“There’s no going back, Markov,” I said decisively. I was calm enough now for all the trouble.
“The devil!” exclaimed Zoiloff. “Well, we must make a fight of it.”
“Stay a moment. Where does this lane lead, Markov?”
“To a peasant’s homestead, with no outlet anywhere.”
“Forward to that, then—at a gallop. We can hold the house against the men with far better chances than here,” I said to Zoiloff. “Besides, they may not have seen us turn off the road, and may go on to the next turning. But what of Spernow?”
“He was gaining on them fast, and will escape in any event,” said Zoiloff; “but it’s a perilous fix.”
A couple of minutes later we halted in front of the cottage, to the infinite surprise of the inmates. Markov knew them however, and while he was explaining things to them the rest of us set to work to put the place in readiness to resist the expected attack. Fortunately it lent itself well to the purpose; and, long before the peasant owner had been pacified with a good round sum of money, every door and window was closed and barred, and the horses and cart had been stabled close to the rear of the house in a shed, the door of which we could easily command, so as to prevent anyone trying to steal off with them.
The Princess and her companion were placed in an upper room, well out of the danger of stray bullets; and, though we were breathless with our exertions, we were quite prepared to give our visitors a warm reception before a sign of the soldiers or of Spernow was visible.
Both Zoiloff and I kept an anxious lookout from a window in the roof of the cottage which gave a view of a considerable portion of the lane that led to the homestead; but the minutes crept on until a quarter of an hour, half an hour, an hour passed without a sign or trace of either our friend or our enemies; and, indeed, until we grew as anxious to see the former as to know we had escaped from the latter.
What could it mean? Zoiloff and I exchanged many an anxious question and hazarded many futile guesses. I was inclined to hope that the soldiers had not seen us after all, and that in our little hiding-place we had not only escaped them, but had been overlooked by any other parties that might have been despatched in search of us.