“I will. And you won’t make any attempt to tell her who we are?”
“No. I see that it’s better not to disturb her mind.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE GIRDLE OF ISIDORA.
“It’s a dog’s life!” said Zeko, leaning against one of the columns of the deserted church, and rolling a cigarette.
“I should have thought you had rather a good time, on the whole,” said Maurice, who was sitting on the steps below the ikonostasis. The girls sat on the top step behind him, looking out through the ruined west doorway, the lower part of which was blocked by the remains of the narthex. Rain was falling heavily, and they could not go out, but between the battered columns they could see the wild mountain landscape like a picture in a frame. Most of the brigands were luxuriating in the warmth of the underground kitchen, but the chief, with Milosch and Vlasto, had gone out into the rain some time before, and Zeko and one other were keeping an eye upon the prisoners.
“A good time!” repeated Zeko scornfully. “It’s hard work, and constant danger, and no comfort, and what does it lead to? Sometimes we pull off a good thing, as when we got hold of you, but what good will it do us? The Committee will take nearly all the money; it isn’t as if we could retire and settle down upon what we do get. It’s all very well to swagger through a village with your belt full of weapons, with all the girls pointing at you, and whispering, ‘There goes the valiant Zeko of Stoyan’s band,’ and all the lads wanting to join you, but it’s different when you come to the village, frozen and starving, on a winter’s night, and want food and shelter. The people dare not refuse you, but you can see their black looks, and you know they are cursing you under their breath. We say we don’t rob the poor, but they know, and we know, that our bags must be filled with bread, though the children go hungry, and we must have greatcoats, if we take them from the old grandfathers. Then if the Vali gets to know of our being in the neighbourhood, and wishes to get a good name for activity with the foreign consuls, he doesn’t go after us, but down he comes on the poor souls who have fed us, and robs them of what we have left them. And they don’t venture to denounce, much less betray us, for they are more afraid of us than him.”
“But if you are so sorry for the people, why expose them to all this?” asked Maurice.
Zeko shrugged his shoulders. “We must live,” he said. “And our own relations are supporting other bands in our own villages in the same way. We don’t remain in our own neighbourhood, for it would make it too easy for the Vali. He could destroy our village if he wanted to be revenged on us. But since we all come from different villages, and work at long distances from our homes, he knows it would do no good to destroy any particular village. Of course, it means that we can only visit our own people by stealth, and with great precautions, perhaps at intervals of many months.”
“But if the life is so hard, why go on with it?” persisted Maurice.
“What else is there to do? There are the taxes, and the troubles with the police, and the blood-feuds—all the different reasons that made us take to the hills; how can we go back to them? All you rich people who grind the faces of the poor shriek loud enough when we make you taste a little of what our life is, but you drive us to it. Perhaps you will pity us a little now that you have tried what hunger and cold and hardship really are.”