THE LOST PATH.
"Fifty miles, and for you afoot! Oh, Horace, Horace, I can never be
so selfish as to ride!" said Gwenny, in sorrow and commiseration.
"It is only two very long days' marches, Gwenny," he replied,
cheerfully, for his heart was beating happily, and he paused a moment
to look back, to caress, and kiss the gloveless hand that held the
reins. "The last portion we may take leisurely," he added, "for then
we shall be near old Colin Campbell's headquarters. What a trump
Madame Tegoborski has proved after all! and yesterday I actually
thought of tying her neck and heels with a vine trailer. Thank
Heaven, the darkness comes on fast!"
But unfortunately, with the darkness there set in a dense white mist
from the Euxine. It came rolling in masses along the grassy valleys
and up the rocky mountain slopes, and ere long amid it and the
obscurity of the night, all trace of the narrow roadway became as
completely lost as if it lay under the snow drifts of that night of
the fatal march to Tchorgoun!
Muffled in a warm cloak of the Hospoza's, Gwenny did not feel cold;
but her heart, like that of her companion, became filled with natural
anxiety. They had completely lost the path now, and the horse,
though led carefully by the bridle, stumbled and lost its footing
every moment amid loose stones, caper-bushes, and stunted turpentine
trees, on what seemed to be the slope of a mountain side. At last
Horace paused in utter irresolution, and the bead drops rolled from
his temples. For aught he knew to the contrary, he and his companion
might be proceeding straight to, and not from, Yaila, and daybreak
might find them in sight of it!
Lost together on a dark mountain side in Crim Tartary, how strange it
seemed to Horace, the knowledge that the girl whose soft and
plaintive accents came to his ear from time to time, was the same
bright and light-hearted Gwenny from whom he had parted in the
drawing-room at Willowdean when he left home to rejoin the Fusileers,
and dared only press her hand--she whom he had clasped to his breast
so tenderly before. Yet so it was, and truth is stranger than
fiction!
The livelong night they wandered slowly and irresolutely there, and
Gwenny was sinking with fatigue, while Horace, preternaturally
wakeful and nervous, listened for every passing sound; but none came
on the soft breeze that sighed through the waste so lightly as
scarcely to roll the mist before it. No Russian drum or bugle, no
sound of alarm-bell, and no Cossack halloo were then "piercing the
night's dull ear." All was still, and when grey dawn began to break
and the mists to exhale upward, the wanderers found themselves yet
somewhere about the base of the Tchatr Dagh, and near a Tartar farm
or large cottage. Horace swept the landscape with a keen and haggard
eye; no vestige of Yaila, with its four green domes, and no sign of
scouting horseman could be seen. All the land seemed woody and
fertile, but desolate of people. That was well and his mind was
relieved; but his delicate companion required instant rest and
succour, so he approached the dwelling of the Tartar with mingled
hope and anxiety.
Early abroad, the Tartar farmer met them at his door, and surveyed
them with doubt and mistrust. He was a keen-eyed and sharp-featured
man, of middle age; his shaggy, black brows seeming to mingle with
the fur of his sable cap. His features were not of the flat
Mongolian type, but were pleasing, regular, and fair. He saw that
the lady was weary, and required alike food and rest; and when she
had dismounted, he led them into a room, softly carpeted and
cushioned, with a fireplace in it--a mark of civilization--and a
little table, some twelve inches high, in the centre, whereon he
placed milk, curds, and cake; but Ramornie made Gwenny imbibe some
Crimskoi wine from a crystal cup; and being without money, she
pressed upon the Tartar's acceptance one of the rings she wore, and
he took it, glancing with undisguised covetousness at those which
still remained upon her slender fingers.
To his alarm, Horace discovered that they were not far from the hated
Yaila. In fact, amid the mist, they had been describing a kind of
circle in their peregrinations overnight, at the base of the Tchatr
Dagh, and even the southern end of the pine wood was still visible!
Gwenny seemed already so worn and weary, after all she had undergone
of late, that Ramornie had great fear of her ability to keep in her
saddle till she could reach Balaclava; and he conceived the idea of
getting succour from thence half-way.
In a strange Polyglot kind of language, partly Turkish, English, and
Italian, eked out by signs, he continued to make the Tartar
understand that he wished a message taken to Balaclava, and his host
averring that he had a swift horse, offered to bear it, if paid
therefor; so all Gwenny's rings were to be his on the answer coming
back, and she freely proffered them.
"May Allah increase the glory and the substance of my lord!" whined
the Tartar; "and mayest thou never know hunger!" he added to Gwenny,
giving her the kindest wish of his people. "Drink," he continued,
giving her more of the effervescing and refreshing Crimskoi; "it is
pure as the holy well of Mecca:" but she closed her eyes wearily, as
if to sleep, and Ramornie surveyed her with apprehension and
solicitude, as she lay back on the cushioned divan, listless and pale.
Oh, if she should become seriously ill on his hands in that wild and
out-of-the-way place--so near Yaila, too!
He asked for writing materials. None were to be had; but a quill
plucked from a hen's wing, a little gunpowder mixed with water, and a
fly-leaf, torn from an old Koran, thus making the message more
sacred, supplied the three requisites: and Ramornie wrote a note to
be delivered to the officer commanding the nearest out-post,
imploring that succour should be sent along the road that led by the
seashore from Balaclava towards Alushta; and adding, that if an
attack on Yaila were projected, there were only in the place two
Russian battalions, of four companies each, and twenty pieces of
cannon, the heaviest being 32-pounders. He added his name, rank, and
regiment; and requested the Tartar to depart at once, showing him all
the rings that glittered on the white hands of the now sleeping girl,
as the reward of his speed and fidelity.
"May Allah increase the glory----" began the Tartar again.
"There, now," interrupted Horace, "that will do. Be off; spare not
spur nor whip, and the reader of my message may also reward you for
our sake."
"Speech is silver; silence is gold," replied the Tartar,
sententiously, and a few minutes after saw him mounted and away at a
gallop southward, by the road towards the headquarters of Sir Colin
Campbell; and again hope began to dawn in the breast of Ramornie.
In front of the flat-roofed farmhouse there rose a steep ridge of
rocks. Up these he clambered to watch the progress of his messenger;
and how great were his disgust, his disappointment, and anger, when
he saw the fellow, after conceiving himself quite out of sight, ride
directly north, and disappear past the edge of the old pine wood,
along the road direct for Yaila.
He had gone to betray them to Galitzin--to that Galitzin, whose
scouting Cossacks might even now be within a few versts of them!
Inspired anew by anxiety and alarm, he hastened to rouse poor weary
Gwendoleyne, and replacing her in the saddle, after appropriating a
sabre that hung on the wall, they set forth in search of another
place of rest or refuge.
A narrow, winding, and sombre path, overhung by oaks and beeches,
soon hid the house of the traitor from the fugitives. The morning
was clear now, and the sun shone cheerily along the mighty green
slopes and impending cliffs of the Tchatr Dagh. After a time the
trees were left behind, and rocks alone bordered the way. Ramornie
looked for a place of shelter, and if possible, of repose, for his
delicate companion, for Gwenny was sinking fast. At length, his keen
and haggard eyes detected a dark fissure in the red marble cliffs.
He hobbled the horse in a little thicket of turpentine trees, and
half leading, half carrying his tender charge, he conveyed her into
what ultimately proved to be a cave, strewed apparently with dry
chips and white branches of trees; but these, in fact, were human
bones--the relics of a Tartar slaughter--for they were in the famous
grotto of Foul Kouba.
He placed her on a ledge of rock, and wrapping her cloak about her,
kissed her on both eyelids, and bade her sleep if she could, while he
would wait and watch. Looking forth from the mouth of this uncouth
hiding-place, he could discern about six miles distant the four white
towers of Yaila shining in the sun; but no figures were stirring in
the open ground between.
Again he turned to watch his sleeping charge, and then what were his
horror and dismay to see the figure of an armed Cossack, who had
evidently issued from the inner part of their retreat, bending over
her with curiosity, pistol in hand.