Chapter IV: A Full Stop

In after days it seemed to Zoe that the stages of the journey were marked by the progress of her intimacy with Eirene Smith. There was that terrible midnight hour when, sleepy and bewildered, she was called upon by a ferocious German customs officer to explain the nature and purpose of the note-books in her dressing-bag, and could reply in nothing but scraps of French, Latin, and Greek, which ought to have increased the official’s respect for her, but only deepened his suspicions. Not a word of German would come to her mind, and the occupant of the other berth, an elderly French lady in an astonishing nightcap, was not only of no practical use, but was evidently watching between her curtains with awful joy to see Zoe haled from the train and arraigned before the authorities. Never was anything more welcome than the appearance of Eirene from the next cabin in an exquisite embroidered dressing-gown. She had heard the altercation, and, coming upon the scene, assumed the direction of affairs. Her German did not forsake her, and the customs officer went away placated, but grimly assuring Zoe that she might thank _Ihre Fräulein Schwester_ that she and her possessions were not detained. The relief was great, and Zoe thanked Eirene heartily in rather tremulous tones. The French lady, disappointed of her expected sensation, transferred herself easily to the side of the victor, and inveighed against the brutality of the official while eulogising the courage and coolness of Eirene.

“And the prudence also of mademoiselle!” she cried. “She has there even her jewel-case, not forgetting to snatch it up at a moment of the greatest tension!”

“I never let it leave me,” said Eirene simply. “See, madame, they are very precious to me, these jewels. They are of the possessions of my late dear mother.”

She opened the box, and took out one or two of the trinkets it contained, handsome and old-fashioned; not at all sufficient, in Zoe’s opinion, to account for the anxiety she had expressed in speaking of them to her.

“Ah, very pretty,” said madame, regarding them with greedy eyes. “Too old in style for a young girl, but you will doubtless have them reset. But how comes it that all the jewels are yours, mademoiselle, while your elder sister wears not so much as a pin?”

“We are not own sisters, madame,” returned Eirene, with a fascinating mixture of truth and audacity. “But that makes no difference to our love, does it, my Zoe?”

Eirene had the jewel-case with her again when she and Zoe met in the dressing-room the next morning. They had been charged to make haste, as the elder ladies desired the room to themselves for the process of hair-dressing, which could not properly be performed before youthful eyes, but Eirene fastened the doors and opened her box a second time.

“Now I will show you!” she said gleefully. “You shall see that I trust you, though you don’t trust me, and that I am willing to confide to you anything that affects myself alone. Look, then!” and Zoe gazed, astonished, as the satin lining of the lid fell forward on the pressure of a spring, revealing a wonderful necklace of huge pearls fitting into a shallow receptacle evidently constructed for it. In like manner the sides and trays of the box, judiciously manipulated, revealed a number of emerald and diamond sprays--the stones extraordinarily fine--which might either be used separately, or united to form a necklace or tiara, and a bodice ornament of great rubies in the shape of a globe flanked by spreading wings, with a deep pendant. Lastly, Eirene showed that the box had also a false bottom.

“This is my greatest treasure,” she said, exhibiting a number of golden plaques which could be fastened one to another to form a girdle. Each plaque was curiously embossed with the figure of a saint, apparently raised in enamel upon the gold background, while the halo and portions of the dress were encrusted with precious stones. “I am obliged to take it to pieces for travelling, but I do it with terror, for it is old--yes, of an astonishing antiquity, and there is nothing like it in the whole world.”

“It must be Byzantine work, surely?” asked Zoe, examining it with intense interest.

Eirene looked at her with something like suspicion. “Yes,” she said coldly, and, taking the massive clasp from Zoe’s hands, she returned it to its place and snapped down the false bottom over it. Her displeasure was so uncalled for that Zoe experienced a return of the unamiable feelings of the evening before, but before the box had been restored to its usual appearance the momentary cloud had passed away, and Eirene was replying with gay defiance to Mrs Smith’s remonstrances through the closed door on her delay.

The next stage in Zoe’s appreciation of her new friend’s personality came at breakfast-time, when Eirene remarked with smiling effrontery to Maurice, whom Zoe had just introduced to her with a formality intended to show that the acquaintance of the day before was insufficient--

“It is so kind of Zoe to have arranged everything, so that we need not enter upon any tiresome explanations. Please be assured of my best thanks for adopting me as a sister during the journey. Until we part at Therma I am Eirene, if you please. You, if I am not mistaken, are Maurice?”

As much astonished as his rightful sister, and conscious of Mrs Smith’s face of wrathful agony in the background, Maurice had sufficient presence of mind to accept the situation, and mutter something about pleasure and honour. The only unembarrassed member of the party was Eirene herself, who motioned Zoe to the seat beside her at the table, and Maurice to that opposite, informing her outraged aunt that she would find her step-nephew _bien gentil_ and truly conversable. Taking the lead herself as a matter of course, she insisted on making the talk general, and before long Maurice and Zoe found their embarrassment fading away. Mrs Smith remained implacable, and answered only when she was directly addressed; but the other three were able to laugh and talk quite naturally. From his solitary table on the other side of the gangway, the man whom Zoe had styled the King’s messenger watched them with wistful amusement.

“It’s pretty clear the younger girl is only Smith’s step-sister,” he said to himself, “and the aunt is her private property. I suppose the aunt married the father’s brother, as her name is Smith too. No, that would make her their aunt as well. It’s a sort of puzzle in relationships; but with such a common name it may well be a mere coincidence. I should say the aunt and the younger girl’s mother were foreign and noble, and a good deal inclined to look down on the plain English part of the family. Smith will soon get tired of being tyrannised over by that little minx, and I could see Miss Smith didn’t half like it when they came in. It’s the sort of thing that palls pretty quickly. I suppose they wanted to make the step-sister’s acquaintance, but why bring the aunt, who has evidently made her the sun and centre of things? What a pity we can’t eliminate Mrs Smith! If she was out of the way--a convenient headache, now--I think Smith might take pity upon my loneliness and ask me to their table. They sound awfully jolly all together, and with three of us against her, it would be hard if we couldn’t take Miss Eirene down a peg. Her brother and sister are much too meek.”

Mrs Smith was not accommodating enough to have a headache--indeed, her expression implied that heartily as she detested her present position, wild horses should not drag her from it--but Captain Wylie was not forbidden the introduction he desired. “My sister, Miss Smith--Miss Eirene Smith,” said Maurice, bringing him up to the girls after breakfast, and receiving a smile from Eirene for his adroitness, though the presentation did not seem altogether to please her, apparently because her consent had not been secured beforehand. She gave Wylie the cold shoulder, as though she had read his sentiments towards her and reciprocated them, but Zoe, who had incited Maurice to introduce him, was quite satisfied. Wylie was the kind of man she liked. If he would talk, he could tell her things about India which might be useful in future; if not, she could look at him and make up far more wonderful things about him herself. He was not much of a talker, as it turned out, but sufficiently articulate to answer informingly when he was questioned, and Zoe was a past mistress in the art of what she called drawing people out, and Maurice, picking their brains.

As the day wore on it became evident to Zoe that Eirene was growing increasingly nervous. She could not rest for a moment, but roamed from one compartment to another, and up and down the corridor, shaking with agitation when she came face to face with any of the other passengers or an official. At last Maurice brought out his travelling chess-board and induced her to sit down to a game, promising that she should walk off her restlessness at Vindobona, so far as a stop of twenty minutes and the limits of the station would allow. But when they were approaching the Imperial city, and Maurice had gone to get his hat, she clutched Zoe’s arm convulsively.

“Oh, I dare not leave the train! It is here I shall be recognised if anywhere. Begin a game, quick; then I can keep my head bent over the board. May I hold your hand?”

Cold and trembling, her hand gripped Zoe’s under the flap of the table, and she was arranging the pieces when Maurice was heard returning. The clutch tightened.

“Don’t let them go far from the carriage. Oh, make them return to us continually! Couldn’t they stay here with us? No, it would excite suspicion. But tell them not to go far.”

Maurice and Wylie were much puzzled by the girls’ obstinate absorption in what appeared a singularly erratic game, and their firm refusal to walk about on the platform, but they made themselves useful by first going to the bookstall to see what Tauchnitz volumes were in stock, then making an expedition to buy one for Eirene, a second to get one for Zoe, and a third to change Eirene’s, which she discovered she had read before. Zoe was almost as much excited as Eirene by the time this point was reached. It was all very well to want to keep Maurice near at hand, but if Eirene was arrested, as she seemed to fear might be the case, what did she expect him to do? She could scarcely imagine that he and Wylie would attempt to rescue her from the Pannonian police. Of course they would appeal to the British Ambassador; but Zoe did not now believe that Eirene was even a British subject, and Maurice would probably have to declare his real name, with what danger to the purpose of his journey who could tell?

“Oh, Zoe, how carelessly you play! Check!” cried Eirene. “You are worse than you were months ago.” This for the benefit of a guard who had approached near enough to hear what they said. “Ah, it is nearly over!” with a sigh of relief. Zoe, looking up with the hasty idea of asking Maurice to get her some chocolate, by way of manufacturing another errand, saw to her delight the passengers returning hurriedly to the train. The dreaded twenty minutes was at an end.

“You know, I ran away,” said Eirene softly to her, as the train glided out of the station.

“I thought so,” responded Zoe; “but it can’t have been so very bad, as you took your aunt with you.”

“But I could never have gone alone!” in horror.

“No, I know it isn’t usual,” drily.

“Some day I will tell you how I did it,” pursued Eirene. “I thought I was safe, but if any of my precautions had failed, I knew it would be here they would catch me. Oh, and there is still another station before we are out of Vindobona! Begin another game, quickly!”

But the second station was comparatively unimportant, and the interval of terror of the briefest, and Zoe and Eirene released one another’s hands, and pretended to Maurice that a sudden intense interest in chess had prevented their having any desire to look out at the city and its buildings. At dinner, notwithstanding Mrs Smith’s objections, Wylie was accommodated with a temporary and most uncomfortable seat at the end of the table, and found himself very graciously treated, owing partly to Eirene’s sense of relief from her fears, and partly to the alacrity with which he had assisted Maurice in running her errands at the station. The night passed without alarm, for though the Thracian frontier had to be crossed, the Customs examination was considerately delayed until the morning, though it was necessary to get it over before reaching Tatarjé, where the passengers for Therma changed into another train, the Express going on to Czarigrad. As she watched it out of sight, Zoe sighed that half the romance was gone out of the journey, for the new train was unknown to fame, and by no means comparable with the wonderful microcosm which had been their home for nearly two days. Moreover, it moved as deliberately as the most local of English local trains, and its rusty engine groaned complaints as it dragged itself reluctantly out of the station.

Tatarjé naturally called up memories of Count Mortimer, the great English Minister whom the young King of Thracia had discarded on attaining his majority, and who was one of Zoe’s heroes. Wylie, who had heard little of him, was quite willing to be instructed and to share her enthusiasm, but Eirene was contemptuous. It was easy for any man to rise to power when he served a Queen who was willing to resign everything into his hands, she said; dealing with men was another matter. The discussion which ensued was of the nature of those parallel lines which can never meet, for it appeared that Eirene’s information was entirely derived from Scythian sources, and possessed nothing but the statesman’s name in common with Zoe’s. The crossing of the Roumi frontier gave a desirable change to the conversation, and Zoe sprang up to look out at “our own country,” as she whispered to Maurice. Her own country received her inhospitably, for rain was falling in torrents, and the general aspect was bare and neglected in the extreme. A squalid little station reached early in the afternoon, apparently unconnected with any town or village, was crowded with Roumi soldiers, and Wylie’s professional interest was aroused. He and Maurice left the carriage, taking with them all the cigarettes they possessed, and distributed them to the dripping, patient men. An elderly non-commissioned officer, who had been in Egypt, and recognising Wylie as a British officer, stood rigorously to attention when addressed, answered his questions in Arabic. The detachment had been ordered up to guard the railway, owing to a report that there was a band of Thracian revolutionaries in the neighbourhood with designs upon it. They had been at the station since early morning, without shelter or food, their uniforms ragged, their boots in holes. The station buildings were occupied by the Kaimakam of the district, under whose orders they were acting; he was immersed in business, but when he had time, would doubtless remember the needs of his troops. Some of the younger and more impatient spirits had spoken of bribing his secretary to draw his attention to the matter, but apart from the fact that with their pay months in arrears they could not offer enough to tempt so great a man, the sergeant considered that such an attempt would be an improper interference with the decrees of destiny. He saluted smartly, and stood back among his men, a stolid, shivering figure of military virtue in evil case.

“Some of the best material in the world!” said Wylie wrathfully to Maurice. “What soldiers we could make of them in India! British troops would have mutinied six hours ago. Look at the two sick men in that goods-shed, with the rain falling on them--and the Kaimakam, no doubt, is soothing himself with _hashish_ in the station-master’s quarters!”

“Let’s go and rout him out, and shame him into putting the men in shelter,” said Maurice.

Wylie shook his head. “I daren’t,” he said. “It would only mean quartering them upon the Christian inhabitants of the village over there. That’s what’s bound to be done at last, I suppose, but one wouldn’t care for the responsibility of hurrying it on.”

He looked over the straggling houses of the place, which was visible at this point round the shoulder of a hill, flat-roofed, dingy white, huddled together apparently for the sake of company rather than protection, then brought his eyes back to the face of the old sergeant, who had advanced and was saluting again.

“Is the Bimbashi Bey come hither to serve in the new Gendarmerie?” he asked respectfully.

“No; merely to visit a friend,” answered Wylie.

“God be praised!” responded the old man, with evident satisfaction.

“Now why?” demanded Maurice, when Wylie had translated the question. “Make him say.”

The sergeant needed some pressing, but at length gave his reason boldly. “The Bey Effendi’s eyes are of the cruel colour,” he said. “Never have I beheld eyes more cruel, and I have seen many men.”

Wylie’s disconcerted face made Maurice insist upon a translation, which delighted him extremely. “Ask the old blighter if he really believes that rot,” he demanded.

“The Bimbashi Bey’s eyes will indeed strike terror into his enemies, so that they will flee before him and he will grind them to powder,” returned the sergeant, anxious to be conciliatory. “But his own men would fain see his eyes like those of the young Effendi, his friend.”

“There! They think you’re squeezable, you see,” said Wylie in triumph. “When you’re made High Commissioner of Emathia, you’d better send for me to be your commander-in-chief, and put a little stiffening into you.”

“All right. Mind, it’s a bargain!” cried Maurice, returning to the train at the summons of the guard, and smiling to think how closely Wylie’s jest had approached the possible truth.

“Oh, Maurice, it’s an omen!” came in an awestruck whisper from Zoe, who had been at the window.

“A fiddlestick!” responded Maurice lightly. “Now for thrilling mountain scenery, with revolutionary bands thrown in gratis!”

The train was now entering the mountains, and the four young people established themselves at the corridor window, which presented the most extensive views, but Mrs Smith refused to leave the compartment. Emathia possessed the most brutal and savage scenery in the world, she declared, and it made her shiver even to look at it. She would endeavour to forget it, and if a French novel and slumber are aids to forgetfulness, it was not long before she did so. The prospect from her side of the carriage was certainly not inspiriting, since it was limited to the rocky cliff in which the track had been blasted out, but on the other side there was something like a view, as Maurice said. From the very edge of the line, dark woods sank down, down, to depths which the eye could not penetrate, rising again on the other side of the valley to heights behind which the sun was already setting, at barely five o’clock on a summer afternoon. In one or two places there was a glimpse of foaming water, but generally the woods alone were visible. They made her feel weird, Zoe said; it was like an enchanted forest. She did not mind going through them in the train, but to think of venturing into them on foot was enough to make the bravest heart quail.

“We ought to reach the great viaduct which crosses the river presently,” said Wylie. “I believe the line winds so much just there that from this end of the train you see the engine and the first half apparently at right angles with you as it enters on the bridge.”

“There it is!” cried Eirene presently. She and Zoe were sitting on the seat below the window, Maurice and Wylie standing behind them. They all looked out eagerly to see the famous bridge, and withdrew their heads again laughing, with ruffled hair, for in this narrow valley the wind was strong. Eirene drew back to adjust a hairpin, the two men were laughing at one another’s dishevelled aspect, and only Zoe was still looking out when that happened which she would never forget, though she could not determine exactly the sequence of the several events. In anticipation of the appearance of the head of the train, she was keeping her eyes fixed upon the bridge, when the end nearest her rose suddenly in the air, suddenly and, as it seemed, quietly. She had opened her mouth to cry, “Look at the bridge!” when the words were drowned by the sound of an explosion, which must have been simultaneous with the upheaval, but seemed to follow at a perceptible interval. The train rocked and staggered, the glass from the windows and lamps shivered and fell in showers with a curious tinkling noise, Maurice and Wylie were thrown violently across the corridor. Zoe found herself and Eirene on their feet, gazing at one another with dilated eyes, heard Wylie shout to them angrily to sit down, had a vague idea that the train had left the metals and was trying to climb the mountain--or what was the meaning of those agonised jerks which felt like earthquakes? She knew that she was saying something foolish--“the hill above the line was not quite so steep here, was it?”--but the words were frozen on her lips. The floor was slipping away beneath her, the place where the window had been was somehow rising to the roof, then there came a great crash, a sensation of falling through space, and all was silence.