Chapter VII: A Night’s Lodging

For a minute or two the captives were left standing together while the brigands divided the spoil, each man stowing his share away in the bag slung knapsack-wise over his shoulder, and Wylie said hastily to Zoe, “You had better pick up what you can of the things they have left. Of course we shall be rescued to-morrow, but you will be more comfortable to-night.”

Obediently Zoe gathered together various odds and ends of clothing, one or two of Eirene’s hair-brushes, deprived of their silver backs, and such other trifles as the cupidity or ingenuity of the brigands saw no use for. Her note-books and writing materials, the contents of her travelling workbox, and the little “first-aid” case on which she prided herself, had all been seized upon as valuable spoils, and she found herself as destitute as the most heedless traveller could deserve to be. Eirene, brooding sullenly over her wrongs, gave her no help in her search, and she rolled up the poor remains of their joint possessions into a bundle and tied it round with a broken umbrella-strap. This was only done just in time, for the brigands, their delightful task accomplished with a good deal of squabbling and murmuring against the decisions of the chief, had leisure to think of their prisoners. Accompanied by two others leading the horses which had been taken from the carriage, the interpreter came towards them.

“Behold! we beneficent beings,” he observed genially. “We furnish even horses zat ze women may ride.”

“I fancied we provided the horses,” murmured Maurice, from his seat on the ground.

“I won’t ride,” said Zoe quickly. “Maurice must. He can’t walk.”

“Nonsense! I can walk perfectly well,” said Maurice.

“For goodness’ sake do what they tell you,” said Wylie anxiously. “It’s only for one night.”

“Your eyes most be blinded,” pursued the interpreter. Zoe gasped.

“He means blindfolded,” explained Maurice, as the man produced the dirtiest handkerchief any of the captives had ever seen.

“Oh no, no!” entreated Zoe, breaking down at last. “Why, they might take us and you in different directions, and we should never know. I’ll shut my eyes--anything, but don’t let us be blindfolded. Do speak to them,” she begged of Wylie. “They listen to you.”

“Pull yourself together,” he said sternly. “I should never have suspected you of being hysterical.” The accusation told, and Zoe, with both hands pressed to her chest, fought down the threatening sobs. Wylie turned to the interpreter. “Look here,” he said, “the ladies are frightened. If they think they are to be separated from their brother they will give you a lot of trouble. Why should you blindfold them? If you lead the horses they can’t possibly escape.”

“I know a treek----” began the interpreter airily, but here his memory failed him; “double valuable to zat one,” he concluded hastily, beckoning to another brigand for the rope twisted round his waist. Cutting off a short length, he fastened one end round Wylie’s neck, and made a loop at the other. “Ze lady may hold zat,” he said, chuckling.

“All right,” said Wylie, checking with a glance a horrified outburst from Zoe. “Quite mediæval, isn’t it, Miss Smith--mounted ladies leading captive knights on foot? Lucky for me that I’m not assigned to your sister, or she might avenge her wrongs by strangling me--accidentally, of course.”

“Will you endure it?” demanded Eirene fiercely of Maurice, as Zoe, trembling with indignation, submitted to be blindfolded and lifted on one of the horses, with a rug for a saddle.

“What can’t be cured must be endured,” he responded easily. “What would you suggest I should do?”

“Die!” she hurled at him. “I would, in your place.”

“If you really wish that, I can oblige you in a minute or two. You have only to refuse to be blindfolded or to mount your horse. The brigands will naturally proceed to handle you roughly, and I shall feel bound to throw myself forward in your defence. I think I could manage to get killed then. Wylie will be there to look after you and Zoe, and you will be able to think well of me.”

“You say that to prevent my offering any resistance!” she said angrily.

“Well, do you wonder that I prefer living to dying?”

“You English have no sense of honour! But I am unjust. You are not noble; why should you prefer death to disgrace?”

At this Maurice laughed, quite unintentionally, disgusting Eirene so much that she submitted as meekly as Zoe had done to be blindfolded and mounted, and slipped the loop of cord over her wrist with a kind of fierce satisfaction. After this humiliation, she thought, even Zoe could no longer pretend that Maurice and Wylie were her equals! The reflection pleased her, and she rode along almost contentedly, reviewing her own past conduct and approving it, which is always a soothing occupation. Maurice, his arm gripped by one of the brigands, who acted both as guide and guard, trudged silently beside her horse, which was led by another of the band. Behind them came Zoe and Wylie, similarly escorted, and the rest of the brigands acted as front and rear guards respectively, their moccasin-clad feet making no sound on the stony soil. The chief had commanded perfect silence, and the horses’ feet were muffled.

Zoe’s heart was full to bursting. The humiliations inflicted on her brother and Wylie touched her to the quick, and she experienced on their behalf all the indignation that they pretended not to feel. Most incongruously, the thought of the utter absurdity of the position afflicted her at times with an agony of mirth, and moment by moment she was forced to choke down the inclination to scream or to break into wild laughter. The occasional touch of Wylie’s shoulder against her knee as he stumbled over the rough ground comforted and calmed her, bringing a sense of the known and the ordinary into the fantastic circumstances of the present. Once or twice she put out a timid hand to make sure that he was still there, receiving a muttered word of encouragement in answer, and the friendly contact enabled her to repress the hysterical outburst she dreaded.

The journey seemed already to have lasted for hours when, after descending a very steep hill, the interpreter announced that there was a “reever” in front, and that Maurice and Wylie must submit to be carried across. With one voice they assured him that they would prefer to wade, but he explained that the chief’s solicitude for their health was so great that he would not hear of their running the risk of catching cold. Zoe laughed involuntarily on hearing this, and thus relieved her feelings a little, though horribly ashamed of her lack of sympathy. The brigands must either be adepts in the art of torture by pin-pricks, or totally destitute of a sense of humour. Maurice muttered that he did not see the joke, as he was carried off by two stalwart ruffians down a sloping bank, across, and up again, but Wylie manufactured a creditable response to her laugh. “A Gilbert and Sullivan melodrama, isn’t it?” he said, as he also was safely conveyed across the twenty feet or so of what must be presumed to be a rushing torrent, from the way in which the bearers slipped and tumbled about. The horses crossed with surprising steadiness, and the journey was resumed, the track now trending generally up instead of down. Zoe had lost all inclination to laugh by this time. She was cold and tired, and stiff and miserable, and full of terrible apprehensions. If Wylie had not been close at hand she would have defied the opinion of the brigands and cried like a baby, but she could not break down in his presence. He expected her to be brave, and she tried to forget her aching limbs and think only of the literary use to which she could put this disagreeable experience in the future. This was the way in which she usually comforted herself in her troubles, but it did not seem quite adequate now, and a weary sigh broke from her. The mere physical feat of sitting her horse without pommel or stirrup seemed no longer possible. If only she could slide to the ground and sleep!

“Keep up!” murmured Wylie. “Milosch--that’s the interpreter chap--says it’s only a little farther.”

Once more she pulled herself together and replied cheerfully, and before long the necessity for endurance ceased. A subtle change in the muffled sounds surrounding her showed her that the horse was being led into a building of some sort, and when he stopped she slid off helplessly, much to the amusement of the brigands. Amid their laughter, Milosch took the handkerchief from her eyes, and as soon as she could distinguish her surroundings she found that she was crouching close to a recently kindled fire in a low shed built of rough stones. There was a square hole in the roof, approached by a ladder, and the intense blackness above seemed to show that there was a second storey of some sort. Eirene, Maurice, and Wylie were standing near her, blinking in the firelight, and the brigands were arranging their cloaks on the ground, or rummaging in their bags.

“Ascend up!” commanded Milosch, seizing Maurice by the arm and pointing to the ladder. “We are charitable, we give you food when you deposited safe in supernal regions.”

“He can’t climb that ladder with his hands tied!” cried Zoe indignantly. “Why don’t you untie him?”

Milosch looked doubtfully at the chief, who shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and the cords were removed, care being taken not to cut them. “We tie you again morning,” observed the interpreter, with his cheerful smile. Maurice mounted the ladder, the girls followed, and Wylie, who had lingered to secure the rugs which had served as saddles, and request the loan of two of the brigands’ large overcoats, brought up the rear.

“It’s nothing but a hay-loft!” cried Zoe in horrified accents.

“Excuse me,” said Wylie; “it is a loft with hay in it, which is a much better thing, since it provides us all with beds. You’ll see, Miss Smith. While we are waiting until our friends below send us up some supper, we will curtain off the space at the end for you and your sister. Smith and I will keep close to the hole, so that if the brigands are up to any mischief in the night, they must wake us before they can get near you.”

His tone was so cheerful and matter-of-fact that Zoe forgot her fatigue and her fears, and held the rug for him while he tied one corner by its fringe to a jagged nail he had discovered in the sloping roof. The other side of the improvised curtain presented some difficulty, for there was nothing to which to fasten it, until she produced a stout hat-pin, which Wylie hammered into a crevice with the heel of his boot. Eirene disapproved of this use of the hat-pin.

“You should keep it for a better purpose,” she said. “Mine I regard as a dagger.”

“Do you mean to say that was all you had in your hand this afternoon?” cried Zoe.

“Why not? I would have used it, as I said, and it would kill if one struck hard enough.”

“I only wish I had known!” murmured Wylie, with heartfelt earnestness. “There, Miss Smith! now your room is ready, you see. You can make capital nests in the hay, and here are these two greatcoats to cover you. It won’t be luxurious, of course, but it’s only for one----” He broke off suddenly, and changed the subject. “Smith and I have this other rug, so we shall do well. We shall all sleep without rocking to-night, I think.”

“But can’t we manage to escape while the brigands are asleep?” said Maurice, lowering his voice.

“Scarcely, since they are safe to take away the ladder, and it wouldn’t do much good to drop down in the middle of them. The fire’s there, you know.”

“If we were in a Henty book,” said Zoe thoughtfully, “we should cut a hole through the roof and let ourselves down outside.”

“Unfortunately they have sentries all round,” said Wylie. “I heard the chief placing them. The only chance would be to bribe one, and we have nothing to do it with.”

Eirene laughed. “If you had not robbed me of my jewels this afternoon, we should not have been destitute,” she remarked, as if to explain her mirth.

“I shall begin to wish I had left you to be searched in Balkan fashion,” muttered Wylie.

“Now look here, Eirene,” said Maurice, in his most elder-brotherly tone, “just drop it. If you are our sister, you must put up with things, and not make yourself unpleasant to our friends. You were frightfully silly this afternoon, and might have risked all our lives, and you ought to thank Wylie for what he did. We are all in one boat, and it’s simply idiotic to keep up grudges in this way. Wylie is an old campaigner, and Zoe and I are quite content to put ourselves under his orders. You must do the same, content or not.”

He expected a fierce protest from Eirene, but the authoritative tone seemed to cow her. “You don’t understand what my jewels were to me,” she pleaded. “They were my whole fortune, and the pledge of my birthright, and now I have lost them. But do not fear. You shall all experience my gratitude in the future, and I shall bear no malice against Captain Wylie for his excess of zeal.”

“Much obliged, I’m sure,” grunted Wylie, looking as if he thought Eirene a little mad, and Zoe hastened to cover the indiscretion by remarking--

“When you talk in that way, Eirene, you always make me think of Miss Flite promising to ‘confer estates.’ Don’t you think it’s horribly unfair, Captain Wylie, that she should be able to patronise Maurice and me in this way?”

Wylie’s reply was fortunately anticipated by the arrival of Milosch, who came up the ladder bearing a small collection of lumps of black bread and very ancient cheese, and a skin bottle of water.

“Are we not beneficents?” he asked proudly, depositing his burden on the rug. “We give you our own food!”

“That’s all very well,” said Maurice, peering down after him as he descended. “They are eating the white bread and things we left in the luncheon-basket.”

“How can we eat such stuff as this?” asked Zoe in dismay, for bread and cheese were alike as hard as a rock.

“Ask them to send up a little white bread for the ladies,” suggested Wylie; and Maurice, who was sitting nearest the hole in the floor, obeyed, only to receive the answer, “You are our guests. We give you our own food.”

Prudently refraining from increasing the girls’ aversion for the food by mentioning that he had seen it collected from the sacks of the different brigands, where it had reposed in close contact with wax, tobacco, thread and leather for soling moccasins, rag for cleaning guns, and other useful articles, Maurice broke off a piece of the bread by knocking it against the roof, and tasting it, pronounced it not so bad when you were hungry. Eirene confessed to having tasted black bread before, when paying visits to peasants’ huts, but added contemptuously that she had never expected to find it actually set before her for a meal. However, since there was nothing else, they all managed to nibble a little, and then the girls, almost asleep already, retired behind their curtain, and were soon slumbering peacefully, undisturbed by the loud snores from below, which showed that however guilty the collective conscience of the brigands might be, it did not keep them awake.

It seemed to Zoe and Eirene that they had scarcely slept at all when they heard Maurice’s voice warning them that it was time to get up, and they looked at one another in dismay by the light which poured through the holes in the roof, realising that their faces were haggard and their hair full of hay.

“I suppose we can do our hair without a looking-glass,” said Zoe. “But do you think there is any hot water?”

The question sounded so absurdly incongruous that she was not surprised to hear it answered by a laugh from Maurice on the other side of the curtain. “There is a stream,” he said, “and you have leave to wash your faces and hands. You’re lucky to have kept your tooth-brushes, for Wylie and I have to use twigs, like the mild Hindu.”

“I shouldn’t have thought the brigands would care for tooth-brushes,” said Zoe.

“They don’t--for their teeth; they use them for cleaning their guns--I’ve seen them. So be thankful, and don’t shirk the cold water. I can even supply you with soap, for Milosch has just lent me a piece of our own, with strict injunctions to return it, and much self-congratulation on his generosity.”

“I think the estimable Milosch is becoming rather a bore,” said Zoe viciously, trying to shake the hay off her skirt. “Don’t go down until I have bandaged your head again, Maurice. I want to do it properly by daylight.”

“Considering the want of water and light up here, wouldn’t it be as well to do it downstairs?” suggested Maurice; and Zoe, agreeing, presently found herself and her patient the centre of interest to the brigands. This publicity had its advantages in that she quickly distinguished the man to whom her first-aid case had fallen, and with some difficulty obtained through Milosch its temporary restoration. While the interpreter strutted about, proclaiming loudly to the prisoners the magnanimity of their captors in thus providing them with surgical treatment, she cut away the hair round the cut, joined the edges with strips of plaster, and crowned Maurice with a turban of bandages, to the intense admiration of the spectators. As soon as she had finished, they hustled forward one of their number, who had received a somewhat similar wound in Haji Ahmad’s last desperate fight, and informed her, through Milosch, that he also required medical attendance.

“Don’t touch the dirty brute,” said Wylie. “I’ll tie him up roughly--quite good enough for him. He’s not fit for you to handle.”

“Oh no, I’ll do it,” said Zoe reluctantly, for the aspect of the wounded man was not alluring. “I never realised before ‘how very hard it is to be a Christian,’” she said, rather faintly, when the task was over, and one of the men filled the rough leathern bucket with fresh water that she might wash her hands.

“I don’t think practical Christianity need go quite so far,” said Wylie savagely, but the chief was calling to Zoe.

“Stoyan ze Voivoda say, ‘Here, girl!’” explained Milosch, and Zoe hesitated. The chief held out a piece of her own chocolate, with an attempt at a smile, and after a struggle with herself, she advanced and accepted it. It was better than the black bread and hard cheese.

“Lo, ze munificence of our autocrat!” exclaimed Milosch, striking an attitude of reverential admiration. “He provide his guests with sweetmeats!”

“Oh, stow that, Milosch!” entreated Maurice; “it’s getting stale. Considering that the things are our own, it would be in better taste to say nothing about them.”

Milosch smiled uncomfortably, and joined Stoyan for a murmured confabulation, returning quickly to the prisoners, who were mitigating their hard fare with minute fragments of the chocolate.

“Ze Voivoda say he not tie your hands to-day if you plight your gentlemanly faith to try not to escape,” he said to Maurice and Wylie. “We going into mountains, where ze women most walk, and zey need your help.”

“To try not to escape?” said Zoe. “Oh, he means not to try to escape. You can promise that, can’t you?”

“No, no,” said Eirene eagerly. “It is a deception, a snare--I am sure of it. Doubtless the way is easy, and lies through villages, where it would cause suspicion if you were seen to be fettered, and the brigands think they will make us appear as tourists guided by them. Surely you won’t cripple yourselves by such a promise?”

“It does seem rather insane,” agreed Maurice. “What do you say, Wylie? We should feel pretty small if we found we had debarred ourselves from accepting a good chance of escape.”

“I confess I don’t quite see how we are to escape with two ladies through a country which we don’t know and the brigands do,” said Wylie. “Even Miss Smith’s Henty heroes would have found it a large order. But don’t think I want to back out of any unpleasantness that’s going.”

“Well, let us split the difference,” said Maurice, “and refuse to give our parole until we see the sort of way they take us. If it is very bad for the girls, we can still ask to be undone.”

“You fools one and ozer,” remarked Milosch sardonically, when he heard their decision. “Behold our slighted consideration avenge itself in severity.”

The meaning of this cryptic sentence appeared immediately, for the brigands, offended by the rejection of their offer, bound the two men’s arms behind them so tightly that the cords cut into the flesh. Wylie laughed grimly. “We can’t choose to be bound, and then complain because they bind us,” he said. “I am sorry to be unkind, Miss Smith, but the sooner you find the track too difficult for you, the better we shall be pleased.”

Even now there was some time to wait before the start, while two men, detailed for the purpose, removed the ashes of the fire and other traces of the night’s occupation from the cattle-shed where it had been spent, and the rest of the brigands made up their loads, those who carried the rugs complaining angrily because the prisoners were obviously unable to do so. Then the procession set out, with the captives in the middle, the girls uneasily silent, frightened by the unpleasant result of Eirene’s advice.