Zoe’s heart was full to bursting. The humiliations inflicted on her brother and Wylie touched her to the quick, and she experienced on their behalf all the indignation that they pretended not to feel. Most incongruously, the thought of the utter absurdity of the position afflicted her at times with an agony of mirth, and moment by moment she was forced to choke down the inclination to scream or to break into wild laughter. The occasional touch of Wylie’s shoulder against her knee as he stumbled over the rough ground comforted and calmed her, bringing a sense of the known and the ordinary into the fantastic circumstances of the present. Once or twice she put out a timid hand to make sure that he was still there, receiving a muttered word of encouragement in answer, and the friendly contact enabled her to repress the hysterical outburst she dreaded.
The journey seemed already to have lasted for hours when, after descending a very steep hill, the interpreter announced that there was a “reever” in front, and that Maurice and Wylie must submit to be carried across. With one voice they assured him that they would prefer to wade, but he explained that the chief’s solicitude for their health was so great that he would not hear of their running the risk of catching cold. Zoe laughed involuntarily on hearing this, and thus relieved her feelings a little, though horribly ashamed of her lack of sympathy. The brigands must either be adepts in the art of torture by pin-pricks, or totally destitute of a sense of humour. Maurice muttered that he did not see the joke, as he was carried off by two stalwart ruffians down a sloping bank, across, and up again, but Wylie manufactured a creditable response to her laugh. “A Gilbert and Sullivan melodrama, isn’t it?” he said, as he also was safely conveyed across the twenty feet or so of what must be presumed to be a rushing torrent, from the way in which the bearers slipped and tumbled about. The horses crossed with surprising steadiness, and the journey was resumed, the track now trending generally up instead of down. Zoe had lost all inclination to laugh by this time. She was cold and tired, and stiff and miserable, and full of terrible apprehensions. If Wylie had not been close at hand she would have defied the opinion of the brigands and cried like a baby, but she could not break down in his presence. He expected her to be brave, and she tried to forget her aching limbs and think only of the literary use to which she could put this disagreeable experience in the future. This was the way in which she usually comforted herself in her troubles, but it did not seem quite adequate now, and a weary sigh broke from her. The mere physical feat of sitting her horse without pommel or stirrup seemed no longer possible. If only she could slide to the ground and sleep!
“Keep up!” murmured Wylie. “Milosch—that’s the interpreter chap—says it’s only a little farther.”
Once more she pulled herself together and replied cheerfully, and before long the necessity for endurance ceased. A subtle change in the muffled sounds surrounding her showed her that the horse was being led into a building of some sort, and when he stopped she slid off helplessly, much to the amusement of the brigands. Amid their laughter, Milosch took the handkerchief from her eyes, and as soon as she could distinguish her surroundings she found that she was crouching close to a recently kindled fire in a low shed built of rough stones. There was a square hole in the roof, approached by a ladder, and the intense blackness above seemed to show that there was a second storey of some sort. Eirene, Maurice, and Wylie were standing near her, blinking in the firelight, and the brigands were arranging their cloaks on the ground, or rummaging in their bags.
“Ascend up!” commanded Milosch, seizing Maurice by the arm and pointing to the ladder. “We are charitable, we give you food when you deposited safe in supernal regions.”
“He can’t climb that ladder with his hands tied!” cried Zoe indignantly. “Why don’t you untie him?”
Milosch looked doubtfully at the chief, who shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and the cords were removed, care being taken not to cut them. “We tie you again morning,” observed the interpreter, with his cheerful smile. Maurice mounted the ladder, the girls followed, and Wylie, who had lingered to secure the rugs which had served as saddles, and request the loan of two of the brigands’ large overcoats, brought up the rear.
“It’s nothing but a hay-loft!” cried Zoe in horrified accents.
“Excuse me,” said Wylie; “it is a loft with hay in it, which is a much better thing, since it provides us all with beds. You’ll see, Miss Smith. While we are waiting until our friends below send us up some supper, we will curtain off the space at the end for you and your sister. Smith and I will keep close to the hole, so that if the brigands are up to any mischief in the night, they must wake us before they can get near you.”
His tone was so cheerful and matter-of-fact that Zoe forgot her fatigue and her fears, and held the rug for him while he tied one corner by its fringe to a jagged nail he had discovered in the sloping roof. The other side of the improvised curtain presented some difficulty, for there was nothing to which to fasten it, until she produced a stout hat-pin, which Wylie hammered into a crevice with the heel of his boot. Eirene disapproved of this use of the hat-pin.