“Wrong? What wrong should I do? Do you think I am an Anarchist, laden with bombs to fling at the Grand Seignior? I find your suspicions singularly insulting.”
“I am sorry for it. Has it occurred to you that I might think the same of your persistent efforts to force your company upon us?” “That will fetch her, if anything will!” said Zoe triumphantly to herself.
The girl’s eyes flamed. “You are insolent!” she flashed out. “How dare you—— But no, I have drawn it upon myself. Mademoiselle, will you accept my assurance that I have no evil-doing in view? I am taking my journey upon a purely family matter, confided to me by a dying parent. I carry with me my jewels, which are of considerable value—inestimable value to me. Upon their safety may hang the success of my expedition. Once more I ask you to grant me the protection of your company and that of Monsieur your brother, and pray do not think that it is easy for me to entreat. I am not accustomed to it.”
“I think we ought to have some idea of your object before being asked to mix ourselves up with it,” said Zoe, but less firmly.
“If it affected myself alone, I would reveal it to you without a moment’s hesitation, but it concerns others. No, if my assurance is not enough for you, you must continue to regard me as an adventuress, a spy—what you will—and I must endure it.” She folded her hands in her lap with sorrowful dignity, but her lips were quivering, and a tear rolled slowly down her face.
“Oh, don’t cry!” said Zoe hastily, with the modern woman’s horror of tears. “Of course you can have your meals with us, and we’ll travel together if you really want it. Only I can’t say that you belong to us if I’m asked.”
“You will not be asked. A family party will pass unquestioned. It is two ladies alone who would attract attention. Oh, I am so glad!” she cried, abandoning disguise, and drying her eyes vigorously. “Evdotia Vladimirovna—my aunt, I mean—is so frightened, and I have been obliged to encourage her, and I was so frightened myself. Every one might be a spy or a secret agent. Then I saw the luggage with the name ‘Smith,’ and I saw you and your brother, and your faces looked trustworthy, and I thought we should be safe with you. I shall never forget this service, you may be sure,” with a return to stateliness, as she rose and departed.
“I feel a regular fool!” said Zoe viciously to herself. “But, after all, she did play fair. If she had attacked Maurice instead of me, she wouldn’t have had a quarter of the trouble.”
“I have scraped acquaintance with your startling-eyed friend,” said Maurice, coming in. “He is not a King’s messenger, you will be interested to hear, but an Indian officer going back after his leave. He’s to stay a week or two with a friend who’s in the Emathian Gendarmerie, and his name’s Wylie.”
“Well, I told you nearly as much about him simply from inference. Did you hear anything about Miss Smith?”
“Oh, one fat old chap, who seems to come this way about once a week and knows all the officials, was very busy hinting that he had it from the sleeping-car attendant that she was somebody very big travellingincog.”
“A Princess running away from school, I should think!” murmured Zoe. “Well, to-morrow morning either she will sink in the general estimation or we shall go up, for we are to breakfast together.”
“You don’t mean to say that you have taken her up after all?” cried Maurice. “Well, don’t say it was my doing.” But his warning tone was not wholly devoid of satisfaction.
Inafter days it seemed to Zoe that the stages of the journey were marked by the progress of her intimacy with Eirene Smith. There was that terrible midnight hour when, sleepy and bewildered, she was called upon by a ferocious German customs officer to explain the nature and purpose of the note-books in her dressing-bag, and could reply in nothing but scraps of French, Latin, and Greek, which ought to have increased the official’s respect for her, but only deepened his suspicions. Not a word of German would come to her mind, and the occupant of the other berth, an elderly French lady in an astonishing nightcap, was not only of no practical use, but was evidently watching between her curtains with awful joy to see Zoe haled from the train and arraigned before the authorities. Never was anything more welcome than the appearance of Eirene from the next cabin in an exquisite embroidered dressing-gown. She had heard the altercation, and, coming upon the scene, assumed the direction of affairs. Her German did not forsake her, and the customs officer went away placated, but grimly assuring Zoe that she might thankIhre Fräulein Schwesterthat she and her possessions were not detained. The relief was great, and Zoe thanked Eirene heartily in rather tremulous tones. The French lady, disappointed of her expected sensation, transferred herself easily to the side of the victor, and inveighed against the brutality of the official while eulogising the courage and coolness of Eirene.
“And the prudence also of mademoiselle!” she cried. “She has there even her jewel-case, not forgetting to snatch it up at a moment of the greatest tension!”
“I never let it leave me,” said Eirene simply. “See, madame, they are very precious to me, these jewels. They are of the possessions of my late dear mother.”
She opened the box, and took out one or two of the trinkets it contained, handsome and old-fashioned; not at all sufficient, in Zoe’s opinion, to account for the anxiety she had expressed in speaking of them to her.
“Ah, very pretty,” said madame, regarding them with greedy eyes. “Too old in style for a young girl, but you will doubtless have them reset. But how comes it that all the jewels are yours, mademoiselle, while your elder sister wears not so much as a pin?”
“We are not own sisters, madame,” returned Eirene, with a fascinating mixture of truth and audacity. “But that makes no difference to our love, does it, my Zoe?”
Eirene had the jewel-case with her again when she and Zoe met in the dressing-room the next morning. They had been charged to make haste, as the elder ladies desired the room to themselves for the process of hair-dressing, which could not properly be performed before youthful eyes, but Eirene fastened the doors and opened her box a second time.
“Now I will show you!” she said gleefully. “You shall see that I trust you, though you don’t trust me, and that I am willing to confide to you anything that affects myself alone. Look, then!” and Zoe gazed, astonished, as the satin lining of the lid fell forward on the pressure of a spring, revealing a wonderful necklace of huge pearls fitting into a shallow receptacle evidently constructed for it. In like manner the sides and trays of the box, judiciously manipulated, revealed a number of emerald and diamond sprays—the stones extraordinarily fine—which might either be used separately, or united to form a necklace or tiara, and a bodice ornament of great rubies in the shape of a globe flanked by spreading wings, with a deep pendant. Lastly, Eirene showed that the box had also a false bottom.
“This is my greatest treasure,” she said, exhibiting a number of golden plaques which could be fastened one to another to form a girdle. Each plaque was curiously embossed with the figure of a saint, apparently raised in enamel upon the gold background, while the halo and portions of the dress were encrusted with precious stones. “I am obliged to take it to pieces for travelling, but I do it with terror, for it is old—yes, of an astonishing antiquity, and there is nothing like it in the whole world.”
“It must be Byzantine work, surely?” asked Zoe, examining it with intense interest.
Eirene looked at her with something like suspicion. “Yes,” she said coldly, and, taking the massive clasp from Zoe’s hands, she returned it to its place and snapped down the false bottom over it. Her displeasure was so uncalled for that Zoe experienced a return of the unamiable feelings of the evening before, but before the box had been restored to its usual appearance the momentary cloud had passed away, and Eirene was replying with gay defiance to Mrs Smith’s remonstrances through the closed door on her delay.
The next stage in Zoe’s appreciation of her new friend’s personality came at breakfast-time, when Eirene remarked with smiling effrontery to Maurice, whom Zoe had just introduced to her with a formality intended to show that the acquaintance of the day before was insufficient—
“It is so kind of Zoe to have arranged everything, so that we need not enter upon any tiresome explanations. Please be assured of my best thanks for adopting me as a sister during the journey. Until we part at Therma I am Eirene, if you please. You, if I am not mistaken, are Maurice?”
As much astonished as his rightful sister, and conscious of Mrs Smith’s face of wrathful agony in the background, Maurice had sufficient presence of mind to accept the situation, and mutter something about pleasure and honour. The only unembarrassed member of the party was Eirene herself, who motioned Zoe to the seat beside her at the table, and Maurice to that opposite, informing her outraged aunt that she would find her step-nephewbien gentiland truly conversable. Taking the lead herself as a matter of course, she insisted on making the talk general, and before long Maurice and Zoe found their embarrassment fading away. Mrs Smith remained implacable, and answered only when she was directly addressed; but the other three were able to laugh and talk quite naturally. From his solitary table on the other side of the gangway, the man whom Zoe had styled the King’s messenger watched them with wistful amusement.
“It’s pretty clear the younger girl is only Smith’s step-sister,” he said to himself, “and the aunt is her private property. I suppose the aunt married the father’s brother, as her name is Smith too. No, that would make her their aunt as well. It’s a sort of puzzle in relationships; but with such a common name it may well be a mere coincidence. I should say the aunt and the younger girl’s mother were foreign and noble, and a good deal inclined to look down on the plain English part of the family. Smith will soon get tired of being tyrannised over by that little minx, and I could see Miss Smith didn’t half like it when they came in. It’s the sort of thing that palls pretty quickly. I suppose they wanted to make the step-sister’s acquaintance, but why bring the aunt, who has evidently made her the sun and centre of things? What a pity we can’t eliminate Mrs Smith! If she was out of the way—a convenient headache, now—I think Smith might take pity upon my loneliness and ask me to their table. They sound awfully jolly all together, and with three of us against her, it would be hard if we couldn’t take Miss Eirene down a peg. Her brother and sister are much too meek.”
Mrs Smith was not accommodating enough to have a headache—indeed, her expression implied that heartily as she detested her present position, wild horses should not drag her from it—but Captain Wylie was not forbidden the introduction he desired. “My sister, Miss Smith—Miss Eirene Smith,” said Maurice, bringing him up to the girls after breakfast, and receiving a smile from Eirene for his adroitness, though the presentation did not seem altogether to please her, apparently because her consent had not been secured beforehand. She gave Wylie the cold shoulder, as though she had read his sentiments towards her and reciprocated them, but Zoe, who had incited Maurice to introduce him, was quite satisfied. Wylie was the kind of man she liked. If he would talk, he could tell her things about India which might be useful in future; if not, she could look at him and make up far more wonderful things about him herself. He was not much of a talker, as it turned out, but sufficiently articulate to answer informingly when he was questioned, and Zoe was a past mistress in the art of what she called drawing people out, and Maurice, picking their brains.
As the day wore on it became evident to Zoe that Eirene was growing increasingly nervous. She could not rest for a moment, but roamed from one compartment to another, and up and down the corridor, shaking with agitation when she came face to face with any of the other passengers or an official. At last Maurice brought out his travelling chess-board and induced her to sit down to a game, promising that she should walk off her restlessness at Vindobona, so far as a stop of twenty minutes and the limits of the station would allow. But when they were approaching the Imperial city, and Maurice had gone to get his hat, she clutched Zoe’s arm convulsively.
“Oh, I dare not leave the train! It is here I shall be recognised if anywhere. Begin a game, quick; then I can keep my head bent over the board. May I hold your hand?”
Cold and trembling, her hand gripped Zoe’s under the flap of the table, and she was arranging the pieces when Maurice was heard returning. The clutch tightened.
“Don’t let them go far from the carriage. Oh, make them return to us continually! Couldn’t they stay here with us? No, it would excite suspicion. But tell them not to go far.”
Maurice and Wylie were much puzzled by the girls’ obstinate absorption in what appeared a singularly erratic game, and their firm refusal to walk about on the platform, but they made themselves useful by first going to the bookstall to see what Tauchnitz volumes were in stock, then making an expedition to buy one for Eirene, a second to get one for Zoe, and a third to change Eirene’s, which she discovered she had read before. Zoe was almost as much excited as Eirene by the time this point was reached. It was all very well to want to keep Maurice near at hand, but if Eirene was arrested, as she seemed to fear might be the case, what did she expect him to do? She could scarcely imagine that he and Wylie would attempt to rescue her from the Pannonian police. Of course they would appeal to the British Ambassador; but Zoe did not now believe that Eirene was even a British subject, and Maurice would probably have to declare his real name, with what danger to the purpose of his journey who could tell?
“Oh, Zoe, how carelessly you play! Check!” cried Eirene. “You are worse than you were months ago.” This for the benefit of a guard who had approached near enough to hear what they said. “Ah, it is nearly over!” with a sigh of relief. Zoe, looking up with the hasty idea of asking Maurice to get her some chocolate, by way of manufacturing another errand, saw to her delight the passengers returning hurriedly to the train. The dreaded twenty minutes was at an end.
“You know, I ran away,” said Eirene softly to her, as the train glided out of the station.
“I thought so,” responded Zoe; “but it can’t have been so very bad, as you took your aunt with you.”
“But I could never have gone alone!” in horror.
“No, I know it isn’t usual,” drily.
“Some day I will tell you how I did it,” pursued Eirene. “I thought I was safe, but if any of my precautions had failed, I knew it would be here they would catch me. Oh, and there is still another station before we are out of Vindobona! Begin another game, quickly!”
But the second station was comparatively unimportant, and the interval of terror of the briefest, and Zoe and Eirene released one another’s hands, and pretended to Maurice that a sudden intense interest in chess had prevented their having any desire to look out at the city and its buildings. At dinner, notwithstanding Mrs Smith’s objections, Wylie was accommodated with a temporary and most uncomfortable seat at the end of the table, and found himself very graciously treated, owing partly to Eirene’s sense of relief from her fears, and partly to the alacrity with which he had assisted Maurice in running her errands at the station. The night passed without alarm, for though the Thracian frontier had to be crossed, the Customs examination was considerately delayed until the morning, though it was necessary to get it over before reaching Tatarjé, where the passengers for Therma changed into another train, the Express going on to Czarigrad. As she watched it out of sight, Zoe sighed that half the romance was gone out of the journey, for the new train was unknown to fame, and by no means comparable with the wonderful microcosm which had been their home for nearly two days. Moreover, it moved as deliberately as the most local of English local trains, and its rusty engine groaned complaints as it dragged itself reluctantly out of the station.
Tatarjé naturally called up memories of Count Mortimer, the great English Minister whom the young King of Thracia had discarded on attaining his majority, and who was one of Zoe’s heroes. Wylie, who had heard little of him, was quite willing to be instructed and to share her enthusiasm, but Eirene was contemptuous. It was easy for any man to rise to power when he served a Queen who was willing to resign everything into his hands, she said; dealing with men was another matter. The discussion which ensued was of the nature of those parallel lines which can never meet, for it appeared that Eirene’s information was entirely derived from Scythian sources, and possessed nothing but the statesman’s name in common with Zoe’s. The crossing of the Roumi frontier gave a desirable change to the conversation, and Zoe sprang up to look out at “our own country,” as she whispered to Maurice. Her own country received her inhospitably, for rain was falling in torrents, and the general aspect was bare and neglected in the extreme. A squalid little station reached early in the afternoon, apparently unconnected with any town or village, was crowded with Roumi soldiers, and Wylie’s professional interest was aroused. He and Maurice left the carriage, taking with them all the cigarettes they possessed, and distributed them to the dripping, patient men. An elderly non-commissioned officer, who had been in Egypt, and recognising Wylie as a British officer, stood rigorously to attention when addressed, answered his questions in Arabic. The detachment had been ordered up to guard the railway, owing to a report that there was a band of Thracian revolutionaries in the neighbourhood with designs upon it. They had been at the station since early morning, without shelter or food, their uniforms ragged, their boots in holes. The station buildings were occupied by the Kaimakam of the district, under whose orders they were acting; he was immersed in business, but when he had time, would doubtless remember the needs of his troops. Some of the younger and more impatient spirits had spoken of bribing his secretary to draw his attention to the matter, but apart from the fact that with their pay months in arrears they could not offer enough to tempt so great a man, the sergeant considered that such an attempt would be an improper interference with the decrees of destiny. He saluted smartly, and stood back among his men, a stolid, shivering figure of military virtue in evil case.
“Some of the best material in the world!” said Wylie wrathfully to Maurice. “What soldiers we could make of them in India! British troops would have mutinied six hours ago. Look at the two sick men in that goods-shed, with the rain falling on them—and the Kaimakam, no doubt, is soothing himself withhashishin the station-master’s quarters!”
“Let’s go and rout him out, and shame him into putting the men in shelter,” said Maurice.
Wylie shook his head. “I daren’t,” he said. “It would only mean quartering them upon the Christian inhabitants of the village over there. That’s what’s bound to be done at last, I suppose, but one wouldn’t care for the responsibility of hurrying it on.”
He looked over the straggling houses of the place, which was visible at this point round the shoulder of a hill, flat-roofed, dingy white, huddled together apparently for the sake of company rather than protection, then brought his eyes back to the face of the old sergeant, who had advanced and was saluting again.
“Is the Bimbashi Bey come hither to serve in the new Gendarmerie?” he asked respectfully.
“No; merely to visit a friend,” answered Wylie.
“God be praised!” responded the old man, with evident satisfaction.
“Now why?” demanded Maurice, when Wylie had translated the question. “Make him say.”
The sergeant needed some pressing, but at length gave his reason boldly. “The Bey Effendi’s eyes are of the cruel colour,” he said. “Never have I beheld eyes more cruel, and I have seen many men.”
Wylie’s disconcerted face made Maurice insist upon a translation, which delighted him extremely. “Ask the old blighter if he really believes that rot,” he demanded.
“The Bimbashi Bey’s eyes will indeed strike terror into his enemies, so that they will flee before him and he will grind them to powder,” returned the sergeant, anxious to be conciliatory. “But his own men would fain see his eyes like those of the young Effendi, his friend.”
“There! They think you’re squeezable, you see,” said Wylie in triumph. “When you’re made High Commissioner of Emathia, you’d better send for me to be your commander-in-chief, and put a little stiffening into you.”
“All right. Mind, it’s a bargain!” cried Maurice, returning to the train at the summons of the guard, and smiling to think how closely Wylie’s jest had approached the possible truth.
“Oh, Maurice, it’s an omen!” came in an awestruck whisper from Zoe, who had been at the window.
“A fiddlestick!” responded Maurice lightly. “Now for thrilling mountain scenery, with revolutionary bands thrown in gratis!”
The train was now entering the mountains, and the four young people established themselves at the corridor window, which presented the most extensive views, but Mrs Smith refused to leave the compartment. Emathia possessed the most brutal and savage scenery in the world, she declared, and it made her shiver even to look at it. She would endeavour to forget it, and if a French novel and slumber are aids to forgetfulness, it was not long before she did so. The prospect from her side of the carriage was certainly not inspiriting, since it was limited to the rocky cliff in which the track had been blasted out, but on the other side there was something like a view, as Maurice said. From the very edge of the line, dark woods sank down, down, to depths which the eye could not penetrate, rising again on the other side of the valley to heights behind which the sun was already setting, at barely five o’clock on a summer afternoon. In one or two places there was a glimpse of foaming water, but generally the woods alone were visible. They made her feel weird, Zoe said; it was like an enchanted forest. She did not mind going through them in the train, but to think of venturing into them on foot was enough to make the bravest heart quail.
“We ought to reach the great viaduct which crosses the river presently,” said Wylie. “I believe the line winds so much just there that from this end of the train you see the engine and the first half apparently at right angles with you as it enters on the bridge.”
“There it is!” cried Eirene presently. She and Zoe were sitting on the seat below the window, Maurice and Wylie standing behind them. They all looked out eagerly to see the famous bridge, and withdrew their heads again laughing, with ruffled hair, for in this narrow valley the wind was strong. Eirene drew back to adjust a hairpin, the two men were laughing at one another’s dishevelled aspect, and only Zoe was still looking out when that happened which she would never forget, though she could not determine exactly the sequence of the several events. In anticipation of the appearance of the head of the train, she was keeping her eyes fixed upon the bridge, when the end nearest her rose suddenly in the air, suddenly and, as it seemed, quietly. She had opened her mouth to cry, “Look at the bridge!” when the words were drowned by the sound of an explosion, which must have been simultaneous with the upheaval, but seemed to follow at a perceptible interval. The train rocked and staggered, the glass from the windows and lamps shivered and fell in showers with a curious tinkling noise, Maurice and Wylie were thrown violently across the corridor. Zoe found herself and Eirene on their feet, gazing at one another with dilated eyes, heard Wylie shout to them angrily to sit down, had a vague idea that the train had left the metals and was trying to climb the mountain—or what was the meaning of those agonised jerks which felt like earthquakes? She knew that she was saying something foolish—“the hill above the line was not quite so steep here, was it?”—but the words were frozen on her lips. The floor was slipping away beneath her, the place where the window had been was somehow rising to the roof, then there came a great crash, a sensation of falling through space, and all was silence.
WhenZoe came to herself, the first sensation of which she was conscious was a stinging taste in her mouth, the next the dark woods cutting the sky opposite her. She cried out weakly, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight.
“That’s right!” said a voice. “How do you feel?”
“All smashed up,” she murmured feebly.
“Nonsense! Stretch out your arms!” The tone was so peremptory that she obeyed mechanically. “Now your feet,” and she gave two spasmodic kicks. “You’re all right,” said the voice, which was gradually becoming familiar. “A little more brandy?”
“Oh, no!” said Zoe in disgust, wriggling away from the offered flask, and discovering that her head was supported on Wylie’s arm. “I’m quite well now. Did I faint? Where’s Maurice? Oh!” as recollection rushed upon her, “is Maurice safe?”
“He’s all right, helping to dig out your sister. We could hear her voice, and I left him to get her out, while I brought you up here. Now I am going to get you something for a pillow, and then I shall leave you.”
Raising herself with difficulty on her elbow, Zoe found that she was lying on a steep bank of stones and rubble, sparsely covered with grass. Below her was the wrecked train, lying on its side on the slope. Men were standing on the sides of the carriages and dragging others through the holes where the windows had been, or thrusting aside distorted pieces of iron and masses of splintered wood. Some of the rescued were sitting on the slope bemoaning themselves, or stanching wounds in head or hands with their handkerchiefs; others were being carried towards a tree at one side, under which a man in his shirt-sleeves was bending over a woman lying on the ground. Thus much Zoe was able to see before Wylie ran up the bank again with a small box, which had been thrown aside out of the way of the rescuers, in his hand.
“I’ll put this under your head,” he said hastily, “and with that big stone at your feet you won’t slip down the bank. Just shut your eyes and lie quiet, and the shock will soon pass off.”
“Can’t I come down and help?” asked Zoe.
“No, no. Keep out of the way, that’s the best thing you can do. I’ll call you when we get your sister out.”
Zoe disobeyed him only so far as to watch the men at work on the train until she had distinguished Maurice, and then lay down, unable to repress a hysterical little laugh at the thought of Wylie’s sending him to the rescue of a stranger while she was left to the care of others. It was not long before she heard herself summoned.
“Miss Smith, we are taking your sister to the doctor. She is hurt, but I hope not badly. You would like to come?”
Rising unsteadily to her feet, she was glad to accept the aid of Wylie’s hand down the slope. Eirene was half unconscious, and moaned when she was touched, and Maurice and Wylie carried her to the improvised field-hospital, where a French surgeon, who had fortunately been among the passengers, was giving such aid as he could to the injured. One or two ladies who had escaped unhurt were tearing up their dust-cloaks for temporary bandages, and behind the tree at the back lay several quiet forms, reverently covered with rugs and macintoshes hastily collected. Zoe shivered at the sight, but the doctor had no time to waste. Discovering that Eirene’s most serious injury was a dislocated shoulder, he reduced the dislocation by rough and ready means, and bound her arm tightly into place, then told Zoe to take her away, since cuts and contusions must await a more opportune moment for treatment. Maurice came forward to help her, and whispered to the doctor, who nodded vigorously.
“By all means get her to bed as soon as possible. An emotional temperament—I have observed it myself—fever very likely to supervene. I will see that she goes with the first batch of wounded.”
But as Maurice and Wylie laid her gently on the slope, Eirene struggled into a sitting position. “My jewel-case!” she screamed. “My jewel-case! where is it?”
“It must be in the carriage still,” said Maurice. “We shall come upon it.”
“Bring it to me!” she cried angrily. “I must have it.”
“It will be found,” said Zoe soothingly, “but no one has seen it yet. Don’t worry yourself, Eirene; it will be all right.” Her tone had grown a little impatient, for she had gathered from Maurice’s whisper to the doctor that Mrs Smith was among the killed, and Eirene had not even asked after her.
“It is lost, stolen!” cried Eirene. “I threw it out of the window when the train began to turn over. Offer a reward, quickly—a million francs, anything!”
“Your wealth must be greater than your prudence, mademoiselle, or you would hardly carry such valuables about with you,” remarked the doctor drily. Like every one else in her immediate vicinity, he had been attracted by Eirene’s shriek.
“They are all I have in the world. My jewels are everything to me,” she cried wildly. “I will not leave this place without them. I will search the line on my hands and knees. It is marked ‘E. E. Smith’—a small box covered with leather, with brass ornaments. Has no one seen it?”
Zoe gave a gasp, and seized Maurice’s arm, pointing to the box as it lay neglected high up the slope. The next moment he had fetched it down, and between tears and laughter she restored it to its owner.
“Oh, Eirene, I am so sorry! Captain Wylie brought it me for a pillow, and I hadn’t an idea what it was. But when you mentioned brass ornaments, I remembered how uncomfortable the handle was. Now it’s all right, isn’t it?”
Eirene lay down, almost fainting, but gripping the box, while the bystanders dispersed, whispering and muttering, and much disappointed with this tame conclusion. Communication had now been established with the nearest station—a mere hill-hamlet, compared with which the village where the Roumi soldiers were to be quartered was a town—and presently a trolley came down the line with an official and several workmen. They brought the news that help had been telegraphed for from the larger station, but that it was not likely to amount to more than an engine and open trucks, which might not arrive that night. It was, therefore, for the passengers to choose whether they would remain where they were, or walk back to the small station in company with the men in charge of the trolley. The purpose which this was intended to serve was quickly evident, for several heavy cases were extracted with great difficulty from a locked van, which had been specially guarded since the accident, and piled upon it. The doctor obtained leave for Eirene and three other passengers, whose injuries were not so severe as to prevent their sitting up, to use the chests as seats, and they were lifted to their places as gently as possible, Eirene gripping the jewel-case fast in her uninjured hand. The passengers who chose to walk were asked to keep close to the trolley, so as to form a guard, headed by the two armed officials who were in charge of the treasure. Owing to the prohibition of the import of arms, Wylie had sent his regulation weapons by sea, and though both he and Maurice had brought sporting guns (which it had cost them much time and trouble to get through the customs), these could not yet be extricated from the confused heap of luggage in the train. Wylie had a miniature revolver, from which a long experience of danger had taught him never to separate himself, and he showed it reassuringly to Zoe as they set out, lighted in the gathering twilight by the fires kindled on the banks for the passengers who chose to remain by the train.
“Why, what is there to be afraid of?” she asked him. “Wolves?”
“Possibly; but I didn’t mean to frighten you, only to calm your fears if you had any.”
“Wylie doesn’t follow the bewildering changes of your mind,” said Maurice, who was carrying Zoe’s dressing-bag, the only thing they had been able to bring. “You professed to be afraid of the forest when you were perfectly safe in the train, but now you seem to think it rather a lark to be walking through it at this particularly ghostly hour.”
“Oh no, I know what you mean,” cried Zoe, “the people who destroyed the bridge! You do think it was done on purpose, then?”
“Dynamite, undoubtedly,” returned Wylie, “worked by one of those clockwork arrangements which are timed to go off at a certain moment. This one went off about forty seconds too soon. The guard actually saw the bridge blow up, and had just time to put the brakes on hard. If the train had been on the bridge, as the fiends who laid the dynamite intended, not a soul would have escaped.”
“I saw it too,” said Zoe, with a shudder. “And who do you think it was?”
“Why, the Thracian revolutionaries we heard of from the sergeant, of course,” said Maurice. “The troops had been carefully got out of the way by a false alarm, and the bridge was left defenceless. It was very neatly arranged. They were saying at the train that all these Thracian bands are under the orders of the Bishop of Tatarjé, who is a great pan-Slavist.”
“But what good would it have done them to destroy a whole train-load of people who had nothing to do with their troubles?” said Zoe. “Were they after the treasure?”
“Very likely,” said Wylie. “Money means more dynamite and more rifles. But even if it had all gone down into the river and been lost, the moral effect on Europe of the destruction of a train like this would have been immense. It would have called attention to their grievances, and advertised them as heroes who stick at nothing.”
“And you think they may be hiding in the trees now?”
“No, since their blow failed, I should imagine they are off double-quick march to some other part of the country, so as to establish a serviceable alibi. But even if they were here, I don’t think we look worth attacking.”
“We are a disreputable lot,” said Maurice, trying to scan his torn hands and ragged clothes in the twilight. “You will have to doctor our wounds and bruises when we get to the station, Zoe. She is one of those people who pride themselves on travelling with a specimen of every conceivable kind of thing that may possibly be wanted,” he explained to Wylie, “so she is sure to have plaster.”
“Plenty in my luggage, but only a little here,” said Zoe, “so we must use it economically. I suppose,” she added nervously, “you don’t think they may be lying in wait somewhere in front to get the treasure?”
“Not a bit of it,” said Wylie. “We are prepared for them now, and they know it. And to-morrow, I understand, the treasure is to be sent on at once with an armed escort. If I may offer a piece of advice, it is that the jewellery your sister is so anxious about should be sent on too.”
“She will never part with it,” said Zoe, with conviction. “Oh, don’t look at me as if I could persuade her. If I had the least influence over her, do you think she would be carrying it about with her as she does?”
“We are almost strangers to her, you see,” explained Maurice rather lamely. “We can’t expect to have much influence.”
“Well, it seems to me to be distinctly a case for the exercise of fraternal authority. Make him speak seriously to her, Miss Smith, and not shove off all the disagreeable things on you. I’m afraid you’ll have a bad time breaking the news of Mrs Smith’s death to your sister. By the bye, she was not your aunt, was she?”
“Oh no, no relation to us whatever,” said Zoe.
“We never met her before this journey,” added Maurice.
“That was what I said to myself when I saw you first,” said Wylie to Zoe. “Then her being named Smith was merely a coincidence?”
“Purely a coincidence,” said Zoe emphatically, and Maurice added, “You must think us a queer set.”
“Not at all,” returned Wylie politely and falsely.
“Oh, but you must!” cried Zoe. “I am sure, if we met ourselves, we should think we were the most extraordinary family that ever lived. But how can we help it?”
“One’s family is one of the things that have to be lived down,” said Wylie, with the kindest intentions, and went on to give instances in point from the history of people he had known, while Maurice and Zoe wished vainly that they could explain the true state of affairs—vainly, for how could they betray the history of their acquaintance with Eirene without her consent?
“It’s awful, Maurice,” lamented Zoe afterwards. “What will he think when he sees us separate at Therma, or if he ever meets her without us, or us without her? It will seem as if we had deliberately deceived him all along.”
But this was after they had arrived at the village, and accepted without enthusiasm the only quarters available. The Han, or inn, might have served satisfactorily to accommodate one or two sportsmen who did not mind roughing it, but now, invaded by a crowd of tired, hungry travellers, many of them bringing nothing but the clothes they wore, its resources were hopelessly overtaxed. The railway officials, securing Wylie, whose experience they recognised, as an ally, set to work to house their charges as best they could. The long loft which formed the upper storey of the inn was devoted to the ladies, and all the beds in the establishment—which were not above suspicion—were transferred thither, while rugs and sacks were requisitioned to provide couches for the men below. Bowls of coarse porridge, and platters of hastily boiled mutton, were forthcoming after a time, meal and a sheep having been commandeered from the neighbourhood, but there were no knives and forks, and spoons quickly ran short. Wylie shared in the abuse heaped upon the railway management, who ought, it appeared, to have provided a perfectly equipped hotel, with restaurant, hair-dressing saloons, bathrooms, and a large stock of borrowable clothing, at this particular spot, but he went on his way with a polite smile and unbending courtesy, arranging for breakfast on the morrow. Bare-footed, untidy girls, called in to help, fell over one another on the ladder-like staircase, or stood saucer-eyed to watch the “European” ladies and gentlemen, seated most uncomfortably on the floor, and grumbling over what seemed to Emathian minds a highly luxurious banquet. Hot water was absolutely unattainable, even if there had been cans to contain it, and the brushes and combs of such passengers as possessed them were passed from hand to hand for the benefit of the less fortunate. Zoe was happy in escaping early from the turmoil, for being in charge of Eirene, she was allowed to take her upstairs as soon as a bed could be prepared, and Maurice brought them a bowl of broth—or rather, water in which the mutton had been boiled—with pieces of meat floating in it. Eirene would eat nothing. While they sat outside the Han, waiting for the loft to be got ready, she had raised her head suddenly from Zoe’s shoulder, as if waking from a stupor, and demanded—
“Where is Evdotia Vladimirovna? I have not seen her.”
“I—I think she stayed behind, at the bridge,” stammered Zoe.
“Is she wounded? She would not have left me to you. What is the matter with her? Is she dead?”
Zoe struggled to say something, and failed, and Eirene read the truth from her broken accents.
“She is dead, then?” she said. “And I made her come with me!”
She would say nothing more, and the tears for which Zoe hoped would not come. Eirene allowed herself to be helped upstairs, and lay down obediently, but not to sleep. When the noise and confusion that reigned throughout the inn had at last subsided, Zoe was roused by hearing her voice. Sometimes she spoke in French or English, sometimes in an unknown tongue, which Zoe thought must be Scythian, rambling on and on, and moaning pitifully. Once she called out for her jewel-case, and Zoe, fearing that the other passengers would be disturbed, rose and brought it to her, leaving it on the bed, so that she might be sure it was safe. She held long conversations with some one, apparently urging some course of action, and Zoe guessed that her mind was recurring to the difficulty she had experienced in inducing Mrs Smith to accompany her on her quest, whatever it was. The delirium had passed off in the morning, but Eirene remained weak and feverish, and Zoe welcomed the appearance of the doctor, who came up from the scene of the accident with the rest of his patients in the emergency train as soon as it was light. Bustle was everywhere again, and the officials and Wylie had their hands full in producing order out of chaos. The most serious cases among the injured were to be sent back to Tatarjé, while those who were only slightly wounded, and the unhurt, were to proceed by road as fast as carriages could be provided to convey them, following the old route through the mountains which had preceded the railway, crossing the river by a Roman bridge at some distance lower down, and rejoining the line at the nearest station on the other side, where a train would be waiting to take them on to Therma. This would have been the natural course for Maurice and Zoe to follow, but there was Eirene to consider, and Zoe felt no surprise when the doctor remarked airily—
“She must not be moved, of course. A few days’ perfect rest and freedom from strain is necessary. You will be able to renew the dressings, mademoiselle, and I will leave you sufficient material. Your interesting sister is in no danger, but she will certainly not be fit to travel for a week.”
“Of course we must stay and look after her,” said Maurice, when he heard the verdict. “We can’t leave her here alone.”
This was Zoe’s own opinion, but for some reason Maurice’s ready agreement displeased her. “She has no claim on us whatever,” she said, rather tartly. “She simply tacked herself on to us.”
“What a low thing to say!” cried Maurice, really angry. “And the poor little girl in such trouble!”
“Of course she’s in trouble, but whose fault is it? You may say what you like, but you know you’d be horribly, frightfully angry if I went running about Europe and hooked myself on to a strange man and his sister.”
“That would be quite different. I mean, it would be quite different with strangers. She had sense enough to pick out us. At any rate”—Maurice had a dim idea that there was something not quite conclusive about his argument—“we ought to be very thankful that she did.”
“We? Scarcely. But I think she ought,” snapped Zoe, and having permitted herself this licence, set to work to atone for it. “Don’t look so righteously angry, Maurice. I never dreamed for a moment of leaving her alone here; only it struck me all at once how different it would have seemed to you if I had been in her place. Don’t be afraid; I’ll be her guide, philosopher, and friend as long as she’ll let me, and hand her over to her parents and guardians a reformed character, when they turn up at last.”
“Yes, one forgets that,” said Maurice, with what Zoe felt was unnecessary solemnity, and she turned away a little hastily.
“Is she going to come between Maurice and me?” she asked herself. “No, that she can’t do unless I let her. She isn’t a bad child, really—for a child, always seeing how far she can go, and half frightened at the things she does, and expecting other people to take the responsibility. I do wonder who she really is.”
“Good morning,” said Wylie, meeting her. “You look none the worse for your adventures, I’m glad to see. I met the doctor just now. Horribly bad luck for you to be fixed here. I hope you are not anxious about your sister?”
“The doctor says it is only rest she needs, thank you. I suppose this is ‘good-bye’?” noticing that he was equipped for a journey.
“Not exactly. I’m only going down with your brother to see if we can disinter your family luggage from the wreck. Er—I found I was more knocked about than I thought,” as Zoe looked at him in surprise, “and I thought a—a little rest wouldn’t do me any harm, so I’m staying on too—if you don’t mind, that is?”
“Why should I mind?” asked Zoe coolly. “I think it will be very nice for my brother to have a companion, as I shall be so much taken up. I hope you are not seriously hurt?”
“Oh no, no—nothing at all,” he assured her. “I am sending a message to my friend not to expect me just yet. Oh, by the bye, they will soon be packing off the treasure. What about your sister’s jewel-case? It has been a good deal talked of already, and the villagers are prepared to regard your party as possessed of illimitable wealth. I really think we should be safer without it.”
“I’ll speak to her at once,” said Zoe, as she mounted the stair. By way of proceeding in a gentle and diplomatic manner, she began by telling Eirene that Wylie was remaining with them, which seemed to fill her with compunction.
“I have not deserved this fidelity,” she said feebly, “for I have never shown him any special distinction. But he shall not go unrewarded. Oh,” meeting Zoe’s astonished and rather indignant eyes, “I forgot; he does not know. But his intention is kind.”
“He thinks you had better send your jewel-case on with the treasure, and get it placed in safety,” said Zoe bluntly, unreasonably irritated by Eirene’s assumption that Wylie was staying on her account.
“Never!” said Eirene decisively. “I won’t part with it.”
“Oh, very well. Every one is talking about it, and the revolutionaries are sure to hear. Then they will come and besiege the inn, and you will have to give it up.”
“Not while I live.”
“Well, if you think Maurice and Captain Wylie—or any one—would sacrifice the lives of a whole houseful of people just for the sake of your jewels, I don’t.”
Eirene wavered a little. “What does Maurice say?” she asked.
“He thinks, as I do, that if you are our sister, your brother’s wishes ought to have some effect on you.”
“If I only knew they would be safe!” sighed Eirene.
“Why, they are sure to be safe. You will be given a receipt for them, I expect, and then the railway people would be responsible.”
“If I thought that——!” Eirene was still gripping the box. “Zoe, will you find out at once? If the railway people will guarantee the safety of the case, I will entrust it to them.”
Much relieved by this reasonable attitude, Zoe went downstairs again, found the official in charge of the treasure, obtained all possible assurances from him, and returned to Eirene, who had opened the jewel-case, and with reluctant fingers was rearranging its more obvious contents—the trinkets which, as she had told the French lady, had belonged to her mother—in their proper places.
“Take it quickly, before I change my mind,” she said, locking it hastily.
Theweek’s stay at the Han was drawing to a close. Twice the train from “Europe” had deposited its passengers at the station, and they had been sent on by road, as those of the wrecked train had been, to rejoin the line on the other side of the river. Gangs of navvies were at work on the repairs to the bridge, and the passage of construction-trains kept the station staff busy. Maurice and Wylie had extricated as much as possible of their possessions and those of the girls from the pile of damaged and partially plundered luggage (for the navvies had enjoyed first choice) rescued from among thedébris, and the village carpenter found himself overworked, or so he asserted, with orders for making new boxes and repairing others. The party at the inn had been increased by the addition of Haji Ahmad, a trusted Roumi servant of Wylie’s friend Captain Palmer, who had been sent to make himself generally useful, which he did. Poor Mrs Smith had been buried in the neglected churchyard, a ragged and dirty priest hurrying through a service which seemed little more intelligible to himself than to the three English who listened, and displaying an indecent keenness as to the fees due to him.
“Eirene,” said Zoe, on the fifth day of their stay, “Maurice wanted me to ask you what you would like put on the tombstone. He has found a man who can carve letters, and he would like to make sure that it is properly done before we leave.”
“‘Evdotia Vladimirovna’—nothing else,” replied Eirene, after a moment’s reflection. “Some day I shall build a memorial church here, to commemorate her fidelity, but it is not the time for that yet.”
Zoe wondered silently whether the poor lady might not have preferred a peaceful life to this honoured death, and Eirene caught her look. “You know that she was not really my aunt?” she said doubtfully.
“I have thought it might be so,” returned Zoe.
“She was my mother’s—companion,” said Eirene, hesitating over the word, “and then she was one of my governesses. I was obliged to tell her what I meant to do, and she could not let me come alone. I said I should go without her, but of course I could not have done it. I knew she would come sooner than that. And I told her what to do, and she really tried to do it. You don’t know how cunningly I laid my plans!” with sudden enthusiasm. “I made use of my father’s steward to take passages to America for us from Havre, and get American passports for us as Mrs Silas Lapham and Miss Philadelphia Lapham, and to transfer money in that name to a bank in New York. He is a Jew, and I knew that however heavily I bribed him to silence, he would betray me if he found himself in danger, so I let him think he was wholly in my confidence, and yet I never trusted him at all. Through an English merchant with whom my father had dealings, I got these English passports, and then all was clear. We had been staying at a French watering-place, and we left it in our proper characters and embarked on the Nord Express. Our maids went on unsuspiciously with the luggage to—where we used to live, but Evdotia Vladimirovna and I had left the train at the first stopping-place and returned to Paris. A duplicate set of luggage was sent through to Havre in the name of Lapham, to make further confusion, while we, with entirely different luggage, took tickets for the Orient Express as Mrs and Miss Smith. I knew that if Levinssohn betrayed us, he could only direct pursuit to Havre, where the false luggage would be stopped; but it would be some days before they would suspect we were not coming that way at all, and by that time our traces in Paris would be lost. I was foolish in being so frightened at Vindobona, for it was most unlikely that my precautions should have failed, but it was terrible to think that after such a bold stroke I might be dragged back.”
“Well, I only hope you had a good reason for it all,” was Zoe’s unsympathetic rejoinder. Eirene looked offended.
“Arrangements were proposed for me which I could not possibly accept,” she said, with much dignity. “My reasons were absolutely valid, as you will acknowledge if I ever explain them to you. I should like to justify myself by doing so now, but it is out of the question, unless—— Zoe,” she broke off suddenly, “it occurs to me sometimes that you and Maurice may not be what you seem. You also—I mean, you yourselves—may be travellingincognito. If it was so——?”
The possibilities of the situation flew through Zoe’s mind as Eirene’s voice ceased. If she were to make a bargain—to exchange her secret for Eirene’s? But the secret was not hers alone, but Maurice’s, and Wylie was still in ignorance of it. Besides, what if Eirene were really the spy she had at first imagined her, and this was a bold bid on her part for success in her nefarious schemes? Zoe’s decision was taken in an instant. “You mustn’t be so fanciful,” she said. “Maurice and I have lived the most unromantic life you can imagine. He is really an English country gentleman, as he has told you. We do really live in a nice, square, ugly, old Georgian house, with good grounds. When we are ambitious we call them the park. We have a good many tenants, who are a continual bother through wanting things done for them and not paying their rents. We are exactly like our neighbours, except that we have both been to college.” A prudential instinct, for which she commended herself, restrained her from mentioning the Gold Medal, though she had already exulted in Wylie’s undisguised astonishment when he was made acquainted with Maurice’s poetical fame.
Eirene sighed. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I had fancied—— There is something so striking about your brother—a mingling of strength and gentleness and carelessness—no, that is the wrong word;insoucianceis what I mean—that I could not help hoping he was really noble.”
The temptation to reveal the truth was so overwhelming that Zoe took refuge in a highly moral tone. “You have such a horribly snobbish way of looking at things,” she said severely, “thinking whether people are noble instead of whether they are nice. Maurice and Captain Wylie are English gentlemen, and an English gentleman is the equal of any one in the world.”
“And an English lady?” demanded Eirene smartly.
“Superior to any one in the world, I should think, judging by the way in which foreign royalties employ English governesses,” retorted Zoe.
“I had an English governess,” said Eirene, closing her eyes languidly. “She was very highly connected, she said so; and she believed that one of the foresters—gamekeepers, you say?—was in love with her. She used to drop her handkerchief for him to pick up.”
“Poor thing! No doubt she wanted some consolation—or perhaps she was going crazy,” said Zoe. “I expect you led her a life.”
“You consider me very unamiable?” asked Eirene curiously. “Tell me, then; what do you think of me, honestly?”
“I don’t think you are unamiable really, but you seem to think of no one but yourself, and you are always thinking of yourself. You told me to say what I thought.”
“I know; I suppose it is true. You consider me selfish. Well, I will try to improve. And to begin, I beg you will go to Maurice and ask him from me to take you for a long walk. I have kept you too much with me.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Zoe, laughing; “it’s very nice here. I’m not going to leave you all alone.”
“I insist that you go. And don’t fear my being dull. I have much to do, for I must mend my skirt before I put it on to-morrow. Pray leave me your workbox.”
“Why, I never noticed it,” said Zoe, turning to the skirt as it hung on the wall. Five or six inches of braid were hanging in a loop. “But I’ll do it for you in a minute.”
“No,” said Eirene stiffly, “you are not my maid.”
“Then we’ll do it together, if you are so proud. But you can’t work with one hand in a sling.”
“It is only the left, and it will suffice to hold the work,” persisted Eirene. “Go!” she cried, with sudden anger. “I will not have you criticising my untidy stitches. I will do it by myself, if it takes me till dark.”
Shrugging her shoulders, Zoe took her hat and left the room. When she returned at dusk, after a glorious walk through the hills, Eirene had accomplished her task, and was trying the skirt on. Zoe looked at it in surprise.
“Why, how funny it looks!” she said. “You must have puckered it dreadfully. It sticks out in such a queer way above the hem. Let me pull it down.”
She knelt to try and twitch the folds into place, but Eirene pulled them away pettishly.
“How tiresome you are, Zoe! It will look all right. I have put in some weights to keep it down better. If you don’t call attention to it, nobody will notice, and it will fall perfectly when I have worn it a day or two.”
“Well, I must say I don’t admire your tailoring,” said Zoe, rising from her knees. “You must have put in too many weights. Your tailor would simply break his heart if he saw that skirt. I believe I could have done it better, though I don’t profess to be great at sewing.”
“I have arranged it as I like it,” said Eirene, with so much dignity that her companion dropped the subject, though the ill-hung skirt was an eyesore to her all the next day, when Eirene came downstairs and was escorted on a short walk through the village. On the following day they left the Han to resume their interrupted journey, but intending to spend a night at the station on the other side of the river, lest Eirene should be over-tired by the long drive. They took only their hand-luggage with them in the carriage, leaving the larger boxes to follow with those of the passengers who would be due to join the train the next morning. The whole population of the village seemed to have turned out to see them start, from the priest to the most slipshod drudge at the inn, and Zoe flattered herself that they presented an imposing appearance, with Haji Ahmad, armed to the teeth, on the box beside the driver. The carriage itself, a nondescript vehicle of the victoria species, stood much in need of a visit to the coachbuilder’s, but it was large enough to allow of Eirene’s being made comfortable with cushions, and Wylie gave it as his mature opinion that, with reasonable care on the driver’s part, it ought to hold out until the end of the day. The road did not lead through the dark forests of evergreen oak, but through much more cheerful beechwoods, and the scenery was less savage than that in the river-gorge. It was just like a picnic, Zoe declared, and she only wished they could finish their journey to Therma in this way instead of by train.
About noon they stopped to change horses, and ate their lunch in a rickety shelter of poles and vines attached in lean-to fashion to the post-station. A little beyond this the road divided, presenting a fairly steep ascent on the right, and a more gradual descent on the left. The driver took the road to the right without hesitation, and Maurice and Wylie and Haji Ahmad got out to make it easier for the horses. Maurice walked by the side of the carriage, chatting with the girls, but Wylie and the servant fell behind, and it seemed to Zoe that they were talking earnestly. When the top of the hill was reached, showing a prospect of further hills, the road through which was barely distinguishable, Wylie went forward and spoke sharply to the driver, using a jargon of his own invention of broken Thracian helped out with Roumi and Arabic words, in which he had managed to make himself understood at the Han. The driver answered at first only by a broad stare and a look of bewilderment, but presently his face cleared, and he poured forth a torrent of words, gesticulating vehemently with his whip. The explanation he offered seemed to satisfy Wylie, though Haji Ahmad still looked uneasy as he climbed to his place. As soon as Wylie was in the carriage again, Zoe asked him what had passed.
“Haji Ahmad thought we were taking the wrong road,” he answered lightly, “but the driver says this is shorter than the other, and the landlord told him to take it in order to make the journey as short as possible for your sister.”
“But it is much rougher,” objected Zoe.
“So I told him, but he says that he had not allowed for our stopping for lunch, and that to go back down that long hill would lose so much time that we shouldn’t get in till after dark, which would be no joke on these roads. I don’t think there’s any fear of his losing himself. As he says, it’s obvious that both roads lead to the river and the Roman bridge, though this one goes across the hill and the other goes round it.”
Maurice and Eirene had scarcely noticed what had been said, and under cover of their talk and laughter Zoe ventured to ask, “But what if he did lead us wrong?”
“I’m afraid I should be guilty of conniving at Roumi oppression, and leave him to Haji Ahmad to deal with,” said Wylie, laughing. They went on into the hills, the track becoming rougher as they advanced, until Maurice wedged Eirene in with all the luggage of the party, that she might not be thrown out. Zoe heard Wylie muttering maledictions on the driver under his breath, and saw him casting glances alternately at the sun and the way they had come, evidently calculating whether there was time even now to retrace their steps. The driver was obviously anxious to escape as soon as possible from the resentment of his passengers, who were being rattled about like peas in a pod, for he was driving furiously, making the dilapidated carriage bound from hillock to hollow. Zoe looked across at Wylie, and, raising her voice, asked if he could not tell the man to go more quietly; but before he could turn his head, the driver had disappeared suddenly from her view. Something whirred over the carriage, sweeping Haji Ahmad from the box to the ground with a clatter of weapons, and the driver was in his place again as if by magic, pulling up his horses frantically in obedience to hoarse shouts in front. He must have ducked to avoid a rope fastened across the road, was Zoe’s last coherent thought. The carriage stopped violently, half across the track, and events came with a rush. Zoe saw Maurice and Wylie spring up from their seats, saw Maurice felled with the butt-end of a gun, and Wylie raging, furiously helpless, in a noose which the driver had dexterously thrown over him, pinioning his arms to his sides. Huge, hairy hands seized her and Eirene, dragged them out and flung them roughly on the ground, while fierce voices cursed them by saints with uncouth names. A wild struggle was going on, and the two prostrate girls were undoubtedly in the way, so that they were trampled upon impartially by both sides. Zoe had an awful glimpse of Haji Ahmad, his face streaming with blood, fighting desperately for his life, before she succeeded in dragging herself out of the fray, to find Maurice flung aside stunned and bleeding, and Eirene, who had fallen on her wounded arm, moaning faintly. The mob of ruffians in dirty white kilts who were yelling and struggling round the carriage paid no attention to her, and she crept towards the other two.
“Don’t look that way—don’t!” cried Wylie, breaking out of the crowd and thrusting himself between her and them—a ludicrous figure enough, with torn coat, no hat, and arms bound tightly behind him. “That’s all right,” as she lifted Maurice’s head. “There’s a flask in my pocket if you can get at it. Buck up, Miss Eirene! Don’t let these fellows hear an English girl making that noise.”
“I am not English!” cried Eirene, sitting up indignantly. “At least, I mean—— Oh, what are they doing?” as a single awful cry of agony came from the centre of the throng of robbers, and made Zoe almost drop the flask.
“Don’t look, don’t look!” entreated Wylie. “That’s it, Miss Smith, try and get a drop into his mouth. Now, Miss Eirene”—sharply—“can’t you unfasten your brother’s collar, and hold up his head?”
“I’ll do it,” said Zoe, as Eirene touched Maurice’s tie delicately; “you take the flask. Oh!” stopping short with trembling fingers, as a second and feebler cry was heard.
“It’s over now, at any rate,” said Wylie, setting his lips. “Get your brother’s head tied up quickly, before these fiends have time to remember us. Each man is bound to give the poor wretch a stab, dead though he may be.”
“Is it Haji Ahmad?” asked Zoe faintly, as she folded her handkerchief into a pad.
“Yes. A Roumi need expect no mercy from these fellows. Take my handkerchief for a bandage; it’s larger than yours. Oh, good heavens! have you no knife or scissors that you could cut this rope with, and give me a chance to stand up to them when they turn round?”
“In the carriage?” suggested Zoe, measuring the distance with her eye. “Oh, Maurice has a knife, of course.”
“Leave it, leave it!” he cried quickly; “they’re coming. Stand up if you can, Smith,” as Maurice opened his eyes feebly. “No, it’s no good. Keep quiet.”
He stood before the girls, and it seemed to Zoe that the advancing robbers quailed when they met his eye, and shuffled their blood-stained yataghans out of sight, as though suddenly conscious of the awful mass on the ground behind them.
“Can any of you speak English?” he cried.
“Me—a leetle,” said a small, slim man, pushing his way to the front.
“What do you want with us?”
“We take all you got, zen get moch money for you,” was the reply, given with an ingratiating grin.
“So I thought. Well, I have this to say to you. You can pillage my friend and me if you like, but you won’t lay a finger upon the ladies. They will turn out their pockets and show you what they’ve got, and you can take what you want.”
The interpreter turned to his friends, apparently not sorry to escape from Wylie’s glance, and explained the terms to them. Absurd though it seemed, the will of the bound and defenceless prisoner prevailed above the murmurs that arose, and the interpreter undertook, on behalf of the chief of the band, that the girls should not be searched if Wylie would swear on the Evangelists that they had given up everything.
“Turn out your pockets, quickly,” he said to them, as two of the men seized him, and two others dragged Maurice to his feet and propped him against a tree.
“I won’t!” cried Eirene, her eyes flaming.
“Nonsense! you must. Didn’t you hear me promise for you?” He spoke with difficulty, trying to turn round while his captors thrust and pulled him about.
“I don’t care. I never gave you leave to make promises for me. If they touch me, I’ll kill them.”
What she held in her hand neither Zoe nor Wylie could see, but the brigands were clamouring and the interpreter insistent.
“Let me talk to her,” cried Wylie, wrenching himself, with his collar loose and his coat hanging by one sleeve, from the hands that held him. “Look here, Miss Eirene, you must. You are not going to expose your sister to the risk of being searched by these fellows?”
“She can do as she likes. I won’t be searched, and I will give up nothing.”
“Smith, make your sister behave rationally. She will have all our blood on her head in a minute.” Maurice, held up by the two men who were searching him, made an effort to speak, but in vain, and Eirene turned her back on him. One of the brigands seized Zoe by the arm, and Wylie grew desperate.
“For the last time, turn out your pockets!” he said low and fiercely to Eirene. “If you don’t, I swear to you, on my word and honour, I’ll get my hands loosed and do it myself.”
Eirene was cowed. A muttered “Your honour!” passed her lips, but slowly and reluctantly she extracted from all the many pockets with which the Vindobona tailor had provided her such spoils as struck the brigands dumb with awe and astonishment, while Zoe looked on stupefied. Nearly all the jewellery Eirene had exhibited in the train seemed to be secreted about her person—pearls, rubies, emeralds, everything except the quaint enamelled plaques which she had said she prized most of all. There could be no doubt that before parting with her jewel-case she had removed all its most valuable contents.
“Is that all?” asked Wylie sternly, and she drew a bracelet from under her sleeve, and hurled it passionately on the heap at her feet.
“That is everything,” she said defiantly. “And I wish you and your friends joy of it. Of course I knew from the first that you were in league with them.”
“Now it is your turn,” said Wylie to Zoe, and she added to the heap a collection which filled the brigands with indignation, noticing as she did so that Eirene’s bracelet bore an eagle upon it—a design which seemed in some way familiar. A shabby purse moderately filled, two note-books, one very small, and the other large enough to require a special pocket for its accommodation, and a serviceable pencil-case—these were all that the robbers cared to appropriate of her possessions, but Maurice and Wylie were despoiled of everything their pockets contained.