“We shan’t scream,” declared Zoe indignantly. “We won’t make a sound, whatever we hear.”
Milosch appealed to the chief, who pondered the matter gloomily.
“We owe you no consideration,” he grumbled. “For a whole month we have clothed and fed you, and provided you with shelter while we lay in the cold, and you have been deceiving us the whole time. For your sakes we have been hunted from our usual haunts, have made forced marches, and wandered about whole nights. You have no gratitude. If you see a chance of betraying us to the Roumis, you will do it.”
“We are not such fools,” said Maurice. “If it came to a fight we should be the first to suffer, as you said yesterday. We have promised not to try to escape, and we don’t mean to.”
“What are your promises worth?” sneered Stoyan; but nothing more was said about the wax, and the girls rode on in darkness, Maurice being led between them. They had been marching about two hours when a sudden tension made itself felt among the brigands. Rifles were cocked, and there were excited whispers. The horses were turned and made to stand across the road, with their tails to the rock, and Maurice was placed between them and ordered to hold the bridles of both, while all the brigands apparently went forward to reconnoitre. It was some time before the soft pad of moccasined feet announced their return. Milosch’s voice said, in a strident whisper, “Utter not one single word, or ze price is death.” The bridles were taken from Maurice’s hands, he felt a man on each side of him as before, and the march was resumed. It was continued, still in absolute silence, for hours, until the girls were nearly dropping from their horses with fatigue; but at last those in front stopped, and the handkerchief was removed from Maurice’s eyes. He stared about him in astonishment. They had halted in a stony valley, with towering peaks all round it, and the sun was nearing its setting. A number of men were standing round, leaning on their rifles, but they wore rough brown clothes instead of the dirty kilts and long leggings of Stoyan and his band. There was not a familiar face to be seen. As if by magic, an entirely new set of brigands had taken the place of the old.
“Do help us down, Maurice,” said Zoe, rather impatiently. “I am too stiff to move,” and he complied mechanically. But while he fumbled with the knot of the handkerchief which covered her eyes, he tried to prepare her.
“Zoe—Eirene—there’s something wrong. None of our brigands are here. These are all strangers.”
“Our brigands? How funny to call them that!” said Eirene, twisting off the handkerchief for herself. “Oh!” and she and Zoe stared blankly at their new companions.
“Ask them what it means, Maurice,” said Zoe, in a rather shaky voice, and Maurice obeyed. But the strangers proved, or pretended, to be ignorant of all the languages which their prisoners could muster among them, though they talked to one another in an unknown tongue which Eirene thought must be Mœsian. They declined also to understand, or at any rate to answer, questions asked by means of signs, though when Maurice pointed the way they had come, and signified that he and the girls wished to go back, they quickly barred his progress, patting their rifles meaningly. Baffled and worn out, the prisoners sat down, whereupon the chief of the new brigands smiled upon them approvingly, and pointed to the preparations which were being made for the night. A pole was thrust into a crevice of the rock, and a long piece of rough canvas hung over it and pegged down at each side to form a tent, a second piece, fastened to the projecting end of the pole, serving as a curtain. Maurice advised the girls to take possession, and the chief beamed approval. A fire had been kindled, and food of some kind was cooking in a large pot, watched eagerly by the brigands. There was the usual deficiency of plates, but the captives were accommodated with their share in the lid, while their guards ate out of the pot, and as, like them, they now each possessed a wooden spoon, given them by the women at the farm, they found no difficulty in making a meal. The fare was a kind of hasty-pudding, made of flour boiled with grape-treacle, very sweet and sticky, and eminently satisfying. The girls had soon had enough, and then came the moment Maurice had been dreading. He advised them to go to bed as soon as they had finished, but neither of them stirred.
“Maurice, what does it mean? We must know,” said Zoe. “Has Kayo’s band got hold of us after all?”