CHAPTER XXIX
THE PRISONERS AT SETCHEVO
Gavin heard the tap of the blind man's stick as the old Chevalier felt his way from the bare vaulted room in which a scanty supper had been served to them; and a fit of despondency coming upon him, more bitter than ordinary, he buried his face in his hands and uttered his heart-stricken complaint aloud.
"What are they all doing, then—why has Chesny broken his promise. Good God, Arthur, have we no friends at all? Is there no one who has interested himself in our story? I can't believe it. It isn't the English way. They must find out sooner or later. It can't be for all time."
Arthur, whose arm and shoulder were bound up in a garment that might have been a Moorish bernouse, smoked his pipe quietly and did not for a little while know what to say. Bitterly as he had paid for that which he called a "little trot to the Balkans," the English spirit forbade the utterance of any reproach, or even a word that his friend might take amiss.
"My people never trouble about me," he said. "They know me too well. You see, I've only a couple of uncles and a maiden aunt to go into hysterics; and my lawyers won't advertise while they can bank my dividends. It's different with you, Gavin. I'll bet your people were on the scent long ago; and that's to say nothing about Evelyn. Of course, she has not held her tongue. No woman does when she's in love with a man; and sometimes she can be eloquent when she is not. Oh, yes, I'll go nap on Evelyn all the time. She must know that we shouldn't stay in this cursed country for three months if we had the train fare to get out. Of course, she'll cry out about it—and if she cries loudly enough the Government will act. Not that I believe much in Governments—they generally weigh in when the corpse is buried."
Gavin smiled but did not raise his head. A fire of logs burned in the grate before them and filled the room with a haze of heavy smoke; the tapping of a man's stick had ceased, and the house was without sounds and void. In the hills above them a wild wind scoured the clefts and sent whirling clouds of snow to cover all living things below. The torrent beneath the drawbridge had become a monstrous scala of icy steps, a ladder with glistening rungs which none but the eagle dared.
"Three months—is it really three months?" Gavin exclaimed in a tone of unspeakable weariness; "three months in this awful den. Three months listening to that blind devil and his insults. God, I would never have believed that a man could go through so much and live. And you, Arthur—not a word from you since the beginning. That's what hits me. If you'd only speak out and tell me what I ought to hear, it would be easier."
Arthur laughed and stooped to light his pipe by the fire again.