“Why, there is a little house at the very top! How do they get up?”
* * * * * * *
The day before, Wylie, with his friend Armitage, the artist, who had insisted on being present at the release of the captives, had made his way to the spot agreed upon, convoying the ransom, carefully packed and carried on donkeyback. The rendezvous was a wayside inn, or han, of doubtful character, providing the same accommodation for man as for beast, and little enough for either. The brigands had stipulated that no soldiers or armed men of any kind were to escort the treasure, and for this reason Wylie and Armitage were obliged to come alone, even the donkey-drivers declining the last stage, lest they should find themselves marked men in future. Before they would embark on the adventure at all, they had insisted that the value of their beasts, liberally calculated, should be deposited with the British Consul-General, and they were therefore quite at their ease in the more attractive han where they remained. Wylie had indulged in a faint hope that he might be able to pay over the ransom at once, receive back his friends, and carry them off the same day to these more desirable quarters, where he had left a large collection of clothes and other comforts, contributed by Madame Panagiotis, the ladies at the British Consulate, and other sympathisers; but when he suggested this to the ill-favoured landlord of the brigands’ inn, the man only laughed at him. Did the Capitan Bey really expect the band to be waiting to receive him, without making sure that he had kept his word and brought no soldiers? he asked. He himself was to send word to a point farther on in the mountains that the ransom had arrived, and from thence notice would be sent to the brigands, who would scour the neighbourhood before trusting themselves in the vicinity of the inn. Wylie set his teeth doggedly. He had not sacrificed everything to raise the ransom that it might be stolen from him now, and he and Armitage carried in the boxes of gold with their own hands, and spread their carpet over them. All night they relieved each other, one sleeping above the treasure while the other, armed with sword and revolver, kept watch.
The early part of the next day passed wearily, for they durst not leave the boxes unguarded; but at last the innkeeper announced that Stoyan was awaiting them at the point he had mentioned, and they loaded the donkeys again and followed him. Stoyan and Milosch came forward to meet them on the outskirts of a small wood, and led the way to a clearing in the middle of it. No one else was officially present, but Wylie was persuaded that the bushes had eyes, and that rifle-barrels protruded through the underwood. The boxes were lifted down, the gold counted and tested, and the chief announced that he was satisfied.
“Then where are our friends?” asked Wylie.
“They are already released,” was the answer.
“But why? I thought they were to be given up to us here?”
“Ah, we know the Capitan of old, that he baits traps for us,” smiled Stoyan. “If he had his friends safe, what should prevent him from calling forward soldiers to seize us before we could escape with the gold? Therefore he will not meet his friends while he is in our district. They are already on the way to Therma, and he can catch them up.”
“But why release them before the ransom was paid?”