“But how has he tracked us?” asked Zoe, who had now been released, and was holding Eirene’s head on her knee, as the younger girl struggled slowly back to consciousness.
“By the marks of our boots, of course,” said Maurice. “No one else in the mountains wears boots, and there has been no rain since we came up here. I say, I shall tell Wylie what I think of him when I see him next. He has no business to sacrifice us to his grudge against the brigands. That’s the worst of him, he’s an unforgiving brute, and the trick they played on him the day they pretended they were going to kill him rankles.”
“Maurice, you are absurd!” Zoe was engrossed in her ministrations to Eirene, and could only talk in snatches. “He has some special reason for this. I am sure of it. He may have a grudge against the brigands, as you say, but he will wait to work it off until we are safe.”
“Then what’s he up to now?” demanded Maurice, and Zoe could offer no explanation. Eirene laughed weakly.
“Zoe would say to him with her last breath, ‘I know you couldn’t help it,’ and Maurice, ‘You brute! it’s all your fault,’” she said.
“Take your dirty hands off her, you brute!” growled Maurice.
“And you?” asked Zoe, rather tartly.
“It is not to be my last breath, you know”—Eirene shivered again as she rose shakily to her feet, with the help of Maurice’s hand—“but I should say to him when we met, ‘You see, sir, the results of an excess of zeal.’”
“Awfully scathing!” said Maurice, guiding her along the ledge. “I’m coming back for you, Zoe; wait for me. No wonder you feel shaky, after that sickening rascal’s talk.”