"I am not a Russian," she exclaimed. "And if I were, I should not lightly give up a fugitive to the Russian police. You can go no farther; what can I do? There is so little time."
For a few seconds she appeared to be considering. Her brow was knit; she looked at him anxiously. Fully trusting her, he made no further effort to continue his flight, for which, indeed, he was manifestly unfit. Half-reclining on his pony's neck, he waited, panting.
Then she spoke rapidly to the Korean.
"Take the pony, unsaddle him, and turn him loose in the kowliang yonder. Saddle the Father's pony, ride a few yards in the stream, then gallop past the edge of the copse, through the hemp field, up to Boulder Hill. If you are followed by horsemen, throw them off the scent. Don't let them see you closely. Return after dark, but make sure the Buriats are not here before you come in."
An unregenerate Korean would probably have hesitated, but this man had been for some time under Father Mayenobe's training, and in a few minutes he had brought out the pony and cantered away. Meanwhile Gabriele, asking Jack to lean upon her arm, had led him into the copse to a large beech, the lowest branch of which sprang from the trunk about twelve feet from the ground. Asking him to remain there, she ran off with the fleetness of a doe, and soon returned with a light ladder. Setting this against the tree, she assisted Jack to mount; when he reached the fork he saw that the interior of the trunk was hollow. Then she pulled up the ladder, lowered it into the hollow space, and helped Jack to descend. Drawing up the ladder again, she let it down outside, ran down, and carried it swiftly back to the house, leaving Jack inside the trunk, where he stood upright, supporting himself with his uninjured arm.
Scarcely five minutes had passed since his first appearance. The Buriats had not yet come in sight; they had clearly been checked by the fugitive's sudden divergence from his previous line of flight, and nonplussed by his precaution in riding for some distance through the stream. But in another five minutes half a dozen horsemen, with a handsome young Russian lieutenant at their head, drew rein in front of the house. Gabriele was unconcernedly shelling peas at the window of the little dining-room.
The officer was evidently surprised to see a young European lady. With heightened colour he bent over his saddle and addressed her in Russian.
"Have you seen a man on horseback in (he neighbourhood, Mademoiselle?"
Gabriele looked up, with a puzzled expression.
"Monsieur parle-t-il français?" she said.