“Now look here, Eirene,” said Maurice, in his most elder-brotherly tone, “just drop it. If you are our sister, you must put up with things, and not make yourself unpleasant to our friends. You were frightfully silly this afternoon, and might have risked all our lives, and you ought to thank Wylie for what he did. We are all in one boat, and it’s simply idiotic to keep up grudges in this way. Wylie is an old campaigner, and Zoe and I are quite content to put ourselves under his orders. You must do the same, content or not.”
He expected a fierce protest from Eirene, but the authoritative tone seemed to cow her. “You don’t understand what my jewels were to me,” she pleaded. “They were my whole fortune, and the pledge of my birthright, and now I have lost them. But do not fear. You shall all experience my gratitude in the future, and I shall bear no malice against Captain Wylie for his excess of zeal.”
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” grunted Wylie, looking as if he thought Eirene a little mad, and Zoe hastened to cover the indiscretion by remarking—
“When you talk in that way, Eirene, you always make me think of Miss Flite promising to ‘confer estates.’ Don’t you think it’s horribly unfair, Captain Wylie, that she should be able to patronise Maurice and me in this way?”
Wylie’s reply was fortunately anticipated by the arrival of Milosch, who came up the ladder bearing a small collection of lumps of black bread and very ancient cheese, and a skin bottle of water.
“Are we not beneficents?” he asked proudly, depositing his burden on the rug. “We give you our own food!”
“That’s all very well,” said Maurice, peering down after him as he descended. “They are eating the white bread and things we left in the luncheon-basket.”
“How can we eat such stuff as this?” asked Zoe in dismay, for bread and cheese were alike as hard as a rock.
“Ask them to send up a little white bread for the ladies,” suggested Wylie; and Maurice, who was sitting nearest the hole in the floor, obeyed, only to receive the answer, “You are our guests. We give you our own food.”
Prudently refraining from increasing the girls’ aversion for the food by mentioning that he had seen it collected from the sacks of the different brigands, where it had reposed in close contact with wax, tobacco, thread and leather for soling moccasins, rag for cleaning guns, and other useful articles, Maurice broke off a piece of the bread by knocking it against the roof, and tasting it, pronounced it not so bad when you were hungry. Eirene confessed to having tasted black bread before, when paying visits to peasants’ huts, but added contemptuously that she had never expected to find it actually set before her for a meal. However, since there was nothing else, they all managed to nibble a little, and then the girls, almost asleep already, retired behind their curtain, and were soon slumbering peacefully, undisturbed by the loud snores from below, which showed that however guilty the collective conscience of the brigands might be, it did not keep them awake.