HAGIOS ANTONIOS.
The monastery of Hadgi-Antoniou towered aloft on its rocky pillar,
and the prisoners and their guards stood below looking up at it, for
there was no apparent means of reaching the top. Here and there
ladders were visible on the face of the rock, but they ceased in the
most capricious way at the points of greatest danger, and the lowest
was something like a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. But the
brigands did not share the perplexity of their captives, and two or
three of them fired off their rifles. This was evidently the
recognised way of attracting the attention of the inhabitants, for two
heads, with long beards and high square caps, appeared far above
against the sky, and a few words were exchanged, after which a rope,
with something fastened to the end, seemed to come crawling down the
rock from a projecting tower.
“Oh, Maurice, what is going to happen?” whispered Zoe, gazing
fascinated at the slowly moving rope.
“I suppose they will draw us up one by one,” he answered.
“One by one? Then we shall be separated,” said Eirene fearfully.
“I hope not, but in any case, let us make a compact together that none
of us will come to any decision, or enter into any promise, without
the other two. If they try to work upon us separately, let us each
demand to be confronted with the others. It’s our only chance.”
The girls promised hastily, eyeing the parcel at the end of the rope,
which had now reached the ground, and revealed itself as a large net,
attached by its four corners to a stout hook. The brigands unhooked
the corners, and laying the net flat, made signs to the prisoners.
“Have we to go up in that?” said Zoe, turning white.
“I had better go first,” said Maurice. “Then you’ll see what it’s
like.”
Eirene uttered an inarticulate protest, but he sat down on the net,
the corners were gathered together and hooked above his head, and he
was slowly raised from the ground. The girls watched the ascent with
panting breath and a sick feeling of horror, for the rope moved
jerkily, and at each jerk the net swung backwards and forwards, now
sending Maurice against the rock, from which he was obliged to ward
himself off with his hands, and now out into mid-air. It seemed to
them that they had given him up for lost a hundred times before the
net was grasped by sturdy hands and hauled into the tower, and they
discovered that they were standing with their arms round one another,
locked in a tight grip. A voice shouted something from the tower as
the rope began to descend again, and almost before they had realised
that one of them must make the journey next, the brigand chief was
spreading out the net, and indicating that they might go up together.
But Maurice’s voice called from above, “Not both at once. The rope
isn’t strong enough,” and Zoe pushed Eirene forward. “You next,” she
said, and immediately, after her usual fashion, began to wonder
whether she had really chosen the harder part for herself in watching
a second ascent, or had merely deprived Eirene of the encouragement of
example.
Eirene’s journey was much less exciting than Maurice’s, and Zoe
guessed that her brother was exercising a guiding influence on the
rope, for the terrifying oscillations had almost ceased. Be that as it
might, the ascent was sufficiently awful, and Zoe wished vigorously
that she had not possessed such good sight. Looking resolutely
upwards, when it was her turn to be enclosed in the net, she saw, with
a thrill of horror, that the rope, which cut the clear sky like a
black line, was old and frayed, reduced in some places, as she
persuaded herself, almost to a single strand. Looking down gave her no
comfort, for the ground seemed immeasurably distant, and the swinging
motion, slight as it now was, made her giddy, so that at last she shut
her eyes, and kept them closed until she felt herself seized and
dragged roughly sideways, then deposited upon some sort of floor, and
the net unhooked.
“Come, Zoe, it’s safely over, and you’re all right,” said Maurice, as
she sat trembling in every limb and unable to move. “They want to send
the net down for our things.”
“The rope, Maurice--it’s breaking!” she managed to articulate,
grasping his arm to help herself up.
“Oh, you noticed that, did you? That was why I wouldn’t let you come
up together. But one of the monks who speaks Thracian says that they
often draw up two men at once, and nothing has ever happened yet. The
rope is only in its fourth year now, and it’s due to last for six.”
“I hope I shan’t have to go up by it in its sixth year,” said Zoe,
forcing a smile. “Where’s Eirene?”
“In a state of collapse inside somewhere, being looked after by the
grandmother of all old women. Pull yourself together, Zoe. I think she
wants you. And we might as well get out of the way of these reverend
gentlemen.”
There was little room in the tower for anything but the rude capstan
or windlass which worked the rope and the monks who pushed at its
bars, and Zoe tottered out with the help of Maurice’s arm, to find
herself in a stone-paved court, with Eirene lying on the stones in a
dead faint, and an old woman wailing over her, while a group of monks
wavered at a discreet distance, alternately drawn by curiosity and
withheld by the consciousness that they ought not to be present.
“I say, what’s this?” cried Maurice. “She wasn’t fainting just
now--only rather shaky. Look here, Zoe, can’t you do anything? What’s
the proper thing--brandy?”
“Water,” answered Zoe reprovingly, and Maurice shouted for water in
English, Latin, Greek, French, and Thracian. It was the French that
proved effectual at last, for one of the monks understood sufficiently
to summon another old woman with a water-jar.
“Oh, Zoe, you are here!” gasped Eirene, when she opened her eyes.
“Stay with me. Don’t let them take me away. I won’t be separated from
you and Maurice.”
The French-speaking monk approached Maurice softly. “Pray reassure her
Royal Highness,” he entreated. “We have prepared for her the best
accommodation in our power, and if she desires to be attended by the
other young woman, there is no difficulty. She is to enjoy every
indulgence suited to her rank, if it is not inconsistent with her
safety.”
Much puzzled, Maurice conveyed the desired assurance to Eirene, who
took in its significance at once, and inquired sharply how he was to
be treated, in reply to which the monk declared that he would be the
guest of the monastery. Satisfied with this answer, Eirene asked to be
shown her room, to which she and Zoe were conducted by one of the
officials of the monastery and the two old women. It was a large, low
chamber, opening from a corridor, with a stone floor, and stone divans
all round it, above which was a decoration of light arcading in
plaster. There was a large fireplace projecting into the room, with a
hearth piled with logs, and three windows, all innocent of glass, but
provided with shutters. From two of these windows views of the
surrounding country far below could be obtained; the other looked out
on a smaller courtyard and across to another of the curiously
irregular buildings which occupied the summit of the rock, and from a
window in this the girls presently saw Maurice looking out. It was too
far to talk, but he signalled to them that he was all right, and they
returned into the room, much comforted, to find that the old women had
lighted the fire and spread a carpet on the divan near it. Presently
they brought in a tray of savoury food, the nature of which was not
evident, save that it contained no meat, and set it on a stool close
to the divan, when the girls were thankful to partake of it. Too tired
even for surmises, they went to bed immediately afterwards, sleeping
so soundly on their hard couch that even the thunder of a mallet on a
board, which summoned the monks to service at midnight, failed to wake
them.
They slept far into the next day, and it was late in the afternoon
when they looked out into the courtyard, to see Maurice, in full Greek
costume, wandering disconsolately about, and gazing up at their
window. They wondered that he had made no attempt to reach them, but
another glance showed one of the old women sitting like Cerberus at
the foot of the steps leading to their corridor, with the evident
purpose of preventing any intrusion.
“Oh, Maurice, how nice and respectable you look!” cried Zoe. “That
kilt suits you beautifully.”
“It doesn’t,” said Eirene indignantly. “He looks as if he was going to
a masked--no, a fancy ball. He ought always to wear English country
clothes.”
“And go to the opera in them, like the proverbial British tourist, I
suppose?” said Zoe. “But why didn’t you get some clothes for us,
Maurice, if they let you go out shopping?”
“They don’t, but there’s a Greek village somewhere near, and the old
monk who looks after me--who is second in command, or prior, or
something--got me these things through a _kosmikos_, who seems to be a
sort of lay-brother. But the women’s dress round here seems to be
distinctly advanced--rather markedly rational, in fact--and I didn’t
think you’d care to wear it.”
“Oh, well, tell them to send us two blouses and some stuff, and we’ll
make skirts for ourselves--and scissors and needles and cotton, of
course--and some hairpins. But how are we to pay?”
“With promises, I suppose. The people seem to share Stoyan’s touching
faith in an Englishman’s word--which is rather rudely shaken in his
case now, unfortunately. I told the monk I’d pay when we got back to
civilisation.”
“But why are we here at all?” asked Eirene.
“That they either can’t or won’t tell me. It has something to do with
one of the Committees, evidently--trust them to have a finger in the
pie--but I can’t make out how long we are to be kept here, or whether
anything is to happen or not. The monks are not half bad old fellows.
The Hegoumenos--that’s the abbot--has been trotting me round this
morning to show me the church and the library and all the chapels, and
at dinner last night he was full of the most infantile questions. Of
course, he had to ask them all through Papa Athanasios, who is my
particular monk, and what with his French and mine, the abbot must
have amassed some wonderful information.”
“It’s all very well their being nice, but will they let us out?” broke
in Zoe.
“Certainly not at present, but I shall work at them patiently. I
haven’t quite got at the state of affairs yet, but there seem to be
two parties among the monks, and one of them may be more pliable than
the other.”
“And are they going to keep us shut up in this room?”
“Why, you see, you really have no business here at all. Thanks to
Eirene’s greatness, you are in the quarters reserved for lady pilgrims
of the very highest rank, but you can’t be let out while the monks are
about, lest you should distract their minds. I believe that when they
are safely in church you will be allowed to walk about outside, and
then you will have to spend part of your time in sitting under my
window and talking to me, for I shall be locked up. The idea is that
if we were all free at once, we might escape, you see. But there are
little bits of garden mixed up with the buildings, where you may walk,
only you must take care not to go too near the edge of the rock, for
there’s no protection whatever. And of course your wardress, or
duenna, or whatever her capacity is, will chaperon you everywhere.
Isn’t she a caution? I spent ever so long trying to get her to go up
and ask you if I mightn’t come and call, and her only answer to my
blandishments was to threaten to brain me with her keys. Ah, there
goes the _semantron_--the wooden gong thing that calls the monks to
church. I’ll retire gracefully to my cell, and you will profit by my
self-effacement.”
The exterior of the buildings of Hadgi-Antoniou became well and
wearily known to the two girls during the days that followed, as they
paced from courtyard to garden-patch and back again, to the
accompaniment of the lusty shouts from the church which marked the
monks’ responses to the service. The regularity noticeable in western
monastic edifices was here conspicuous by its absence, for though the
church, the refectory, and the two blocks of rooms devoted to visitors
might be conceived to have been intended to occupy the sides of a
square, all symmetry had been destroyed by the crowd of smaller
chapels, and of cottages occupied by the monks, which seemed to have
been dropped down anywhere and at every angle. There was no encircling
wall, which the impregnable position of the monastery rendered
unnecessary, and though here and there a tower, or the end of a
building, reached the very edge of the plateau, its fringes were
generally occupied by uninteresting pieces of garden, in which the
girls would sit, looking at the cloudy mountains to the north, or the
dim country to the south, until their gaoler would rattle her keys to
intimate that the service was nearing its end, and they must return to
the custody of their room. Once they stood in the narthex, or porch,
of the church, which was decorated in fresco with lively
representations of the Torments of the Lost, and with infinite
precaution, peeped in, to see the monks at worship, leaning on their
crutched staves, and shouting incessant responses, while the metalled
and jewelled figures on the _ikonostasis_ made a blaze of light and
colour in the prevailing dimness.
Permission to see Maurice any nearer than the courtyard was still
rigorously refused, but he spent most of his free time under their
window; and when the difficulties of cutting out with a hopeless pair
of scissors had been overcome, Zoe, congratulating herself on her
diplomacy, announced that the need of clothes was too urgent to allow
of his being entertained by more than one at a time. Accordingly, she
sat working at one of the farther windows while Eirene talked to
Maurice at that looking into the courtyard, but she would have found
it difficult to formulate definite reasons for her altruism. A vague
feeling that the more closely Eirene’s interests were linked with
theirs, the more hope there would be of a satisfactory compromise in
the future, was perhaps her strongest impression. But one afternoon
Eirene called to her excitedly to come, since Maurice had news. Zoe
flew to her side.
“No, no, not news from outside,” said Maurice quickly. “Why did you
put it like that, Eirene? It’s only that I have found out what’s wrong
among the monks here. It seems that there are two parties, a Greek and
a Thracian party, as in Emathia generally. The Greeks are in
possession, of course, and the Hegoumenos is a Greek, but the other
lot are pretty strong, and have been gradually ousting the Greeks from
the minor offices of the community. Their idea is to carry the
monastery over to the Exarchist side--what you and Professor
Panagiotis call the schismatics, Eirene--and Scythia is giving them a
helping hand. The poor old Hegoumenos has only one idea--to keep
matters from coming to a crisis; for though he knows the few he can
trust, and the ringleaders on the other side, he doesn’t know how the
main body of the monks would vote, but he fears the worst. It seems to
have been a Scythian emissary who arranged for our being brought here,
on the pretext that Eirene’s life was in danger outside. At least,
that was what they told him, but I should say that the Thracian party
knew something more. At any rate, I have some hope of getting him to
let us go if we are left alone long enough. I’m on the track of the
dodge by which they let the ladders down so as to make a way to the
ground, with a rope-ladder at the bottom, and if they would leave us
unguarded one night we might get down by that, for we could never work
the capstan without half the monks to help. Then we might hide in the
village till we could get a message through to Wylie.”
“But why not send the message at once?” cried Zoe.
Maurice held up empty hands. “Unfortunately, we can only pay in
promises,” he said.
“But can’t you get the Hegoumenos to let us go?”
“He daren’t. Only a definite order from the Patriarch would give him
courage to override the opposition of the Thracian monks, and that
would probably mean the loss of the monastery for the Greeks. No, our
only hope is a little calculated carelessness one night, and that I
trust we may be able to arrange.”
But the very next day Maurice appeared with a long face. “I’m afraid
it’s all up,” he said. “I wouldn’t have told you, only I thought you
ought to be prepared. There’s some Scythian official coming here, and
he’s due to-night.”
“It mayn’t be about us,” suggested Zoe, without conviction.
“It is. He’s coming to ascertain Eirene’s wishes, so the Hegoumenos
told me--for the purpose of frustrating them, I should imagine.”
“Oh, what can Captain Wylie be doing?” cried Zoe.
“Why, how could he possibly know where we are? Who would think of
looking for us here? If he paid the ransom----”
“But I thought the brigands were honest in a way. Would they take the
ransom without giving us up?”
“Ah, Stoyan thought he had a grievance against us, you see----”
Maurice broke off suddenly. “I only hope he gave poor old Wylie a
safe-conduct. We know that if he’s all right he’ll be moving heaven
and earth to find us.”
“Maurice,” cried Eirene eagerly, “if I gave you the girdle of Isidora
now, would there be time? Could you bribe them to let us go before
this man comes?”
Maurice shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. “Money
might do it, but a thing like that would be clear evidence that they
had been bribed, and the Hegoumenos would suffer. After all, you can’t
wonder that when the whole future of the monastery is at stake, he
should think more of it than of us.”
“Well,” said Zoe, with aggressive cheerfulness, “I am going to finish
my work. I won’t face a presumably civilised man--even if he is only a
Tartar underneath--in a skirt like a _vivandière’s_. You had better
do yours too, instead of going out this morning, Eirene. There’s the
_semantron_, Maurice. Retire to your cell.”
“How can you be so flippant?” said Eirene indignantly, taking up her
work with languid fingers.
“If I wasn’t, I should cry, which would be both useless and
disgraceful. We seem fated to fall back again every time we think our
troubles are at an end.”
“I suppose you hate me?” said Eirene.
“Oh no, I don’t. We’re all in the same boat, for one thing, and you
didn’t mean to do all the things you have done, you know. It was
Eirene-ism, not deliberate wickedness.”
“I think you are the most absolutely heartless person I ever met!”
cried Eirene, with flashing eyes.
“Very well. I’m sure it’s better to be heartless in our present
circumstances. It will save us loads of misery.”
They worked in silent mutual indignation for some little time, and
then Eirene spoke suddenly, with an obvious effort.
“I have a plan,” she said. “I think I see how to put things right.”
“Then please forget it. It was your last bright idea that got us into
this fix, you know.”
“I know it was, and I will atone for it. When this Scythian comes, I
will announce boldly who I am, and promise to submit in future. Of
course they think that you and Maurice were concerned in my escape;
but I will assure them that you had nothing to do with it--that I
merely seized on you to help me, and that you had no idea who I was
until it was impossible for you to do anything. They would make you
promise to keep all that had happened a secret, no doubt, but I think
they would let you go, and take me back to Scythia. Shouldn’t you be a
little sorry for me, Zoe? We have been so much together--and it would
mean that I had given up my mission. You asked me if I would do even
that for you and Maurice, you know, and now I am going to do it. We
shall never see each other again. If they were to forgive me, I
suppose you might possibly hear that I was married to somebody, but if
not, you would never hear of me any more.”
“Oh, don’t be tragic!” said Zoe, the more impatiently that she was
feeling rather ashamed of herself. “How can you go on in this way?”
“But it is tragedy. Why won’t you understand, Zoe, that there are some
things in life that can’t be put right by making an epigram, and then
thinking of something else? Some day you will know, perhaps. Have you
ever heard of the Black Nuns?”
“No, I didn’t know there were any nuns in Scythia.”
“There are many, and the Black Nuns are particularly useful in taking
charge of people who won’t do what they are told, or who have
committed indiscretions--people of high rank, I mean. I committed an
indiscretion in running away. The disobedient girls return to the
world obedient. The indiscreet ones die, sooner or later, and there is
a grand funeral. A grand funeral can’t hurt any one, can it? And it
shows that the relatives have nothing to conceal.”
“Oh, do stop!” cried Zoe. “You are letting things get upon your mind.
I’m sorry I said that about your having got us into this scrape; I was
a beast to do it. Let us talk about something else.”
“I think I could do it--I am almost sure I could--if it saved you--and
Maurice,” pursued Eirene, lingering over Maurice’s name with the
tenderness that spoke volumes to Maurice’s sister. “But it’s no use
pretending that I don’t know what it would mean, or that I should like
it.”
“Oh, do try and have a little sense!” entreated Zoe. “Can you imagine
for a moment that Maurice--or any real man--would let a girl sacrifice
herself to save him? I don’t know what kind of creatures you can have
known, Eirene; you have such hopeless ideas. You may be quite sure
that Maurice would never go away into safety and leave you to be
unkindly treated.”
“He might not have the choice. I should be carried off secretly. But
you and Maurice will think of me sometimes, and talk about me----”
“And come and shed tears on your grave, I suppose? Eirene, will you
have the goodness not to be sentimental? If you were carried off to
Scythia, Maurice and I would go after you and rescue you. I would
pretend to be you and remain in your place, while Maurice got you
away, and then I should appeal to the British Ambassador and get
rescued myself.”