IN THE SMALL HOURS
The amusement with which George had listened to his brother’s ironic
nonsense turned to dismay and despair. Helpless with his hands bound
behind him, he hurried to Maurice’s side.
“He does not mean it?” he cried.
Maurice shrugged, and lighted another cigarette.
“Whatever happens to me, old boy, you won’t betray our secret.”
“No; but--he _can’t_ mean it, Maurice.”
Further speech was prevented when Slavianski came up and demanded that
Maurice should take off his coat and waistcoat. These he searched
thoroughly: there was no despatch in pockets or lining. Meanwhile
Rostopchin and the other Austrians had gone to the back of the house,
taken the valise from the gyro-car, turned out its contents, and
thoroughly overhauled them. Then Slavianski himself joined them and
searched the gyro-car, finding nothing but the Guide Taride, the maps
they had bought _en route_, and the provisions brought from Durazzo.
By this time the ten minutes had expired.
The Count returned to the front of the house. His face was black with
rage. Addressing George, he cried:
“Are you a fool like your brozer? Vere is ze despatch?”
“I have nothing to say to you,” replied George, his cheeks going white.
“Zen I vill shoot your brozer before your eyes: and if zat does not
cure you of your obstinacy, ze next bullet shall be for you.”
He raged up to Maurice.
“Once more I demand zat you tell me vere is your despatch, or vat it
contained. It is ze last time. Refuse, and you vill be shot. Don’t
flatter yourself zat I shall hesitate.”
“I have no information to give,” replied Maurice, between puffs of his
cigarette.
The Count strode to him, snatched the cigarette from his lips, and bade
his men tie his hands behind. When this was done he called forward one
of the Albanians from Elbasan.
“Shoot that man,” he said, pointing to Maurice.
The Albanian lifted his rifle slowly. Maurice faced him squarely, with
not so much as the tremor of an eyelid. The man hesitated, looked from
Slavianski to the prisoner and back again, then grounded his rifle.
“No, no, excellence,” he said. “In fair fight, yes; for blood, yes; it
is my duty. I have killed five men for blood; but I will not shoot a
man like a dog. If that is the way in your country, do it yourself; it
is not our way.”
Cries of applause broke from his comrades. Slavianski turned angrily
towards his own countrymen. There was a something in their demeanour
that gave him no hope of finding among them an executioner. With
a snarl of rage he whipped out his own revolver and pointed it at
Maurice, whose eyes looked into his unflinchingly, and whose lips
curved in a slight smile. His finger was on the trigger.
“My Government has a long arm, Monsieur le Comte,” said Maurice quietly
in French. “Had you not better think it over?”
“Bah!” cried the Count, dropping the muzzle slightly, nevertheless.
“Your ambassador at Constantinople has given warning that Englishmen
travel in this country at their own risk.”
“True,” replied Maurice, as calmly as if he were discussing a matter
quite impersonal; “at their own risk--of interference by the people of
the country. You are not an Albanian, Monsieur.”
“You will disappear--the mountains swallow you.”
“But not you, Monsieur. You are known to have tracked me to Brindisi;
it is known at Brindisi that you followed me to Durazzo. This is a
time of peace. If you shoot me, if I disappear, you will be suspected
of murdering me, and whatever your services may have been to your
Government, I think it will hardly protect you.”
[Illustration: A TENSE MOMENT]
Rostopchin touched his chief on the arm, and spoke to him in low tones.
The Count gnawed his moustache, frowned, muttered a curse. Then, with
an angry gesture, he called to his men to take the prisoners into
the house, and walked towards his Albanian allies. After a short
conversation with them, he too entered the house.
The brothers, on reaching the first floor, were placed against the
wall. Their legs were bound. Leaving two of his men to guard them,
Slavianski mounted to the upper floor with Rostopchin. In a few moments
the women and children came hurriedly down the ladder. On reaching the
ground floor they were turned out of the house. Giulika and his men
looked on sullenly; they were too few to oppose any resistance. The men
from Elbasan laughed. They had no quarrel with them. Even though some
of them had been wounded in the recent fighting, they were too much
accustomed to hard knocks to bear a grudge on that account, so long as
their honour was not concerned. They had been engaged to hunt down the
Inglesi, and knew that if they raised a hand against the villagers,
now that the Inglesi were captured, it would start a feud that might
involve the whole countryside.
Slavianski and Rostopchin took up their quarters in the upper floor
of the _kula_. By and by they summoned one of the men left to guard
the prisoners to prepare a meal. After a time all three came down,
descended to the lower floor, and passed out of the house.
“You were fine,” said George in a murmur to his brother. “I was in a
most horrible funk. I’m glad I wasn’t put to the test.”
“Oh, you’d have come through all right. What I was most conscious
of was a raging thirst. Monsieur,” he said, addressing the guard in
French, “may I have some milk, _rakia_, coffee, or water, if it is
drinkable?”
The man grinned.
“The Count’s order is that you have nothing,” he said.
“They’re going to starve us into giving in,” said Maurice to his
brother.
“The fiends!” muttered George. “How long can you hold out?”
“Long enough to tire them, I hope. When they think of it, they’ll see
that we’re no good to them dead. They haven’t found, and won’t find,
the despatch; they’ll suppose I carry a verbal message; and starvation
is just as much murder as shooting.”
“If they’d only give us a drink! It’s like an oven here now that the
sun is getting up. My mouth is parched already: don’t people go mad
from thirst?”
“Oh! it won’t come to that. They’ll give in presently.”
But the hours crawled on, and neither food nor drink was given to them.
The Austrians re-entered the house. As they passed, Maurice, in a
rough, husky whisper, said to the Count:
“Monsieur, will it not satisfy you that we are hungry? Is it in your
instructions to torture us with thirst?”
Slavianski went by without a word. The man who had been on guard
mounted the ladder, his place being taken by the fourth member of the
party.
The long day drew out towards evening. The two prisoners at first lay
still and tried to sleep. But the heat and stuffiness of the room, the
cramping of their limbs, and their increasing thirst caused almost
unendurable pain. They tossed and writhed, now and again calling in
hoarse whispers for water, only to be answered with a jeer. The voices
of the others came to them from above; through the window floated
sounds of laughter and singing; and as the light faded they felt
creeping upon them the numbness of despair.
Again the guard was changed. The man lit a small candle-lamp, and sat
against the wall, a revolver beside him. Within and without the sounds
were hushed; their enemies slept, but no sleep came to cool their
fevered brows. Their guard began to doze; breathing hard, waking with
a start, then dozing again. By and by his breathing became regular;
he too was asleep. How many hours passed it was impossible to tell.
Wakeful, tortured with pain, the prisoners longed for morning.
Suddenly they heard a slight creaking sound. The guard awaked, sat
erect, and looked about him. The prisoners were lying where they had
been placed; all was well; and after a minute or two his loud breathing
proclaimed that sleep had again overcome him. There was a second creak,
a rustle, and a man slid into the room through the window. He stole
across the room towards the sleeping guard; there was a gurgle; then
silence. The prisoners raised themselves slightly from the floor, and
saw the intruder approaching them. Without a word he stooped and with
swift, silent movements cut their bonds. Then for a few moments he
rubbed their numbed wrists and ankles, and signed to them to follow
him. They saw now that the bars had been removed from the window.
He motioned to Maurice to climb up. When he did so, he saw a ladder
resting on the wall just below the sill, its lower end standing on a
wagon beneath. He looked anxiously below. Nobody was in sight, but from
round the corner of the house came the glow of a fire. He descended,
slowly, painfully; George followed him; last of all their rescuer
issued forth and climbed down.
From the wagon they reached the ground. In the dim glow the Englishmen
saw that their deliverer was Giorgio.
“Where is the car?” whispered Maurice.
“At the front of the house,” he replied. “Come with me.”
They followed him towards the trees at the back of the house. Here they
were met by Giulika, Marko, and the other men of his family, together
with half a dozen strangers.
“Come with us, friends,” said the old man.
“We cannot leave the car,” whispered Maurice.
“Is it worth a life?” was the reply.
“Yes, we must have it.”
They spoke in whispers. How was the car to be removed without
discovery? There was no time to lose. The men in the upper floor might
waken; there would be no wakening for the guard in the room below.
Marko stole to the corner of the house. Between the house and the camp
fire a number of horses were tethered. They cast a shadow on the spot
where the gyro-car rested against the wall. Marko beckoned, and George
joined him. After a moment’s hesitation they crept round on all fours,
placed themselves one on each side of the car, and wheeled it silently
round the corner to the side of the house, and thence to the back.
“Come with us,” said Giulika.
He led the way through the trees, up a steep path in the hill-side.
Maurice helped George and two other men to wheel the car. It was a
rocky path; there were frequent stumbles in the darkness, and they
shivered lest the slight sounds they made should reach the ears of the
men encamped below, who were not all asleep. The hum of voices rose and
fell.
After a few minutes the slow procession halted, and Giulika offered a
gourd full of sour milk to the famished Englishmen, of which they drank
greedily.
“Long life to you!” said the old man cheerily. “My honour is clean, and
only one man is dead.”
“Could we not have gagged and bound him?” said Maurice.
“The other was the shorter way,” said Giorgio. “He might have waked
while I cut your bonds, and made a sound.”
“And we had to think of our honour,” added his grandfather.
Maurice did not reply. Honour has different meanings in different
places.
They went on again. The moon was set, and the stars gave little light.
Following a winding gorge between two almost perpendicular cliffs,
George thought that there would be no danger in lighting his lamp.
By its bright flame they were able to see the way, and marched more
quickly. Giulika went first, behind him came the Bucklands, with four
men wheeling the car; the rear was brought up by the rest of the
company, to keep a watch over the backward track. Maurice drew out his
watch; it was nearly one o’clock. They had three or four hours until
dawn, and Giulika said they must travel as far as possible before
sunrise. The car had probably left a track by which the direction of
their flight would be discovered. There were few dwellers in these
mountain solitudes, but someone might see them when daylight came, and
the passage of so strange a vehicle would almost certainly be announced
from hill to hill by shouts.
“Where are you leading us?” asked Maurice.
“By the path I spoke of, to the Black Drin,” answered Giulika.