"Welcome to Setchevo, gentlemen. I am the Chevalier Georges Odin. Yes, I have heard of you and am glad to see you. Please to say which of you is Mr. Gavin Ord."
Gavin stepped forward and answered in a loud, courageous voice, "I am he." The blind man, passing trembling claws over the hands and faces of the two, smiled when he heard the voice and drew still nearer to them.
"You came from England to see me," he said; "you bring me news from my son and his English wife."
This was a thing to startle them. Did he, then, believe that Count Odin, his son, had already married the Lady Evelyn, or was it but a coup de theatre to invite them to an indiscretion. Gavin, shrewd and watchful, decided in an instant upon the course he would take.
"I bring no message from your son; nor has he, to my knowledge, an English wife. Permit me an interview where we can be alone and I will state my business freely. Your method of bringing us here, Chevalier, may be characteristic of the Balkans; but I do not think it will be understood by my English friends in Bukharest. You will be wise to remember that at the outset."
Here was a threat and a wise threat; but the old man heard it with disdain, his tongue licking his lips and a smile, vicious and cruel, upon his scarred face.
"My friend," he said, "at the donjon of Setchevo we think nothing of English opinion at Bukharest, as you will learn in good time. I thank you, however, for reminding me that you are my guests and fasting. Be good enough to follow me. The English, I remember, are eaters of flesh at dawn, being thus but one step removed from the cannibals. This house shall gratify you—please to follow me, I say."
Laboriously as he had descended the stairs, he climbed them again, the baffling smile still upon his face and the stick tapping weirdly upon the broken stone. The house within did not belie the house as it appeared from without. Arched corridors, cracked groins, moulded frescoes, great bare apartments with dismal furniture of brown oak, the whole building breathed a breath both chilling and pestilential. If there were a redeeming feature, Gavin found it in the so-called Banqueting Hall, a fine room gracefully panelled with a barrel vault and some antique mouldings original enough to awaken an artist's curiosity. The great buffet of this boasted plate was of considerable value and no little merit of design; and such a breakfast as the Chevalier's servants had prepared was served upon a mighty oak table which had been a table when the second Mohammed ravaged Bosnia.
The men were hungry enough and they ate and drank with good appetite. Perhaps it was with some relief that they discovered a greater leniency within the house than they had found without. Discomfort is often the ally of fear; and whatever were the demerits of the House at Setchevo, the discomforts were relatively trifling. As for the old blind Chevalier, he sat at the head of the table just as though he had eyes to watch their every movement and to judge them thereby. Not until they had made a good meal of delicious coffee and fine white bread, with eggs and a dish of Kolesha in a stiff square lump from the pan—not until then did he intrude with a word, or appear in any way anxious to question them.
"You pay a tribute to our mountain air," he exclaimed at last, speaking a little to their astonishment in their own tongue; "that is your English virtue, you can eat at any time."