“It wasn’t that I remembered something, but that I realised something,” said Wylie, shifting the rugs he was carrying from his arm to his shoulder, and speaking under their shelter. “When I expected to be rescued to-day, I thought we should still be inside the triangle formed by the road, the railway, and the river, in which we were captured. When we did not arrive last night, the people across the river would inquire by telegraph whether we had started, and it would be seen at once that something had happened to us on the road. There are enough soldiers and gendarmes within easy reach to sweep the triangle thoroughly from the road and railway to the river, and we were bound to be discovered.”
“And it was after we crossed the river that you saw we were no longer inside the triangle? But I thought the country to the south was much more settled. Would the brigands really take us there?”
“Ah, that’s their artfulness. Did you truly think it was the river we crossed last night—only twenty feet wide, and shallow enough to wade through?”
“But what else could it have been—just a stream? Then we should still be inside the triangle.”
“It was not water at all; it was the railway.”
“Oh!” said Zoe blankly. “How could you tell?” she added.
“Didn’t you notice that there was no sound of water? One would have expected a good deal of noise from the way in which the brigands pretended to stumble about, as if the current was a swift and broken one. That struck me at one, and I listened hard. If the men carrying me had been wearing boots, I should have heard them crunching on the ballast, or knocking against the rails, but of course their moccasins made no noise. But I noticed that they lifted their feet to avoid something four times, and by calculating the length of their steps I found it was just where the rails would naturally come. Then I was sure.”
“Then it’s no good our hoping to be rescued soon?”
“We won’t give up hope, certainly. But it’s a stern-chase now—no chance of our being surrounded. And this is the brigands’ own country, where the Grand Seignior’s writ can hardly be said to run.”
“Then it may be days—or weeks—or months?” breathed Zoe faintly. “How can we stand it?”