THE FALLING-OUT OF FAITHFUL FRIENDS.
Cheerless though the underground prison might be, it offered a
respite from further journeying, and for the moment the captives could
think of nothing else. Exhausted by the long night spent in tramping
through the rain, the girls asked only for rest, and a sack of corn
for pillow, with a rug for coverlet, furnished as luxurious a couch as
they could need. They were asleep in a moment, and Maurice envied
them. He had chosen his own sleeping-place close to the door, but he
could not rest until he had built up the boxes and sacks into a
barricade which might shelter the girls from prying eyes. It seemed to
him that the noise he made would wake anybody, but Zoe and Eirene
never stirred, and he erected a very fair partition, and retired
thankfully to his own sack and rug on the threshold. He was not
allowed to sleep, however, for a beam of light appeared at the other
end of the cellar, and a voice called him. Rising with much
reluctance, he found that a board of the crazy flooring above had been
lifted, and a basket containing writing materials was being lowered
down, while Milosch instructed him through the hole as to the terms of
the letter he was to write to Wylie. The circumstances might excuse a
certain acerbity in the wording, and Maurice was conscious of a savage
satisfaction as he added his postscript, scarcely able to see, so
drowsy was he. Even when he had finished his letter, it was sent down
to him again that the girls might add their signatures, and he was
obliged to wake them in turn, and actually guide their hands over the
paper. Then at last he was left in peace, and lay down and slept for
eight hours without waking. It was the girls’ voices that roused him
at last. He could hear them talking.
“Do you think they mean to starve us?” murmured Eirene.
“I don’t know. I’m _frightfully_ hungry,” returned Zoe.
The suggestion reminded Maurice that he was very conscious of the
pangs of hunger himself, but it was difficult to see how the fact was
to be brought home to the brigands. On testing the door by repeated
knocks, he found that it was still blocked up on the outside, and he
had nothing with which to reach the ceiling, and so disturb the floor
of the room above. In these circumstances, the bright idea seized him
of rolling about some of the empty jars, which made a most
satisfactory noise, and presently the board was lifted again, and
Milosch ordered the prisoners angrily to be quiet. When the state of
things was explained, he deigned to parley, assuring them that it only
wanted half an hour to sunset, and that as soon as it was twilight
they should be released and bountifully fed, but that for the present
they must keep absolute silence, if they valued their lives. The
reason for this became apparent in the course of one of the longest
half-hours they had ever spent, when the boards above rattled with the
not very distant sound of regular tramping.
“That’s Wylie and his army going home,” said Maurice. “Fancy their
being so close to us! I suppose we must have come back quite near the
village we passed through last night. If the old chap only knew!”
The sound of the tramping died away, the dim religious light which
filtered through the chinks between the boards vanished altogether,
and they waited in darkness until there was a welcome noise at the
door. The fodder which had concealed it was being flung away, and they
were ordered to come out. Passing from the noisome stable, they were
hurried through the yard into the house, and while room was made for
Maurice in the jovial circle of brigands who occupied the stone divans
in a large ground-floor room, deeply interested in the extensive
cooking operations going on over and before an enormous fireplace, the
girls were taken up into the tower they had already visited, and
handed over to the women of the family. The grandmother and two or
three elderly dependants were doing the cooking downstairs, where also
were the men of the house, acting as more or less willing hosts to the
brigands, but there were matrons and girls and children enough to make
the household a puzzle in relationships. The women were shy at first,
but when they saw by the rays of their primitive lamp the plight of
their guests they forgot their timidity. They bathed and bound up
their wounded feet, pressed upon them clean head-handkerchiefs and the
loose embroidered shirts they themselves wore on feast-days, and
brought them a plentiful supply of food. After the meal they made them
comfortable with loose sheepskins upon the divans, and sat upon the
floor to make conversation. The girls had picked up something of the
language by this time--Eirene helping herself out with Scythian
words--and an abundant use of gesture helped towards mutual
comprehension. The prisoners were able to indicate the names of their
respective countries, the manner of their capture, and their
wanderings since that event, while the women expressed their pity and
sympathy, together with their unbiassed opinion of the brigands.
That was the first of five nights passed in the tower, the days being
spent underground, and the curious relations of the brigands with the
rural population became manifest. The peasant-farmer had the privilege
of providing the brigand with food, clothes, shelter if he demanded
it, and intelligence of the doings of the authorities, in return for
which he received protection against rival bands, and was secured
against wilful damage to his property, while the brigands winked at
the prompt disappearance of every article of value from the house and
from the dress of the women when a visit from them was expected. There
was no love lost between protectors and protected, guests and hosts,
for the women had much to say of the ruthless demands of the brigands
for food and clothing when the family had barely enough for
themselves, and laughed at their boast of plundering only the rich.
Money they took from the rich alone, certainly, but if the poor man,
who had no money, tried to hide his last sheep to save it from their
clutches, he might be thankful if he escaped with his life. With all
this, the family were discussing--with as little constraint as if the
priesthood had been the career in question--whether the eldest son of
one of its numerous branches should become a brigand instead of
submitting to the vicissitudes of rural life. Brigandage was the best
profession for an active young man, it was generally agreed, and it
was both a protection and a distinction to have a relation in a
well-known band, but it gave the authorities a pretext for additional
exactions, and if the long course of serving two masters should happen
to end unfortunately, it was not desirable for the chief to have at
hand a hostage for the conduct of the family. Not that the authorities
could do much harm to a band like Stoyan’s, declared the grandmother,
who was the chief advocate of brigandage as a career, for Stoyan had
his own agent, receiving a regular salary, among the underlings of the
Vali himself, who sent him early news of any offensive action that
might be contemplated. It was only when troublesome foreigners rushed
things, as Wylie had done, that the arrangement broke down.
All these things Zoe stored up in her mind for Maurice’s benefit,
against the time when he should appear as the Michael who was to
deliver Emathia from oppression on the one side and lawlessness on the
other. It struck her as almost overpoweringly pathetic that when the
women learned that her father and mother were both dead, they should
ask, scarcely waiting for a reply, “The Roumis killed them, of
course?” but the effect was spoilt when she discovered that they
regarded the inhabitants of a Greek-speaking village near them with a
hatred as rancorous as that which they cherished towards the Moslems
whose name they never mentioned without a curse. It was the irony of
fate that the last representatives of Greek ascendency should be
dependent on these fanatical Slavs for the commonest offices of
kindness, but what hope was there of reconciling the divergent
elements? “If one could spend a lifetime travelling about the country,
and getting to know the people personally, there might be some
chance,” thought Zoe; “but even if there was the time to spare, the
jealousy of the Powers would prevent it.” She was sitting on the
divan, wearing the best clothes of one of the women, who was adding a
border of brown homespun to the much-patched grey skirt, and the woman
looked up and smiled at her. Eirene, who had refused any help rather
abruptly, was sitting close to the lamp, mending her own skirt, having
left Zoe to explain, with much futile gesticulation, that her sister
was very independent, and would insist on doing everything for
herself. “I wonder what would happen if I could make them understand
who we are?” thought Zoe, but she did not try it.
The days in the underground dungeon were long and trying, for the
absence of light prevented the girls from having recourse even to
needlework, and much as they needed rest, they could not sleep all day
as well as all night. On the second day they organised a mutual
entertainment society, or rather Zoe did her part without being asked,
and worried the others into doing theirs. She led off, and also filled
up gaps, with a serial story of such length and complexity that there
seemed no reason for it ever to come to an end, of which Maurice
remarked ungratefully that he knew now why no publishers would have
anything to do with her novels; they feared for their reason if they
were once drawn into examining them. Eirene told Scythian folk-tales,
gathered from her nurses in the very early years before she was
afflicted with English, French, and German governesses simultaneously,
and Maurice drew on his store of Cambridge stories, which was running
very low before the imprisonment ended.
It was not until the sixth day after their night of wandering that
they left the farm, and though the Roumi troops had presumably quitted
the district, they were conducted away with as much precaution as had
been observed in reaching it. Zoe suggested that the brigands feared
their eyes might suffer from the daylight after such a long
deprivation of it, and that this was the reason for blindfolding them
afresh, for they actually quitted the place without having seen it, or
the faces of the inhabitants, by any but artificial light. The women
expressed their condolence and pity loudly, and would have loaded them
with more gifts of food and clothes than they could well carry, but
the brigand chief interfered. They had a long march before them, he
said, and no one was going to carry the prisoners’ parcels for them.
The gifts were therefore reduced to their smallest dimensions, and the
start was made, each of the helpless captives walking between two of
the brigands. To their relief, the track was neither so steep nor so
rough as the one they had followed in reaching the farm, and after two
hours’ walking, their guards removed the handkerchiefs from their
eyes. To their weakened sight, all appeared dark even then, and it was
only by degrees they distinguished that they were in a thick forest,
the trees arching over the narrow path on which they stood. They were
allowed little time to accustom themselves to the half-light, for the
march was continued at once, the trend of the path being uniformly
upward, but the ascent fairly gradual. A brief rest at midday was
welcomed by the girls, who were already flagging, much to the
annoyance of the brigands, and a hasty consultation took place between
Stoyan and his lieutenants. As a result, it was evidently decided not
to attempt to push on as far as had been intended, for the pace was
less severe when they started again, and the halt for the night was
called in a small clearing as early as four o’clock in the afternoon.
Adversity had done wonders in teaching the girls to bear their part in
a backwoods life, and Maurice was no longer left to construct the
usual hut by himself. He cut the poles and fixed them in the ground,
but Zoe and Eirene twisted in and out the smaller branches which
formed both roof and sides, and collected leaves and twigs for beds.
Eirene was openly proud of her handiwork, but for Zoe it was
associated with a regretful thought of Wylie. “What a lot of trouble
we used to give him at first!” she mused; “and we never offered to do
anything for ourselves. He must have thought us disgustingly
helpless.” The recollection that if Wylie had thought so, he had, at
any rate, put a good face on the matter, afforded some comfort, and by
a peculiar process of thought she derived consolation also from the
reflection that on the whole it was better he should think so.
There were no kabobs to cook to-night, for the food brought from the
farm supplied a plentiful supper, but the brigands lighted a fire for
the sake of keeping off wild beasts and evil spirits, and sat round it
in great contentment. The prisoners declined the offer of a fire of
their own, and sat on the ground at the upper part of the clearing,
luxuriously propped against tree trunks, to watch the sunset glow
which pierced the black canopy of leaves and branches overhead. To
Eirene it suggested similar sunsets seen through boughs of pine or
birch on the great plains of Scythia, and as though the magic of the
hour had unloosed her tongue, she began to talk of the long summer
evenings, when there was scarcely any actual night, and she had donned
peasant costume, and attended by the governess who happened to be in
favour at the moment, joined in the games and dances of the peasant
girls on her father’s estate. Maurice listened, fascinated, half by
the suggestion of a new side to Eirene’s character, half by the
conviction that in any disguise she would still infallibly be a queen
among subjects. If the subjects were recalcitrant, so much the worse
for them. He drew her on by questions, laughed at her answers, and
owned that he wished he had been there to take part in the revels--a
suggestion which served to jar upon Zoe, who had been sitting silent.
“I do wish,” she said, opening her eyes wearily, “you wouldn’t disturb
my meditations in this frivolous way. You forget the literary
exigencies of the moment.”
“What are they?” asked Maurice. “Is it particularly literary to go to
sleep leaning against a tree?”
“I said I was meditating,” was the severe answer. “You seem to forget
that as all my note-books have been heartlessly reft from me, I have
to store up all our experiences in my head.”
“Ready for the book? Is it to be a plain tale--or a decorated one--or
a novel?”
“Both,” said Zoe decisively. “I find it would be a waste of good
material to lavish it all on one. The plain tale of our adventures and
sufferings will sell like wildfire, and pay for the novel, which will
be all local colour. I shall keep all the choice bits of folklore and
that sort of thing for it.”
“I know you said once that people always skipped the local colour in
reading a book,” objected Eirene.
“How can they, if it’s all local colour?”
“They needn’t read the book,” said Maurice.
“That’s why I shall need the success of the plain tale to pay for it,”
returned Zoe calmly. “I shall have a _succès d’estime_ with the
novel. And after that, I shall never have to trouble about local
colour again all my life.”
“I really believe,” came in accents of considerable irritation from
Eirene, “that you enjoy being imprisoned in underground dungeons, and
climbing up and down these atrocious hills with your skirts in
ribbons, and wearing horrid moccasins because you have no shoes, and
being cursed and threatened if you stop to rest for a moment, just
because you mean to put it into your books.”
“No, I can’t say that I enjoy it, certainly--but I can’t help knowing
how well it will look in the book.”
“You are mad upon your books!” said Eirene tartly. “If it was
painting, or music, or anything of that kind, I could understand it,
but mere novel-writing!”
“Of course you can’t understand it yet. Only wait until you have an
object in life, and then you will.”
“How can you say I have not an object in life? Am I not suffering for
it at this very moment?”
“You might have the politeness to say that the suffering isn’t so bad
because we are here,” suggested Zoe.
“Oh, I am not skilful in putting things politely. I am not literary!”
with deep contempt.
“And don’t you wish you were?” asked Maurice lazily.
“No, I am not like Zoe. She says that when she marries, the man must
have fallen in love with her through reading her books.”
“And none of them are written yet? Well, my future brother-in-law has
plenty of time to spare,” chuckled Maurice.
“Eirene, you are the very meanest----” began Zoe.
“Look here,” said Maurice hastily, “you’re both tired out, aren’t you?
I was sure the march was too much for you. Let us all meditate if you
think it’ll be restful. Or what do you think of turning in at once?”
“No,” said Eirene, “it is not that we are tired, it is that we are
both cross. I was cross because Zoe always seems to think that if she
has described a thing in suitable language it is all right--and
besides, she said I had no object in life. Why were you cross, Zoe?”
“I don’t know--and,” added Zoe with emphasis, “I never knew that
telling people they were cross made them less so.”
“But it’s part of Eirene’s system,” said Maurice. “Don’t you remember
how we discussed it with Wylie quite a long time ago--her view that
you ought never to mask disagreeable facts for the sake of other
people’s feelings?”
“And you were all against me!” sighed Eirene. Later on, when she and
Zoe had rolled themselves up in their rugs for the night, she recurred
to the question.
“Zoe, why were you so angry? You could hardly speak. Did I say
anything very dreadful?”
Zoe turned upon her with flashing eyes. “A girl who will tell a man
what another girl said to her in private isn’t worthy the name of
girl,” she said tersely.
“But Maurice! I never thought----”
“Maurice is a man, and men don’t understand. You seem to have had
something left out of your composition, Eirene. You ought to know that
sort of thing without thinking.”
“I suppose it is because I had no brothers and sisters and no friends
of my own rank,” said Eirene, in a choking voice. “I think I would
make almost any sacrifice for you and Maurice, and yet I do these
dreadful things without even knowing they are dreadful.”
“Oh, don’t cry!” entreated Zoe anxiously. “I suppose it isn’t your
fault, as you say. Lots of people would have an arm cut off for their
relations, though they can’t manage not to say nasty things to them.”
“I would give up everything for you and Maurice--except my object in
life,” repeated Eirene.
“How funny it would be if you found yourself called upon to give up
just that!” mused Zoe aloud, and then realised with a shock that she
was approaching dangerous ground.
“What do you mean?” asked Eirene quickly. “How could I be obliged to
give that up for you?” and Zoe embarked hastily upon a lame and
rambling explanation.
“Why, you see, it struck me suddenly that some one might make you
choose between giving up--your object, and having us killed. The sort
of thing that happens in a book, don’t you know? I don’t know what
made me think of it; I suppose it was my literary mind, which you
dislike so much. I can’t help it, I’m always like that. Whatever
happens--or even little everyday things which are not happenings at
all, simply chances for things to happen--my mind always jumps forward
to the end, and I think of all sorts of developments, and they work
themselves out on their own lines. You see, this situation is so full
of possibilities----”
“But why that one? Why do you think of such fearful things?” moaned
Eirene. Zoe, who hoped she had guided the conversation into the safe
paths of literary disquisition, was obliged to begin again.
“Oh, it was only nonsense. How could such a thing happen? Whatever
your object may be----”
“You shall judge,” said Eirene. “I will tell it you.”
“Oh, no!” cried Zoe, who was by no means anxious to find herself
officially burdened with the secret she had discovered unaided. “Why,
if there was no other reason, don’t you see that it might be safer for
Maurice and me to know nothing if we were questioned? I mean--you
don’t tell me what there is to be afraid of, but you seem to think
there’s something. Surely, as you have kept your mouth shut so long,
you had better do it still?”
“I suppose so,” agreed Eirene, with considerable hesitation. “But you
understand--you know--that whatever happens, Maurice and you are my
dear brother and sister, and nothing is to come between us?”
“If anything does, it won’t be on our side,” said Zoe heartily, and
immediately wondered whether this was likely to be strictly true.