Maurice had not been idle during the day. He had collected all the loose pieces of rock he could find, and built them up into a rough wall, cemented with mud from a spot where the stream formed a marshy pool, to keep the wind from blowing into the cave. The brigands who had brought the handkerchiefs had carried also a large truss of straw, and this was spread thickly on the floor, so that the girls found their second night’s quarters far more restful than the first. The exhaustion which was the result of the forced march was also passing away, and on the second day they were able to begin to practice walking in the moccasins, which was an art needing some caution.
A week passed quietly, varied only by the expeditions of the brigands to obtain food and news. They seemed to have a well-organised intelligence system, by means of which they learned that there was much activity among the Roumi authorities, civil and military, and that soldiers were being sent into the mountains in various directions. The brigands displayed amusement rather than apprehension over this news, and there was no lack of food, which would have argued that the peasants were losing their fear of their unacknowledged masters. The girls spent a good deal of time in patching their tattered garments with pieces of the rough brown stuff some of the brigands wore, and also relieved Maurice of his domestic duties, thus leaving him free to execute wonderful engineering works in connection with the stream, damming it in one place to make a pool where the girls might get water close to their cave, and arranging pieces of rock as steps. The energy of the prisoners astonished their captors, who seemed to think it the height of bliss to lie in the sun, smoking and quarrelling, or playing various rudimentary games of chance, and at first every movement was regarded with suspicion. But by degrees Maurice established with them a feeling almost akin to good fellowship, and would sit among them round the fire, listening to their talk, which he was beginning to understand without the intervention of Milosch. Eirene objected strongly to this habit of his, and, as was her wont, spoke her mind freely on the subject.
“It is so undignified, so contemptible!” she declared angrily. “A man of elevated soul would suffer anything rather than associate on familiar terms with wretches from whom he had received such vile treatment.”
“But it’s to please myself, not them,” said Maurice. “I want to find out why all these strapping fellows have turned brigands—to inquire into their grievances, in fact.”
“Grievances! What business have they with grievances?”
“I don’t know; but they have got some, unfortunately.”
“But what have their grievances to do with you?”
“Why, I am a sufferer by them, so are you. Therefore I naturally feel an interest in getting to know what they are.”
“And what are they, Maurice?” asked Zoe. “I thought these men all came from Thracia or Dardania.”
“No, they are nearly all Illyrians—the Christian kind, such as it is. They are Emathians born, though they are under foreign direction; there’s no doubt of that. And very few of them seem to have become brigands for the fun of the thing. Most of them are pretty sick of the life, but they have made their own villages too hot to hold them.”
“But that was their own fault,” objected Eirene.
“Partly, but it was other people’s fault too. They have failed to pay their taxes in bad years, or have mortgaged their land and been sold up. Some of them have taken to the hills after assaulting tax-collectors, and some on account of blood-feuds. They boast that they only rob the rich, whom they hate most heartily; but I fancy that the poor haven’t much choice about keeping them supplied with food and clothes, especially if they are Greek poor.”
“Why, Maurice, you are hearing the other side!” cried Zoe.
“What other side?” asked Eirene sharply.
“When we heard Professor Panagiotis talk, Maurice said he should like to hear the other side, and now he is doing it,” replied Zoe promptly. Maurice, absorbed in his subject, might have revealed secrets if she had allowed him to answer.
“Yes, it’s just as I thought, there are two very distinct sides to the case,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s something appalling the way these fellows hate the Orthodox Church and everything connected with it. It seems they have been dragooned into belonging to it for generations, with no alternative but Mohammedanism. The priests don’t appear to have been examples to their flocks by any means, but were tremendously keen on their dues, though they could only gabble through services which neither they nor the people understood. All education was in Greek, and the people hadn’t even the Bible in their own language, so that the only chance for a man to rise was to turn his back on his own nationality altogether.”
“And it was right he should!” cried Eirene, with flashing eyes. “Would you degrade the Holy Scriptures and the sacred liturgies by translating them from the glorious Greek into the uncouth dialects of these barbarians?”
“What a very curious thing!” exclaimed Zoe involuntarily.
“What do you mean?” demanded Eirene.
“Why, it’s no use pretending that we don’t know you’re a Scythian, Eirene, for you’ve said lots of things that show it. And it’s very funny to hear you talking just as Professor Panagiotis did, when Scythia is doing all she can to stir up the barbarians, as you call them, against the Greeks.”
“Because I have been brought up in Scythia, must I be insensible to truth and rightness?” cried Eirene. “It surprises me, I confess, to find an Englishman supporting the guileful designs of the Slavs in opposition to the noble cause of heroic and persecuted Greece.”
“I’m not supporting Slavs or anybody,” said Maurice. “If you are anxious to define my attitude, I am blaming both sides impartially. They have got things into such a muddle that it looks as if the whole structure of society in Emathia would have to be built up again from the foundations. If the taxes were honestly assessed and collected, and the middleman eliminated, it would do a good deal, of course, especially if you could also get rid of the money-lender by a system of agricultural banks. But you would want to establish a system of village responsibility, as they have done in Burmah, before you could begin to stamp out blood-feuds and religious faction-fights. I must ask Wylie how they manage to get a police-force which is not prejudiced on one side or the other. Side by side with that, you would have to be opening up the country with roads and railways, and getting the priests better educated, and books translated, and schools established, and the army thrown open to Christians and popularised, so that brigandage would no longer be——”
“The only career for a young man of spirit,” supplied Zoe, as he paused.
“Well,” burst forth Eirene, who had been listening in speechless indignation as Maurice elaborated his views on the regeneration of Emathia, “I should like to know what business it is of yours?”
“But why should it affect you?” asked Maurice, warned by an anxious glance from Zoe.
“It is just like you English,” continued Eirene, disregarding the question. “You meddle all over the world with countries which do not concern you, while your own usurped India is ground under the iron heel of men like Captain Wylie, of whom the very brigands are afraid!”
“Why, you say that as if it was to Wylie’s discredit!” said Maurice. “I should have thought it was a distinct feather in his cap. You don’t seem to see that just because we are English, every country that doesn’t come up to our own high standard does concern us.”
Eirene lifted her head, almost tossed it. “When,” she began, then changed the form of her sentence—“If I am ever a ruler, I will allow no English to dictate to me. I shall recognise no grievances. If the people disobey me, I shall stamp them out.”
“Making a solitude and calling it peace, indeed!” said Zoe.
“Cheerful country yours will be to live in!” said Maurice. “Are you going to have periodical killings-out, like King Twala? or shall you set half the population to kill the other half, and make the survivors fight among themselves till they are all killed, like the Kilkenny cats? Or is it only the present generation that is to be wiped out, so that you may have the children brought up in the way they should go? A lively time you’ll have when the hereditary tendencies begin to come out! Why, they’ll all have blood-feuds against you.”
“I used the wrong word,” said Eirene, with heightened colour. “I meant to say that I would stamp the people down. I will listen to no one who is in revolt; but when all rebellion has been suppressed, I shall see for myself if there are any grievances.”
“You’ll allow people to complain of them peacefully, then?”
“Certainly not; that is rebellion. But I shall oversee everything myself. Not a peasant shall be prosecuted for non-payment of taxes but the case shall come before me for revision, and the same in all departments of the state.”
“I don’t think your magistrates will hold office long,” said Maurice.
“Besides,” said Zoe, “that’s just the system that works so badly with the Roumis, Eirene. The Grand Seignior will insist on managing everything himself, and of course he can’t do more than a certain amount, and so business gets into frightful arrears all over the empire.”
“I don’t care,” said Eirene stubbornly. “I shall trust no one; that is the lesson life has taught me. The ruler’s eye will be everywhere, the ruler’s hand always ready.”
“Maternal or elder-sisterly government,” muttered Maurice. “Well, Eirene, have it your own way, and go ahead, and Zoe and I will come and preach revolution to your people. What would you do to us?”
“I would have you brought to the palace and treated as my dearest friends and honoured guests,” responded Eirene, with a promptitude which seemed to show that she had thought the matter out; “but you would not leave it except to be conducted to the frontier.”
“And if we came back?”
“Then I should conclude that you wished to remain with me, and I should assign you permanent quarters in the palace, where I could see that you did no harm.”
“Well, we shall know what to do when we feel we can’t exist without you any longer,” said Zoe lightly. A curious thought, almost a certainty, had occurred to her, and she put a question which had to do with it. “But won’t there be a king or prince to be considered in this kingdom of yours? or do you expect your husband will let you do as you like with his possessions?”
“There will be no husband,” said Eirene haughtily. “The possessions will be mine, mine alone. And you are making attempts to discover who I am.”
“We aren’t,” said Maurice indignantly, while the guilty Zoe maintained a judicious silence. “How horribly suspicious you are, Eirene! Go and whisper your secret to the reeds, if you like. We shan’t try to listen.”
“I have been led into saying more than I intended,” said Eirene, trying to extricate herself from an awkward situation with dignity. “I see that, according to your views, I have no right to object to your making imaginary schemes of reform for Emathia, and I do not object to it, while you understand that they are imaginary. That makes the whole difference.”
Maurice stared at her. “What a lofty benediction!” he said. “Eirene, I’m afraid I shall offend again; but do you think your head is a little bit affected by all you have gone through? If it is, only tell us, and we shall know what to do. We will treat you as a queen in exile with pleasure.”
“Now you are joking,” smiled Eirene. “No, my dear brother and sister, continue to treat me as one of yourselves. Circumstances may divide us in the future, but I shall never forget what you have been to me during these weeks.”
“Good gracious!” murmured Maurice, and laying his head back on his arms he whistled softly at the stars, while Zoe shook from head to foot in an unconquerable spasm of silent laughter, and Eirene sat gazing at the fire with a look of gentle melancholy.
The next evening Maurice returned smiling from his colloquy with the brigands. “Well,” he said, “my undignified and contemptible pursuits have given me quite an exciting piece of news for you. Wylie is looking us up.”
“Oh, Maurice, what do you mean?” cried Zoe.
“Why, it seems that Demo and three others went down to-day to get food. At the village, wherever it is, they were told that an English traveller with one servant and a large quantity of luggage had stayed the night there, and gone on into the mountains, refusing a guide. Our fellows decided that such a chance was not to be lost, and having found out which way the traveller had gone, went across country by short cuts, and arranged a satisfactory ambush. They thought he must either be mad, or riding through in bravado after hearing about us, but the luggage would be all right, at any rate. I suppose he really was a newspaper man. Well, they waited in cover, and presently the traveller and his servant came along. The luggage looked so new and wealthy that it made their mouths water, but happily for themselves they didn’t act in a hurry. ‘They came near,’ said Demo, ‘and I recognised the servant. It was the Capitan. He was wearing Nizam dress, but I knew him by his accursed eyes; he couldn’t disguise them. Then we saw that it was a trap, and we let them pass.’”
“But how was it a trap?” asked Eirene.
“Why, either Wylie and the other man were much better armed than they looked, and meant to capture a brigand or two, so as to make them reveal the hiding-places of the band, or they meant to be captured themselves, and had spies to follow them up and see where they were taken. I don’t see why Wylie wanted to disguise himself, though. He might have known he would be recognised if he was caught, and then they would be safe to kill him. As it was, he and the other man seem to have ridden through the brigands’ country quite unmolested.”
“I wish he wouldn’t do such things!” said Zoe anxiously.
“Yes,” said Eirene, “he ought to remember that we depend upon him for our ransom and rescue. He has no right to risk his life in foolish bravado.”
“I think we may be pretty sure that Wylie had some ’cute idea in his head,” said Maurice. “I don’t quite see what it is; but he certainly risked being captured over again.”
“And this captivity is certainly not tempting,” said Zoe.
Wylie’s plan declared itself unexpectedly the very next day. The prisoners had climbed up to what they called their afternoon ledge, a shelf of rock which caught the westering sun, and were looking out over the chaos of hills and valleys below them, and speculating for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time upon the prospects of their release. Suddenly one of the brigands’ sentries, who was stationed round a corner on their left, whence a view of the country to the eastward could be obtained, ran in and shouted to his comrades. Wild confusion instantly prevailed among the loungers in the hollow. Some of them quenched the fires with earth, a heap of which was kept ready for the purpose, and the rest caught up their weapons, and scaling the ledge, flung themselves upon the prisoners, who expected nothing but instant death. Not daring to move, they yielded helplessly to the violence of the brigands, who dragged them as far back as possible, so that they could only just see over the ledge, tore off the girls’ head-handkerchiefs, which showed white against the dark of the cliff, and ordered them, if they valued their lives, to make no sound or movement. Presently, the cause of the commotion came in sight far below—a column of Roumi soldiers, led by an officer on horseback. In front walked a man in plain clothes, examining the ground narrowly as he went.
“Captain Wylie! He has tracked us!” murmured Zoe, under her breath. Milosch turned upon her with a diabolical grin.
“Promise candles to ze saints zat he track you no furzer, zen. If he find ze way up ze stream, you go down ze mountain to meet him—you see?” He lifted Zoe’s chin, and with the point of his knife traced a line upon her neck. She shrank away from him, sick and almost fainting with horror, and he laughed. “We begin wiz you, after all,” he said.
“Takeyour dirty hands off her, you brute!” growled Maurice, struggling ineffectually with the two men who were holding him down. Milosch smiled again.
“You ze next,” he said. “We leave you at ze camp—dead, oh, yes! and ze Roumi dogs will see how you died. Zere will be tree—four hours while zey find ze way, but for you it will experience tree or four days. And ze ozer girl,”—he cast a critical eye upon Eirene, who shivered in spite of her utmost efforts to maintain a firm front,—“we not kill her, no. We leave her also at ze camp, but living, to tell what she see.”
The strain was too great, and, with a little gasp, Eirene fainted away. Milosch chuckled. “Make not no mistakes,” he added impressively to the furious Maurice. “It may be your friend achieve to discover you—yes; but you will compensate in blood for ze ransom he hope to defraud.”
Maurice turned away with as much impassivity as he could muster. “Don’t you go and faint too, Zoe,” he said to his sister; “he’s only trying to make our flesh creep. But don’t trouble about Eirene. I don’t suppose it will hurt her to stay as she is for the present, and it can’t be any pleasure to her to hear him talk.”
Zoe, who had been trying to get to Eirene, ceased her struggles, and let her eyes return to the moving figures in the valley below. This was evidently a critical moment, for the brigands were watching their progress with strained attention. At last, when Wylie had passed a particular point, a gasp of satisfaction showed that, in the opinion of the band, the immediate danger was over.
“It’s the stream that has thrown him out,” muttered Maurice. “He’ll go on ever so far looking for tracks before he guesses where we turned off.”
“But how has he tracked us?” asked Zoe, who had now been released, and was holding Eirene’s head on her knee, as the younger girl struggled slowly back to consciousness.
“By the marks of our boots, of course,” said Maurice. “No one else in the mountains wears boots, and there has been no rain since we came up here. I say, I shall tell Wylie what I think of him when I see him next. He has no business to sacrifice us to his grudge against the brigands. That’s the worst of him, he’s an unforgiving brute, and the trick they played on him the day they pretended they were going to kill him rankles.”
“Maurice, you are absurd!” Zoe was engrossed in her ministrations to Eirene, and could only talk in snatches. “He has some special reason for this. I am sure of it. He may have a grudge against the brigands, as you say, but he will wait to work it off until we are safe.”
“Then what’s he up to now?” demanded Maurice, and Zoe could offer no explanation. Eirene laughed weakly.
“Zoe would say to him with her last breath, ‘I know you couldn’t help it,’ and Maurice, ‘You brute! it’s all your fault,’” she said.
“Take your dirty hands off her, you brute!”growled Maurice.
“Take your dirty hands off her, you brute!”growled Maurice.
“And you?” asked Zoe, rather tartly.
“It is not to be my last breath, you know”—Eirene shivered again as she rose shakily to her feet, with the help of Maurice’s hand—“but I should say to him when we met, ‘You see, sir, the results of an excess of zeal.’”
“Awfully scathing!” said Maurice, guiding her along the ledge. “I’m coming back for you, Zoe; wait for me. No wonder you feel shaky, after that sickening rascal’s talk.”
The camp seemed a haven of refuge after the experiences of the last half-hour, and the girls sank down thankfully on their straw bed, while Maurice seated himself on a stone at the door, and tried to make conversation and distract their minds, not very successfully. Stoyan succeeded where Maurice failed, however, for he made his appearance suddenly, and saying something in his own language, threw down a pair of leggings and moccasins before him, and held out his hand.
“He says I’m to put these on, and give him my boots,” explained Maurice ruefully. “I’m afraid Wylie has let us in for it. He says, ‘No sleep to-night, thanks to your friend.’”
“I suppose we had better pack up,” said Zoe, as the chief retired with the boots.
“How I admire your common-sense, Zoe!” said Eirene, not offering to move. “Why don’t you rest as long as you can, like me?”
“Because she knows you would look pretty blue if there were no coats and things at the next halting-place,” said Maurice. “Come, get up. You can luxuriate in the straw as long as they’ll let you, but we must roll up the rugs.”
The rugs, wrapped round the scanty possessions of the party, were Maurice’s burden, while the girls carried the coats, rolled up as Wylie had shown them, so as to leave their arms free. But when they were summoned to start, about an hour before sunset, the brigands made them unfold the coats and put them on, drawing the hoods over their heads, so that they could not be recognised from a distance. They felt some surprise at starting in daylight, but the reason was soon evident. They were to climb down the torrent-bed, up which they had come to reach the valley, and not even the brigands cared to risk the descent in the dark. Scouts had been sent to follow Wylie and the Roumi force, and make sure that they were not returning, and these brought word that the troops had taken up their quarters in a village for the night, so that the move might safely be made. Going down the torrent-bed was rather worse than going up, so far as slips and tumbles and sudden sousings went, and the girls were bruised and drenched when they reached the bottom. They were only allowed a moment to wring their dripping skirts, and then the brigands set out briskly in the dusk, taking the direction in which Wylie had gone. They knew the rocky paths, and how to take advantage of the smoothest places, but to the prisoners, unused to walking in moccasins, every step was a lottery, which might prove painless, but was far more likely to be agonising. Even when a rare stretch of comparatively soft ground appeared, they were not allowed to take advantage of it, the brigands casting about carefully until they found a way past it on the rocks, lest any trail should remain to show that a number of people had passed there after the soldiers. Darkness came on, and the prisoners stumbled painfully along between their guards, who never stretched out a hand to help them, but reviled them horribly when they slipped. Regardless of dignity, the girls were reduced at last to clutching the sleeves of the men on each side of them—more the brigands would not permit, for fear of finding their arms encumbered in case of danger—and even Eirene made no protest. After what seemed weary hours of walking, the brigands suddenly stopped and closed round the prisoners, two of the band stealing off into the darkness.
“We are going right through the village,” whispered Maurice. “Those fellows are off to quiet the dogs.”
“And if you raise exclamation, we quiet you,” muttered Milosch, unsheathing his long dagger.
It was some time before the two men returned, with the assurance that all was well. The troops were comfortably quartered in the houses and cattle-sheds, and they had located the watch-fires and the sentries, and could guide the rest past them. Wylie and the Roumi officer were at the house of the chief man of the place, and Stoyan breathed a vehement and highly coloured aspiration that it had been prudent to creep in and make an end of them. But as this was impossible if the prisoners were to be placed in safe keeping, he repressed his bloodthirsty inclinations, and the scouts led the party in and out among huts and sheds, sometimes creeping on all-fours across a space dimly illuminated by a watch-fire, sometimes pausing behind a wall while a sentry passed. Every man among the brigands held his dagger unsheathed, ready to strike if any of the prisoners made the slightest attempt to raise an alarm, and the precaution was sufficient. Warmth, shelter, safety, friends, were in the village, and with bursting hearts the girls passed them by, and went on again into the dark cold night. They were so tired by this time that their immediate guards were forced to sheathe their daggers and take each of them by the elbows to help her on, and as if to crown their misfortunes, a cold, drenching rain began to fall. It put the finishing touch also to the brigands’ ill-humour, and they pushed and dragged their shivering captives roughly along, muttering angrily at every step.
“Maurice, tell them we can’t go any faster!” cried Zoe at last. “We are keeping up with them on these awful roads, and we can’t do more.”
“Oh, that’s not what’s the matter,” returned Maurice from behind, in a Mark-Tapleyan tone of voice. “They’re calling us names for making them turn out of their nice comfortable camp and go wandering about the mountains in the dark and the wet. They say they have taken such care of us, and treated us as honoured guests, and our ingratitude is something detestable.”
“Anybody might think we wanted to come!” said Zoe.
“Well, it certainly is our fault in a way,” said Maurice. “If we didn’t exist, or weren’t here, they wouldn’t be running away from Wylie.”
They relapsed into silence again, and the grumbling curses of the brigands were the only sounds to be heard above the plashing of footsteps and the swish of the rain. The girls were half-unconscious with fatigue and want of sleep, and stumbled on in a kind of waking dream. It must have been drawing near dawn, though the blank black skies showed no sign of it, when the brigands paused again, in the shelter of a clump of stunted trees, hardly more than bushes, and the scouts glided forth on their errand. They returned unexpectedly soon, and their report called forth ominous curses.
“There are soldiers holding the path in front,” explained Maurice in a whisper to the girls. “Wylie knows what he is doing, bad luck to him! He’s got us between two fires, with all his precautions.”
For the moment it looked as though Wylie had actually brought about the death of his friends, for the brigands were now thoroughly roused. “Kill the European dogs, kill them and get rid of them!” was the murmur. “They have brought us to this pass. Let us kill them and leave their bodies here on the track for their friend to find.” Daggers were once more unsheathed, and revolvers drawn.
“Why don’t you pray? Are you an atheist?” demanded Eirene of Zoe, breaking off in the middle of a catalogue of saints, whose aid she was audibly imploring.
“No; I am praying,” said Zoe, but she felt curiously resigned. Death would be such a rest after this dreadful night. But the reference to Wylie, which Maurice translated under pressure, disturbed her. He would never be able to forgive himself if he realised what he had done. If only one of them could escape, it might make him a little less miserable. She sat up with an effort, and grasped Maurice’s arm.
“Maurice, even if they kill us, you might escape. You can run, and your things don’t cling so. We will make as much fuss as possible, to give you time to get away to the soldiers.”
“Don’t be an owl,” said Maurice brusquely. “Is it likely? I ask you, is it likely?”
“But so much depends on you. We don’t signify.”
“What depends on Maurice?” demanded Eirene, with keen curiosity. Zoe recollected herself, in part.
“Oh, well, he is the last of the name, you know,” she said.
“The last of the name of Smith?” asked Eirene innocently.
“No—er—the last of our Smiths,” Zoe managed to say, and broke into hopeless laughter, until Maurice shook her, and asked her whether she wanted the brigands to think that terror had driven her mad. It seemed that their fate was no longer in suspense, since Milosch, of all people, had come to the rescue. This was not through any softness of heart, but because, representing, as he did, the Thracian committee which directed the brigands’ movements, he had been able to paint in vivid terms the wrath and disappointment which would pervade that august body on the discovery that the prisoners whose ransom was to have added so largely to its funds had simply been wasted.
“There must be a way up the mountain,” he said, “so that we could turn aside from the path without even approaching the Roumi dogs.”
“There is,” said Zeko, “but it is such a way that a man must cling to the rocks with both hands and his toes and his teeth. How can women climb it?”
“Women can do what they are obliged to do,” said Milosch, with his evil grin.
“This settles it,” said Zoe, as Maurice translated the words. “If our lives depend on our climbing up there, or even walking any farther, why, we shall have to be killed. Look, Maurice, our moccasins are cut to pieces, and my feet are bleeding—so are Eirene’s. We can’t walk another step, and you can tell them so.”
It was unnecessary for Maurice to speak, however, for one of the brigands came in to report, with much indignation, that Zoe’s feet had left spots of blood on the track, which the rain had not quite washed off, and the rest were forced to perceive that the girls were really incapable of walking farther. Again there were suggestions of a short and sharp way out of the difficulty, and again Milosch interposed asdeus ex machinâ.
“You say that these Roumi swine have two sentries on the path, and that the rest are sheltering in the ruined hut below? Well, be sure that the sentries will join the rest as soon as it is daylight, for what sane man would stand out in the rain when he might be in shelter? They will not expect us to break through by day, and if the saints only grant them sleep after they have eaten, we may pass without their even seeing us. If they should seek to prevent us, we can use the prisoners as a screen against their bullets, and escape ourselves.”
“It is well said,” remarked the chief, whose own financial stake in the matter was considerable. “At least we will do what we can to save the ransom. We will remain here for the present.”
The prospect was not very cheering, for the rain dripped down from the sodden trees on the soaked ground, and everything was wet. Maurice took matters into his own hands. Gathering together some fallen branches, he arranged them on the driest spot he could find, and asked Zeko for matches. The brigands laughed grimly at the request.
“If you must kill the ladies, you may as well do it at once,” he responded promptly, “and not leave them to die of cold and wet. No one could distinguish smoke in this mist, even if there was any one looking out.”
Unless the suggestion had accorded with the brigands’ own inclinations, it would probably still have been scouted, but in the prevailing cold and discomfort the idea of a fire appealed to them powerfully, and they collected more sticks, and laboured strenuously to get the wet wood to burn. It was a very smoky and cheerless fire, at best, but it put a little warmth into the girls’ shivering frames, and Maurice toasted the soaked morsels of black bread and dingy cheese which were thrown to them, and induced them to eat. The brigands had been consulting together during the meal, and at its close Stoyan called Maurice aside, addressing him in a reasonable, “man-and-brother” way, which amused him by its cool assumption that their interests were the same.
“You must see clearly,” he said, “that we cannot remain here. At any cost we must pass the soldiers in front. Out of consideration for your sisters we have refrained from dragging them up the rocks, and you must, therefore, make them understand that they must walk a little way farther. Let them bind up their feet, so as to leave no track, and once beyond the pass we shall be able to procure horses for them. We are bound for a safe hiding-place, where they will find rest and comfort, and women to attend upon them. Surely you can see that it is better for them to make this slight effort than to be left dead upon the road?”
“I do quite see it,” responded Maurice, after a moment’s thought. It was clear that, for the moment, their interests did indeed lie with those of the brigands, since any attempt to reach the soldiers or delay the march meant death. He went back to the girls and explained things to them, and they set to work wearily to tie up their wounded feet in such rags as they could muster, replacing the torn moccasins over them. Presently one of the scouts came in to report that the Roumi sentries had rejoined their comrades at the ruined hut, thus leaving the way above clear, and the march was resumed immediately, the girls tottering as best they could on either side of Maurice, who alone had an arm to spare for them. The brigands had all unslung their rifles and looked to the cartridges, and were proceeding in a rough open order, with the scouts a little way in advance. Suddenly they came to a standstill, with an involuntary gasp of astonishment. Facing them, climbing the slope from the ruined hut, were the Roumi soldiers, whose surprise was equally patent with their own. It would have been difficult to say which party had less expected to see the other, but the brigands were prepared for the emergency, while the soldiers were not. Their rifles were slung on their backs for convenience in climbing, and they were scattered on the face of the slope. A sharp order from the brigand chief confronted them with the muzzles of twenty rifles, and with a howl of horror they turned and fled. Half of the band pursued them—the rest remaining to guard the prisoners—firing off their rifles and whooping with delight. The pursuit was not a long one, for Stoyan’s whistle recalled his men quickly, and sending one back to discover whether the sounds of the skirmish had penetrated to the force with which Wylie was, he led the rest forward for some distance, till they came to a place where two tracks met. One man was sent on down the lower and left-hand path, while the main body disposed themselves among the rocks, well out of sight of the road, and Milosch, approaching the prisoner, said to Zoe—
“You give ze Voivoda cutting.”
This mild horticultural request was so surprising that Zoe looked at him in perplexity, whereupon he pointed impatiently to her dress. The neat striped flannel coat and skirt on which she had so long ago prided herself was now in sadly reduced circumstances, the skirt especially having been curtailed to the most approved “mountaineering length.”
“Oh, give them a piece of yours, Eirene, can’t you?” she said. “You really have more left.”
“Oh no, it is yours he wants,” said Eirene quickly. “He thinks Captain Wylie will recognise it.”
Zoe glared at her for this tactless speech, and reluctantly tore off a strip which was hanging loose between two of the brown patches she had put in. Watching the chief with some curiosity, she saw that he tore it in two, and dexterously entangled one piece in a thorny bush some little way up the ascending path on the right, and then went on up the hill, evidently intending to do the same with the other farther on. The intention of the manœuvre was obvious, and the prisoners did not know whether to sigh for the deception to be practised on Wylie, or to rejoice that his perilous presence was to be removed from them. After some time, the brigand who had gone down the hill reappeared with an ancient horse, very thin and almost blind, and the girls were, without ceremony, mounted one behind the other, with the rugs as an apology for a saddle. They and Maurice were then blindfolded, and the descent began, the brigands displaying their usual distrust of smooth or soft ground, and leading the horse down the rockiest places, which was good strategy, but made exceedingly uncomfortable riding. For once, each girl was really thankful that her companion’s eyes were unable to see the shifts to which she was put in order to maintain her balance. At length the descent became somewhat less steep, and the old horse stumbled gallantly along a fairly level track, his two riders almost asleep, in spite of their uneasy position. They stopped with a jerk at last, and heard some one pouring forth an exciting narrative to the chief. Maurice came up to them softly.
“It is the fellow who was sent back,” he said. “He followed the retreating soldiers until they came to the village, and met Wylie’s force just setting out in this direction. Wylie meant to sweep the country, you see, and if the sentries above here had not left their posts, the two detachments must have caught the brigands between them. Of course, it’s just as well for us personally that they didn’t.”
“What did Captain Wylie say?” asked Zoe.
“When he heard we had broken through? Oh, Demo says, ‘Their own Bimbashi beat the flying soldiers with his sword, but the Capitan cursed them in bitter, biting words, far worse than any beating, for if the evil eye ever rested on any man, it did on them!’”
“If I were Captain Wylie, I should curse myself,” said Eirene succinctly, just as Milosch summoned her and Zoe to dismount. Followed by Maurice, they were led a wearying round, in and out of doors, up and down stairs, into a tower, a farmyard, a granary, and a kitchen (as they judged by the smells that met them), until they were hopelessly confused as to the direction in which they had come. Then they were pushed in at a low door, and the bandages were suddenly removed from their eyes. They were in darkness, but other senses than that of sight convinced them that they stood in a cattle-stable.
“Oh, Maurice, the dirt!” gasped Zoe, as her foot sank into yielding mud.
“Go on! go on!” cried Milosch behind, prodding Maurice in the back with the muzzle of his rifle—an action which has a distinctly disquieting effect upon the person acted on—and Zeko’s voice in front called them to come forward. Following the direction of the words, they saw a faint glimmer of grey, defining the shape of another doorway, with the outline of Zeko’s beckoning arm dark against it. Stumbling through the mud, they reached the threshold, and found themselves in a cave or underground room hewn out in the rock. Part of the ceiling was of rock, the rest, through which the light glimmered, was apparently the badly fitting flooring of a room above. Sacks and large earthenware jars, with various boxes, seemed to show that the place was the receptacle for all the household valuables, but there was nothing that could be called furniture. Zeko shut the door with a bang, and they heard him piling up fodder—or something else that deadened sound—against it on the outside. They were imprisoned underground.
“Dear Wylie,—I am sorry to have to tell you that in consequence of the action of the authorities in sending troops against them, Stoyan and his band have now increased the ransom they demand for us to twenty thousand pounds. They also say that if the pursuit continues, first one and then another of us will be killed, and the ransom for the remaining one will be raised by five thousand pounds a-week. I tell you honestly that the efforts of the troops can have no result beyond irritating the brigands and making our position worse, and that we are at this moment hidden where I believe no power on earth could find us. The ladies agree with me, very reluctantly.—Yours truly,“Maurice Smith.“Zoe Smith.“Eirene Smith.”
“Dear Wylie,—I am sorry to have to tell you that in consequence of the action of the authorities in sending troops against them, Stoyan and his band have now increased the ransom they demand for us to twenty thousand pounds. They also say that if the pursuit continues, first one and then another of us will be killed, and the ransom for the remaining one will be raised by five thousand pounds a-week. I tell you honestly that the efforts of the troops can have no result beyond irritating the brigands and making our position worse, and that we are at this moment hidden where I believe no power on earth could find us. The ladies agree with me, very reluctantly.—Yours truly,
“Maurice Smith.“Zoe Smith.“Eirene Smith.”
This was written on the upper half of a sheet from Zoe’s large note-book, and at the foot appeared the following, which could be torn off before the recipient made the first portion public:—
“For goodness’ sake, Wylie, drop it. Your intentions are excellent, but they don’t seem to come off. The girls are half-dead with exhaustion after the way you have been hunting us about, and we are at present cheerfully accommodated underground, with only the faintest glimmer of light. I couldn’t tell you where we are if I would, and I wouldn’t if I could. For some reason or other the brigands have taken a dislike to you, and if you persist in staying up here, I am given to understand that you will find yourself confronted with our dead bodies in various uncomfortable attitudes. Cut away to Therma and hurry up that ransom. This is the kindest thing you can do for us.”
On his return from the vain pursuit of the brigands which followed the meeting with the routed detachment, Wylie discovered this letter pinned with a dagger to the doorpost of the house where he had taken up his quarters. None of the villagers had seen who brought it, and no one could offer any suggestion on the subject, but whether the universal ignorance was real, or the result of a secret understanding with the brigands, did not appear. The letter had the desired effect, sending Wylie back to Therma in something more nearly approaching panic than he had ever known. He was not as reckless of the lives of his friends as he had appeared, but he had undoubtedly brought them into imminent peril, though his course had been adopted in utter desperation. His first appearance at Therma, bearing the story of what had happened and the demand for a ransom, had been the signal for the commencement of a wild tragi-comedy of irresponsibility. The Roumi authorities declared flatly that there were no brigands in Emathia, so that it was obviously impossible that the travellers could have been carried off by brigands. The British representatives, to whom Wylie appealed at the same time, cherished grave doubts as to the wisdom of paying a ransom, since no British traveller in Emathia would be safe after such a precedent had been set. Professor Panagiotis, torn by conflicting emotions, proved almost equally unsatisfactory. He had found himself of late subjected to a disquieting espionage, which filled him with fear lest his plans had in some way been divined. In such a case, it seemed to him that his only chance was to grip his important secret more tightly than ever. Lest Wylie should make use of it to bring pressure on any of the Governments concerned, he kept it even from him, pooh-poohing his reminder of the explanations Maurice had promised him, and showing an uneasy curiosity on the subject of Eirene, for whose existence he could not account. He volunteered, indeed, to write to Maurice’s bankers, asking them to advance the money for the ransom, with the natural result that they demanded either a cheque signed by Maurice or an interview with Wylie and a sight of his authority, and Wylie could not bring himself to leave Emathia while his friends’ fate hung in the balance. The Professor’s sole useful contribution to the debate was the conviction that the outrage had been perpetrated by a band of Thracian marauders, with which the newspapers in his interest made Europe ring. The Thracian Government, approached on the subject, replied with virtuous indignation that its attitude was perfectly correct. It had always studiously discouraged—in the most official manner—the formation of such bands, and refused them permission to cross the frontier into Emathia. If the reprehensible activity of private persons had managed to organise a band, the authorities viewed it with entire detachment, and the Roumi Government was welcome to do as it liked with the members, when it caught them.
This acknowledgment that there might be foreign, though not native, brigands on the sacred soil of Emathia stirred the Roumi officials to a pitch of activity positively dangerous. Urged on by Professor Panagiotis and his adherents, they sent troops into the hills, and loudly proclaimed their intention of sweeping the miscreants from the face of the earth, and rescuing the captives without fee or reward. Into the vortex of this expedition Wylie was whirled, partly by the demand of the authorities that he should accompany the troops and behold the vengeance exacted, partly by his own hope that he might be able to make the measures taken effectual. His friend Palmer, smarting under the loss of the faithful Haji Ahmad, had willingly joined him in a bold journey through the heart of the brigands’ country, in the hope that the luggage so lavishly displayed would prove a bait sufficient to ensure their being carried off also, when the best trackers in the country, provided by Professor Panagiotis, would follow them up, and thus discover the brigands’ stronghold. Demo’s recognition of Wylie in his disguise had prevented this, but the journey had its fruit in the discovery of the boot-tracks of the captives, and thus enabled Wylie to lay his plans for a systematic search. As Maurice had conjectured, it was the torrent-bed, the use of which as a path he had not suspected, which had thrown him out when he felt certain that he had the brigands safe in one particular group of hills, and the carelessness of the detachment which had been sent on to hold the pass enabled his prey to slip through his fingers. Thus baffled, he had no alternative but to hurry back to Therma, in compliance with Maurice’s earnest request, only to find fresh discouragements awaiting him. Before leaving for the hills, he had written a full account of the capture to Maurice’s bankers, enclosing a certified copy of the first letter signed by the three captives, in the hope that they might be induced to depart from their attitude of severe correctness. Their answer had now arrived, making it evident that the worthy country gentlemen, who had known Maurice and Zoe all their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them, regarded the intrusion of Eirene into the letter as evidence of a not very cleverly constructed plot, concocted, it was to be presumed, by Wylie and Professor Panagiotis, for the purpose of extorting money. Whether they imagined the Professor and Wylie were holding the captives in durance, or doubted their being in durance at all, or what they thought Eirene had to do with the matter, they did not say, but they wound up a lengthy refusal to do anything without seeing Wylie, with the coldly sarcastic remark that the Roumi Government was obviously the proper channel from which to obtain the ransom.
“Why can’t the old idiots see that it’s a matter of life and death?” mused Wylie bitterly, as he read the letter on the terrace of his hotel. “I’m not going cap in hand to them to be treated like a pickpocket and sent off with a flea in my ear, while the Smiths are being massacred. I’d rather pay the money myself. I wonder if I could manage to raise it in the time? I don’t see where it’s to come from. Or is there any one else I could worry into taking action?”
He thought over the long list of people to whom he had written urgent letters—every one he had ever heard of who was likely to have influence with the press or with any of the Governments interested in Emathia—and realised wrathfully that, though his journalistic appeals had produced a good deal of frothy rhetoric and bloodthirsty declamation in the columns of newspapers of the baser sort, the practical effect appeared to benil. True, an artist on the staff of the ‘Plastic,’ who happened to be in the neighbourhood—as distances go in Eastern Europe—had been ordered to the scene of the capture, which was now, on the well-established principle of the steed and the stable-door, kept constantly patrolled by police, and had made many sketches of the localities concerned, but without stirring the placid blood of the public to any extraordinary heat. He had moved on to Therma now, and was staying at the hotel, and as Wylie halted irresolutely in his anger and perplexity outside the window of the smoking-room, he came out and joined him.
“I say, you don’t mind my speaking to you, do you?” he asked, in a pleasant, boyish voice. “I know you’re the man who was captured with the Smiths, and I want to find out something about them. I’m sick of sketching a set of rotten roadsides—might as well be a camera at once—and there’s not a sensation in the whole lot. What I’m thinking of is a full-page drawing of the outrage itself—call it a fancy picture if you like, but that’s the sort of thing that tells. Besides, if I work up the figures from your description, it’s not a fancy picture. Do you mind?”
“I don’t mind what I do that’s likely to give the slightest help in rescuing them,” said Wylie emphatically.
“I know. Horribly rough on them and you too—all this red tape. Let’s go ahead, then. What sort of a chap is Smith?”
“Cambridge man, usual style, nothing particular about him, but an awfully good sort. His eldest sister told me that he got a gold medal for poetry this spring, but you’d never think it to look at him.”
“A gold medal? Not for an English poem? I was there myself, and there was no Smith in. My young brother got a medal for a Greek epigram, and he was so keen on my seeing him in all his glory that I ran down for the day. Took the opportunity to get half a page of sketches for the ‘Daily Plastic,’ too, as the affair isn’t much known. They keep the date dark lest the men should get in and rag—so my brother told me. Now what was the chap’s name who got the English medal? It was a St Saviour’s man, and the Master was so proud he talked of nothing else for a week.”
“Miss Smith told me her brother got it,” said Wylie, in the tone which implies that there is no more to be said.
“But there must be a mistake somewhere. Look here; I believe I have that very sketch-book in my room. I’ll get it, and we can see the fellow’s name.”
He vanished indoors, and presently returned breathless, flicking over the leaves of a well-filled sketch-book.
“Here it is!” he cried. “Teffany! I knew there was something queer about the name.” He put the book into his companion’s hands, and Wylie found himself confronted with an unmistakable portrait of Maurice in cap and gown, wearing a rather strained smile, and gripping a roll of paper very tight. In close proximity was a sketch of Professor Panagiotis, all alert attention, bending forward to listen.
“Why, that’s Smith!” cried Wylie, “and this——”
“Yes, it’s awfully rummy, isn’t it? That’s the old johnny who hangs out at Kallimeri, close here. It gave me quite a shock when I met him in the street, but then I remembered that my brother told me he was some Greek bigwig. Then my man is your man, after all? I say, this is something like a joke!”
“But what possible reason can he have had for changing his name?” cried Wylie, trying to recall anything that ought to have prepared him for the discovery.
“And there’s another thing,” said the artist, who was enjoying himself hugely. “He’s got a sister too many. Teffany has only one, I know. She came up to Girtham at the same time that he entered at St Saviour’s, and they were called ‘The Orphans’ everywhere, because they used to go about together in deep mourning. It was for their grandfather, though. Their father was killed in the Soudan years before, and their mother died from the shock. So where does the other girl come in?”
“Of course she is only a half-sister; I knew that.”
“But younger than either of them, you say? Oh, this is brain-splitting! She must be a cousin.”
“Really,” said Wylie stiffly, “I see no reason for us to trouble about the matter. No one ever doubted that she was their sister.”
“Well, we seem to have come upon a nice little double mystery. Look here, monsieur,” the artist cried to a man who was standing just inside the smoking-room, “come and adjudicate. What reason could a man have, whose name wasn’t Smith, for calling himself Smith, when he was doing nothing more heinous than coming with his sisters to stay with Professor Panagiotis?”
“English, of course?” said the stranger, joining them, and speaking with a slight foreign accent. “Why need one seek a reason, then? The pseudo-Smith is rich—perhaps noble—at home, and he desires a new sensation. Therefore he obtains one by travellingincognito.”
“Well, I suppose Teffany is comfortably off”—the stranger’s eyelid flickered as the artist spoke—“but there are no titles in the family, that I know of. Why in the world should he do it?”
“The natural modesty of the British character,” suggested the stranger.
“And there’s another thing. Why should he call a girl his sister who isn’t his sister?”
“If you ask me,” said the stranger waggishly, “I should say that it was some one else’s sister.”
“Oh, but two of them?” cried the artist. “Or, if one was genuine, how do you account for her tolerating the bogus one?”
“Look here,” said Wylie, “that will do. You, and Smith’s—I mean Teffany’s—bankers, and Professor Panagiotis, all persist that there can’t be a second sister. I tell you there is, for I have seen her and talked to her. I have the honour of both the Miss Smiths’—the Miss Teffanys’, I mean—acquaintance, and whatever stupid mystery you may manage to cook up, I’m certain there’s the most ordinary explanation if we only knew it. I don’t want any more jokes on the subject.”
“Awfully sorry,” said the artist hastily, as the stranger withdrew with a smile; “but it is funny, you know.”
“To you, perhaps. Who’s your grinning friend?”
“A Greek—Mitsopoulo his name is—good sort of chap. Knows the ropes, puts me up to all sorts of things. His sister is married to the Scythian Consul-General—frightfully handsome woman. But he’s only staying here.”
“I don’t know why you called him in,” said Wylie uneasily. “We don’t want Scythia mixed up in this business.”
The artist stared at him. “Oh, I say,” he laughed, “there’s no doubt where you come from, is there? ‘Keep your powder dry, and hate a Scythian like the devil’—that’s about the mark of you North-West Frontier men, isn’t it?”
“What do you know about the North-West Frontier?” growled Wylie. “I’m off to Professor Panagiotis to get this thing cleared up. I shall end by wringing the old blighter’s neck for him, I know.”
“So long!” said the artist pacifically, for he had not yet got all the information he wanted, and he settled down to a sketch for his picture, leaving the girls’ faces blank, while Wylie, refusing the offers of donkey-boys and cab-drivers, tramped off to Kallimeri. The Professor had learnt to dread his coming, and distinguished on this occasion in the very sound of his footsteps fresh cause for alarm. Wylie gave him no opportunity of denying the identification established by the sketch, but demanded bluntly the reason of the change of name, and why he had not been told of it before. The only course was to explain the whole of the circumstances, and this the Professor took.
“You see, then,” he ended, “that not a breath of this must creep out. Our young friend stands in the way of both Scythian and Thraco-Dardanian ambitions, and if it was known who he was, it would be fatally easy to arrange for his death—at the hands of the brigands, by a fall in the mountains, by a shot from a Roumi rifle. It would occur so naturally that there would be no room for inquiry, and his sister, who would otherwise inherit his claims, would share his fate. Now do you see why I kept you in the dark? It was for their sake. I feared that by some inadvertence”—Wylie moved angrily—“Well, now that you know the truth, and what hangs upon your silence, you will see that nothing must be said. There is a dangerous man at your hotel—Nicetas Mitsopoulo, a Greek traitor in Scythian employ—beware of him.”
“Your warning comes a little late. The gentleman you mention was present when I discovered the truth.”
Professor Panagiotis flung up his hands in despair. “Then Maurice Teffany and his sister are as good as dead! My hopes are destroyed.”
“Don’t blither about your hopes,” said Wylie savagely, “but think what we can do. What chance have we of saving them?”
“If we can raise the ransom by the very day stipulated—the brigands are generally faithful to their word—but if it is an hour late——”
“Then the ransom must be raised, by hook or by crook. Can you advance it? I will give you my bond for all I am worth, and I am certain Smith will regard the rest as a debt of honour.”
“Alas, no! It is not in my power,” groaned the Professor.
“Nonsense! you are well known to be a rich man. How much can you lay your hands upon in ten days?”
“I—I must explain to you,” said the Professor diffidently, “that events have advanced since I had the good fortune to discover Mr Teffany. In view of the happy prospects of the Greek cause, I have felt justified in promoting a certain degree of organisation among its adherents—enabling them to defend their homes against their ruthless Slavic assailants——”
“And institute reprisals, no doubt?” said Wylie. “This means, of course, that you have been arming the Emathian Greeks against the Slavs, by way of improving matters?”
“And the cost has been very heavy,” pursued the Professor, with humility, “and one large consignment of—defence weapons—fell, unfortunately, into the hands of one of the Thracian committees, so that I am actually straitened.”
“Well, can you beg, borrow, or steal five thousand pounds by the end of next week? I think I ought to be able to manage the other fifteen thousand, by realising everything I have in the world. If not, you must scrape together the difference. At any cost we must stop Mr Mitsopoulo’s little games.”
Had Wylie been present at a certain discussion at the Scythian Consulate that evening, he would have realised that Nicetas Mitsopoulo was playing even a deeper game than he imagined. The Greek arrived at a private door, which was opened to him by the Consul-General himself, a big, fair man, whose bluff exterior concealed a very serviceable share of diplomaticfinesse.
“Welcome, Nikita Feodorovitch!” he said pleasantly. “You will find Chariclea ready for you. Curiously enough, immediately after your message arrived, a sudden headache prevented her from going to the party at the Cimbrian Consul’s.”
M. Mitsopoulo pushed past his brother-in-law rather impatiently, for the Consul-General was always ready to find amusement, such as the professional plotter had long since outgrown, in these tricks of the trade. Much more in sympathy with him was his sister, Madame Ladoguin, or Chariclea Feodorovna, as she was called by her Scythian acquaintances. A handsome woman in a loose Levantine dress, with her dark hair hanging below her waist in two heavy plaits, she awaited him on a cushioned divan in her boudoir, with cigarettes and the ever-ready samovar at hand. M. Ladoguin lounged in after him, and sat down at a little distance, ready to act as friend of the court.
“This has been a day of events and surprises,” said Mitsopoulo, accepting a glass of tea, with thin slices of lemon floating in it, from his sister. “I have made such progress that I am almost bewildered, and I bring the results of my labours to you, Chariclea, that you may check them and assure me I have not deceived myself.”
“I will scrutinise them as rigorously as if they were the report of a Reform Scheme,” she answered, with a lazy smile.
“That is just what I want. You have guessed, I am sure, Chariclea, that my visit here was in connection with the disappearance, which was not made known to the public, of a young lady of high rank. All the indications seemed to point to her having escaped to America, but as the Greek Panagiotis was known to have tampered with her father, it was thought well to watch for her here. I placed the amiable Panagiotis under surveillance, which I fear he has found inconvenient, but as it did not appear that he was either holding or expecting any communication with the Princess, I was about to withdraw it. Then, only a week ago, one of my agents brought word that a breast-ornament of gold and rubies, of a unique Byzantine design, had been offered for sale secretly by a Jew in this city. The description corresponded with that of one of the jewels which had disappeared with the Princess, and I authorised the man to secure it at any cost, but, alas! at the first hint of inquiry it disappeared again, and has probably been broken up. Until to-day, therefore, I thought it probable that the Princess had eluded my vigilance and was in hiding here, subsisting by the sale of her jewels until she found it safe to communicate with Panagiotis.” He paused impressively.
“Yes, and now?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.
“To-day I was summoned to assist at a conversation between a brainless artist staying at the hotel, and the English officer who was captured with the renowned Smiths——”
“Are you quite sure you were not assisting before you were summoned, Nikita?” laughed the Consul-General. His brother-in-law passed over the question as unworthy of an answer.
“—And I discovered a very curious fact, vouched for by three separate authorities, that one of the ladies passing as Miss Smith is not a Miss Smith at all. Mr and Miss Smith have no sister, and Panagiotis, with whom they were to stay, did not expect a second lady guest.”
“Well?” demanded Mme. Ladoguin, her eyes glowing sombrely.
“The idea came to me in a flash, but it was too improbable to accept without investigation. I went at once to the station, and by great good fortune succeeded in finding the guard of the train that was wrecked near Przlepka. Otherwise I might have had to wait two or three days. He recollected the party perfectly, and described them—the brother an ordinary, impassive Englishman, one sister vivacious in the wooden English way, but the other totally different. He said himself that he would have guessed her to be a Scythian, as also the aunt who was killed in the accident. With another happy flash, I asked him if he had happened to visit the aunt’s grave at Przlepka. He had done so, and the name upon the stone was Evdotia Vladimirovna. That was the Christian name of Madame Lyofsky, the lady-in-waiting who vanished with the Princess.”
“Excellent! Well done! Continue, pray!” cried Mme. Ladoguin, clapping her hands softly.
“I could get no more from the man, for he had, of course, only been able to observe the Smiths from Tatarjé to Przlepka. To obtain further information, I must go myself to Tatarjé and question the car-attendant on the Orient Express, who must have plenty to tell. But at present, what is your view of the case, my dear Chariclea?”
“There can only be one view,” she responded quickly. “The Princess fell in with these Smiths in Paris, and either by bribery or entreaty, induced them to adopt Mme. Lyofsky and herself as members of their party, flattering herself that she would thus escape discovery.”
“So I should have thought but for something else that I learned to-day. The man Smith and his sister are in reality no more Smith than the Princess is. Their true name is Teffany.”
“Well?” asked the Consul-General curiously.
“Teffany—which is Theophanis,” said M. Mitsopoulo. His sister sprang up from her cushions.
“What! Nicetas, you don’t mean——”
“I mean that Panagiotis has succeeded, where his predecessors failed, in unearthing or manufacturing an English representative of the senior male line of the descendants of John Theophanis.”
“But why then trouble himself with the Princess?” asked M. Ladoguin helplessly.
“Oh, that’s clear enough,” was the contemptuous reply of his wife. “She is to marry the claimant.”
“Now there I can’t agree with you, Chariclea,” said her brother. “Panagiotis is far too wise for that. The united claims of the two would be absolutely unassailable, and there would be no room for him. He might choose to arrange such a marriage by slow degrees, inventing hindrances and delays so as to make his own services appear indispensable, but it would be madness to begin by throwing the two young people together.”
“But we can hardly charge the worthy Professor with the railway accident and the capture by the brigands, can we?” asked M. Ladoguin, laughing. “We know better than that.”
“No, that was certainly unforeseen on his part. But why plot so clumsily as to let them travel by the same train?”
“He must have had some scheme for separating them as soon as they became interested in one another,” suggested Mme. Ladoguin, without much conviction.
“Now I am going to propound a common-sense view of the matter, since you two clever people are at a loss,” said her husband. “What if Panagiotis has washed his hands of the girl—the Princess, I mean—since he discovered his male heir; and what if she took the journey entirely on her own account, enraged at the neglect of her claims? That would account for his not expecting her. The meeting with the Smiths would then be a pure coincidence.”
“Absurd!” said Mme. Ladoguin sharply, following the sound Higher Critical rule of rejecting the obvious. “Do you suggest that these young people, whose interests are diametrically opposed, fell in love at first sight, like characters of Shakespeare, and agreed to—to pool their respective claims?”
“Possibly. Isn’t it more reasonable than to suppose that Panagiotis brought them together and explained the situation, with a view to a State marriage?”
“Stop!” cried Mitsopoulo suddenly. “Adopting the coincidence theory provisionally, must we suppose that the situation is explained at all? In my view, Panagiotis arranged the disappearance of the Princess, but she was too impatient to await the date he had fixed. He had intended to produce her a month or so hence, when the young man was entirely in his power; but naturally he says nothing to either of them. She escapes sooner than he wished, and falls in with the other claimant and his sister in Paris. There was the coincidence. Now, is it likely that either party would even be aware of the other’s existence, since it is to the interest of Panagiotis to keep them in ignorance for his own purposes? Therefore, why should they confide in each other at all?”
“Oh, but everything must have come out since—or at least, half of everything,” said M. Ladoguin, generalising unwisely on a common-sense basis. “The man and his sister, who are new to the idea of their dignity, could not possibly keep silence.” Mitsopoulo nodded, remembering Zoe’s confidence to Wylie about the gold medal, and his brother-in-law went on, much encouraged. “With the Princess it is different. She must be capable of determined secrecy, from the skill with which she concealed her preparations for escape, and she has long believed herself the heir of the Eastern Empire. Finding herself confronted with a claim antagonistic and superior to her own, what will be her impulse? Will it not be to retain her secret haughtily, watching for the chance of crushing her rival? I should say that if you want her back, you will find her thankful to come.”
“Do you want her back?” asked Mme. Ladoguin.
“Most certainly,” replied her brother; “she is an invaluable asset, tracing an uninterrupted Greek and Orthodox descent from John Theophanis. The Englishman’s claim is the best by the ordinary law of Europe, but would break down hopelessly when tried by the Imperial family statutes. She ought to have been married long ago, and her claim carried into the Scythian Imperial house; but she is in a troublesome position—too important and yet not important enough. It is believed that she aspired to an alliance with the Emperor himself—and if I had had the direction of affairs I fancy I should have settled it in that way. But it was otherwise decided, and she rejected with contumely the Grand Duke Ivan Petrovitch, who was suggested to her as a suitor. She also took matters into her own hands, or Panagiotis persuaded her that she did.”
“Then she must be taken care of, I suppose,” drawled Mme. Ladoguin, “which is a pity, or she might have been disposed of with the other inconveniences. They are merely inconveniences, are they not? A judicious massacre, now, or an accident with the dynamite which these reprehensible bands of brigands manage somehow to get hold of?”
“No, I think not,” said her brother, after a moment’s reflection. “You forget Panagiotis, and that blue-eyed swashbuckler who was captured with them. They will make out that we were anxious to get rid of the man and his claims, and there will be unpleasantness. What must be done is to make him confess the baselessness of his pretensions. He must own that he was tempted by Panagiotis to put himself forward as a Theophanis, without the slightest ground for the assertion. That will dispose of both him and his sister. How the details are to be arranged we must discuss another day.”
“I should recommend the monastery of Hadgi-Antoniou if you want any one kept out of the way for an indefinite time,” smiled M. Ladoguin.
“Just so; and plenty of palm-oil to obviate any difficulties. I must get an order for funds from Pavelsburg,” said Mitsopoulo.
Wylie also was seeking funds at that moment. A letter to his lawyers was directing them to sell out all his securities, and to mortgage to its utmost value the little Border estate which called him master. However onerous the conditions, he must have fifteen thousand pounds in ten days.