“How tiresome you are, Zoe! It will look all right. I have put in some weights to keep it down better. If you don’t call attention to it, nobody will notice, and it will fall perfectly when I have worn it a day or two.”
“Well, I must say I don’t admire your tailoring,” said Zoe, rising from her knees. “You must have put in too many weights. Your tailor would simply break his heart if he saw that skirt. I believe I could have done it better, though I don’t profess to be great at sewing.”
“I have arranged it as I like it,” said Eirene, with so much dignity that her companion dropped the subject, though the ill-hung skirt was an eyesore to her all the next day, when Eirene came downstairs and was escorted on a short walk through the village. On the following day they left the Han to resume their interrupted journey, but intending to spend a night at the station on the other side of the river, lest Eirene should be over-tired by the long drive. They took only their hand-luggage with them in the carriage, leaving the larger boxes to follow with those of the passengers who would be due to join the train the next morning. The whole population of the village seemed to have turned out to see them start, from the priest to the most slipshod drudge at the inn, and Zoe flattered herself that they presented an imposing appearance, with Haji Ahmad, armed to the teeth, on the box beside the driver. The carriage itself, a nondescript vehicle of the victoria species, stood much in need of a visit to the coachbuilder’s, but it was large enough to allow of Eirene’s being made comfortable with cushions, and Wylie gave it as his mature opinion that, with reasonable care on the driver’s part, it ought to hold out until the end of the day. The road did not lead through the dark forests of evergreen oak, but through much more cheerful beechwoods, and the scenery was less savage than that in the river-gorge. It was just like a picnic, Zoe declared, and she only wished they could finish their journey to Therma in this way instead of by train.
About noon they stopped to change horses, and ate their lunch in a rickety shelter of poles and vines attached in lean-to fashion to the post-station. A little beyond this the road divided, presenting a fairly steep ascent on the right, and a more gradual descent on the left. The driver took the road to the right without hesitation, and Maurice and Wylie and Haji Ahmad got out to make it easier for the horses. Maurice walked by the side of the carriage, chatting with the girls, but Wylie and the servant fell behind, and it seemed to Zoe that they were talking earnestly. When the top of the hill was reached, showing a prospect of further hills, the road through which was barely distinguishable, Wylie went forward and spoke sharply to the driver, using a jargon of his own invention of broken Thracian helped out with Roumi and Arabic words, in which he had managed to make himself understood at the Han. The driver answered at first only by a broad stare and a look of bewilderment, but presently his face cleared, and he poured forth a torrent of words, gesticulating vehemently with his whip. The explanation he offered seemed to satisfy Wylie, though Haji Ahmad still looked uneasy as he climbed to his place. As soon as Wylie was in the carriage again, Zoe asked him what had passed.
“Haji Ahmad thought we were taking the wrong road,” he answered lightly, “but the driver says this is shorter than the other, and the landlord told him to take it in order to make the journey as short as possible for your sister.”
“But it is much rougher,” objected Zoe.
“So I told him, but he says that he had not allowed for our stopping for lunch, and that to go back down that long hill would lose so much time that we shouldn’t get in till after dark, which would be no joke on these roads. I don’t think there’s any fear of his losing himself. As he says, it’s obvious that both roads lead to the river and the Roman bridge, though this one goes across the hill and the other goes round it.”
Maurice and Eirene had scarcely noticed what had been said, and under cover of their talk and laughter Zoe ventured to ask, “But what if he did lead us wrong?”
“I’m afraid I should be guilty of conniving at Roumi oppression, and leave him to Haji Ahmad to deal with,” said Wylie, laughing. They went on into the hills, the track becoming rougher as they advanced, until Maurice wedged Eirene in with all the luggage of the party, that she might not be thrown out. Zoe heard Wylie muttering maledictions on the driver under his breath, and saw him casting glances alternately at the sun and the way they had come, evidently calculating whether there was time even now to retrace their steps. The driver was obviously anxious to escape as soon as possible from the resentment of his passengers, who were being rattled about like peas in a pod, for he was driving furiously, making the dilapidated carriage bound from hillock to hollow. Zoe looked across at Wylie, and, raising her voice, asked if he could not tell the man to go more quietly; but before he could turn his head, the driver had disappeared suddenly from her view. Something whirred over the carriage, sweeping Haji Ahmad from the box to the ground with a clatter of weapons, and the driver was in his place again as if by magic, pulling up his horses frantically in obedience to hoarse shouts in front. He must have ducked to avoid a rope fastened across the road, was Zoe’s last coherent thought. The carriage stopped violently, half across the track, and events came with a rush. Zoe saw Maurice and Wylie spring up from their seats, saw Maurice felled with the butt-end of a gun, and Wylie raging, furiously helpless, in a noose which the driver had dexterously thrown over him, pinioning his arms to his sides. Huge, hairy hands seized her and Eirene, dragged them out and flung them roughly on the ground, while fierce voices cursed them by saints with uncouth names. A wild struggle was going on, and the two prostrate girls were undoubtedly in the way, so that they were trampled upon impartially by both sides. Zoe had an awful glimpse of Haji Ahmad, his face streaming with blood, fighting desperately for his life, before she succeeded in dragging herself out of the fray, to find Maurice flung aside stunned and bleeding, and Eirene, who had fallen on her wounded arm, moaning faintly. The mob of ruffians in dirty white kilts who were yelling and struggling round the carriage paid no attention to her, and she crept towards the other two.
“Don’t look that way—don’t!” cried Wylie, breaking out of the crowd and thrusting himself between her and them—a ludicrous figure enough, with torn coat, no hat, and arms bound tightly behind him. “That’s all right,” as she lifted Maurice’s head. “There’s a flask in my pocket if you can get at it. Buck up, Miss Eirene! Don’t let these fellows hear an English girl making that noise.”