“Why, there is a little house at the very top! How do they get up?”
“Why, there is a little house at the very top! How do they get up?”
* * * * * * *
The day before, Wylie, with his friend Armitage, the artist, who had insisted on being present at the release of the captives, had made his way to the spot agreed upon, convoying the ransom, carefully packed and carried on donkeyback. The rendezvous was a wayside inn, orhan, of doubtful character, providing the same accommodation for man as for beast, and little enough for either. The brigands had stipulated that no soldiers or armed men of any kind were to escort the treasure, and for this reason Wylie and Armitage were obliged to come alone, even the donkey-drivers declining the last stage, lest they should find themselves marked men in future. Before they would embark on the adventure at all, they had insisted that the value of their beasts, liberally calculated, should be deposited with the British Consul-General, and they were therefore quite at their ease in the more attractivehanwhere they remained. Wylie had indulged in a faint hope that he might be able to pay over the ransom at once, receive back his friends, and carry them off the same day to these more desirable quarters, where he had left a large collection of clothes and other comforts, contributed by Madame Panagiotis, the ladies at the British Consulate, and other sympathisers; but when he suggested this to the ill-favoured landlord of the brigands’ inn, the man only laughed at him. Did the Capitan Bey really expect the band to be waiting to receive him, without making sure that he had kept his word and brought no soldiers? he asked. He himself was to send word to a point farther on in the mountains that the ransom had arrived, and from thence notice would be sent to the brigands, who would scour the neighbourhood before trusting themselves in the vicinity of the inn. Wylie set his teeth doggedly. He had not sacrificed everything to raise the ransom that it might be stolen from him now, and he and Armitage carried in the boxes of gold with their own hands, and spread their carpet over them. All night they relieved each other, one sleeping above the treasure while the other, armed with sword and revolver, kept watch.
The early part of the next day passed wearily, for they durst not leave the boxes unguarded; but at last the innkeeper announced that Stoyan was awaiting them at the point he had mentioned, and they loaded the donkeys again and followed him. Stoyan and Milosch came forward to meet them on the outskirts of a small wood, and led the way to a clearing in the middle of it. No one else was officially present, but Wylie was persuaded that the bushes had eyes, and that rifle-barrels protruded through the underwood. The boxes were lifted down, the gold counted and tested, and the chief announced that he was satisfied.
“Then where are our friends?” asked Wylie.
“They are already released,” was the answer.
“But why? I thought they were to be given up to us here?”
“Ah, we know the Capitan of old, that he baits traps for us,” smiled Stoyan. “If he had his friends safe, what should prevent him from calling forward soldiers to seize us before we could escape with the gold? Therefore he will not meet his friends while he is in our district. They are already on the way to Therma, and he can catch them up.”
“But why release them before the ransom was paid?”
“It was promised, and we know that an Englishman always keeps his word. It is so, is it not? An Englishman’s word is never broken?”
“Never. But who is with them?” asked Wylie, puzzled and uneasy, he knew not why.
“None of us. We despatched them alone, the two women riding on horses. Hasten after them, lest some other harm befall them. See!” He whistled, and brigands rose out of every bush, like the clansmen of Roderick Dhu. “We are all here. The Capitan can count the whole band.”
Wylie counted, and found none absent, and he and Armitage withdrew, awkwardly enough. As they reached the inn, a peasant who was talking to the landlord turned and looked at them.
“You are the person for whom I had a message,” he said. “I met a man and two women riding towards Therma, and they bade me watch for a European gentleman with blue eyes, and tell him that they would reach the city first.”
Wylie flung the man a coin, and shouting to Armitage to pay the reckoning, rushed indoors to fetch their belongings. These were soon piled upon the donkeys, and they set out, Wylie keeping the cavalcade moving at a smart pace, for the desire to see his friends again was heightened by the anxiety inspired by Stoyan’s words. As they hurried on, a voice hailed them suddenly from the mountain-side, and, looking up, they saw Milosch standing on a jutting crag.
“When you not find zat you seek,” he cried, “remember ze perjured oass!”
“What in the world is a perjured oass?” said Armitage. “Does he mean oaf?” with vague reminiscences of Kipling.
“From what I know of the gentleman, I should say he meant a broken oath,” said Wylie. “But I don’t know of any broken oath, unless they’ve broken theirs. Come on.”
Themonastery of Hadgi-Antoniou towered aloft on its rocky pillar, and the prisoners and their guards stood below looking up at it, for there was no apparent means of reaching the top. Here and there ladders were visible on the face of the rock, but they ceased in the most capricious way at the points of greatest danger, and the lowest was something like a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. But the brigands did not share the perplexity of their captives, and two or three of them fired off their rifles. This was evidently the recognised way of attracting the attention of the inhabitants, for two heads, with long beards and high square caps, appeared far above against the sky, and a few words were exchanged, after which a rope, with something fastened to the end, seemed to come crawling down the rock from a projecting tower.
“Oh, Maurice, what is going to happen?” whispered Zoe, gazing fascinated at the slowly moving rope.
“I suppose they will draw us up one by one,” he answered.
“One by one? Then we shall be separated,” said Eirene fearfully.
“I hope not, but in any case, let us make a compact together that none of us will come to any decision, or enter into any promise, without the other two. If they try to work upon us separately, let us each demand to be confronted with the others. It’s our only chance.”
The girls promised hastily, eyeing the parcel at the end of the rope, which had now reached the ground, and revealed itself as a large net, attached by its four corners to a stout hook. The brigands unhooked the corners, and laying the net flat, made signs to the prisoners.
“Have we to go up in that?” said Zoe, turning white.
“I had better go first,” said Maurice. “Then you’ll see what it’s like.”
Eirene uttered an inarticulate protest, but he sat down on the net, the corners were gathered together and hooked above his head, and he was slowly raised from the ground. The girls watched the ascent with panting breath and a sick feeling of horror, for the rope moved jerkily, and at each jerk the net swung backwards and forwards, now sending Maurice against the rock, from which he was obliged to ward himself off with his hands, and now out into mid-air. It seemed to them that they had given him up for lost a hundred times before the net was grasped by sturdy hands and hauled into the tower, and they discovered that they were standing with their arms round one another, locked in a tight grip. A voice shouted something from the tower as the rope began to descend again, and almost before they had realised that one of them must make the journey next, the brigand chief was spreading out the net, and indicating that they might go up together. But Maurice’s voice called from above, “Not both at once. The rope isn’t strong enough,” and Zoe pushed Eirene forward. “You next,” she said, and immediately, after her usual fashion, began to wonder whether she had really chosen the harder part for herself in watching a second ascent, or had merely deprived Eirene of the encouragement of example.
Eirene’s journey was much less exciting than Maurice’s, and Zoe guessed that her brother was exercising a guiding influence on the rope, for the terrifying oscillations had almost ceased. Be that as it might, the ascent was sufficiently awful, and Zoe wished vigorously that she had not possessed such good sight. Looking resolutely upwards, when it was her turn to be enclosed in the net, she saw, with a thrill of horror, that the rope, which cut the clear sky like a black line, was old and frayed, reduced in some places, as she persuaded herself, almost to a single strand. Looking down gave her no comfort, for the ground seemed immeasurably distant, and the swinging motion, slight as it now was, made her giddy, so that at last she shut her eyes, and kept them closed until she felt herself seized and dragged roughly sideways, then deposited upon some sort of floor, and the net unhooked.
“Come, Zoe, it’s safely over, and you’re all right,” said Maurice, as she sat trembling in every limb and unable to move. “They want to send the net down for our things.”
“The rope, Maurice—it’s breaking!” she managed to articulate, grasping his arm to help herself up.
“Oh, you noticed that, did you? That was why I wouldn’t let you come up together. But one of the monks who speaks Thracian says that they often draw up two men at once, and nothing has ever happened yet. The rope is only in its fourth year now, and it’s due to last for six.”
“I hope I shan’t have to go up by it in its sixth year,” said Zoe, forcing a smile. “Where’s Eirene?”
“In a state of collapse inside somewhere, being looked after by the grandmother of all old women. Pull yourself together, Zoe. I think she wants you. And we might as well get out of the way of these reverend gentlemen.”
There was little room in the tower for anything but the rude capstan or windlass which worked the rope and the monks who pushed at its bars, and Zoe tottered out with the help of Maurice’s arm, to find herself in a stone-paved court, with Eirene lying on the stones in a dead faint, and an old woman wailing over her, while a group of monks wavered at a discreet distance, alternately drawn by curiosity and withheld by the consciousness that they ought not to be present.
“I say, what’s this?” cried Maurice. “She wasn’t fainting just now—only rather shaky. Look here, Zoe, can’t you do anything? What’s the proper thing—brandy?”
“Water,” answered Zoe reprovingly, and Maurice shouted for water in English, Latin, Greek, French, and Thracian. It was the French that proved effectual at last, for one of the monks understood sufficiently to summon another old woman with a water-jar.
“Oh, Zoe, you are here!” gasped Eirene, when she opened her eyes. “Stay with me. Don’t let them take me away. I won’t be separated from you and Maurice.”
The French-speaking monk approached Maurice softly. “Pray reassure her Royal Highness,” he entreated. “We have prepared for her the best accommodation in our power, and if she desires to be attended by the other young woman, there is no difficulty. She is to enjoy every indulgence suited to her rank, if it is not inconsistent with her safety.”
Much puzzled, Maurice conveyed the desired assurance to Eirene, who took in its significance at once, and inquired sharply how he was to be treated, in reply to which the monk declared that he would be the guest of the monastery. Satisfied with this answer, Eirene asked to be shown her room, to which she and Zoe were conducted by one of the officials of the monastery and the two old women. It was a large, low chamber, opening from a corridor, with a stone floor, and stone divans all round it, above which was a decoration of light arcading in plaster. There was a large fireplace projecting into the room, with a hearth piled with logs, and three windows, all innocent of glass, but provided with shutters. From two of these windows views of the surrounding country far below could be obtained; the other looked out on a smaller courtyard and across to another of the curiously irregular buildings which occupied the summit of the rock, and from a window in this the girls presently saw Maurice looking out. It was too far to talk, but he signalled to them that he was all right, and they returned into the room, much comforted, to find that the old women had lighted the fire and spread a carpet on the divan near it. Presently they brought in a tray of savoury food, the nature of which was not evident, save that it contained no meat, and set it on a stool close to the divan, when the girls were thankful to partake of it. Too tired even for surmises, they went to bed immediately afterwards, sleeping so soundly on their hard couch that even the thunder of a mallet on a board, which summoned the monks to service at midnight, failed to wake them.
They slept far into the next day, and it was late in the afternoon when they looked out into the courtyard, to see Maurice, in full Greek costume, wandering disconsolately about, and gazing up at their window. They wondered that he had made no attempt to reach them, but another glance showed one of the old women sitting like Cerberus at the foot of the steps leading to their corridor, with the evident purpose of preventing any intrusion.
“Oh, Maurice, how nice and respectable you look!” cried Zoe. “That kilt suits you beautifully.”
“It doesn’t,” said Eirene indignantly. “He looks as if he was going to a masked—no, a fancy ball. He ought always to wear English country clothes.”
“And go to the opera in them, like the proverbial British tourist, I suppose?” said Zoe. “But why didn’t you get some clothes for us, Maurice, if they let you go out shopping?”
“They don’t, but there’s a Greek village somewhere near, and the old monk who looks after me—who is second in command, or prior, or something—got me these things through akosmikos, who seems to be a sort of lay-brother. But the women’s dress round here seems to be distinctly advanced—rather markedly rational, in fact—and I didn’t think you’d care to wear it.”
“Oh, well, tell them to send us two blouses and some stuff, and we’ll make skirts for ourselves—and scissors and needles and cotton, of course—and some hairpins. But how are we to pay?”
“With promises, I suppose. The people seem to share Stoyan’s touching faith in an Englishman’s word—which is rather rudely shaken in his case now, unfortunately. I told the monk I’d pay when we got back to civilisation.”
“But why are we here at all?” asked Eirene.
“That they either can’t or won’t tell me. It has something to do with one of the Committees, evidently—trust them to have a finger in the pie—but I can’t make out how long we are to be kept here, or whether anything is to happen or not. The monks are not half bad old fellows. The Hegoumenos—that’s the abbot—has been trotting me round this morning to show me the church and the library and all the chapels, and at dinner last night he was full of the most infantile questions. Of course, he had to ask them all through Papa Athanasios, who is my particular monk, and what with his French and mine, the abbot must have amassed some wonderful information.”
“It’s all very well their being nice, but will they let us out?” broke in Zoe.
“Certainly not at present, but I shall work at them patiently. I haven’t quite got at the state of affairs yet, but there seem to be two parties among the monks, and one of them may be more pliable than the other.”
“And are they going to keep us shut up in this room?”
“Why, you see, you really have no business here at all. Thanks to Eirene’s greatness, you are in the quarters reserved for lady pilgrims of the very highest rank, but you can’t be let out while the monks are about, lest you should distract their minds. I believe that when they are safely in church you will be allowed to walk about outside, and then you will have to spend part of your time in sitting under my window and talking to me, for I shall be locked up. The idea is that if we were all free at once, we might escape, you see. But there are little bits of garden mixed up with the buildings, where you may walk, only you must take care not to go too near the edge of the rock, for there’s no protection whatever. And of course your wardress, or duenna, or whatever her capacity is, will chaperon you everywhere. Isn’t she a caution? I spent ever so long trying to get her to go up and ask you if I mightn’t come and call, and her only answer to my blandishments was to threaten to brain me with her keys. Ah, there goes thesemantron—the wooden gong thing that calls the monks to church. I’ll retire gracefully to my cell, and you will profit by my self-effacement.”
The exterior of the buildings of Hadgi-Antoniou became well and wearily known to the two girls during the days that followed, as they paced from courtyard to garden-patch and back again, to the accompaniment of the lusty shouts from the church which marked the monks’ responses to the service. The regularity noticeable in western monastic edifices was here conspicuous by its absence, for though the church, the refectory, and the two blocks of rooms devoted to visitors might be conceived to have been intended to occupy the sides of a square, all symmetry had been destroyed by the crowd of smaller chapels, and of cottages occupied by the monks, which seemed to have been dropped down anywhere and at every angle. There was no encircling wall, which the impregnable position of the monastery rendered unnecessary, and though here and there a tower, or the end of a building, reached the very edge of the plateau, its fringes were generally occupied by uninteresting pieces of garden, in which the girls would sit, looking at the cloudy mountains to the north, or the dim country to the south, until their gaoler would rattle her keys to intimate that the service was nearing its end, and they must return to the custody of their room. Once they stood in the narthex, or porch, of the church, which was decorated in fresco with lively representations of the Torments of the Lost, and with infinite precaution, peeped in, to see the monks at worship, leaning on their crutched staves, and shouting incessant responses, while the metalled and jewelled figures on theikonostasismade a blaze of light and colour in the prevailing dimness.
Permission to see Maurice any nearer than the courtyard was still rigorously refused, but he spent most of his free time under their window; and when the difficulties of cutting out with a hopeless pair of scissors had been overcome, Zoe, congratulating herself on her diplomacy, announced that the need of clothes was too urgent to allow of his being entertained by more than one at a time. Accordingly, she sat working at one of the farther windows while Eirene talked to Maurice at that looking into the courtyard, but she would have found it difficult to formulate definite reasons for her altruism. A vague feeling that the more closely Eirene’s interests were linked with theirs, the more hope there would be of a satisfactory compromise in the future, was perhaps her strongest impression. But one afternoon Eirene called to her excitedly to come, since Maurice had news. Zoe flew to her side.
“No, no, not news from outside,” said Maurice quickly. “Why did you put it like that, Eirene? It’s only that I have found out what’s wrong among the monks here. It seems that there are two parties, a Greek and a Thracian party, as in Emathia generally. The Greeks are in possession, of course, and the Hegoumenos is a Greek, but the other lot are pretty strong, and have been gradually ousting the Greeks from the minor offices of the community. Their idea is to carry the monastery over to the Exarchist side—what you and Professor Panagiotis call the schismatics, Eirene—and Scythia is giving them a helping hand. The poor old Hegoumenos has only one idea—to keep matters from coming to a crisis; for though he knows the few he can trust, and the ringleaders on the other side, he doesn’t know how the main body of the monks would vote, but he fears the worst. It seems to have been a Scythian emissary who arranged for our being brought here, on the pretext that Eirene’s life was in danger outside. At least, that was what they told him, but I should say that the Thracian party knew something more. At any rate, I have some hope of getting him to let us go if we are left alone long enough. I’m on the track of the dodge by which they let the ladders down so as to make a way to the ground, with a rope-ladder at the bottom, and if they would leave us unguarded one night we might get down by that, for we could never work the capstan without half the monks to help. Then we might hide in the village till we could get a message through to Wylie.”
“But why not send the message at once?” cried Zoe.
Maurice held up empty hands. “Unfortunately, we can only pay in promises,” he said.
“But can’t you get the Hegoumenos to let us go?”
“He daren’t. Only a definite order from the Patriarch would give him courage to override the opposition of the Thracian monks, and that would probably mean the loss of the monastery for the Greeks. No, our only hope is a little calculated carelessness one night, and that I trust we may be able to arrange.”
But the very next day Maurice appeared with a long face. “I’m afraid it’s all up,” he said. “I wouldn’t have told you, only I thought you ought to be prepared. There’s some Scythian official coming here, and he’s due to-night.”
“It mayn’t be about us,” suggested Zoe, without conviction.
“It is. He’s coming to ascertain Eirene’s wishes, so the Hegoumenos told me—for the purpose of frustrating them, I should imagine.”
“Oh, what can Captain Wylie be doing?” cried Zoe.
“Why, how could he possibly know where we are? Who would think of looking for us here? If he paid the ransom——”
“But I thought the brigands were honest in a way. Would they take the ransom without giving us up?”
“Ah, Stoyan thought he had a grievance against us, you see——” Maurice broke off suddenly. “I only hope he gave poor old Wylie a safe-conduct. We know that if he’s all right he’ll be moving heaven and earth to find us.”
“Maurice,” cried Eirene eagerly, “if I gave you the girdle of Isidora now, would there be time? Could you bribe them to let us go before this man comes?”
Maurice shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. “Money might do it, but a thing like that would be clear evidence that they had been bribed, and the Hegoumenos would suffer. After all, you can’t wonder that when the whole future of the monastery is at stake, he should think more of it than of us.”
“Well,” said Zoe, with aggressive cheerfulness, “I am going to finish my work. I won’t face a presumably civilised man—even if he is only a Tartar underneath—in a skirt like avivandière’s. You had better do yours too, instead of going out this morning, Eirene. There’s thesemantron, Maurice. Retire to your cell.”
“How can you be so flippant?” said Eirene indignantly, taking up her work with languid fingers.
“If I wasn’t, I should cry, which would be both useless and disgraceful. We seem fated to fall back again every time we think our troubles are at an end.”
“I suppose you hate me?” said Eirene.
“Oh no, I don’t. We’re all in the same boat, for one thing, and you didn’t mean to do all the things you have done, you know. It was Eirene-ism, not deliberate wickedness.”
“I think you are the most absolutely heartless person I ever met!” cried Eirene, with flashing eyes.
“Very well. I’m sure it’s better to be heartless in our present circumstances. It will save us loads of misery.”
They worked in silent mutual indignation for some little time, and then Eirene spoke suddenly, with an obvious effort.
“I have a plan,” she said. “I think I see how to put things right.”
“Then please forget it. It was your last bright idea that got us into this fix, you know.”
“I know it was, and I will atone for it. When this Scythian comes, I will announce boldly who I am, and promise to submit in future. Of course they think that you and Maurice were concerned in my escape; but I will assure them that you had nothing to do with it—that I merely seized on you to help me, and that you had no idea who I was until it was impossible for you to do anything. They would make you promise to keep all that had happened a secret, no doubt, but I think they would let you go, and take me back to Scythia. Shouldn’t you be a little sorry for me, Zoe? We have been so much together—and it would mean that I had given up my mission. You asked me if I would do even that for you and Maurice, you know, and now I am going to do it. We shall never see each other again. If they were to forgive me, I suppose you might possibly hear that I was married to somebody, but if not, you would never hear of me any more.”
“Oh, don’t be tragic!” said Zoe, the more impatiently that she was feeling rather ashamed of herself. “How can you go on in this way?”
“But it is tragedy. Why won’t you understand, Zoe, that there are some things in life that can’t be put right by making an epigram, and then thinking of something else? Some day you will know, perhaps. Have you ever heard of the Black Nuns?”
“No, I didn’t know there were any nuns in Scythia.”
“There are many, and the Black Nuns are particularly useful in taking charge of people who won’t do what they are told, or who have committed indiscretions—people of high rank, I mean. I committed an indiscretion in running away. The disobedient girls return to the world obedient. The indiscreet ones die, sooner or later, and there is a grand funeral. A grand funeral can’t hurt any one, can it? And it shows that the relatives have nothing to conceal.”
“Oh, do stop!” cried Zoe. “You are letting things get upon your mind. I’m sorry I said that about your having got us into this scrape; I was a beast to do it. Let us talk about something else.”
“I think I could do it—I am almost sure I could—if it saved you—and Maurice,” pursued Eirene, lingering over Maurice’s name with the tenderness that spoke volumes to Maurice’s sister. “But it’s no use pretending that I don’t know what it would mean, or that I should like it.”
“Oh, do try and have a little sense!” entreated Zoe. “Can you imagine for a moment that Maurice—or any real man—would let a girl sacrifice herself to save him? I don’t know what kind of creatures you can have known, Eirene; you have such hopeless ideas. You may be quite sure that Maurice would never go away into safety and leave you to be unkindly treated.”
“He might not have the choice. I should be carried off secretly. But you and Maurice will think of me sometimes, and talk about me——”
“And come and shed tears on your grave, I suppose? Eirene, will you have the goodness not to be sentimental? If you were carried off to Scythia, Maurice and I would go after you and rescue you. I would pretend to be you and remain in your place, while Maurice got you away, and then I should appeal to the British Ambassador and get rescued myself.”
Inspite of her optimistic view of the situation, Zoe passed a disturbed night, which the shouts and the persistent creaking of the windlass announcing the arrival of the Scythian emissary did not tend to soothe. She was oppressed by the conviction that she ought to confide in Eirene, while at the same time she was resolved to do nothing of the kind. It was unfair, she owned, to receive her confidence and give her none in return, but the risks were too great. Eirene might welcome the disclosure, since it would bridge the infinite gulf she must believe to exist between herself and Maurice, but it might make her all the more determined to sacrifice herself, if she realised how important it was that he should not remain in Scythian hands. And, on the other hand, she might refuse to believe it, and in her pique insist on acting alone, when common action on the part of the three was indispensable. Impatiently Zoe wished that it had been possible to predict what Eirene would do in any given circumstances. It was the uncertainty that made her so difficult to deal with, and Zoe almost regretted that she had not done as Maurice advised, and told her earlier, since things could not well have fallen out worse than they had done. At last, as she tossed and turned on the unyielding divan, she decided on a compromise. She would not tell Eirene before the interview with the Scythian official, lest she should do anything rash, but as soon as they had some idea what was to happen she would make the disclosure.
The Scythian was evidently not inclined to waste time, for the girls had only just breakfasted when a large and imposing letter was brought in by the old woman. In it M. Boris Constantinovitch Kirileff did himself the honour to recall himself to her Royal Highness’s recollection, and craved humbly permission to wait upon her, either in her own apartments or in the guest-room of the monastery.
“Now comes the tug of war!” said Eirene. “We don’t want him up here, do we, Zoe? We will see him in the guest-room, then. I remember him at Pavelsburg. He is in the Imperial Chancellery.”
The old woman had brought a pen and ink, but the only paper available was the back of M. Kirileff’s beautiful un-folded epistle, on which the answer was duly written by Zoe. When it had been despatched, she and Eirene looked at one another rather anxiously. It was undeniable that their appearance was not distinguished. A badly fitting blouse, a home-made skirt, moccasins instead of shoes, and a paucity of hairpins—for none had been obtainable in the village—are drawbacks which only beauty of a very exceptional order can successfully surmount.
“I shouldn’t mind a bit, if it wasn’t that we want to look so particularly dignified,” said Zoe. “Suppose you put on the famous girdle, Eirene. That ought to make an impression.”
“Hasn’t it brought us enough bad luck already?” asked Eirene, with a shudder. “No, it shall stay where it is.”
“Look here, Eirene; don’t do anything rash,” Zoe entreated her. “This man may merely have orders to escort you to Therma, so don’t begin by making a tragic submission.”
“I assure you I shall be altogether the Princess in my dealings with M. Kirileff,” returned Eirene, as the old woman appeared on the threshold and beckoned to them. “I shall resort to brag.”
“You mean bluff,” said Zoe, in a stage whisper, as they descended the stairs. “Shall we see Maurice, I wonder?”
There was no sign of Maurice in the courtyard, but when they mounted the steps to the guest-room they caught sight of him among a number of monks, who were gathered round him as though responsible for his safe-keeping. But they had no time to ask one another what this meant, for a well-preserved man of uncertain age, in immaculate morning dress, advanced with every demonstration of respectful delight, and touched Eirene’s hand with a highly waxed moustache. She had meant to present him to Zoe, but as though he had divined her intention, he led her immediately up the room to the divan on which the old Hegoumenos was seated, a picture of puzzled, anxious willingness to oblige. He indicated to Eirene the place next him, and M. Kirileff, on her invitation, also seated himself, but at a respectful distance. Zoe’s eyes met Maurice’s with keen amusement.
“You are the bearer of some message for me, I suppose?” said Eirene to the Scythian. He bowed profoundly.
“On the contrary, madame, I have only an apology—an apology on my own account for the measures taken on your behalf. I know how presumptuous and uncalled for they must appear, and nothing but the conviction that they have secured your safety at a moment of imminent danger could give me courage to appear in your presence.”
Touched Eirene’s hand with a highly waxed moustache.
Touched Eirene’s hand with a highly waxed moustache.
“Then I am to attribute my being brought here to your influence?” said Eirene, with the slightest possible lifting of the eyebrows. “I confess, monsieur, my own impression would be that you had left me to pass unaided through a month of incessant danger, and only interposed to destroy my hopes when I was upon the very verge of safety.”
“Madame, the greatness of your mind will quickly set my conduct in the true light. As a man of honour and the faithful servant of my august master, whose affection for your illustrious house needs no assurances from me, I humbly assure you that at the moment you supposed yourself on the verge of safety you were in more frightful peril than during the whole month with the brigands.”
“You astonish me, monsieur. From whom was this danger to arise?”
“It was not a matter of the future, madame; it existed already—in your veryentourage. Has your Royal Highness any knowledge of the true character of the young man and woman who shared your captivity?”
“A month in their company in such circumstances ought to be conclusive, monsieur. I have the pleasure to be able to assure you that they have both displayed a fidelity which would be praiseworthy in dependants of my own, but which must be unique in the case of strangers united to me only by the bond of a common disaster.”
“You call them strangers, madame. I am to understand they were unknown to you at the time you undertook your—pilgrimage?”
“At the time I undertook my—pilgrimage,” replied Eirene, with an intonation which brought an involuntary smile to Zoe’s lips, “I was as absolutely ignorant of the existence of Mr and Miss Smith as they were of my identity when chance threw us together on our journey.”
“Chance? Ah, yes, the meeting was casual on your part, no doubt, madame. But the ignorance of the brother and sister Smith exists only in your mind, so guileless, so unsuspicious of treachery.”
“I assure you, monsieur, I am by no means unsuspicious by nature,” said Eirene, with distinct resentment. “So determined was I to preserve myincognitothat I communicated the route and object of my—pilgrimage to no one but the lady who attended me, and who is since dead. It was impossible for any one else to be acquainted with it.”
Zoe waited eagerly for the answer. The artistic way in which M. Kirileff was leading up to hisdénouementappealed to her critical faculty. From a purely literary point of view she could have applauded the unblushing lie with which he countered Eirene’s declaration.
“Ah, madame, these things leak out somehow. If we were acquainted with your intention—I speak of the office I have the honour to represent—and were watching over your safety without your knowledge, if it was known also to the plotter Panagiotis, why should it be unknown to these tools of his?”
“If you were watching over my safety, monsieur, I can only say that your measures left something to be desired,” said Eirene smartly. “I will remind you that you have just applied a very offensive term to a lady and gentleman whom the events of the past month have taught me to hold in the highest esteem.”
“I could wish, madame, that they had betrayed themselves in their true colours, since that would have released me from the sad duty of acquainting you with their worthlessness. They are the creatures of the arch-conspirator Panagiotis in an attempt to deprive you of the rights bequeathed to you by your imperial ancestors.”
“Monsieur, you speak in riddles. The thing is too absurd.”
“Precisely, madame. It is too absurd. But if you ask this man, this woman”—he pointed an accusing finger at Maurice, who was laboriously endeavouring to follow the rapidly spoken French, and succeeding at intervals, and at the deeply interested Zoe—“who they really are, they will assure you that their true name is not Smith, but Teffany, and that they are descended from Basil, the elder brother of your ancestor Leo, son of the Emperor John Theophanis.”
“But this is preposterous!” cried Eirene.
“Madame, you have chosen the only word that fits the situation. It is preposterous. They were brought up by their grandfather, a respectable landed proprietor named Smith, who became possessed, late in life, with the delusion that he was a descendant of the last Christian Emperor. The delusion would, no doubt, have died with him, but, unfortunately, it came to the ears of the firebrand Panagiotis in one of his visits to England for the purpose of stirring up support for his incendiary propaganda. He had been repulsed by your illustrious father, who preferred to await in dignified passivity the results of the diplomacy of his august friend the Emperor of Scythia, rather than put himself forward as the figurehead of a revolutionary conspiracy. Thus deprived of araison d’êtrefor his schemes, this man Panagiotis finds himself confronted with the means at once of forwarding his plots and of revenging himself upon your father’s daughter. He will produce a nearer heir. Now, madame, mark the course of events. Your impetuous resolution to proceed on pilgrimage to the shrines most nearly associated with the devotion of your illustrious race has the effect of bringing you within the range of the conspiracy, which has been so deftly engineered that even we, who are secretly protecting your movements, are unacquainted with its full purpose. The fiend Panagiotis sees his opportunity, and instructs his tools to worm themselves by insidious means into your confidence——”
“You are mistaken, monsieur,” with a last effort of dignity. “It was I who addressed myself to Miss Smith.”
“Alas, madame! must I point out that this apparent reserve was but a means of piquing the curiosity of a young lady who had just emancipated herself from the safeguards of her rank, and might be supposed to possess an innocent curiosity as to the concerns of herbourgeoisfellow-travellers?” Eirene grew scarlet, and Zoe, remembering their early acquaintance, could not repress a smile. “The ruse was successful. By the time the Roumi frontier was crossed, the conspirators, with a confederate who poses as an officer of the British Army, were in possession of your Royal Highness’s confidence. I tell you frankly, with a full sense of the seriousness of my words, that but for the accident to the bridge, which I cannot help regarding as providential—I am no atheist, thank the saints!—I do not know what the result would have been. Whether you would ever have been permitted to reach Therma I cannot tell. It was the apparently commonplace and innocuous character of your companions that baffled all suspicion, and I doubt if our agents would have penetrated their true nature in time. But if you had once reached Therma, and accepted the treacherous hospitality of Panagiotis at his country villa, there can be no doubt that you would never have left it alive and free. You were an obstacle to his plans. Only your death, or your acceptance of an alternative, too degrading to you as a Princess and a woman for me to do more than hint at it, would have made his schemes safe.”
“Zoe,” broke in Maurice, as Eirene changed colour again when her eyes, vainly seeking a resting-place, met his, “what is this blackguard saying? Tell him to talk English, or if he can’t, to let you interpret. I can’t understand what he says, but he is making Eirene miserable.”
“He says that we are impostors, and that we made up to her on the journey that we might decoy her to the Professor’s and kill her,” said Zoe succinctly.
“Rubbish!” said Maurice. “Eirene, how can you listen to such nonsense? You know us too well to believe it, I should hope. Zoe and I will explain the whole thing to you in five minutes, if you will see us somewhere without this man, who seems to be mixing himself up in things which don’t concern him in the least.”
“I do not speak English,” observed M. Kirileff mildly, and—so Zoe averred afterwards—untruthfully, “but it appears to me that this young man is presuming upon the confidence with which you have honoured him, madame. He has to learn that you are no longer unprotected, but that the shield of Scythia is interposed between your royal person and his presumptuous designs. I cannot sufficiently admire the way in which Providence has utilised the atrocious crime of the brigands to preserve you from actual danger to your life and peace. The impostor durst not announce himself in his pretended character, knowing the devotion of the miscreants—however misdirected—to the Slavic and Exarchist idea, and the necessity of retaining your confidence forced him to treat you with respect and reserve. It was when the ransom was paid, and you were once more at his mercy, that you would have been again in extreme danger. That danger I had the happiness to avert by bringing you here. My measures were hasty, even violent, I confess—I had no choice—but they were successful.”
“Your fidelity calls for my highest gratitude, monsieur,” said Eirene, rallying her forces. “I do not mind confessing that I am overwhelmed by the news you have brought me. Such treachery—such duplicity—where I saw only loyalty and respect, is almost incredible. This impudent assertion, which touches my rights—what course is to be taken respecting it?”
“In my opinion, madame—which is not without weight, if I may respectfully say so, with my superiors—there could be no more suitable place for the detention of the culprits than this. It is the most humane, as well as the most convenient, view of the case to regard them as suffering from hereditary mania, but they cannot be allowed to impose their wild hallucinations upon the world. We must have from each of them a definite confession of the imposture, and of the steps by which they were induced to acquiesce in it, as well as of their motives in forcing themselves upon you. Until that confession is signed, they may well remain here in safety, carefully looked after by the good monks, and causing scandal to no one.”
“The idea is excellent,” said Eirene. “Tell me,” she added harshly, turning to Maurice, “are you willing to sign a confession of the imposture of which you have been guilty, and to entreat my pardon for your treachery?”
“I’m not going to sign anything that isn’t true,” returned Maurice. “I don’t carry all my family papers about with me, but I have them safe at home. It’s as certain that we are descended from the elder son of John Theophanis as that you are from the younger.”
Eirene raised her head disdainfully. “The comparison shows your state of mind,” she said. “You are undoubtedly labouring under a delusion, and it is only charity to see that you are kept in safety until it has passed away.”
“Oh, very well. Tell the first British Consul you come across your idea of charity, and see what he will say.”
“The British Consul would do nothing,” she said sharply. “You seem to forget that by alleging a Greek descent you have deliberately renounced your British citizenship, and placed yourself among my subjects—mine.”
“I am sorry to appear to contradict you, but when you come to think of it, isn’t it just the other way about?”
“Oh, this is too much!” cried Eirene, rising from her seat. “Am I to endure these insults—to be defied to my very face? And this from one whom I trusted!”
“Calm yourself, madame,” said M. Kirileff, seizing the opportunity to point a judicious moral. “All your friends must regret that your impatience of restraint, your love of the bizarre, led you into such a situation, but you will not be left to cope with it alone. My instructions are to inquire your wishes for the future?”
“Oh, to go anywhere, away from here!” She sank upon the divan again.
“I fear”—M. Kirileff’s tone was slightly severe—“that your Royal Highness can hardly expect to be received at Court as before, at any rate until your reputation for—shall I say eccentricity of behaviour?—has been in some degree forgotten. You would not care to remain here?”
“Here?” Eirene shuddered. “I detest every stone of the place. No, monsieur, I must be in a town. My health, my nerves, have suffered cruelly from the miseries of the past month, and from this crowning trial. I need medical care, female attendance.”
“I can well understand your feelings, madame. As I came here, Madame Ladoguin, the wife of our Consul-General at Therma, begged me to place her house and her services at your disposal for as long as you required them. She is a charming and accomplished woman, and her society will cheer and refresh you.”
“Very well,” said Eirene, rising. “I hardly dare indulge hope for the future, after what I have suffered to-day. You will pardon me if I leave you now, monsieur. I can endure no more.”
“I am grieved to have been the means of inflicting this pain upon you, madame.” M. Kirileff escorted her to the door, noticing the stony glance of disdain she bestowed upon Maurice as she swept past him, and returned to his seat with a complete change of manner, while the monks pushed forward to listen.
“I need not waste much time on you,” he said contemptuously to Maurice and Zoe. “You know why you are here, and the step you must take to obtain your release. Until you take that step, you may be very sure you will remain in safe custody. Understand that you are prisoners, no longer guests. We do not propose to furnish troublesome people like you with the luxuries of a first-class hotel. You will see that the man is placed in one of your dungeons,” he added authoritatively to Papa Athanasios, “and the woman in one of the less commodious cells reserved for female pilgrims.”
“But, lord, the dungeons have not been used for hundreds of years!” protested the monk in his bad French.
“Then have one cleared for the prisoner. If there are rats, so much the better. It is unnecessary for me to use threats,” he addressed Maurice again; “your own mind—dull-witted Englishman though you are—will paint the truth for you. Here you are, and here you stay until you write out and sign the confession I shall leave you. No one knows where you are, or would think of looking for you here, and even if your prison was known, an army could not rescue you. Her Royal Highness is not vindictive, but we allow no tampering with the heritage of a princess under Scythian protection. I may as well tell you that your accomplice, the alleged British officer, is on the point of leaving Emathia, on the plea that he is summoned back to his military duties.”
“He doesn’t know Wylie, does he, Zoe?” said Maurice, as they were left standing together for a moment while M. Kirileff conversed with the Hegoumenos, and Papa Athanasios was absent preparing the dungeon.
“Of course not. Oh, Maurice, do you believe now what I said to you about Eirene? I knew she would take it like this.”
“It’s only for the first few minutes,” said Maurice, unruffled. “When she gets by herself, and this fellow isn’t by to make vile suggestions, she’ll remember all we’ve been through together, and she’ll know we simply couldn’t have meant any harm to her. Of course, it was bound to give her a shock, but she’ll be frightfully sorry when she realises the things she has said.”
“Maurice, you would contentedly lie down and let Eirene trample on you! She is—no, I won’t say it.”
“It’s awfully hard on you, I know,” said Maurice. “I wish you could dissociate yourself from me in some way.”
“As if I would ever give away your case! Why, it’s mine as much as yours. No, we will stick to each other, Maurice, if all the Eirenes in the world turn against us. I shall set to work on a novel at once—making it up in my mind, of course. I have never been able to find time to get to work absolutely undisturbed before. And you will frame a plan for governing Emathia, no doubt. Dear boy, keep up heart!”
The tears were in Zoe’s eyes as she spoke, and her cheerful voice shook. Maurice patted her on the shoulder.
“All right, Zoe. Papa Athanasios will look after me, you may be sure. Don’t get dismal. Wylie will be here before long, trust him. And don’t think too hardly of Eirene.”
“Always Eirene!” Zoe stamped her foot as Maurice was led away. He turned and nodded gaily to her, and a curious thought came into her mind. “Could it be?” she asked of herself. “Shall I suggest it to Maurice? No, it would be worse for him if it turned out not to be true. I wish it might be that, for his sake—and hers and mine, too, for the matter of that. But I don’t believe she could do it.”
Itseemed to Zoe that, save for the fact that Maurice’s place of confinement was called a dungeon and hers a cell, the change in the state of affairs pressed rather more hardly on her than on him. Her new room was very small, very dirty, absolutely devoid of furniture, and almost destitute of light, a small grated aperture just under the ceiling offering the only approach to a window. Moreover, Maurice had the friendly Papa Athanasios to look after him, while the old woman who acted as Zoe’s gaoler seemed positively to gloat over her humiliation. This attitude was in itself a challenge, and before Zoe had been in her new quarters half an hour she had bullied old Marigo into providing a broom and fetching her rug and other possessions from the room she had occupied with Eirene. The cell looked much less hopeless when a certain amount of the dust of ages had been removed, the rug spread on the stone divan, and Zoe’s few clothes neatly rolled up as cushions. In the homely work of tidying up, moreover, she wore off some of her indignation against Eirene, and was able to turn her mind to other subjects. Her words to Maurice had not been idle, or designed merely to console him. The idea for a story had come into her mind, and was working itself out all the more vividly for her removal during the past month from her usual surroundings and pursuits. It was going to be splendid, she felt, with the curious leaping of heart which the self-development of a new theme always caused in her. If only she had her note-books at hand! But since they were not to be had, she must work more carefully than usual, more by rule and line, so as to be able to reproduce the story from memory when she regained her freedom. The whitewashed walls of her cell offered a ready-made tablet for memoranda, and a rusty nail she had discovered in the course of her sweepings would serve as a stylus. In marked contrast with the excitement of the morning, she passed a quiet and perfectly happy afternoon absorbed in blocking out her chapters, raising horrible suspicions in the mind of her gaoler, who could only imagine that the mysterious signs on the wall were some kind of sorcery directed against the welfare of the monastery.
The next morning Zoe was at work again as soon as she had put her room tidy, and it was with unconcealed impatience that she found herself summoned by old Marigo to follow her. “Come, O girl, quickly!” she could understand this, at any rate, though neither now nor at any other time could she extract any rational information from the wardress, as Maurice called her. Following her down the steep time-worn stairs, she found Eirene, escorted by M. Kirileff, awaiting her in the courtyard, and she was not too much engrossed with her story to derive some pleasure from noticing that Eirene looked pale and ill at ease. It was M. Kirileff who spoke, after receiving an imperious gesture.
“Her Royal Highness is anxious even now to save you from the penalty due to your brother’s obstinacy,” he said. “If you choose to sign the confession I have drawn out, you will be permitted to attend her to Therma, and she will graciously see that you are sent home from there.”
“Thank you, I prefer to be here,” returned Zoe briskly. “You don’t know what a kindness you are doing me by keeping me where there are no visitors. I have not had an idle moment yet, and my time is fully occupied far ahead.”
M. Kirileff looked unaffectedly astonished, and Eirene interposed, in the languid tones of one weary of the subject.
“I regard you with compassion,” she said, “for I know that your facile imagination can make the wildest dreams appear realities to you. Your brother I cannot trust myself to see, for he has not the same excuse. If it was you who suggested the imposture, and induced him to acquiesce in it, I can only advise you to undo the harm you have done in leading astray an otherwise worthy young man. The good Father Athanasios will convey to him any message from you advising him to submit, but no others.”
“I’m sorry you took the trouble to make such an arrangement, for it won’t be wanted,” said Zoe. “And when you have had time to think things over, and realise what you have done, I shall be sorry for you, Eirene.”
“There is no use in prolonging this discussion, I think,” said Eirene to M. Kirileff. “We are not likely to meet again,” she added, over her shoulder, to Zoe, “but should you return to a better mind, I shall have pleasure in extending my patronage to you.”
Zoe returned to her cell fuming, and it was some time before she was sufficiently calm to resume her work, while Eirene turned away to begin her journey to Therma in M. Kirileff’s company. He had horses, servants and tents awaiting him below the rock, and a girl from the village had been impressed to wait upon her. She was treated with the utmost deference; her tent was pitched apart from the rest; her pleasure was consulted as to the hours of halting or starting again; but she was kept perpetually under surveillance. In her tent her maid watched her; if she wandered outside it, twocavasseskept her faithfully in sight; on the march M. Kirileff, riding beside her, at precisely the right distance to the rear, divided his attention between her face and the track. He had a way of leading the conversation round to Maurice and Zoe, or to her experiences in the brigands’ camp, but her replies baffled him. They told so little that he could draw no conclusions, and they expressed still less. It was with a mixture of resentment and relief that he handed her over at last to the care of Madame Ladoguin, and gave his final instructions to that lady in private.
“I hope you may have better success with our charming Princess than I have had,” he said. “I no longer wonder that she was able to plan and effect her escape from Scythia as she did.”
“Well, you could hardly expect her, after her late experiences, to confide in so youthful anddébonnairea person as yourself, could you?” smiled his hostess. “But with a woman, and one who has seen something of her world, it may be different.”
“If there is any one in the world who can win her confidence, it is Chariclea Feodorovna,” said M. Kirileff, with every appearance of fervent conviction; “and I only trust she may.”
“Why?” the quick note of alarm in the lady’s voice showed that she scented danger. “You don’t imagine that she has any sympathy with the impostor?”
“None whatever—at present; but with a woman one always fears a change of mind. There is something most wearisomely convincing about the youth Smith. A man of any other nation, convicted of base treachery in the presence of a lady whose good opinion he must surely prize, would have protested, entreated, asseverated his innocence. But this stolid Englishman does not even give himself the trouble to offer a statement. He contents himself with asserting that he is in the right, in a tone which implies that it signifies nothing whether she believes it or not, and proceeds to drive her to frenzy by insisting on his pretensions. There is something impressive in this brutal simplicity.”
“Quite so,” said Mme. Ladoguin. “And you think it impressed her, or will yet succeed in doing so?”
“I am trusting to your influence that it may not. I will own that I have had moments of alarm. I imagined that I distinguished on her face a look resembling relief when I first revealed to her the nature of the deception. But it passed quickly when I pointed out its sordid motive, and thebourgeoisorigin of the plotters. A peasant would have been infinitely more welcome as a rival than a respectable youth of the middle class.”
“But I had the idea that these Teffanys—these Smiths, I should say—belonged to thepetite noblesse, what the English call ‘gentry,’” said Mme. Ladoguin. M. Kirileff smiled meaningly.
“That is an idea I must beg you to banish from your mind. For the purposes of conversation with the Princess, they are of a superior order of agriculturists. I brought the thing home to her when I pointed out that she would have been offered a marriage with young Smith as the price of her life had she fallen into the hands of Panagiotis.”
“You have prepared the ground well, Boris Constantinovitch. She exhibited disgust?”
“More than disgust—agony. And thereupon the innocent Monsieur Smith spoils the effect by demanding with fury what I have been saying to make her unhappy!”
“Ah, these unrehearsed effects—how they ruin our best scenes! But the young man is certainly impossible. I suppose”—with sudden keenness—“it has not struck you to hint to the young lady that in case of any further escapades on her part, Scythia might be driven to abandon her claim, and take up that of this pretender instead? That would make it easier to manage her.”
“You terrify me!” cried M. Kirileff, with genuine alarm. “Is it possible you do not see that our only hold over her is to maintain her in the assurance that hers is the only claim worth considering? The merest suggestion that the youth might conceivably have right on his side would ruin everything. Down would go the barrier of disgust I have erected with so much pains, she would see herself as the usurper instead of him, and even if we continued to support her, the moral support of her own whole-hearted confidence in her rights would be gone.”
“I see,” said Mme. Ladoguin slowly. “Well, frankly, if that is the case, I wonder at your bringing her here. I will keep a careful watch over her, of course; but in a place like this there are endless opportunities for mischief. Panagiotis is always at hand, and that Captain Wylie is a perfect terror. Since he was tricked into paying the ransom without rescuing his friends, he has given the city no peace. The consular body are just as tired of him as the authorities are, and he is bringing the Ambassadors at Czarigrad into the matter. He is certain to insist on seeing the Princess when he finds out she is here, to try and discover from her where the Smiths are, and he may persuade her of the truth of their claims.”
“He must not see her,” was the prompt reply. “Do you think I should have entrusted her to your care if I had not had full confidence in you? You must manage—somehow—anyhow—to keep them apart. A word to the doctor will ensure a certain amount of quiet and retirement for the Princess—she sees only your very intimate friends, and no foreigners, you perceive? Your brother will keep you informed of Captain Wylie’s movements, and when he is in the city you will go to no place where you would be likely to meet him, and you will take care that the direction of your drives does not leak out through the servants. He will scarcely force his way into the Consulate, or if he did, I have no doubt your husband would repel force with force, and public opinion would justify him. If he should obtain an entrance by any stratagem, I can trust you to deal with him.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of that. It is the scandal, the unpleasantness. The man is so atrociously persistent.”
“I understand. I don’t mind telling you that I dislike this delay in Therma as much as you can. But what is to be done? It is all very well to give out that the Princess went on pilgrimage, but every one in the Court circle knows the real state of the case, and she cannot be received as if nothing had happened. Their Imperial Majesties are deeply incensed. I shall represent as strongly as I can the expediency of bringing her back quickly, and you must prevail upon her to write a letter of penitence and submission, which will help matters on. Short of a convent—and I should not care to trust her in one outside Scythia—she is safer with you than she could be anywhere else.”
“I suppose a letter signed by her would not be sufficient?”
M. Kirileff shook his head. “It would appear too casual. No, the writing must be her own throughout. But I hope much from your persuasions. You will keep constantly before her, of course, the peril and disgrace from which she has been rescued, and point out that her only hope for the future lies in a return to Court favour. One warning I must give you. Don’t attempt to represent the young man Smith as a plotter, or as intending anything but the most honourable andbourgeoisof marriages. One glance at his face shows you that he is absolutely incapable of the slightest approach to art orfinesseof any kind. Remember that he is a mere tool in the hands of the remorseless Panagiotis, who spares no one who comes in the way of his schemes.”
“I will remember,” laughed the lady. “It is a comfort that you think the Princess is willing to be persuaded.”
“I do, but I think she needs to be kept in the same mind. I saw signs of wavering myself, on the morning we left Hadgi-Antoniou, when she expressed a wish to see Smith’s sister in private. I pointed out that the girl—who is endowed with more vivacity than her brother—might very probably, in her rage at the discovery of their plot, attempt some violence, and she agreed at once that I had better be present. That is the sort of assistance I hope for from you—an unobtrusive influence constantly exerted, both to protect her from intrusion and to turn her thoughts in the right direction.”
This conference put Eirene’s two guardians into a state of the highest mutual appreciation, and M. Kirileff went on his way to Scythia with an easy mind, leaving his confederate to make Eirene’s life a burden to her. The next few weeks were the most absolutely miserable the girl had ever experienced, for she knew exactly what Maurice and Zoe must think of her, and she had no means of fulfilling the task she had set herself. The realisation of the part she must play had come to her in a flash as she sat beside the Hegoumenos on the divan, and listened to the measured periods of M. Kirileff. Her first feeling had been something more than the relief he had read in her face—positive triumph. She had been right, after all, when she suspected Maurice of being a prince in disguise. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she read in the Scythian’s expression that she had betrayed herself, and she saw her course clear before her. To remain at Hadgi-Antoniou, throwing in her lot with that of Maurice and Zoe, would do no good. The monastery which had guarded the faith for centuries could guard secrets as well. The prisoners might remain in a living death, unsuspected by the outside world, while it would be announced to Europe that they had met their fate at the hands of the brigands. The Embassies would demand an indemnity and the punishment of the murderers, and Scythia would supply the Roumi Government with the necessary money, while the crime would be added to the record of the next few criminals who had not the wherewithal to grease the palms of justice. Even Wylie would be deceived by a circumstantial story, perhaps by the production of relics of his friends, and would return sorrowfully to India, taking away their last hope. Eirene saw it all, even while she called up the look of resentment and disgust which had assured M. Kirileff of the success of his rearrangement of facts. She must efface from his mind the memory of her momentary slip, she must deceive even Maurice and Zoe, lest he should see in their faces that he was being played with. She must return to civilisation, and in some way communicate with Wylie, and that she might do this, she must throw dust in the eyes of friend and foe alike.
It was a curious feature of her state of mind that the momentous news which she had heard from M. Kirileff scarcely occurred to her, except as a cogent reason why Maurice and Zoe would not be allowed to go free save as discredited and self-confessed impostors. She did not ask herself what its effect might be on her own future, for the exigencies of the present occupied all her thoughts. The magnitude of her task kept her sleepless during her last night at the monastery, and led her to the desperate attempt, which M. Kirileff had frustrated, to secure Zoe as a confederate. It would be so much easier to communicate with Wylie, or with some British representative, if there were two to watch for opportunities instead of one, that she conceived the idea of inducing Zoe to make an apparent submission and accompany her. The envoy’s watchfulness had not only destroyed this hope, but had obliged her to deepen the bitterness with which Zoe must regard her, and she entered on the journey with feelings almost of despair. Without protest she acquiesced in M. Kirileff’s suggestion that it should be announced that her Royal Highness had returned from a pilgrimage to the shrine of Hadgi-Antoniou, and was resting at Therma after the hardships she had undergone, while the friends who had shared with her the experience of being captured by brigands were making a more extended tour among the rock monasteries near the Morean frontier. The announcement would, at any rate, give Wylie some idea of the whereabouts of his friends, and surely, surely, it must lead him to insist on seeing her, and learning from her the true state of the case.
But in this forecast Eirene had reckoned without Chariclea Feodorovna, and the very capable staff of assistants she had gathered round her. The Princess was received with the tenderest affection and respect, and promptly bound hand and foot with bonds too imperceptible to resent, too strong to break. The doctor who was called in to prescribe for her shattered nerves ordered quiet and retirement, with a very little society of a cheerful and familiar kind. What could be more in accordance with the prescription than to limit Eirene’s visitors to selected members of the Scythian colony and a few favoured representatives of those other Powers which were in sympathy with Scythian aims? At the same time, Madame Ladoguin, whose own appearance was a testimony to her skill, took in hand the restoration of her guest’s complexion, which had suffered from a month’s exposure to all kinds of weather, without the protection of hat or veil. It was clear that Eirene could not appear at the Scythian Court—whither she was so soon to return—with a brown face and red hands, and her adviser acted the beneficent tyrant to the life, forbidding her to go out on days when a particular wind—or any wind—was blowing, and applying healing balms which required, in order to produce their full effect, that the patient should spend a day in bed. Resistance was useless, and Eirene acquiesced helplessly for fear of arousing suspicion, but in one thing she would not yield. All Madame Ladoguin’s persuasions and encouragements could not induce her to write the desired letter of penitence to the Scythian Court. To such expedients was she driven that she would spend whole mornings in writing out drafts of the letter and making beginnings, which were all torn up. “I will not leave Therma until I have done something to help Maurice and Zoe,” she said to herself. “After that, it doesn’t signify what happens to me. I suppose I must go back to Pavelsburg, but I won’t write what isn’t true to make them treat me better. Maurice wouldn’t, and I won’t.”
All this time Wylie made no sign. As soon as she reached Therma, Eirene had asked her hostess about him, saying frankly that she wished to thank him for his efforts in procuring her ransom; but she was told that he had returned to India, satisfied that his friends were safe. She did not believe this, but she thought it very probable that he wished it to be believed, in order that he might have more freedom to act, and in her drives she looked narrowly among the crowd of many nationalities that thronged the streets for the tell-tale eyes which no disguise could hide. But she never saw them. Once or twice she ventured casually to inquire of Madame Ladoguin’s guests if they knew anything of Captain Wylie, and was always assured, with a look of astonishment, that he had made himself only too well known in the city while he remained there, but that he had now, happily, left it. Still, this did not necessarily prove that he had not returned to it, and Eirene began to wonder whether she could not write to him, as he seemed so strangely slow in seeking her. She did not know his address, but the British Consul-General would certainly forward a letter. Would it be best to send it by post or by one of the servants? So far as she knew, she was free to correspond with any one she would, and it was merely the feeling that she had very careful and subtle adversaries to deal with that made her hesitate. She could not afford unsuccessful experiments. If it was discovered that she was attempting to communicate with Wylie, the fact would give the lie to the attitude she had so resolutely maintained, and even if it were only discovered that she had written to him, it would enable the Ladoguins to anticipate any step he might take.
Curiously enough, the danger attending both the means of communication she had contemplated was made clear to her on the same day. She was well supplied with money, and had been occupied in the very necessary task of getting some new clothes. One of her orders had been sent to a British firm in Vindobona. It was written in Eirene’s name by Madame Ladoguin, who acted as a kind of unofficial lady-in-waiting, but it chanced that she was called out of the room before it was finished, and Eirene addressed and fastened the envelope in a hurry, in order to catch the post. The answer arrived in due time, but the tradesman begged to know whether there had been more than one enclosure, as the letter had been skilfully unclosed and refastened before it reached him. The incident spoke volumes as to the safety of letters confided to the Consulate post-bag, and Eirene realised that, though she had not discovered it, she was under as strict surveillance as that which had proved so irksome on the journey. Was it safe to attempt to bribe the servants, she wondered? They all seemed anxious to oblige—even, so it struck her, to be bribed—especially Madame Ladoguin’s French maid, whose services she shared. Were they also spies, eager to tempt her to employ them, that they might carry a report to their mistress? An impulse, for which she could not account, prompted her to look at the money with which she had been furnished. It was all in gold, and every coin was marked with a tiny scratch in exactly the same place. Eirene gave up the idea of bribing the servants.
One attempt she did actually make, which might have ended more disastrously than it did. She was driving with Madame Ladoguin, and the latter had stopped the carriage at a shop in order to leave a message. Before thecavasshad time to return, she caught sight of a lady advancing towards the carriage.