Chapter XIV: An Emissary

“It’s a church!” said Eirene, in tones of horror.

“Well, I suppose it was a church once, but it’s only a ruin now,” said Zoe. Another day of climbing had brought them out of the forest, and up to an isolated building standing on the saddle between two mountain-peaks, which they were informed was to be their dwelling for the present.

“But to live in it--it is sacrilege! And they say that we are to sleep behind the _ikonostasis_!”

“Well, I think it’s rather nice of them. It has a roof, at any rate, and the rest of the church hasn’t much.”

“But it is the sanctuary, where no woman may even set foot! Let us tell them we refuse to enter.”

“And sleep out in the open, I suppose? No, thank you. Why, Eirene, the brigands wouldn’t do anything that they thought would make the saints angry, and they belong to the Greek Church just as much as you do.”

“They? They are miserable schismatics--followers of the upstart heretical church of Thracia, outcasts from Orthodoxy!” cried Eirene.

“Oh, do be quiet!” cried Zoe anxiously. “That new man whom Milosch brought with him to-day may understand English. I saw him staring hard at you when you were kissing all those old worn-out saints on the screen.”

“But what harm could it do if he did? These men know that they are schismatics.”

“Yes, but it isn’t natural that a Scythian girl should think them so. How will you account for your Greek sympathies?” A pause of horror, as Zoe realised what she had said, then she rallied her forces. “You know, the time for the ransom is getting so near now that I am feeling horribly nervous. How dreadful it would be if any of us did anything that made the brigands suspicious, so that they refused to let us go! Do be sensible, and let us be thankful we have this nice little place to ourselves.”

“Well, I shall sit outside as long as I can,” said Eirene obstinately. “I suppose I must come in when it gets dark, but I feel we shall deserve whatever may happen to us after this.”

Undisturbed by these religious, or superstitious, fears, Zoe went on with the work of preparing the room, on the threshold of which Eirene had been standing, declining to enter. It was the chancel, or apse, of the ruined church, and the half-dome which formed its roof was still in place, together with the _ikonostasis_, or wooden screen painted with figures of saints, which separated it from the body of the building, though the plates of metal which had formerly represented haloes and details of clothing had been wrenched away. Beneath the steps which led up to the sanctuary from the church was an underground chamber, approached by a door and staircase on one side, and this was the only place where a fire could be made, lest the light or smoke should betray that the building was inhabited. The brigands were already lighting the fire, and the smoke dispersed itself by way of the staircase into the church, and penetrated through the cracks of the screen into the sanctuary. It seemed curious that the wild bands which made the place one of their haunts had not torn down the screen for firewood, but apparently their sacrilegious impulses had stopped short after depriving the saints of their haloes. Zoe went to work methodically, spreading on the stone floor for beds the pine-branches Maurice had cut, and unrolling the rugs. Maurice would sleep on the threshold, on the broad topmost step, and Zoe felt an unusual sense of comfort and security in the fact that this bare little room was to be their own for some days. The end of the captivity was in sight--for she entertained not the smallest doubt of the success of Wylie’s efforts--and from the ruined church they might hope to make their last journey as prisoners, to the spot where the ransom was to be paid.

[Image: images/img_184.jpg Caption: “_Well, I shall sit outside as long as I can_,” _said Eirene obstinately._]

Her work done, Zoe sat down to rest, too tired even to pass down the ruined nave and seek Eirene outside. Maurice was helping some of the brigands to cut firewood in the forest, Zeko and another man were in charge of the underground kitchen, and the rest were mending their moccasins or lounging idly in the church. It was not dark yet, and Zoe had accepted Eirene’s decision as unshakable, so that it was with surprise she saw her coming up the steps, and entering the sanctuary without protest or hesitation. Her face was aglow with hope, and she threw herself down on the rug beside Zoe.

“Zoe,” she whispered eagerly, “we have a friend. It is Vlasto, the man who came to-day with Milosch.”

“But have you been talking to him all this time? Oh, Eirene, suppose he is a spy!”

“No, listen. I was sitting outside, when he came up the hill with a bundle of wood. He stumbled and nearly fell, and called out in Scythian--not in the mixed language the others speak. Then he recollected himself, and looked round to see whether any one had heard. I thought it was curious, and spoke to him in Scythian, and he told me Professor Panagiotis had sent him.”

“The Professor? To Maurice?”

“No, to me. He guessed which I was when he saw me venerate the _ikons_, and the stumble and the exclamation in Scythian were meant to draw my attention.”

“But how did the Professor know you were here?”

“I asked him that, but he did not seem to know--seemed to think that Professor Panagiotis had been expecting me as he had you, but I told him no. Then he said the Professor must have put two and two together when he heard I had disappeared, but he had not told him about it.”

“I hope it’s all right,” murmured Zoe doubtfully.

“What could there be wrong about it? He said that he was to warn me of a plan the Professor hoped to carry out--and that I should not go down to Therma with you when we are released, lest I should be recognised by some one belonging to the Scythian colony. But I refused to contemplate such a thing. I said I would not be separated from my faithful friends until we were all in safety.”

“Eirene, I don’t believe the man came from Professor Panagiotis at all!” cried Zoe. “I can’t imagine the Professor would choose a messenger who talked Scythian, and why should he send him to you instead of to us?”

The question in her mind was, naturally, whether the Professor could have changed his mind and be playing Maurice false, but to Eirene her doubt seemed the outcome of self-esteem wounded by an apparent slight.

“I must really explain things to you, Zoe,” she said, with a gentleness which she did not intend to be patronising. “I am Eirene Nicolaievna Féofan, and the Professor is intrusted with the honourable task of restoring to me the throne of my imperial ancestors.”

“Oh dear, yes, I know that,” said Zoe impatiently; “but why should he do such a foolish thing as to send messages about it to you now?”

“You knew?” gasped Eirene. “How?”

“Oh, the Professor had told us about you, and it came to me suddenly. You see, you fitted in with all that I knew of Eirene Féofan, and of nobody else.”

“Does Maurice know?”

“No, I’m sure he doesn’t, and there’s no reason why he should. Let us keep it to ourselves.”

“I particularly wish Maurice to be told,” said Eirene decisively. “If you won’t do it, I must.”

“Oh, I will,” cried Zoe quickly.

“Very well, then; as soon as possible, please. I am glad to put things on a right footing at last. If I had known and trusted you as I do now when we first met, I should have told you then, as I ought.”

“Good gracious, Eirene, don’t talk as if you were suddenly removed miles above us! We are ourselves, and you are yourself, just as before. I can promise you that your wonderful news won’t make any difference to us, and I have respect enough for your character to trust that it won’t to you.”

Eirene smiled in a puzzled way. “Perhaps you would have preferred me to follow the Professor’s advice, and say nothing to you?” she said.

“Did he tell you to say nothing to us?”

“That was his message by Vlasto, that I was not to reveal this scheme of his to you.”

“And you go and do it at once?”

“Professor Panagiotis has no control over my actions,” said Eirene, with dignity. “He may tender his advice, but it is for me to accept or reject it as I think well.”

“What could have been his reason?” mused Zoe.

“He also asked whether I had told you who I was, and entreated me to keep the secret if I had not. It made me feel that I was not treating you fairly--that a peasant should know what my trusted companions had not been told.”

“Did he cross-question you any more?” asked Zoe, too anxious to care much about Eirene’s mental perplexities.

“He was very eager to know whether all the family jewels I took with me when I escaped were hopelessly lost. It seems that the ruby _plaque de corsage_ was exposed for sale in Therma, and has since been destroyed--the one with the wings, you know. That made me very sad for a moment, but I was able to assure him that I had saved the most important of all.”

It was dark now, but she took Zoe’s hand and guided it over her skirt. “The girdle of the Empress Isidora,” she said, as Zoe’s fingers came in contact with something round and hard, once, again, some dozen times in all.

“Eirene, the weights you put in your skirt! you have had them there all this time? That was the reason you would never let any one touch it!” cried Zoe.

“Yes, I sewed them in that day when I made you go out for a walk at Przlepka. Doesn’t it seem a long time ago? I dared not hide them in my pockets. The girdle is the most precious thing in the world. It has been handed down in secret in my father’s family since the fall of Czarigrad.”

“But, Eirene, you had it--on you--when you told the brigands you had given up everything, and you let Captain Wylie swear that you had? He believed what you said.”

Eirene’s face showed perplexity. “Yes,” she said, “I know. Sometimes I have wished that I had not done it, when I saw how you and Maurice thought of such things. But then I remembered that I could not possibly have let it go, so I felt that there was nothing else to be done.”

“You are not really sorry,” said Zoe with severity. “If you were, I suppose you would give it up to the brigands now.”

“That is quite impossible,” said Eirene calmly.

“Well, you must have a funny sort of conscience. You are afraid something will happen to you because you have to sleep in a church, and yet you tell a deliberate lie without a qualm.”

“We need not have slept in the church. The other could not be avoided,” said Eirene.

“Well, I expect the something has happened already, through your talking to Vlasto. I feel more and more certain he is a spy, and no doubt he will manage to get the girdle from you somehow. Milosch is quite capable of having told him what to say.”

“But how should Milosch know who I am?”

“By putting two and two together, I suppose, like the Professor. Oh, Eirene, if you have kept us from being set free next week, I shall never---- Well, do you think that we could ever forgive you?”

“But it would be as bad for me.”

“I don’t know--perhaps not.” Eirene looked at her in wonder. “At any rate, you would have only yourself to blame.”

“Here is Maurice,” said Eirene. “Now remember.”

Very unwillingly Zoe obeyed her instructions, and succeeded in catching Maurice by himself the next morning.

“Eirene is particularly anxious that I should tell you something,” she said. “She is Eirene Féofan, the girl the Professor told us about, our very distant cousin, and the next heir after you and me.”

Maurice sat in stupefied silence for a moment. “Did you ever?” he remarked slowly at last. “To think that we have had her with us all this time without finding it out!”

“I found it out long ago,” said Zoe calmly.

“No, really? How?”

“Why, of course, I had been trying to place her ever since we first met. It was clear she came from Scythia, but I didn’t think she could belong to the Imperial family, for how could she have got away, and why should she be wandering about on a solitary mission? Then, one evening, in the cave, we were talking, do you remember? and it came out that she knew the Professor, and that she sympathised with the Greeks against the Slavs, and that she was expecting a kingdom in her own right. She simply couldn’t be any one but Eirene Féofan.”

“But I heard it all, and never twigged.”

“Oh, you were thinking of other things--of Eirene herself, and of ameliorating the lot of the brigands. I nearly exploded when she accused us of trying to find out who she was, and you declared so indignantly that we were doing nothing of the kind. It was after I had asked her a leading question.”

Maurice frowned. “Well, I suppose you have told her who we are?” he said.

“Certainly not, and I am not going to.”

“Then I shall.”

“No, you won’t. It wouldn’t be safe. You know what Eirene is--or, rather, you can’t tell what she will do. Only yesterday afternoon she made a confidant of that new brigand, Vlasto, and told him everything she could tell, just because he said he had been sent to her by Professor Panagiotis.”

“That’s just it. If she knew about us, she would realise that the Professor wouldn’t send to her. It isn’t fair, Zoe. It’s placing her under a disadvantage for us to know her secret while she doesn’t know ours.”

“Why, what difference would it make if she did?”

Maurice appeared to find a difficulty in answering. “Well, I should think she’d be rather pleased,” he said, after some hesitation, “to find that we were her equals and relations and that sort of thing, don’t you know?”

“My dear boy!” with superb scorn. “Do you know Eirene as little as that after all this time? Do you really think she would welcome us as relations and equals? You seem to forget that we stand for the ruin of all her schemes. She is simply not wanted if you are recognised as the heir.”

“Oh, I say, but this is vile!” cried Maurice. “To go and rob a poor girl of what she has always looked forward to as her own----! Look here, Zoe, let’s chuck it.”

“You forget the Professor,” said Zoe.

“Oh, blow the Professor! What did he mean by mixing things up in this way? Why couldn’t he have left Eirene alone, instead of feeding her up with the thought that she was the heir, and then bringing her here only to disappoint her? You don’t seem to see what a low business it is, or how much worse it makes it that we have got to know her and find out what it means to her.”

“I can quite see why the Professor might have brought her into contact with us, but unfortunately he didn’t. As far as I can make out, he dropped her father finally because he would do nothing but shilly-shally instead of taking action, but the father was indiscreet enough to let Eirene know about the offers that had been made him. She takes action on her own account, in a way which would have been most embarrassing for the poor Professor but for the railway accident. In the meantime he has found you, and thinks no more about Eirene. But if the train had reached Therma all right, we should probably have separated at the station only to meet upon the Professor’s doorstep, and he would have had to decide point-blank between his rival candidates.”

“You seem to be enjoying the whole thing,” said Maurice indignantly. “It doesn’t occur to you how much more it is to Eirene than to us. We have only to go home again if the thing doesn’t come off, but it’s everything to her. She has cut herself off entirely from her friends and everybody in Scythia, and she has no money, and even her jewellery is gone. What is she to do?”

“It all depends on whether you care more for Eirene’s feelings or for what you felt to be your duty when we started,” said Zoe. “You have heard her talk; you can imagine what sort of ruler she would make if any possible concurrence of disasters drove the Powers in desperation to revive the Empire for her. You know, too, the lines on which you would work if the task fell to you. Besides, it’s not a question of feeling, but of right.”

“I always heard that women were hard on women, but I didn’t think you were like that.”

Zoe restrained her anger with an effort. “My dear Maurice,” she said impatiently, “you compel me to remind you that there is one very simple and obvious way of reconciling your rights and Eirene’s. It is still open to you.”

“What are you suggesting?” demanded Maurice.

“I suggest nothing,” Zoe replied, with a wooden face.

“You are suggesting that I should be a cad.”

“Then I will add the further suggestion that you should not be an idiot,” said Zoe, thoroughly roused. “I merely want you to leave things as they are until we get to Therma. Then you can do as you like, and I fail to see where the caddishness comes in. But if we tell Eirene who we are now, she will simply regard us as impostors, and she will be utterly unmanageable. I have a stake in the matter as well as you, and I absolutely refuse to allow you to tell her. I own I do put a little value on my life.”

“I beg your pardon. I thought you meant that I was to try and make sure of her now, when she has no one else to turn to, and can’t get away from us.”

“Why will men always read detestable meanings into the simplest advice?” cried Zoe, still angry; then, softening, “Dear boy, do be sensible. What chance do you think you would have with Eirene as things are? Wait until she knows the truth, and can realise that it is not quite a case of Queen Cophetua and a beggar-man. But don’t risk all our lives, just when we are within a week of safety, by giving her the idea that you are either an impostor or a dangerous rival. I don’t suppose for a moment that she would mean to harm you, but she acts on impulse, and that makes her do all sorts of things. Why--I didn’t mean to tell you, because it seems to reflect on her--but she actually told this man Vlasto that she has carried about with her a priceless Byzantine girdle all this time, sewn up in pieces in her skirt.”

“But I thought she gave up everything when we were captured?” said Maurice.

“She said she did,” said Zoe reluctantly. “We were discussing whether she ought not to give it up to the brigands now. What do you think?”

“Oh, nonsense! It isn’t as if it belonged to the brigands,” said Maurice contemptuously. “But,” he changed the subject with an effort, “what about this man Vlasto? Why should he address himself to her?”

“That’s exactly what makes me think he doesn’t come from the Professor at all,” cried Zoe. “He evidently thought the Professor knew she was coming to Therma, and brought her a message based on that, but the Professor had no idea of her journey, or that she was with us.”

“Did she tell you what the message was?”

“It was to try to get her to separate from us when we are ransomed--on the plea that she might be recognised in Therma. Happily, she refused, but---- Maurice, you know it was Milosch who brought this man here. We thought, when we saw he was not with the band the day before yesterday, that he had gone to meet some members of his Committee, and get fresh orders. Suppose it was a Scythian agent he went to meet, and that Scythia had got the idea that Eirene might be here with us, and sent Vlasto to make sure? She has given everything away.”

“We mustn’t be seeing Scythians in every bush,” said Maurice gloomily, “but it looks bad. What can they want to get her away from us for? It can’t mean any good to her. Zoe, will you do your level best to keep her firm in sticking to us? You see, she is practically an outlaw, having cut herself off from Scythian protection, but if anything happened to you or me the matter would be looked into.”

“I will. And you won’t make any attempt to tell her who we are?”

“No. I see that it’s better not to disturb her mind.”