“Yes,” said the professor, “we will go quietly.”
The chief seemed satisfied, and the prisoners being placed in the middle, the whole band went off along the mountain path, higher and higher hour after hour.
There was no attempt made to separate them, nor yet to hinder their conversation; and the brigands seemed less ferocious now that the business of the day had had so satisfactory a finish, for they were congratulating themselves upon having made a very valuable haul, and the captives, after a time, began to look upon their seizure as more interesting and novel than troublesome. That is to say, all but the professor, who bemoaned bitterly the fact that he should miss seeing the old ruined, stronghold in the mountains, which was said to be the highest ruin in the land.
“It seems so vexatious, Yussuf,” he said towards evening, after a very long and tedious ride through scenery that was wild and grand in the extreme; “just, too, as we were so near the aim of all my desire.”
“Bother!” said Mr Burne, “I wish they would stop and cook some dinner. Are they going to starve us?”
“No, excellency; and before an hour has passed, if I think rightly, we shall have reached the brigands’ stronghold. They will not starve you, but you will have to pay dearly for all you have.”
“I don’t care,” said Mr Burne recklessly. “I’d give a five-pound note now for a chop, and a sovereign a-piece for mealy potatoes. This mountain air makes me ravenous, and ugh! how cold it is.”
“We are so high up, excellency,” said Yussuf; and then smiling, “Yes, I am right.”
“What do you mean?” said the professor.
“I did not like to speak before, effendi,” he said excitedly, “for I was not sure; but it is as I thought; they have now turned into the right road. Everything points to it.”