“Do you think they mean to starve us?” murmured Eirene.
“I don’t know. I’m frightfully hungry,” returned Zoe.
The suggestion reminded Maurice that he was very conscious of the pangs of hunger himself, but it was difficult to see how the fact was to be brought home to the brigands. On testing the door by repeated knocks, he found that it was still blocked up on the outside, and he had nothing with which to reach the ceiling, and so disturb the floor of the room above. In these circumstances, the bright idea seized him of rolling about some of the empty jars, which made a most satisfactory noise, and presently the board was lifted again, and Milosch ordered the prisoners angrily to be quiet. When the state of things was explained, he deigned to parley, assuring them that it only wanted half an hour to sunset, and that as soon as it was twilight they should be released and bountifully fed, but that for the present they must keep absolute silence, if they valued their lives. The reason for this became apparent in the course of one of the longest half-hours they had ever spent, when the boards above rattled with the not very distant sound of regular tramping.
“That’s Wylie and his army going home,” said Maurice. “Fancy their being so close to us! I suppose we must have come back quite near the village we passed through last night. If the old chap only knew!”
The sound of the tramping died away, the dim religious light which filtered through the chinks between the boards vanished altogether, and they waited in darkness until there was a welcome noise at the door. The fodder which had concealed it was being flung away, and they were ordered to come out. Passing from the noisome stable, they were hurried through the yard into the house, and while room was made for Maurice in the jovial circle of brigands who occupied the stone divans in a large ground-floor room, deeply interested in the extensive cooking operations going on over and before an enormous fireplace, the girls were taken up into the tower they had already visited, and handed over to the women of the family. The grandmother and two or three elderly dependants were doing the cooking downstairs, where also were the men of the house, acting as more or less willing hosts to the brigands, but there were matrons and girls and children enough to make the household a puzzle in relationships. The women were shy at first, but when they saw by the rays of their primitive lamp the plight of their guests they forgot their timidity. They bathed and bound up their wounded feet, pressed upon them clean head-handkerchiefs and the loose embroidered shirts they themselves wore on feast-days, and brought them a plentiful supply of food. After the meal they made them comfortable with loose sheepskins upon the divans, and sat upon the floor to make conversation. The girls had picked up something of the language by this time—Eirene helping herself out with Scythian words—and an abundant use of gesture helped towards mutual comprehension. The prisoners were able to indicate the names of their respective countries, the manner of their capture, and their wanderings since that event, while the women expressed their pity and sympathy, together with their unbiassed opinion of the brigands.
That was the first of five nights passed in the tower, the days being spent underground, and the curious relations of the brigands with the rural population became manifest. The peasant-farmer had the privilege of providing the brigand with food, clothes, shelter if he demanded it, and intelligence of the doings of the authorities, in return for which he received protection against rival bands, and was secured against wilful damage to his property, while the brigands winked at the prompt disappearance of every article of value from the house and from the dress of the women when a visit from them was expected. There was no love lost between protectors and protected, guests and hosts, for the women had much to say of the ruthless demands of the brigands for food and clothing when the family had barely enough for themselves, and laughed at their boast of plundering only the rich. Money they took from the rich alone, certainly, but if the poor man, who had no money, tried to hide his last sheep to save it from their clutches, he might be thankful if he escaped with his life. With all this, the family were discussing—with as little constraint as if the priesthood had been the career in question—whether the eldest son of one of its numerous branches should become a brigand instead of submitting to the vicissitudes of rural life. Brigandage was the best profession for an active young man, it was generally agreed, and it was both a protection and a distinction to have a relation in a well-known band, but it gave the authorities a pretext for additional exactions, and if the long course of serving two masters should happen to end unfortunately, it was not desirable for the chief to have at hand a hostage for the conduct of the family. Not that the authorities could do much harm to a band like Stoyan’s, declared the grandmother, who was the chief advocate of brigandage as a career, for Stoyan had his own agent, receiving a regular salary, among the underlings of the Vali himself, who sent him early news of any offensive action that might be contemplated. It was only when troublesome foreigners rushed things, as Wylie had done, that the arrangement broke down.
All these things Zoe stored up in her mind for Maurice’s benefit, against the time when he should appear as the Michael who was to deliver Emathia from oppression on the one side and lawlessness on the other. It struck her as almost overpoweringly pathetic that when the women learned that her father and mother were both dead, they should ask, scarcely waiting for a reply, “The Roumis killed them, of course?” but the effect was spoilt when she discovered that they regarded the inhabitants of a Greek-speaking village near them with a hatred as rancorous as that which they cherished towards the Moslems whose name they never mentioned without a curse. It was the irony of fate that the last representatives of Greek ascendency should be dependent on these fanatical Slavs for the commonest offices of kindness, but what hope was there of reconciling the divergent elements? “If one could spend a lifetime travelling about the country, and getting to know the people personally, there might be some chance,” thought Zoe; “but even if there was the time to spare, the jealousy of the Powers would prevent it.” She was sitting on the divan, wearing the best clothes of one of the women, who was adding a border of brown homespun to the much-patched grey skirt, and the woman looked up and smiled at her. Eirene, who had refused any help rather abruptly, was sitting close to the lamp, mending her own skirt, having left Zoe to explain, with much futile gesticulation, that her sister was very independent, and would insist on doing everything for herself. “I wonder what would happen if I could make them understand who we are?” thought Zoe, but she did not try it.
The days in the underground dungeon were long and trying, for the absence of light prevented the girls from having recourse even to needlework, and much as they needed rest, they could not sleep all day as well as all night. On the second day they organised a mutual entertainment society, or rather Zoe did her part without being asked, and worried the others into doing theirs. She led off, and also filled up gaps, with a serial story of such length and complexity that there seemed no reason for it ever to come to an end, of which Maurice remarked ungratefully that he knew now why no publishers would have anything to do with her novels; they feared for their reason if they were once drawn into examining them. Eirene told Scythian folk-tales, gathered from her nurses in the very early years before she was afflicted with English, French, and German governesses simultaneously, and Maurice drew on his store of Cambridge stories, which was running very low before the imprisonment ended.
It was not until the sixth day after their night of wandering that they left the farm, and though the Roumi troops had presumably quitted the district, they were conducted away with as much precaution as had been observed in reaching it. Zoe suggested that the brigands feared their eyes might suffer from the daylight after such a long deprivation of it, and that this was the reason for blindfolding them afresh, for they actually quitted the place without having seen it, or the faces of the inhabitants, by any but artificial light. The women expressed their condolence and pity loudly, and would have loaded them with more gifts of food and clothes than they could well carry, but the brigand chief interfered. They had a long march before them, he said, and no one was going to carry the prisoners’ parcels for them. The gifts were therefore reduced to their smallest dimensions, and the start was made, each of the helpless captives walking between two of the brigands. To their relief, the track was neither so steep nor so rough as the one they had followed in reaching the farm, and after two hours’ walking, their guards removed the handkerchiefs from their eyes. To their weakened sight, all appeared dark even then, and it was only by degrees they distinguished that they were in a thick forest, the trees arching over the narrow path on which they stood. They were allowed little time to accustom themselves to the half-light, for the march was continued at once, the trend of the path being uniformly upward, but the ascent fairly gradual. A brief rest at midday was welcomed by the girls, who were already flagging, much to the annoyance of the brigands, and a hasty consultation took place between Stoyan and his lieutenants. As a result, it was evidently decided not to attempt to push on as far as had been intended, for the pace was less severe when they started again, and the halt for the night was called in a small clearing as early as four o’clock in the afternoon.
Adversity had done wonders in teaching the girls to bear their part in a backwoods life, and Maurice was no longer left to construct the usual hut by himself. He cut the poles and fixed them in the ground, but Zoe and Eirene twisted in and out the smaller branches which formed both roof and sides, and collected leaves and twigs for beds. Eirene was openly proud of her handiwork, but for Zoe it was associated with a regretful thought of Wylie. “What a lot of trouble we used to give him at first!” she mused; “and we never offered to do anything for ourselves. He must have thought us disgustingly helpless.” The recollection that if Wylie had thought so, he had, at any rate, put a good face on the matter, afforded some comfort, and by a peculiar process of thought she derived consolation also from the reflection that on the whole it was better he should think so.