CHAPTER XXXIII
THE END
It was with a heavy heart that I mounted my horse and, accompanied by a guide whom the priest found for me, set out that night for the railway station to take the train to Nish. Even the thought that the morrow would see me with Christina could not at first relieve the gloom of my sorrow or take from my eyes the picture of the cold still form of my dead friend, lying in the sombre bare room in the priest’s house. I had left him full instructions for sending on the body to Nish, and had given him a sum of money which made him glad with the thought of all the charities he could dispense among the poor of the village.
But youth is youth and love is love, and as the miles passed which brought me nearer to Christina the drear mournfulness of my grief for the dead began to lose its blackness beneath the glamour of my love for the living. It was a sad tale I had to carry her after all, and though in obedience to my comrade’s dying wish I could tell her nothing of his love for her, I knew how she would mourn his loss. But love is selfish; and when at length I reached Nish my heart was beating fast with the throbbing of the delicious, delirious knowledge that we were close together again, with no obstacle to bar the mutual avowal of our passion, and no need to dread another parting.
It was far too late when I arrived for me to seek her that night, and I myself was so spent with my experiences of the last thirty hours that I was glad to throw myself on a bed. Excited though I was, I slept soundly for some hours, and did not awake until the sun had long been streaming into my room.
I hurried, of course, to the British Consul for tidings of Christina. He told me she was staying in his house, and, at my request, sent at once to tell her I had arrived.
“There is great news this morning, Mr. Winthrop,” he said; “news that will interest you as much as it has me. The Russian plot has failed. Thanks largely to my colleague, the English Consul at Philippopoli, General Mountkoroff has declared for the Prince, and he is even at this minute marching on Sofia with the flower of the Bulgarian army against the traitors who sold themselves to this Kolfort and Russia.”
“Will the Prince return then?”
“Assuredly he will. The Powers will stand behind Mountkoroff, and Russia will not venture to resist.”
“Then my friend Lieutenant Spernow will be safe,” I said, describing briefly the plight in which I had left him.
“You need not have a moment’s uneasiness. Russian influence for the moment will decline to zero, and the Prince’s friends will be paramount.”