There was a commotion among the brigands feasting round the other fire, caused by the sudden arrival of a man, who was gesticulating violently towards the direction from which they had come. By the firelight the prisoners recognised him as their treacherous driver of the day before.
“Is it help? Are we going to be rescued?” cried Zoe eagerly.
“No such luck; I wish it were,” said Wylie, who had caught some of the newcomer’s words. “Never mind about me,” he went on, rising, “just go to bed. I want to hear what this chap has to say.”
He went towards the other fire, and to the horror of the three left behind, the brigands sprang at him like one man, with howls of fury. Curses and execrations were poured on him, he was hustled and dragged hither and thither, and angry men threatened him with pistols and drawn daggers.
“What can it be?” murmured Zoe, with white lips.
“I don’t know. Keep quiet,” said Maurice, buttoning his coat and squaring his fists. For the girls’ sake he would keep out of it as long as he could, but if Wylie was struck he must go in and back him up, little as two unarmed men could hope to do against a crowd with knives. To his relief, order was presently restored by the intervention of the chief, after which Milosch made a long and evidently moving oration, and Wylie returned to his friends, scowls and murmurs of hatred following him.
“Oh, what was it?” cried Zoe as he reached them.
“Nothing; merely the penalty for playing the fool,” he replied. “You know how long they kept us standing about with our hands tied before we started this morning? I was standing rather by myself, and the ground was sandy, so the bright idea seized me of leaving our rescuers a clue to the way we were going. With my boot I drew ‘N.W.’ fairly deep in the sand, shuffling about as if I was tired of standing so long. Unfortunately, the gentleman who has just arrived reached the place before the rescuers, and twigged what the letters meant. This diffusion of Western learning in the East is a nuisance. Hence all the fuss. Milosch was particularly severe on my ingratitude in trying to betray the brigands after all they had done for us, and I had to remind them of the way in which we were tied at that very moment. So they calmed down, as you see.”
“I should have done it if I had thought about it,” confessed Maurice. “And yet—these chaps can make things so beastly uncomfortable for the girls, you know.”
“Oh, Maurice, don’t be so ungrateful!” cried Zoe. “If it had succeeded, we should all be saying what a splendid idea it was, and how clever Captain Wylie was to think of it. And, at any rate, it’s over now.”