing the river!"