Chapter X: The Other Side

“Good-bye. I’m awfully sorry to leave you like this,” said Wylie to Zoe, as he shook hands with her before his departure, while Milosch, for the twentieth time, read over the letter to make sure there was no deception about it.

“But how much better than the way you left us yesterday!” she said, smiling.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant that I feel I am deserting you personally. You and I have always been comrades, haven’t we? And I don’t quite see how Smith is to squire two ladies at once along these paths.”

“Perhaps we shan’t be moved on,” suggested Zoe. “I should think this place is as safe and secluded as any they could find.”

“I only hope it may be so. Do you know”--he lowered his voice--“I almost think I could find my way up here from the place to which they took me yesterday? They forgot to cover my eyes again, you know. If they take me down the same way to-day, I shall be quite sure of it.”

“But what good would that be?”

“Why, you don’t imagine I shall be content to leave you in these fellows’ hands a whole month? I shall kick up the biggest row that ever was, and simply force the Government to take action. I have a little account of my own to work off with the brigands, you must remember, and I don’t feel like putting fifteen thousand pounds into their pockets.”

“But if we are not ransomed they will kill us.”

“Not if you are rescued first,” said Wylie promptly. “Don’t be afraid. You don’t think I would let a hair of your head be hurt, do you? But if I can save you three weeks or a fortnight of this sort of thing, and at the same time do the brigands out of their prospective gains, do you honestly expect me to lose the chance?”

He waved his hand to her gaily as he went down the hill-track with his custodians, and Zoe fell into a reverie, from which she roused herself with a vigorous mental shake.

“It’s a good thing he’s gone,” she said to herself. “We have been comrades, as he said, and it has been very nice. In a few days more I shouldn’t have been able to do without him, and that is out of the question. I have the world to see and my name to make before I think of anything of that sort. Yes, it is a good thing.”

But this decision was no sort of justification for Eirene’s taking it upon herself to remark that she was glad Captain Wylie was gone, because he ordered Maurice about. A coolness ensued between the two girls, which lasted until Eirene, who wanted to mend her torn shoe, was obliged to apply to Zoe to obtain a needle and thread from Zeko.

Very early on the morning after Wylie’s departure the other prisoners found that the brigands were not quite so simple as he had hoped. They had no intention whatever of remaining at the spot where he had left them until he might choose to return. The clearing and the huts were forsaken before dawn, and another day of painful wandering and climbing by devious tracks followed. Zeko, in a lordly and contemptuous way, hauled Zoe over the worst places, so that Maurice was free to look after Eirene, but both girls were utterly spent before the crowning trial of the march occurred. This was a long stiff climb up the bed of a torrent, which, in spite of the summer weather, had quite enough water in it to make the girls miserably wet, and destroy the last possibility of usefulness in their shoes. They were practically bare-footed when they staggered into the little valley from which the torrent flowed down the hillside, and discovered that they were now so high up in the mountains that cold was to be added to their other discomforts. Even the brigands were stirred to pity by their white faces and chattering teeth, or perhaps they feared lest hardship should release their prisoners before they could be ransomed, for they helped Maurice to collect wood for a good fire, and made the girls sit down close to it to dry their skirts. The chief went so far as to administer a small quantity of a potent, if smoky spirit, which took away their breath and made their eyes water, and he also requisitioned a pair of moccasins for each of them from two members of the band who were unwary or fastidious enough to carry more than was needed for immediate wear. The trees up here were too sparse to allow of building huts, but in the rocks by the side of the stream there were hollows which might almost be called caves, and Maurice swept one of these out with a branch, made a smaller fire in it, and arranged the rugs for beds. He himself was accustomed now to sleeping outside, wrapped in one of the brigands’ greatcoats, but although he was allowed to lie near the fire, he never forgot the piercing cold of that night, while inside the cave the girls lay close together with both the rugs over them, and shivered in spite of all. Their appearance alarmed the brigands in the morning, and greatcoats and leggings, such as the men wore, were allotted to them in addition to the moccasins. Their feet were so badly bruised that they could not walk alone, but they were helped up to a sort of ledge on the sunny side of the gorge, where they were at last able to feel warm again. Needles and thread were lent them to alter the clothes into some approach to fit, and on the return of three of the band from an absence of some duration, the chief presented them with large coarse handkerchiefs to replace their battered hats. Maurice, whose broken head was now sufficiently recovered to dispense with bandages, was invested with a fez, from which Stoyan solemnly removed the tassel with his knife, on the ground that it was unbecoming for a captive to wear a tassel to his fez.

Maurice had not been idle during the day. He had collected all the loose pieces of rock he could find, and built them up into a rough wall, cemented with mud from a spot where the stream formed a marshy pool, to keep the wind from blowing into the cave. The brigands who had brought the handkerchiefs had carried also a large truss of straw, and this was spread thickly on the floor, so that the girls found their second night’s quarters far more restful than the first. The exhaustion which was the result of the forced march was also passing away, and on the second day they were able to begin to practice walking in the moccasins, which was an art needing some caution.

A week passed quietly, varied only by the expeditions of the brigands to obtain food and news. They seemed to have a well-organised intelligence system, by means of which they learned that there was much activity among the Roumi authorities, civil and military, and that soldiers were being sent into the mountains in various directions. The brigands displayed amusement rather than apprehension over this news, and there was no lack of food, which would have argued that the peasants were losing their fear of their unacknowledged masters. The girls spent a good deal of time in patching their tattered garments with pieces of the rough brown stuff some of the brigands wore, and also relieved Maurice of his domestic duties, thus leaving him free to execute wonderful engineering works in connection with the stream, damming it in one place to make a pool where the girls might get water close to their cave, and arranging pieces of rock as steps. The energy of the prisoners astonished their captors, who seemed to think it the height of bliss to lie in the sun, smoking and quarrelling, or playing various rudimentary games of chance, and at first every movement was regarded with suspicion. But by degrees Maurice established with them a feeling almost akin to good fellowship, and would sit among them round the fire, listening to their talk, which he was beginning to understand without the intervention of Milosch. Eirene objected strongly to this habit of his, and, as was her wont, spoke her mind freely on the subject.

“It is so undignified, so contemptible!” she declared angrily. “A man of elevated soul would suffer anything rather than associate on familiar terms with wretches from whom he had received such vile treatment.”

“But it’s to please myself, not them,” said Maurice. “I want to find out why all these strapping fellows have turned brigands--to inquire into their grievances, in fact.”

“Grievances! What business have they with grievances?”

“I don’t know; but they have got some, unfortunately.”

“But what have their grievances to do with you?”

“Why, I am a sufferer by them, so are you. Therefore I naturally feel an interest in getting to know what they are.”

“And what are they, Maurice?” asked Zoe. “I thought these men all came from Thracia or Dardania.”

“No, they are nearly all Illyrians--the Christian kind, such as it is. They are Emathians born, though they are under foreign direction; there’s no doubt of that. And very few of them seem to have become brigands for the fun of the thing. Most of them are pretty sick of the life, but they have made their own villages too hot to hold them.”

“But that was their own fault,” objected Eirene.

“Partly, but it was other people’s fault too. They have failed to pay their taxes in bad years, or have mortgaged their land and been sold up. Some of them have taken to the hills after assaulting tax-collectors, and some on account of blood-feuds. They boast that they only rob the rich, whom they hate most heartily; but I fancy that the poor haven’t much choice about keeping them supplied with food and clothes, especially if they are Greek poor.”

“Why, Maurice, you are hearing the other side!” cried Zoe.

“What other side?” asked Eirene sharply.

“When we heard Professor Panagiotis talk, Maurice said he should like to hear the other side, and now he is doing it,” replied Zoe promptly. Maurice, absorbed in his subject, might have revealed secrets if she had allowed him to answer.

“Yes, it’s just as I thought, there are two very distinct sides to the case,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s something appalling the way these fellows hate the Orthodox Church and everything connected with it. It seems they have been dragooned into belonging to it for generations, with no alternative but Mohammedanism. The priests don’t appear to have been examples to their flocks by any means, but were tremendously keen on their dues, though they could only gabble through services which neither they nor the people understood. All education was in Greek, and the people hadn’t even the Bible in their own language, so that the only chance for a man to rise was to turn his back on his own nationality altogether.”

“And it was right he should!” cried Eirene, with flashing eyes. “Would you degrade the Holy Scriptures and the sacred liturgies by translating them from the glorious Greek into the uncouth dialects of these barbarians?”

“What a very curious thing!” exclaimed Zoe involuntarily.

“What do you mean?” demanded Eirene.

“Why, it’s no use pretending that we don’t know you’re a Scythian, Eirene, for you’ve said lots of things that show it. And it’s very funny to hear you talking just as Professor Panagiotis did, when Scythia is doing all she can to stir up the barbarians, as you call them, against the Greeks.”

“Because I have been brought up in Scythia, must I be insensible to truth and rightness?” cried Eirene. “It surprises me, I confess, to find an Englishman supporting the guileful designs of the Slavs in opposition to the noble cause of heroic and persecuted Greece.”

“I’m not supporting Slavs or anybody,” said Maurice. “If you are anxious to define my attitude, I am blaming both sides impartially. They have got things into such a muddle that it looks as if the whole structure of society in Emathia would have to be built up again from the foundations. If the taxes were honestly assessed and collected, and the middleman eliminated, it would do a good deal, of course, especially if you could also get rid of the money-lender by a system of agricultural banks. But you would want to establish a system of village responsibility, as they have done in Burmah, before you could begin to stamp out blood-feuds and religious faction-fights. I must ask Wylie how they manage to get a police-force which is not prejudiced on one side or the other. Side by side with that, you would have to be opening up the country with roads and railways, and getting the priests better educated, and books translated, and schools established, and the army thrown open to Christians and popularised, so that brigandage would no longer be----”

“The only career for a young man of spirit,” supplied Zoe, as he paused.

“Well,” burst forth Eirene, who had been listening in speechless indignation as Maurice elaborated his views on the regeneration of Emathia, “I should like to know what business it is of yours?”

“But why should it affect you?” asked Maurice, warned by an anxious glance from Zoe.

“It is just like you English,” continued Eirene, disregarding the question. “You meddle all over the world with countries which do not concern you, while your own usurped India is ground under the iron heel of men like Captain Wylie, of whom the very brigands are afraid!”

“Why, you say that as if it was to Wylie’s discredit!” said Maurice. “I should have thought it was a distinct feather in his cap. You don’t seem to see that just because we are English, every country that doesn’t come up to our own high standard does concern us.”

Eirene lifted her head, almost tossed it. “When,” she began, then changed the form of her sentence--“If I am ever a ruler, I will allow no English to dictate to me. I shall recognise no grievances. If the people disobey me, I shall stamp them out.”

“Making a solitude and calling it peace, indeed!” said Zoe.

“Cheerful country yours will be to live in!” said Maurice. “Are you going to have periodical killings-out, like King Twala? or shall you set half the population to kill the other half, and make the survivors fight among themselves till they are all killed, like the Kilkenny cats? Or is it only the present generation that is to be wiped out, so that you may have the children brought up in the way they should go? A lively time you’ll have when the hereditary tendencies begin to come out! Why, they’ll all have blood-feuds against you.”

“I used the wrong word,” said Eirene, with heightened colour. “I meant to say that I would stamp the people down. I will listen to no one who is in revolt; but when all rebellion has been suppressed, I shall see for myself if there are any grievances.”

“You’ll allow people to complain of them peacefully, then?”

“Certainly not; that is rebellion. But I shall oversee everything myself. Not a peasant shall be prosecuted for non-payment of taxes but the case shall come before me for revision, and the same in all departments of the state.”

“I don’t think your magistrates will hold office long,” said Maurice.

“Besides,” said Zoe, “that’s just the system that works so badly with the Roumis, Eirene. The Grand Seignior will insist on managing everything himself, and of course he can’t do more than a certain amount, and so business gets into frightful arrears all over the empire.”

“I don’t care,” said Eirene stubbornly. “I shall trust no one; that is the lesson life has taught me. The ruler’s eye will be everywhere, the ruler’s hand always ready.”

“Maternal or elder-sisterly government,” muttered Maurice. “Well, Eirene, have it your own way, and go ahead, and Zoe and I will come and preach revolution to your people. What would you do to us?”

“I would have you brought to the palace and treated as my dearest friends and honoured guests,” responded Eirene, with a promptitude which seemed to show that she had thought the matter out; “but you would not leave it except to be conducted to the frontier.”

“And if we came back?”

“Then I should conclude that you wished to remain with me, and I should assign you permanent quarters in the palace, where I could see that you did no harm.”

“Well, we shall know what to do when we feel we can’t exist without you any longer,” said Zoe lightly. A curious thought, almost a certainty, had occurred to her, and she put a question which had to do with it. “But won’t there be a king or prince to be considered in this kingdom of yours? or do you expect your husband will let you do as you like with his possessions?”

“There will be no husband,” said Eirene haughtily. “The possessions will be mine, mine alone. And you are making attempts to discover who I am.”

“We aren’t,” said Maurice indignantly, while the guilty Zoe maintained a judicious silence. “How horribly suspicious you are, Eirene! Go and whisper your secret to the reeds, if you like. We shan’t try to listen.”

“I have been led into saying more than I intended,” said Eirene, trying to extricate herself from an awkward situation with dignity. “I see that, according to your views, I have no right to object to your making imaginary schemes of reform for Emathia, and I do not object to it, while you understand that they are imaginary. That makes the whole difference.”

Maurice stared at her. “What a lofty benediction!” he said. “Eirene, I’m afraid I shall offend again; but do you think your head is a little bit affected by all you have gone through? If it is, only tell us, and we shall know what to do. We will treat you as a queen in exile with pleasure.”

“Now you are joking,” smiled Eirene. “No, my dear brother and sister, continue to treat me as one of yourselves. Circumstances may divide us in the future, but I shall never forget what you have been to me during these weeks.”

“Good gracious!” murmured Maurice, and laying his head back on his arms he whistled softly at the stars, while Zoe shook from head to foot in an unconquerable spasm of silent laughter, and Eirene sat gazing at the fire with a look of gentle melancholy.

The next evening Maurice returned smiling from his colloquy with the brigands. “Well,” he said, “my undignified and contemptible pursuits have given me quite an exciting piece of news for you. Wylie is looking us up.”

“Oh, Maurice, what do you mean?” cried Zoe.

“Why, it seems that Demo and three others went down to-day to get food. At the village, wherever it is, they were told that an English traveller with one servant and a large quantity of luggage had stayed the night there, and gone on into the mountains, refusing a guide. Our fellows decided that such a chance was not to be lost, and having found out which way the traveller had gone, went across country by short cuts, and arranged a satisfactory ambush. They thought he must either be mad, or riding through in bravado after hearing about us, but the luggage would be all right, at any rate. I suppose he really was a newspaper man. Well, they waited in cover, and presently the traveller and his servant came along. The luggage looked so new and wealthy that it made their mouths water, but happily for themselves they didn’t act in a hurry. ‘They came near,’ said Demo, ‘and I recognised the servant. It was the Capitan. He was wearing Nizam dress, but I knew him by his accursed eyes; he couldn’t disguise them. Then we saw that it was a trap, and we let them pass.’”

“But how was it a trap?” asked Eirene.

“Why, either Wylie and the other man were much better armed than they looked, and meant to capture a brigand or two, so as to make them reveal the hiding-places of the band, or they meant to be captured themselves, and had spies to follow them up and see where they were taken. I don’t see why Wylie wanted to disguise himself, though. He might have known he would be recognised if he was caught, and then they would be safe to kill him. As it was, he and the other man seem to have ridden through the brigands’ country quite unmolested.”

“I wish he wouldn’t do such things!” said Zoe anxiously.

“Yes,” said Eirene, “he ought to remember that we depend upon him for our ransom and rescue. He has no right to risk his life in foolish bravado.”

“I think we may be pretty sure that Wylie had some ’cute idea in his head,” said Maurice. “I don’t quite see what it is; but he certainly risked being captured over again.”

“And this captivity is certainly not tempting,” said Zoe.

Wylie’s plan declared itself unexpectedly the very next day. The prisoners had climbed up to what they called their afternoon ledge, a shelf of rock which caught the westering sun, and were looking out over the chaos of hills and valleys below them, and speculating for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time upon the prospects of their release. Suddenly one of the brigands’ sentries, who was stationed round a corner on their left, whence a view of the country to the eastward could be obtained, ran in and shouted to his comrades. Wild confusion instantly prevailed among the loungers in the hollow. Some of them quenched the fires with earth, a heap of which was kept ready for the purpose, and the rest caught up their weapons, and scaling the ledge, flung themselves upon the prisoners, who expected nothing but instant death. Not daring to move, they yielded helplessly to the violence of the brigands, who dragged them as far back as possible, so that they could only just see over the ledge, tore off the girls’ head-handkerchiefs, which showed white against the dark of the cliff, and ordered them, if they valued their lives, to make no sound or movement. Presently, the cause of the commotion came in sight far below--a column of Roumi soldiers, led by an officer on horseback. In front walked a man in plain clothes, examining the ground narrowly as he went.

“Captain Wylie! He has tracked us!” murmured Zoe, under her breath. Milosch turned upon her with a diabolical grin.

“Promise candles to ze saints zat he track you no furzer, zen. If he find ze way up ze stream, you go down ze mountain to meet him--you see?” He lifted Zoe’s chin, and with the point of his knife traced a line upon her neck. She shrank away from him, sick and almost fainting with horror, and he laughed. “We begin wiz you, after all,” he said.