We rode on in silence for about twenty minutes, bumping uncomfortably over the bad road. Then we thundered through an archway and into an open space before the long low white building which we had first seen from the customs house. The ancient archway through which we had come, and the tower and wall connected with it, might have belonged to a fortress. A single light showed in the house. The driver of the car got down first and helped us out, then preceded us up to the door, and knocked loudly on it. Presently a servant came, and only then did our hosts get out. They kept discreetly behind us as we entered the wide hallway, and the driver showed us the way into a room at the right. It was an interesting room. The walls were white, the iron hardware was handwrought and I thought very old. Three hanging lamps supplied light of the oil age. The furniture was of that peculiarly ornate character which usually graces southern and central European homes. Against their severe white walls and rich carpets it loses the tawdry appearance that it would have among the gimcracks of our homes.
The chauffeur and the servant remained in the doorway, in case we should make any disturbances, of course. I decided we would not. We stood in silence for several minutes, looking each other over quite frankly, each pair of us wondering how the other pair might fit into the complicated scheme of things in this Balkan state. The elder of our captors was a man of medium height, grey haired, with a beard and a mustache. Both their mouths had the same ruthless line as the Countess Katerina’s and they both had the same relieving lines of humor around their amber-brown eyes. Altogether they were not an alarming pair, and I judged they came to the same conclusion about us, for they relaxed in a moment or two, and the older man spoke. “Sit down gentlemen,” he invited.
We obeyed willingly. We had walked enough that night to make sitting welcome.
“Now, about that car,” he went on. “Perhaps you will tell me some details of it? I will have a man search for it in the morning.”
“By morning,” John said easily, “it will quite likely have been stripped beyond recognition by the bandits that I hear are in these mountains.”
The two men looked merely mildly surprised at the mention of bandits. “Bandits?” the younger inquired pleasantly, “you ’ave ’eard there are bandits ’ere?”
“Yes,” John went on, “we were very anxious not to meet any of them when our car broke down. I can imagine a mountain bandit, supreme in his power and responsible to no one, could be a most unpleasant person to meet on a dark night. Especially so for two unarmed men.”
“Who has told you of bandits?” The younger man seemed only slightly interested, as though he asked merely out of politeness.
“We heard of them before we left Rheatia.”
“Oh, Rheatia!” He dismissed Rheatia as though that overgrown neighbor of his were not worth mentioning. “In Rheatia you will ’ear many tales. The only bandit I know of in these mountains is Fakat Zol, the Black Ghost. You may ’ave ’eard of ’im?”