THE OTHER SIDE.
“Good-bye. I’m awfully sorry to leave you like this,” said Wylie to
Zoe, as he shook hands with her before his departure, while Milosch,
for the twentieth time, read over the letter to make sure there was no
deception about it.
“But how much better than the way you left us yesterday!” she said,
smiling.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant that I feel I am deserting you
personally. You and I have always been comrades, haven’t we? And I
don’t quite see how Smith is to squire two ladies at once along these
paths.”
“Perhaps we shan’t be moved on,” suggested Zoe. “I should think this
place is as safe and secluded as any they could find.”
“I only hope it may be so. Do you know”--he lowered his voice--“I
almost think I could find my way up here from the place to which they
took me yesterday? They forgot to cover my eyes again, you know. If
they take me down the same way to-day, I shall be quite sure of it.”
“But what good would that be?”
“Why, you don’t imagine I shall be content to leave you in these
fellows’ hands a whole month? I shall kick up the biggest row that
ever was, and simply force the Government to take action. I have a
little account of my own to work off with the brigands, you must
remember, and I don’t feel like putting fifteen thousand pounds into
their pockets.”
“But if we are not ransomed they will kill us.”
“Not if you are rescued first,” said Wylie promptly. “Don’t be afraid.
You don’t think I would let a hair of your head be hurt, do you? But
if I can save you three weeks or a fortnight of this sort of thing,
and at the same time do the brigands out of their prospective gains,
do you honestly expect me to lose the chance?”
He waved his hand to her gaily as he went down the hill-track with his
custodians, and Zoe fell into a reverie, from which she roused herself
with a vigorous mental shake.
“It’s a good thing he’s gone,” she said to herself. “We have been
comrades, as he said, and it has been very nice. In a few days more I
shouldn’t have been able to do without him, and that is out of the
question. I have the world to see and my name to make before I think
of anything of that sort. Yes, it is a good thing.”
But this decision was no sort of justification for Eirene’s taking it
upon herself to remark that she was glad Captain Wylie was gone,
because he ordered Maurice about. A coolness ensued between the two
girls, which lasted until Eirene, who wanted to mend her torn shoe,
was obliged to apply to Zoe to obtain a needle and thread from Zeko.
Very early on the morning after Wylie’s departure the other prisoners
found that the brigands were not quite so simple as he had hoped. They
had no intention whatever of remaining at the spot where he had left
them until he might choose to return. The clearing and the huts were
forsaken before dawn, and another day of painful wandering and
climbing by devious tracks followed. Zeko, in a lordly and
contemptuous way, hauled Zoe over the worst places, so that Maurice
was free to look after Eirene, but both girls were utterly spent
before the crowning trial of the march occurred. This was a long stiff
climb up the bed of a torrent, which, in spite of the summer weather,
had quite enough water in it to make the girls miserably wet, and
destroy the last possibility of usefulness in their shoes. They were
practically bare-footed when they staggered into the little valley
from which the torrent flowed down the hillside, and discovered that
they were now so high up in the mountains that cold was to be added to
their other discomforts. Even the brigands were stirred to pity by
their white faces and chattering teeth, or perhaps they feared lest
hardship should release their prisoners before they could be ransomed,
for they helped Maurice to collect wood for a good fire, and made the
girls sit down close to it to dry their skirts. The chief went so far
as to administer a small quantity of a potent, if smoky spirit, which
took away their breath and made their eyes water, and he also
requisitioned a pair of moccasins for each of them from two members of
the band who were unwary or fastidious enough to carry more than was
needed for immediate wear. The trees up here were too sparse to allow
of building huts, but in the rocks by the side of the stream there
were hollows which might almost be called caves, and Maurice swept one
of these out with a branch, made a smaller fire in it, and arranged
the rugs for beds. He himself was accustomed now to sleeping outside,
wrapped in one of the brigands’ greatcoats, but although he was
allowed to lie near the fire, he never forgot the piercing cold of
that night, while inside the cave the girls lay close together with
both the rugs over them, and shivered in spite of all. Their
appearance alarmed the brigands in the morning, and greatcoats and
leggings, such as the men wore, were allotted to them in addition to
the moccasins. Their feet were so badly bruised that they could not
walk alone, but they were helped up to a sort of ledge on the sunny
side of the gorge, where they were at last able to feel warm again.
Needles and thread were lent them to alter the clothes into some
approach to fit, and on the return of three of the band from an
absence of some duration, the chief presented them with large coarse
handkerchiefs to replace their battered hats. Maurice, whose broken
head was now sufficiently recovered to dispense with bandages, was
invested with a fez, from which Stoyan solemnly removed the tassel
with his knife, on the ground that it was unbecoming for a captive to
wear a tassel to his fez.
Maurice had not been idle during the day. He had collected all the
loose pieces of rock he could find, and built them up into a rough
wall, cemented with mud from a spot where the stream formed a marshy
pool, to keep the wind from blowing into the cave. The brigands who
had brought the handkerchiefs had carried also a large truss of straw,
and this was spread thickly on the floor, so that the girls found
their second night’s quarters far more restful than the first. The
exhaustion which was the result of the forced march was also passing
away, and on the second day they were able to begin to practice
walking in the moccasins, which was an art needing some caution.
A week passed quietly, varied only by the expeditions of the brigands
to obtain food and news. They seemed to have a well-organised
intelligence system, by means of which they learned that there was
much activity among the Roumi authorities, civil and military, and
that soldiers were being sent into the mountains in various
directions. The brigands displayed amusement rather than apprehension
over this news, and there was no lack of food, which would have argued
that the peasants were losing their fear of their unacknowledged
masters. The girls spent a good deal of time in patching their
tattered garments with pieces of the rough brown stuff some of the
brigands wore, and also relieved Maurice of his domestic duties, thus
leaving him free to execute wonderful engineering works in connection
with the stream, damming it in one place to make a pool where the
girls might get water close to their cave, and arranging pieces of
rock as steps. The energy of the prisoners astonished their captors,
who seemed to think it the height of bliss to lie in the sun, smoking
and quarrelling, or playing various rudimentary games of chance, and
at first every movement was regarded with suspicion. But by degrees
Maurice established with them a feeling almost akin to good
fellowship, and would sit among them round the fire, listening to
their talk, which he was beginning to understand without the
intervention of Milosch. Eirene objected strongly to this habit of
his, and, as was her wont, spoke her mind freely on the subject.
“It is so undignified, so contemptible!” she declared angrily. “A man
of elevated soul would suffer anything rather than associate on
familiar terms with wretches from whom he had received such vile
treatment.”
“But it’s to please myself, not them,” said Maurice. “I want to find
out why all these strapping fellows have turned brigands--to inquire
into their grievances, in fact.”
“Grievances! What business have they with grievances?”
“I don’t know; but they have got some, unfortunately.”
“But what have their grievances to do with you?”
“Why, I am a sufferer by them, so are you. Therefore I naturally feel
an interest in getting to know what they are.”
“And what are they, Maurice?” asked Zoe. “I thought these men all came
from Thracia or Dardania.”
“No, they are nearly all Illyrians--the Christian kind, such as it is.
They are Emathians born, though they are under foreign direction;
there’s no doubt of that. And very few of them seem to have become
brigands for the fun of the thing. Most of them are pretty sick of the
life, but they have made their own villages too hot to hold them.”
“But that was their own fault,” objected Eirene.
“Partly, but it was other people’s fault too. They have failed to pay
their taxes in bad years, or have mortgaged their land and been sold
up. Some of them have taken to the hills after assaulting
tax-collectors, and some on account of blood-feuds. They boast that
they only rob the rich, whom they hate most heartily; but I fancy that
the poor haven’t much choice about keeping them supplied with food and
clothes, especially if they are Greek poor.”
“Why, Maurice, you are hearing the other side!” cried Zoe.
“What other side?” asked Eirene sharply.
“When we heard Professor Panagiotis talk, Maurice said he should like
to hear the other side, and now he is doing it,” replied Zoe promptly.
Maurice, absorbed in his subject, might have revealed secrets if she
had allowed him to answer.
“Yes, it’s just as I thought, there are two very distinct sides to the
case,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s something appalling the way these
fellows hate the Orthodox Church and everything connected with it. It
seems they have been dragooned into belonging to it for generations,
with no alternative but Mohammedanism. The priests don’t appear to
have been examples to their flocks by any means, but were tremendously
keen on their dues, though they could only gabble through services
which neither they nor the people understood. All education was in
Greek, and the people hadn’t even the Bible in their own language, so
that the only chance for a man to rise was to turn his back on his own
nationality altogether.”
“And it was right he should!” cried Eirene, with flashing eyes. “Would
you degrade the Holy Scriptures and the sacred liturgies by
translating them from the glorious Greek into the uncouth dialects of
these barbarians?”
“What a very curious thing!” exclaimed Zoe involuntarily.
“What do you mean?” demanded Eirene.
“Why, it’s no use pretending that we don’t know you’re a Scythian,
Eirene, for you’ve said lots of things that show it. And it’s very
funny to hear you talking just as Professor Panagiotis did, when
Scythia is doing all she can to stir up the barbarians, as you call
them, against the Greeks.”
“Because I have been brought up in Scythia, must I be insensible to
truth and rightness?” cried Eirene. “It surprises me, I confess, to
find an Englishman supporting the guileful designs of the Slavs in
opposition to the noble cause of heroic and persecuted Greece.”
“I’m not supporting Slavs or anybody,” said Maurice. “If you are
anxious to define my attitude, I am blaming both sides impartially.
They have got things into such a muddle that it looks as if the whole
structure of society in Emathia would have to be built up again from
the foundations. If the taxes were honestly assessed and collected,
and the middleman eliminated, it would do a good deal, of course,
especially if you could also get rid of the money-lender by a system
of agricultural banks. But you would want to establish a system of
village responsibility, as they have done in Burmah, before you could
begin to stamp out blood-feuds and religious faction-fights. I must
ask Wylie how they manage to get a police-force which is not
prejudiced on one side or the other. Side by side with that, you would
have to be opening up the country with roads and railways, and getting
the priests better educated, and books translated, and schools
established, and the army thrown open to Christians and popularised,
so that brigandage would no longer be----”
“The only career for a young man of spirit,” supplied Zoe, as he
paused.
“Well,” burst forth Eirene, who had been listening in speechless
indignation as Maurice elaborated his views on the regeneration of
Emathia, “I should like to know what business it is of yours?”
“But why should it affect you?” asked Maurice, warned by an anxious
glance from Zoe.
“It is just like you English,” continued Eirene, disregarding the
question. “You meddle all over the world with countries which do not
concern you, while your own usurped India is ground under the iron
heel of men like Captain Wylie, of whom the very brigands are afraid!”
“Why, you say that as if it was to Wylie’s discredit!” said Maurice.
“I should have thought it was a distinct feather in his cap. You don’t
seem to see that just because we are English, every country that
doesn’t come up to our own high standard does concern us.”
Eirene lifted her head, almost tossed it. “When,” she began, then
changed the form of her sentence--“If I am ever a ruler, I will allow
no English to dictate to me. I shall recognise no grievances. If the
people disobey me, I shall stamp them out.”
“Making a solitude and calling it peace, indeed!” said Zoe.
“Cheerful country yours will be to live in!” said Maurice. “Are you
going to have periodical killings-out, like King Twala? or shall you
set half the population to kill the other half, and make the survivors
fight among themselves till they are all killed, like the Kilkenny
cats? Or is it only the present generation that is to be wiped out, so
that you may have the children brought up in the way they should go? A
lively time you’ll have when the hereditary tendencies begin to come
out! Why, they’ll all have blood-feuds against you.”
“I used the wrong word,” said Eirene, with heightened colour. “I meant
to say that I would stamp the people down. I will listen to no one who
is in revolt; but when all rebellion has been suppressed, I shall see
for myself if there are any grievances.”
“You’ll allow people to complain of them peacefully, then?”
“Certainly not; that is rebellion. But I shall oversee everything
myself. Not a peasant shall be prosecuted for non-payment of taxes but
the case shall come before me for revision, and the same in all
departments of the state.”
“I don’t think your magistrates will hold office long,” said Maurice.
“Besides,” said Zoe, “that’s just the system that works so badly with
the Roumis, Eirene. The Grand Seignior will insist on managing
everything himself, and of course he can’t do more than a certain
amount, and so business gets into frightful arrears all over the
empire.”
“I don’t care,” said Eirene stubbornly. “I shall trust no one; that is
the lesson life has taught me. The ruler’s eye will be everywhere, the
ruler’s hand always ready.”
“Maternal or elder-sisterly government,” muttered Maurice. “Well,
Eirene, have it your own way, and go ahead, and Zoe and I will come
and preach revolution to your people. What would you do to us?”
“I would have you brought to the palace and treated as my dearest
friends and honoured guests,” responded Eirene, with a promptitude
which seemed to show that she had thought the matter out; “but you
would not leave it except to be conducted to the frontier.”
“And if we came back?”
“Then I should conclude that you wished to remain with me, and I
should assign you permanent quarters in the palace, where I could see
that you did no harm.”
“Well, we shall know what to do when we feel we can’t exist without
you any longer,” said Zoe lightly. A curious thought, almost a
certainty, had occurred to her, and she put a question which had to do
with it. “But won’t there be a king or prince to be considered in this
kingdom of yours? or do you expect your husband will let you do as you
like with his possessions?”
“There will be no husband,” said Eirene haughtily. “The possessions
will be mine, mine alone. And you are making attempts to discover who
I am.”
“We aren’t,” said Maurice indignantly, while the guilty Zoe maintained
a judicious silence. “How horribly suspicious you are, Eirene! Go and
whisper your secret to the reeds, if you like. We shan’t try to
listen.”
“I have been led into saying more than I intended,” said Eirene,
trying to extricate herself from an awkward situation with dignity. “I
see that, according to your views, I have no right to object to your
making imaginary schemes of reform for Emathia, and I do not object to
it, while you understand that they are imaginary. That makes the whole
difference.”
Maurice stared at her. “What a lofty benediction!” he said. “Eirene,
I’m afraid I shall offend again; but do you think your head is a
little bit affected by all you have gone through? If it is, only tell
us, and we shall know what to do. We will treat you as a queen in
exile with pleasure.”
“Now you are joking,” smiled Eirene. “No, my dear brother and sister,
continue to treat me as one of yourselves. Circumstances may divide us
in the future, but I shall never forget what you have been to me
during these weeks.”
“Good gracious!” murmured Maurice, and laying his head back on his
arms he whistled softly at the stars, while Zoe shook from head to
foot in an unconquerable spasm of silent laughter, and Eirene sat
gazing at the fire with a look of gentle melancholy.
The next evening Maurice returned smiling from his colloquy with the
brigands. “Well,” he said, “my undignified and contemptible pursuits
have given me quite an exciting piece of news for you. Wylie is
looking us up.”
“Oh, Maurice, what do you mean?” cried Zoe.
“Why, it seems that Demo and three others went down to-day to get
food. At the village, wherever it is, they were told that an English
traveller with one servant and a large quantity of luggage had stayed
the night there, and gone on into the mountains, refusing a guide. Our
fellows decided that such a chance was not to be lost, and having
found out which way the traveller had gone, went across country by
short cuts, and arranged a satisfactory ambush. They thought he must
either be mad, or riding through in bravado after hearing about us,
but the luggage would be all right, at any rate. I suppose he really
was a newspaper man. Well, they waited in cover, and presently the
traveller and his servant came along. The luggage looked so new and
wealthy that it made their mouths water, but happily for themselves
they didn’t act in a hurry. ‘They came near,’ said Demo, ‘and I
recognised the servant. It was the Capitan. He was wearing Nizam
dress, but I knew him by his accursed eyes; he couldn’t disguise them.
Then we saw that it was a trap, and we let them pass.’”
“But how was it a trap?” asked Eirene.
“Why, either Wylie and the other man were much better armed than they
looked, and meant to capture a brigand or two, so as to make them
reveal the hiding-places of the band, or they meant to be captured
themselves, and had spies to follow them up and see where they were
taken. I don’t see why Wylie wanted to disguise himself, though. He
might have known he would be recognised if he was caught, and then
they would be safe to kill him. As it was, he and the other man seem
to have ridden through the brigands’ country quite unmolested.”
“I wish he wouldn’t do such things!” said Zoe anxiously.
“Yes,” said Eirene, “he ought to remember that we depend upon him for
our ransom and rescue. He has no right to risk his life in foolish
bravado.”
“I think we may be pretty sure that Wylie had some ’cute idea in his
head,” said Maurice. “I don’t quite see what it is; but he certainly
risked being captured over again.”
“And this captivity is certainly not tempting,” said Zoe.
Wylie’s plan declared itself unexpectedly the very next day. The
prisoners had climbed up to what they called their afternoon ledge, a
shelf of rock which caught the westering sun, and were looking out
over the chaos of hills and valleys below them, and speculating for
the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time upon the prospects of their
release. Suddenly one of the brigands’ sentries, who was stationed
round a corner on their left, whence a view of the country to the
eastward could be obtained, ran in and shouted to his comrades. Wild
confusion instantly prevailed among the loungers in the hollow. Some
of them quenched the fires with earth, a heap of which was kept ready
for the purpose, and the rest caught up their weapons, and scaling the
ledge, flung themselves upon the prisoners, who expected nothing but
instant death. Not daring to move, they yielded helplessly to the
violence of the brigands, who dragged them as far back as possible, so
that they could only just see over the ledge, tore off the girls’
head-handkerchiefs, which showed white against the dark of the cliff,
and ordered them, if they valued their lives, to make no sound or
movement. Presently, the cause of the commotion came in sight far
below--a column of Roumi soldiers, led by an officer on horseback. In
front walked a man in plain clothes, examining the ground narrowly as
he went.
“Captain Wylie! He has tracked us!” murmured Zoe, under her breath.
Milosch turned upon her with a diabolical grin.
“Promise candles to ze saints zat he track you no furzer, zen. If he
find ze way up ze stream, you go down ze mountain to meet him--you
see?” He lifted Zoe’s chin, and with the point of his knife traced a
line upon her neck. She shrank away from him, sick and almost fainting
with horror, and he laughed. “We begin wiz you, after all,” he said.