This piece of business was merely the posting of the letter of introduction to M. Drakovics which Mrs Sadleir had intrusted to Cyril; but he had an idea that Louis might wish, for some reason of his own, to intercept the missive if he knew of its existence, or even saw it posted, for he could not rid himself of the notion that the taciturn young patriot had other ends in view than that of furthering the independence of Thracia. Acting on this resolution, he succeeded in finding Nadia alone, and gave the letter into her charge, to be posted as soon as possible after her arrival on Thracian soil, adding at a venture that it might prove to have an important effect on the after-history of Europe. He saw at once that she understood what he meant, and that she sympathised with his object, for her face lighted up.
“I see. I will be most careful. I thank you for trusting me—for letting me help, Lord Cyril.”
“What a fanatic the girl is!” said Cyril to himself, as he went his way; but he entertained a comfortable conviction that it was rather safer to trust a fanatic than a cynic, and he felt secure as to the fate of Mrs Sadleir’s letter, and the note he had written to accompany it. An hour later he left Janoszwar with Caerleon and Louis, and they began a tour for which none of them cared much, except to count the days until it should come to an end. Caerleon missed his talks with Nadia, Cyril was anxious to get to Witska and see whether the letter had produced any effect on M. Drakovics, and Louis displayed an eagerness to reach Thracia, and enlist in the patriot army, which was rather inconsistent with his having come on the tour at all. In consequence, they clung most carefully to the route they had laid down previously, and no one suggested digressions even when the most famous ruins or inviting landscapes were found to lie just a few hours’ march off the road. On the very day they had fixed they reached Witska, a picturesque little town with rocky streets, and whitewashed houses clinging to the steep hillside, and found it filled with numbers of men from the plains in their holiday attire.
CHAPTER V.
A CALL OF DUTY.
“There must be a fair or festival of some sort going on,” said Caerleon, as they made their way to the inn, where it had been arranged that the O’Malachy was to secure rooms for them.
“Perhaps the people have come together to do you honour,” suggested Louis, lightly enough, but it struck Cyril that there was a shade of anxiety in his tone.
The inn was an oriental-looking house built round a courtyard, but conforming to the customs of the West so far as to possess a coffee-room—a fact which was proudly announced in German and Thracian in very large letters. There were no windows on the exterior of the house to the ground-floor rooms, a testimony to the frequent occurrence of border raids and attacks from brigands in the days when the inn was built, but balconies ran round each of the two upper storeys, both inside and outside, giving the only means of access to the rooms which opened upon them. The courtyard was thronged with people, among whom Caerleon fancied he recognised some of the harvesters that Nadia and he had met a fortnight before, and they watched with breathless curiosity the three dusty figures in tourist suits and hobnailed boots, and commented upon their appearance audibly but unintelligibly. The landlord, who met them at the door, bowed almost to the ground before them, but as he could speak no tongue of Western Europe, they were unable to question him as to the nature of the attraction which had brought the crowd together. Behind him, however, stood Wright the groom, doing his best to compose his face, which had wreathed itself into an irrepressible grin of delight at welcoming his master, into the blank immobility which he considered becoming and suitable. In his hand was a visiting-card, which he presented to Caerleon.
“The gentleman up-stairs give it me for you, my lord, and ’e’s waitin’ for you in the coffee-room, and I do ’ope, my lord, if I may make so bold, as your lordship don’t think of stayin’ long in this ’ere country, where there ain’t a creetur can speak a word of a Crishtan tongue.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Cyril, looking round Caerleon’s shoulder at the card, and seeing, as he expected, the name of M. Drakovics.
“Has the old brute come to plague me again about his precious kingdom?” said Caerleon, impatiently. “He might have waited until I had made myself respectable, at any rate. Well, I suppose I must see him, but I’ll wash off a little of the dust of travel first”—“and just ask Nadia what she really thinks about the business,” he added to himself, as Wright led the way up-stairs, and along the gallery which crossed the front of the house.