“Oh no, it is yours he wants,” said Eirene quickly. “He thinks Captain Wylie will recognise it.”
Zoe glared at her for this tactless speech, and reluctantly tore off a strip which was hanging loose between two of the brown patches she had put in. Watching the chief with some curiosity, she saw that he tore it in two, and dexterously entangled one piece in a thorny bush some little way up the ascending path on the right, and then went on up the hill, evidently intending to do the same with the other farther on. The intention of the manœuvre was obvious, and the prisoners did not know whether to sigh for the deception to be practised on Wylie, or to rejoice that his perilous presence was to be removed from them. After some time, the brigand who had gone down the hill reappeared with an ancient horse, very thin and almost blind, and the girls were, without ceremony, mounted one behind the other, with the rugs as an apology for a saddle. They and Maurice were then blindfolded, and the descent began, the brigands displaying their usual distrust of smooth or soft ground, and leading the horse down the rockiest places, which was good strategy, but made exceedingly uncomfortable riding. For once, each girl was really thankful that her companion’s eyes were unable to see the shifts to which she was put in order to maintain her balance. At length the descent became somewhat less steep, and the old horse stumbled gallantly along a fairly level track, his two riders almost asleep, in spite of their uneasy position. They stopped with a jerk at last, and heard some one pouring forth an exciting narrative to the chief. Maurice came up to them softly.
“It is the fellow who was sent back,” he said. “He followed the retreating soldiers until they came to the village, and met Wylie’s force just setting out in this direction. Wylie meant to sweep the country, you see, and if the sentries above here had not left their posts, the two detachments must have caught the brigands between them. Of course, it’s just as well for us personally that they didn’t.”
“What did Captain Wylie say?” asked Zoe.
“When he heard we had broken through? Oh, Demo says, ‘Their own Bimbashi beat the flying soldiers with his sword, but the Capitan cursed them in bitter, biting words, far worse than any beating, for if the evil eye ever rested on any man, it did on them!’”
“If I were Captain Wylie, I should curse myself,” said Eirene succinctly, just as Milosch summoned her and Zoe to dismount. Followed by Maurice, they were led a wearying round, in and out of doors, up and down stairs, into a tower, a farmyard, a granary, and a kitchen (as they judged by the smells that met them), until they were hopelessly confused as to the direction in which they had come. Then they were pushed in at a low door, and the bandages were suddenly removed from their eyes. They were in darkness, but other senses than that of sight convinced them that they stood in a cattle-stable.
“Oh, Maurice, the dirt!” gasped Zoe, as her foot sank into yielding mud.
“Go on! go on!” cried Milosch behind, prodding Maurice in the back with the muzzle of his rifle—an action which has a distinctly disquieting effect upon the person acted on—and Zeko’s voice in front called them to come forward. Following the direction of the words, they saw a faint glimmer of grey, defining the shape of another doorway, with the outline of Zeko’s beckoning arm dark against it. Stumbling through the mud, they reached the threshold, and found themselves in a cave or underground room hewn out in the rock. Part of the ceiling was of rock, the rest, through which the light glimmered, was apparently the badly fitting flooring of a room above. Sacks and large earthenware jars, with various boxes, seemed to show that the place was the receptacle for all the household valuables, but there was nothing that could be called furniture. Zeko shut the door with a bang, and they heard him piling up fodder—or something else that deadened sound—against it on the outside. They were imprisoned underground.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DIVINE FIGURE OF THE NORTH.
“Dear Wylie,—I am sorry to have to tell you that in consequence of the action of the authorities in sending troops against them, Stoyan and his band have now increased the ransom they demand for us to twenty thousand pounds. They also say that if the pursuit continues, first one and then another of us will be killed, and the ransom for the remaining one will be raised by five thousand pounds a-week. I tell you honestly that the efforts of the troops can have no result beyond irritating the brigands and making our position worse, and that we are at this moment hidden where I believe no power on earth could find us. The ladies agree with me, very reluctantly.—Yours truly,