“Good gracious!” murmured Maurice, and laying his head back on his arms he whistled softly at the stars, while Zoe shook from head to foot in an unconquerable spasm of silent laughter, and Eirene sat gazing at the fire with a look of gentle melancholy.
The next evening Maurice returned smiling from his colloquy with the brigands. “Well,” he said, “my undignified and contemptible pursuits have given me quite an exciting piece of news for you. Wylie is looking us up.”
“Oh, Maurice, what do you mean?” cried Zoe.
“Why, it seems that Demo and three others went down to-day to get food. At the village, wherever it is, they were told that an English traveller with one servant and a large quantity of luggage had stayed the night there, and gone on into the mountains, refusing a guide. Our fellows decided that such a chance was not to be lost, and having found out which way the traveller had gone, went across country by short cuts, and arranged a satisfactory ambush. They thought he must either be mad, or riding through in bravado after hearing about us, but the luggage would be all right, at any rate. I suppose he really was a newspaper man. Well, they waited in cover, and presently the traveller and his servant came along. The luggage looked so new and wealthy that it made their mouths water, but happily for themselves they didn’t act in a hurry. ‘They came near,’ said Demo, ‘and I recognised the servant. It was the Capitan. He was wearing Nizam dress, but I knew him by his accursed eyes; he couldn’t disguise them. Then we saw that it was a trap, and we let them pass.’”
“But how was it a trap?” asked Eirene.
“Why, either Wylie and the other man were much better armed than they looked, and meant to capture a brigand or two, so as to make them reveal the hiding-places of the band, or they meant to be captured themselves, and had spies to follow them up and see where they were taken. I don’t see why Wylie wanted to disguise himself, though. He might have known he would be recognised if he was caught, and then they would be safe to kill him. As it was, he and the other man seem to have ridden through the brigands’ country quite unmolested.”
“I wish he wouldn’t do such things!” said Zoe anxiously.
“Yes,” said Eirene, “he ought to remember that we depend upon him for our ransom and rescue. He has no right to risk his life in foolish bravado.”
“I think we may be pretty sure that Wylie had some ’cute idea in his head,” said Maurice. “I don’t quite see what it is; but he certainly risked being captured over again.”
“And this captivity is certainly not tempting,” said Zoe.