“I knew you would. Thanks, old man.”
“And after all,” said Zoe, trying to keep her lips from trembling as she spoke, “we may meet the party from the ship quite soon, and then Colonel Wylie can come back at once to you, Maurice.”
“Ah, of course. That I will,” said Wylie.
“Only if you have handed them over safely,” said Maurice. “Don’t let me see you again if you can’t do that.”
“All right. We start as soon as it is dusk, then.” His voice had regained its usual tones as he turned to Eirene and Zoe. “Put on native shoes, and dark clothes, if you have them—handkerchiefs on your heads instead of hats, like the women here. No luggage, of course. I will give you the blue lights,” he added to Maurice. “You must burn them on the gateway at half-hour intervals, without fail. If the Emathians object, tell them it is a signal of distress, a last appeal for help from the Admirals. You must keep our absence a secret, of course. I will have the men we are to take with us put on guard, so that they can get away without being seen.”
How the hours of that dreadful day wore themselves away, none of the people chiefly affected could have told. By far the most cheerful was Maurice, over whom the impending doom hung most certainly. Eirene was filled with a passionate remorse, which it was now too late to prove save by the promptest acquiescence in anything her husband suggested, and Wylie went about like a man under sentence of death. As for Zoe, the active imagination which had played such a large part in her history ran riot now in scenes and possibilities of horror, until she could only restore herself to some measure of calmness by the sage reflection that nothing in all her life had ever proved as terrible as she had pictured it beforehand. The only humorous element in the day’s doings was furnished by Zeko and his six men, who objected as strongly as did Wylie to being sent out of the way of danger, and could only be induced to go by the promise that they should return with him when the ladies had been placed in safety.
It was more difficult now to leave the monastery secretly than it had been when the adventurers reached Hagiamavra, for the hills round it were no longer solitary, but dotted with the huts and tents and camp-fires of the insurgents and refugees, who were crowding closer to this central point as the lines were tightened round them. Maurice was naturally the chief object of interest to these people, and he concentrated their attention on himself by preparing to start with his guards, shortly before dusk, for the breastwork on which the Maxim had been mounted the day before, to resume the defence as soon as the armistice expired. The malcontents under Nilischeff, their occupation gone by the loss of the line they should have defended, hung about sullenly until he ordered them away to strengthen other weak points, and begging women and wailing children, demanding vainly the food which he had not to give them, watched the departure of the forlorn hope. For that it was a forlorn hope there could be no doubt. The Roumi seizure of the ravine between the monastery and Ephestilo had driven a wedge into the heart of the defences, and no one knew better than Maurice that at any moment he might be stabbed in the back by his own men. But his business was to keep matters going somehow until the morning, and then to obtain such terms as he could for the poor starving people around.
Through the open doors of the great gateway the monastery guards could be seen sitting round their fire in the courtyard, Eirene and Zoe were on the gallery to wave farewell to Maurice, and Wylie was clearly visible in the background, doing something to the remaining Maxim. No one could have imagined that they had any intention of leaving the place that night, but in an hour all was changed. Slipping out one by one from the small door at the side of the gateway, the fugitives assembled in the shadow, while the fire in the courtyard was diligently kept up by Armitage’s steward, who had volunteered to remain for this special purpose, so that the light might continue to be visible to the people encamped outside. He was also charged with the care of the blue lights, the first of which shed a ghastly glare about an hour later over the rugged landscape and the awestruck upturned faces of the refugees. They interpreted it as a supernatural portent of disaster, a sign of the divine wrath such as preceded the fall of Jerusalem, and a chorus of mingled shrieks and wailing arose, until the steward, much irritated, roused two lay brethren forcibly from their slumbers, and sent them to calm the people with the news that the terrible lights were the sign of safety rather than of ruin.
The fugitives were well beyond the range of the light when the glare first broke out. Zeko went in advance, to make sure of a path, since to stumble over a sleeping refugee would have been to wreck all hope, then three of his men, then Eirene, carrying little Constantine in a shawl wrapped round her, and Zoe, to whom she resolutely refused permission to share the burden, while the rear was brought up by Wylie, walking feebly with the aid of a stick, and the other three insurgents. The levels and plateaus were necessarily avoided, and the way led down dry torrent-beds, and up steep hillsides covered with thickets of sweet-smelling shrubs, where the only thing to be heard, besides the soft footfalls of the party, was the chirp of the grasshopper. There was no moon, which was an advantage in one way and a drawback in another, but Zeko was well accustomed to finding his way by the stars, and he led on almost without a pause until, halting on a ridge after a specially exhausting climb, his followers became aware of a sound which was not that of their own labouring breath.
“Down! down!” hissed Zeko, and they crouched under the bushes from which they had just emerged, while the guide beckoned Wylie to him. Together they crawled forward, and were lost to sight for a time which seemed interminable to the two women, who could now distinguish clearly the sound of muffled footsteps on the other side of the ridge. Constantine, who had been inclined to be unduly talkative in the surprise of this night-journey, went to sleep in his mother’s arms with a murmur of content, and they waited with what patience they might, the guards lying round them, with itching fingers on the triggers of their rifles. At last Wylie returned.