Chapter XVI: Hagios Antonios

The monastery 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 a _kosmikos_, 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 the _semantron_--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 the _ikonostasis_ made 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 a _vivandière’s_. You had better do yours too, instead of going out this morning, Eirene. There’s the _semantron_, 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.”