“Do what you are told.” He flung the words at her with a rasp which would have at once awed the boldest and stirred to revolt the meekest of women. Zoe was neither the one nor the other. She struggled to her feet and toiled feebly up the path, but the moment she reached the short turf at the top she sat down resolutely, excusing her disobedience by the reflection that she could not have run to save her life. She could see Wylie waiting behind the rock, but it hid from her view the assailants who, as she judged from his attitude, were crowding up the path to attack him. They were afraid to face him alone, and he preferred that they should come at him in a body, that they might not be able to use their rifles. Ah, there they were! Zoe hid her face as the first man appeared, to fall under the butt-end of the Mauser. Others followed, as she could tell by the sounds, and she judged that Wylie was maintaining his position, with his back against the rock. But it could only be a question of time. If they once got near enough to use their knives——! She shuddered and grew sick, then opened her eyes with a vague feeling that the solid earth was failing beneath her feet. Yes, the ground was moving. Craning her neck round as she lay at the edge of the cliff, she could see a sort of crack in the turf behind her, slowly widening. Roots of grass, a thin layer of soil, yellowish marl, the white rock—why, the cliff was falling, and she was falling with it.
“Colonel Wylie, the cliff! the cliff!” she shrieked, as she turned round, and threw herself desperately forward, across the crack. Her sudden movement accelerated the pace of the falling mass, and it went crashing down as she dropped helpless on the turf, her feet hanging over the edge. She must have fainted in the horror of the moment, for she knew nothing more until she heard Wylie’s voice speaking to her, and started up wildly, to find him kneeling beside her with blood flowing down his face.
“Sorry to trouble you,” he said apologetically, “but would you mind tying this handkerchief round my head?”
Her whole being rose up in revolt against him as she folded the handkerchief mechanically. To have gone through such a scene with him, and to be expected to ignore it! Then she realised what his request meant. He had no idea that he had betrayed himself. The mask was on again, and the blue eyes which had looked love into hers for one moment had been forbidden to endanger his secret any further. But she knew! He might do what he liked, say what he liked, leave undone and unsaid what he liked, but nothing could shake the evidence of that moment of anxiety intense enough to break down the guard which he had fixed between his heart and hers. She smiled triumphantly as she fastened the bandage.
“I can only do it roughly now,” she said. “When we get back to the monastery I will bandage it properly, as I did Maurice’s in the brigands’ camp long ago—do you remember?”
“Thanks. You are awfully good,” he replied without effusion; and she knew as well as if he had put it into words that she would have no chance of doing anything more for him. But what good were his precautions now?
“Please help me up,” she said, looking up at him with the merest hint of reproach. “I feel so shaky.”
He muttered an apology as he complied, and was sufficiently moved by compunction to offer her his arm. “We ought to be getting back,” he said. “Prince and Princess Theophanis will be anxious about you.”
“Oh, but what happened?” cried Zoe, all the terrors of the past hour returning upon her with a rush.
“Why, Con burst upon me, like the little brick he is, scarcely able to speak for running, and I sent off a boat round the headland, and snatched a rifle from one of my men and came here myself. The rest you know.”