CHAPTER XV
BREAKFAST that morning was, indeed, a serious business. Everybody was ravenously hungry. They knew that it would be some hours before they could partake of the next meal. Even the Princess and Helène did justice to the food which their host had provided with true rustic generosity. Papiu and Mihai, whom Morton had paid according to his promise, were talking over their riches with their relatives. They had also been presented with the rifles and equipment used on the journey. They were discussing Morton in awed tones, as if he were some being of a superior world. And Toni, himself, had occasion to agree with them, for both he and his family had likewise been very liberally dealt with.
The party that gathered around the carriage in which the two gently-bred ladies were seated, waiting for the signal to start was, therefore, a happy if a noisily hilarious one. Chatterings as of magpies and greetings in Roumelian and German came from all sides. Rossika especially was everywhere in evidence; for had not the Gospodinas worn her clothes? She ran about smiling and nodding and advising with heightened color and heavy tread, as if the very lives of the ladies depended on her final ministrations. At last Papiu, his face all wreathed in smiles, ascended the driver’s seat, and amid loud exclamations of thanks and adieus he cracked his whip and the carriage rolled away, followed by Morton and Donald in a low dray.
The drive to the railway station was a pleasant one, though a longer route was taken at Morton’s orders, to avoid a possible meeting with soldiers from the border. During the slow drive, it occurred to both the Princess and Helène that their old friend the canvas-covered wagon had disappeared. They wondered what had become of it. Helène questioned Papiu.
The wagon? Oh, yes—the wagon had been destroyed. Gospodar Morton—what a leader of great wisdom he was!—Gospodar Morton had sent Mihai away in it to deceive the soldiers who had been following them. He was to send the wagon over a ravine after he had set the horses free to roam in the woods.
Had they really been followed by soldiers? Oh, yes! Papiu, by this time, had quite forgotten that he had been ordered to say nothing to the ladies about the matter. Yes, Mihai had seen them—“duke drag” (devil take them). One of the six fellows had escaped their rifles, for he had evidently brought assistance, and the whole crew had been after them. But the wagon’s tracks to the ravine had done the trick. Ha! ha! ha! That Gospodar Morton was some leader!
Helène and the Princess said not a word. This then was the explanation for Morton’s strange behavior at the time. Then there had been fighting and killing! What an escape!
When they alighted at the railway station both the girls were very quiet; but Morton was too busily occupied to notice the change. He monopolized the little telegraph office for so long a time that the operator in charge of the place thought the foreigner must be some government official or one of those newspaper correspondents who were everywhere. By the time the train for Hermanstadt drew in Morton had sent off all his messages. Within the hour they were in Hermanstadt, the first real town they had seen since leaving Padina, a city of early Saxon character and enterprise.
As the train for Vienna was not due for two hours, Morton drove the girls in a droshky and left them in the rehabilitating hands of the head of the best outfitting establishment the town possessed. He then took the occasion to see to his own person, and make some purchases which he knew would be welcomed by the ladies on the long journey before them. When he met them again at the station they hardly knew each other. What a difference clothes make!
Morton had been careful to secure a private compartment for the ladies so that they might obtain the rest of which they were in real need; and when he had seen them comfortably placed in their seats, he joined Donald in an adjoining compartment of the same car.