A NIGHT’S LODGING.
For a minute or two the captives were left standing together while
the brigands divided the spoil, each man stowing his share away in the
bag slung knapsack-wise over his shoulder, and Wylie said hastily to
Zoe, “You had better pick up what you can of the things they have
left. Of course we shall be rescued to-morrow, but you will be more
comfortable to-night.”
Obediently Zoe gathered together various odds and ends of clothing,
one or two of Eirene’s hair-brushes, deprived of their silver backs,
and such other trifles as the cupidity or ingenuity of the brigands
saw no use for. Her note-books and writing materials, the contents of
her travelling workbox, and the little “first-aid” case on which she
prided herself, had all been seized upon as valuable spoils, and she
found herself as destitute as the most heedless traveller could
deserve to be. Eirene, brooding sullenly over her wrongs, gave her no
help in her search, and she rolled up the poor remains of their joint
possessions into a bundle and tied it round with a broken
umbrella-strap. This was only done just in time, for the brigands,
their delightful task accomplished with a good deal of squabbling and
murmuring against the decisions of the chief, had leisure to think of
their prisoners. Accompanied by two others leading the horses which
had been taken from the carriage, the interpreter came towards them.
“Behold! we beneficent beings,” he observed genially. “We furnish even
horses zat ze women may ride.”
“I fancied we provided the horses,” murmured Maurice, from his seat on
the ground.
“I won’t ride,” said Zoe quickly. “Maurice must. He can’t walk.”
“Nonsense! I can walk perfectly well,” said Maurice.
“For goodness’ sake do what they tell you,” said Wylie anxiously.
“It’s only for one night.”
“Your eyes most be blinded,” pursued the interpreter. Zoe gasped.
“He means blindfolded,” explained Maurice, as the man produced the
dirtiest handkerchief any of the captives had ever seen.
“Oh no, no!” entreated Zoe, breaking down at last. “Why, they might
take us and you in different directions, and we should never know.
I’ll shut my eyes--anything, but don’t let us be blindfolded. Do speak
to them,” she begged of Wylie. “They listen to you.”
“Pull yourself together,” he said sternly. “I should never have
suspected you of being hysterical.” The accusation told, and Zoe, with
both hands pressed to her chest, fought down the threatening sobs.
Wylie turned to the interpreter. “Look here,” he said, “the ladies are
frightened. If they think they are to be separated from their brother
they will give you a lot of trouble. Why should you blindfold them? If
you lead the horses they can’t possibly escape.”
“I know a treek----” began the interpreter airily, but here his memory
failed him; “double valuable to zat one,” he concluded hastily,
beckoning to another brigand for the rope twisted round his waist.
Cutting off a short length, he fastened one end round Wylie’s neck,
and made a loop at the other. “Ze lady may hold zat,” he said,
chuckling.
“All right,” said Wylie, checking with a glance a horrified outburst
from Zoe. “Quite mediæval, isn’t it, Miss Smith--mounted ladies
leading captive knights on foot? Lucky for me that I’m not assigned to
your sister, or she might avenge her wrongs by strangling
me--accidentally, of course.”
“Will you endure it?” demanded Eirene fiercely of Maurice, as Zoe,
trembling with indignation, submitted to be blindfolded and lifted on
one of the horses, with a rug for a saddle.
“What can’t be cured must be endured,” he responded easily. “What
would you suggest I should do?”
“Die!” she hurled at him. “I would, in your place.”
“If you really wish that, I can oblige you in a minute or two. You
have only to refuse to be blindfolded or to mount your horse. The
brigands will naturally proceed to handle you roughly, and I shall
feel bound to throw myself forward in your defence. I think I could
manage to get killed then. Wylie will be there to look after you and
Zoe, and you will be able to think well of me.”
“You say that to prevent my offering any resistance!” she said
angrily.
“Well, do you wonder that I prefer living to dying?”
“You English have no sense of honour! But I am unjust. You are not
noble; why should you prefer death to disgrace?”
At this Maurice laughed, quite unintentionally, disgusting Eirene so
much that she submitted as meekly as Zoe had done to be blindfolded
and mounted, and slipped the loop of cord over her wrist with a kind
of fierce satisfaction. After this humiliation, she thought, even Zoe
could no longer pretend that Maurice and Wylie were her equals! The
reflection pleased her, and she rode along almost contentedly,
reviewing her own past conduct and approving it, which is always a
soothing occupation. Maurice, his arm gripped by one of the brigands,
who acted both as guide and guard, trudged silently beside her horse,
which was led by another of the band. Behind them came Zoe and Wylie,
similarly escorted, and the rest of the brigands acted as front and
rear guards respectively, their moccasin-clad feet making no sound on
the stony soil. The chief had commanded perfect silence, and the
horses’ feet were muffled.
Zoe’s heart was full to bursting. The humiliations inflicted on her
brother and Wylie touched her to the quick, and she experienced on
their behalf all the indignation that they pretended not to feel. Most
incongruously, the thought of the utter absurdity of the position
afflicted her at times with an agony of mirth, and moment by moment
she was forced to choke down the inclination to scream or to break
into wild laughter. The occasional touch of Wylie’s shoulder against
her knee as he stumbled over the rough ground comforted and calmed
her, bringing a sense of the known and the ordinary into the fantastic
circumstances of the present. Once or twice she put out a timid hand
to make sure that he was still there, receiving a muttered word of
encouragement in answer, and the friendly contact enabled her to
repress the hysterical outburst she dreaded.
The journey seemed already to have lasted for hours when, after
descending a very steep hill, the interpreter announced that there was
a “reever” in front, and that Maurice and Wylie must submit to be
carried across. With one voice they assured him that they would prefer
to wade, but he explained that the chief’s solicitude for their health
was so great that he would not hear of their running the risk of
catching cold. Zoe laughed involuntarily on hearing this, and thus
relieved her feelings a little, though horribly ashamed of her lack of
sympathy. The brigands must either be adepts in the art of torture by
pin-pricks, or totally destitute of a sense of humour. Maurice
muttered that he did not see the joke, as he was carried off by two
stalwart ruffians down a sloping bank, across, and up again, but Wylie
manufactured a creditable response to her laugh. “A Gilbert and
Sullivan melodrama, isn’t it?” he said, as he also was safely conveyed
across the twenty feet or so of what must be presumed to be a rushing
torrent, from the way in which the bearers slipped and tumbled about.
The horses crossed with surprising steadiness, and the journey was
resumed, the track now trending generally up instead of down. Zoe had
lost all inclination to laugh by this time. She was cold and tired,
and stiff and miserable, and full of terrible apprehensions. If Wylie
had not been close at hand she would have defied the opinion of the
brigands and cried like a baby, but she could not break down in his
presence. He expected her to be brave, and she tried to forget her
aching limbs and think only of the literary use to which she could put
this disagreeable experience in the future. This was the way in which
she usually comforted herself in her troubles, but it did not seem
quite adequate now, and a weary sigh broke from her. The mere physical
feat of sitting her horse without pommel or stirrup seemed no longer
possible. If only she could slide to the ground and sleep!
“Keep up!” murmured Wylie. “Milosch--that’s the interpreter chap--says
it’s only a little farther.”
Once more she pulled herself together and replied cheerfully, and
before long the necessity for endurance ceased. A subtle change in the
muffled sounds surrounding her showed her that the horse was being led
into a building of some sort, and when he stopped she slid off
helplessly, much to the amusement of the brigands. Amid their
laughter, Milosch took the handkerchief from her eyes, and as soon as
she could distinguish her surroundings she found that she was
crouching close to a recently kindled fire in a low shed built of
rough stones. There was a square hole in the roof, approached by a
ladder, and the intense blackness above seemed to show that there was
a second storey of some sort. Eirene, Maurice, and Wylie were standing
near her, blinking in the firelight, and the brigands were arranging
their cloaks on the ground, or rummaging in their bags.
“Ascend up!” commanded Milosch, seizing Maurice by the arm and
pointing to the ladder. “We are charitable, we give you food when you
deposited safe in supernal regions.”
“He can’t climb that ladder with his hands tied!” cried Zoe
indignantly. “Why don’t you untie him?”
Milosch looked doubtfully at the chief, who shrugged his shoulders
contemptuously, and the cords were removed, care being taken not to
cut them. “We tie you again morning,” observed the interpreter, with
his cheerful smile. Maurice mounted the ladder, the girls followed,
and Wylie, who had lingered to secure the rugs which had served as
saddles, and request the loan of two of the brigands’ large overcoats,
brought up the rear.
“It’s nothing but a hay-loft!” cried Zoe in horrified accents.
“Excuse me,” said Wylie; “it is a loft with hay in it, which is a much
better thing, since it provides us all with beds. You’ll see, Miss
Smith. While we are waiting until our friends below send us up some
supper, we will curtain off the space at the end for you and your
sister. Smith and I will keep close to the hole, so that if the
brigands are up to any mischief in the night, they must wake us before
they can get near you.”
His tone was so cheerful and matter-of-fact that Zoe forgot her
fatigue and her fears, and held the rug for him while he tied one
corner by its fringe to a jagged nail he had discovered in the sloping
roof. The other side of the improvised curtain presented some
difficulty, for there was nothing to which to fasten it, until she
produced a stout hat-pin, which Wylie hammered into a crevice with the
heel of his boot. Eirene disapproved of this use of the hat-pin.
“You should keep it for a better purpose,” she said. “Mine I regard as
a dagger.”
“Do you mean to say that was all you had in your hand this afternoon?”
cried Zoe.
“Why not? I would have used it, as I said, and it would kill if one
struck hard enough.”
“I only wish I had known!” murmured Wylie, with heartfelt earnestness.
“There, Miss Smith! now your room is ready, you see. You can make
capital nests in the hay, and here are these two greatcoats to cover
you. It won’t be luxurious, of course, but it’s only for one----” He
broke off suddenly, and changed the subject. “Smith and I have this
other rug, so we shall do well. We shall all sleep without rocking
to-night, I think.”
“But can’t we manage to escape while the brigands are asleep?” said
Maurice, lowering his voice.
“Scarcely, since they are safe to take away the ladder, and it
wouldn’t do much good to drop down in the middle of them. The fire’s
there, you know.”
“If we were in a Henty book,” said Zoe thoughtfully, “we should cut a
hole through the roof and let ourselves down outside.”
“Unfortunately they have sentries all round,” said Wylie. “I heard the
chief placing them. The only chance would be to bribe one, and we have
nothing to do it with.”
Eirene laughed. “If you had not robbed me of my jewels this afternoon,
we should not have been destitute,” she remarked, as if to explain her
mirth.
“I shall begin to wish I had left you to be searched in Balkan
fashion,” muttered Wylie.
“Now look here, Eirene,” said Maurice, in his most elder-brotherly
tone, “just drop it. If you are our sister, you must put up with
things, and not make yourself unpleasant to our friends. You were
frightfully silly this afternoon, and might have risked all our lives,
and you ought to thank Wylie for what he did. We are all in one boat,
and it’s simply idiotic to keep up grudges in this way. Wylie is an
old campaigner, and Zoe and I are quite content to put ourselves under
his orders. You must do the same, content or not.”
He expected a fierce protest from Eirene, but the authoritative tone
seemed to cow her. “You don’t understand what my jewels were to me,”
she pleaded. “They were my whole fortune, and the pledge of my
birthright, and now I have lost them. But do not fear. You shall all
experience my gratitude in the future, and I shall bear no malice
against Captain Wylie for his excess of zeal.”
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” grunted Wylie, looking as if he thought
Eirene a little mad, and Zoe hastened to cover the indiscretion by
remarking--
“When you talk in that way, Eirene, you always make me think of Miss
Flite promising to ‘confer estates.’ Don’t you think it’s horribly
unfair, Captain Wylie, that she should be able to patronise Maurice
and me in this way?”
Wylie’s reply was fortunately anticipated by the arrival of Milosch,
who came up the ladder bearing a small collection of lumps of black
bread and very ancient cheese, and a skin bottle of water.
“Are we not beneficents?” he asked proudly, depositing his burden on
the rug. “We give you our own food!”
“That’s all very well,” said Maurice, peering down after him as he
descended. “They are eating the white bread and things we left in the
luncheon-basket.”
“How can we eat such stuff as this?” asked Zoe in dismay, for bread
and cheese were alike as hard as a rock.
“Ask them to send up a little white bread for the ladies,” suggested
Wylie; and Maurice, who was sitting nearest the hole in the floor,
obeyed, only to receive the answer, “You are our guests. We give you
our own food.”
Prudently refraining from increasing the girls’ aversion for the food
by mentioning that he had seen it collected from the sacks of the
different brigands, where it had reposed in close contact with wax,
tobacco, thread and leather for soling moccasins, rag for cleaning
guns, and other useful articles, Maurice broke off a piece of the
bread by knocking it against the roof, and tasting it, pronounced it
not so bad when you were hungry. Eirene confessed to having tasted
black bread before, when paying visits to peasants’ huts, but added
contemptuously that she had never expected to find it actually set
before her for a meal. However, since there was nothing else, they all
managed to nibble a little, and then the girls, almost asleep already,
retired behind their curtain, and were soon slumbering peacefully,
undisturbed by the loud snores from below, which showed that however
guilty the collective conscience of the brigands might be, it did not
keep them awake.
It seemed to Zoe and Eirene that they had scarcely slept at all when
they heard Maurice’s voice warning them that it was time to get up,
and they looked at one another in dismay by the light which poured
through the holes in the roof, realising that their faces were haggard
and their hair full of hay.
“I suppose we can do our hair without a looking-glass,” said Zoe. “But
do you think there is any hot water?”
The question sounded so absurdly incongruous that she was not
surprised to hear it answered by a laugh from Maurice on the other
side of the curtain. “There is a stream,” he said, “and you have leave
to wash your faces and hands. You’re lucky to have kept your
tooth-brushes, for Wylie and I have to use twigs, like the mild
Hindu.”
“I shouldn’t have thought the brigands would care for tooth-brushes,”
said Zoe.
“They don’t--for their teeth; they use them for cleaning their
guns--I’ve seen them. So be thankful, and don’t shirk the cold water.
I can even supply you with soap, for Milosch has just lent me a piece
of our own, with strict injunctions to return it, and much
self-congratulation on his generosity.”
“I think the estimable Milosch is becoming rather a bore,” said Zoe
viciously, trying to shake the hay off her skirt. “Don’t go down until
I have bandaged your head again, Maurice. I want to do it properly by
daylight.”
“Considering the want of water and light up here, wouldn’t it be as
well to do it downstairs?” suggested Maurice; and Zoe, agreeing,
presently found herself and her patient the centre of interest to the
brigands. This publicity had its advantages in that she quickly
distinguished the man to whom her first-aid case had fallen, and with
some difficulty obtained through Milosch its temporary restoration.
While the interpreter strutted about, proclaiming loudly to the
prisoners the magnanimity of their captors in thus providing them with
surgical treatment, she cut away the hair round the cut, joined the
edges with strips of plaster, and crowned Maurice with a turban of
bandages, to the intense admiration of the spectators. As soon as she
had finished, they hustled forward one of their number, who had
received a somewhat similar wound in Haji Ahmad’s last desperate
fight, and informed her, through Milosch, that he also required
medical attendance.
“Don’t touch the dirty brute,” said Wylie. “I’ll tie him up
roughly--quite good enough for him. He’s not fit for you to handle.”
“Oh no, I’ll do it,” said Zoe reluctantly, for the aspect of the
wounded man was not alluring. “I never realised before ‘how very hard
it is to be a Christian,’” she said, rather faintly, when the task was
over, and one of the men filled the rough leathern bucket with fresh
water that she might wash her hands.
“I don’t think practical Christianity need go quite so far,” said
Wylie savagely, but the chief was calling to Zoe.
“Stoyan ze Voivoda say, ‘Here, girl!’” explained Milosch, and Zoe
hesitated. The chief held out a piece of her own chocolate, with an
attempt at a smile, and after a struggle with herself, she advanced
and accepted it. It was better than the black bread and hard cheese.
“Lo, ze munificence of our autocrat!” exclaimed Milosch, striking an
attitude of reverential admiration. “He provide his guests with
sweetmeats!”
“Oh, stow that, Milosch!” entreated Maurice; “it’s getting stale.
Considering that the things are our own, it would be in better taste
to say nothing about them.”
Milosch smiled uncomfortably, and joined Stoyan for a murmured
confabulation, returning quickly to the prisoners, who were mitigating
their hard fare with minute fragments of the chocolate.
“Ze Voivoda say he not tie your hands to-day if you plight your
gentlemanly faith to try not to escape,” he said to Maurice and Wylie.
“We going into mountains, where ze women most walk, and zey need your
help.”
“To try not to escape?” said Zoe. “Oh, he means not to try to escape.
You can promise that, can’t you?”
“No, no,” said Eirene eagerly. “It is a deception, a snare--I am sure
of it. Doubtless the way is easy, and lies through villages, where it
would cause suspicion if you were seen to be fettered, and the
brigands think they will make us appear as tourists guided by them.
Surely you won’t cripple yourselves by such a promise?”
“It does seem rather insane,” agreed Maurice. “What do you say, Wylie?
We should feel pretty small if we found we had debarred ourselves from
accepting a good chance of escape.”
“I confess I don’t quite see how we are to escape with two ladies
through a country which we don’t know and the brigands do,” said
Wylie. “Even Miss Smith’s Henty heroes would have found it a large
order. But don’t think I want to back out of any unpleasantness that’s
going.”
“Well, let us split the difference,” said Maurice, “and refuse to give
our parole until we see the sort of way they take us. If it is very
bad for the girls, we can still ask to be undone.”
“You fools one and ozer,” remarked Milosch sardonically, when he heard
their decision. “Behold our slighted consideration avenge itself in
severity.”
The meaning of this cryptic sentence appeared immediately, for the
brigands, offended by the rejection of their offer, bound the two
men’s arms behind them so tightly that the cords cut into the flesh.
Wylie laughed grimly. “We can’t choose to be bound, and then complain
because they bind us,” he said. “I am sorry to be unkind, Miss Smith,
but the sooner you find the track too difficult for you, the better we
shall be pleased.”
Even now there was some time to wait before the start, while two men,
detailed for the purpose, removed the ashes of the fire and other
traces of the night’s occupation from the cattle-shed where it had
been spent, and the rest of the brigands made up their loads, those
who carried the rugs complaining angrily because the prisoners were
obviously unable to do so. Then the procession set out, with the
captives in the middle, the girls uneasily silent, frightened by the
unpleasant result of Eirene’s advice.