“Why not?” I said. “Since we have no idea where we are, and she seems rather a decent sort, even to me, who have not fallen a victim to her charms. I don’t see why she shouldn’t do us a good turn to repay our decent treatment of her.”
“That’s what I thought,” John said contentedly. “I’m glad you think so, too. She must have a swell time up here, swashbuckling around these mountains. Exactly my idea of the right way to spend a lifetime.”
I laughed, though I was in the act of stumbling over a twig. Swashbuckling around a lot of bleak mountains in the dark was my idea of no way to spend a lifetime, or even a small part of it, and I said so. However, when we found the branch path to the left, we followed it, still going down the mountain, and, I hoped, not too far from the general direction of Herrovosca. The only thing that really puzzled me was her remark about the Black Ghost’s men being in camp. Just what did that mean? For one thing, that they weren’t up at their mountain stronghold, which accounted for our escape. But it would mean more than that. It probably meant trouble somewhere.
The moon was full and high in the heavens when we finally came out on the roadway. A narrow, muddy roadway, deep with ruts. “A dirt road” had been the Countess’ description, I found it rather an understatement. It was a dirty road. I hoped John liked it, but I didn’t ask him. By that time I was too tired to waste energy asking silly questions. In the dark it was hard to judge distances or time, but I felt it should be near dawn. We must have followed it for two miles or more when the sound of a car drove us off the road. There was a high stone wall on either side at that point, and John said he’d rather be captured again than attempt to climb it, and he was sure he couldn’t make it if he did try. The lamps of the car showed us plainly to its occupants, and they came to a sudden stop beside us. A voice addressed us in Alarian, John cursed sibilantly in English, and the voice adopted that language obligingly, asking who we were and why we were there.
I replied, “Our car broke down, and we had to leave it. We are trying to find help, and I fear we have lost our way.”
“You are going away from the ’ighway. It is be’ind you about seven miles. Where did you leave your car?”
That question was a difficult one. However, John answered it quickly enough. “We don’t know,” he said. “We’ve been walking, it seems, for years. We lost our way before the moon came up. We thought we’d find a house on this road, but it apparently goes nowhere.”
“It goes,” the man said, sternly, “to Visichich Manor. If you will get in we will take you with us, but don’t be ’eadstrong because we ’ave revolvers.”
There was no means of resisting them. We were exhausted and unarmed and John was suffering with his burned hands. We were seven miles from the highway, and heaven only knew how many miles from any inn or town on that highway. Altogether, we were fairly caught. John climbed slowly into the car, a little saddened, I feared, with the realisation that the Visichich woman had set us a trap. Not a mean trap, but a trap, for all that. She would undoubtedly keep her word and say nothing to anyone about having seen us, but she had arranged that we should not be a menace to the Black Ghost. My admiration for her increased a little. I wondered whether John would feel that way.
It was a seven-passenger car. Our captors let down the two small seats in the tonneau, so that we sat facing them. They were right, of course. The state of the country was too unsettled to take chances. Our story of the broken car would not hold water, because they would not have passed any abandoned car on the way—unless, and that might be true—they had not come from the highway, but from the Black Ghost’s camp, which might be between their manor house and the road. It was possible they had not heard of our escape, and they still might believe our story. And there were twenty-four hours in which Countess Katerina would not tell them. There was still some hope we might get to Herrovosca.