Wylie’s plan declared itself unexpectedly the very next day. The prisoners had climbed up to what they called their afternoon ledge, a shelf of rock which caught the westering sun, and were looking out over the chaos of hills and valleys below them, and speculating for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time upon the prospects of their release. Suddenly one of the brigands’ sentries, who was stationed round a corner on their left, whence a view of the country to the eastward could be obtained, ran in and shouted to his comrades. Wild confusion instantly prevailed among the loungers in the hollow. Some of them quenched the fires with earth, a heap of which was kept ready for the purpose, and the rest caught up their weapons, and scaling the ledge, flung themselves upon the prisoners, who expected nothing but instant death. Not daring to move, they yielded helplessly to the violence of the brigands, who dragged them as far back as possible, so that they could only just see over the ledge, tore off the girls’ head-handkerchiefs, which showed white against the dark of the cliff, and ordered them, if they valued their lives, to make no sound or movement. Presently, the cause of the commotion came in sight far below—a column of Roumi soldiers, led by an officer on horseback. In front walked a man in plain clothes, examining the ground narrowly as he went.
“Captain Wylie! He has tracked us!” murmured Zoe, under her breath. Milosch turned upon her with a diabolical grin.
“Promise candles to ze saints zat he track you no furzer, zen. If he find ze way up ze stream, you go down ze mountain to meet him—you see?” He lifted Zoe’s chin, and with the point of his knife traced a line upon her neck. She shrank away from him, sick and almost fainting with horror, and he laughed. “We begin wiz you, after all,” he said.
CHAPTER XI.
TOO MUCH ZEAL.
“Take your dirty hands off her, you brute!” growled Maurice, struggling ineffectually with the two men who were holding him down. Milosch smiled again.
“You ze next,” he said. “We leave you at ze camp—dead, oh, yes! and ze Roumi dogs will see how you died. Zere will be tree—four hours while zey find ze way, but for you it will experience tree or four days. And ze ozer girl,”—he cast a critical eye upon Eirene, who shivered in spite of her utmost efforts to maintain a firm front,—“we not kill her, no. We leave her also at ze camp, but living, to tell what she see.”
The strain was too great, and, with a little gasp, Eirene fainted away. Milosch chuckled. “Make not no mistakes,” he added impressively to the furious Maurice. “It may be your friend achieve to discover you—yes; but you will compensate in blood for ze ransom he hope to defraud.”
Maurice turned away with as much impassivity as he could muster. “Don’t you go and faint too, Zoe,” he said to his sister; “he’s only trying to make our flesh creep. But don’t trouble about Eirene. I don’t suppose it will hurt her to stay as she is for the present, and it can’t be any pleasure to her to hear him talk.”
Zoe, who had been trying to get to Eirene, ceased her struggles, and let her eyes return to the moving figures in the valley below. This was evidently a critical moment, for the brigands were watching their progress with strained attention. At last, when Wylie had passed a particular point, a gasp of satisfaction showed that, in the opinion of the band, the immediate danger was over.
“It’s the stream that has thrown him out,” muttered Maurice. “He’ll go on ever so far looking for tracks before he guesses where we turned off.”