“You go into the den alone? Nonsense, I won’t hear of it!”
“Lord, the bear will not mind me. I have the honey cakes for him, and I know the words the gipsies use to bid him be quiet. Kalliopé has told me them all. He may not even wake when I go in, but the noise of your boots would rouse him at once.”
“I don’t like it,” said Armitage reluctantly. “However, I shall be there with the gun, if he turns nasty. Look here, give me the things to carry now, boy; I insist upon it. You must have your hands free to cope with the dogs.”
“As you will, lord,” and they started, Armitage keeping his eyes on Sotīri’s white kilt as a guide. When they had nearly reached the ledge, they heard the uneasy bark of a dog in front, which was answered by a chorus of others, dying down gradually as no further suspicious sound was heard. The boy held up his hand, and crept on alone, Armitage following very slowly and with great caution. Looking along the ledge, he could discern Sotīri surrounded by a horde of curs, which he was feeding with discrimination on choice morsels from his pockets. When the dogs were all occupied, Armitage judged it safe to advance, and they merely favoured him with a snarl as he approached them. Sotīri had left them to their feast, and crept into the dark mouth of the nearest cave. Armitage, waiting in intensest anxiety with his gun cocked, heard a menacing growl, which made him step forward, but a peremptory low voice uttered a word of command, and the clatter of a chain followed as the bear retreated. Then Sotīri hurried out, with something in his arms, and without a word led the way along the ledge, past the other caves, Armitage following.
“You have got him all right?” he ventured to ask, when they were on the descending path once more, and he had uncocked his gun.
“Yes, lord, all right,” with something like a giggle. “I think he is asleep.”
A feeble cry from the burden contradicted this, and Sotīri clasped it closely to his breast, and crooned over it in tender accents, which drew another smile from Armitage. At the foot of the hill the boy turned to skirt the town, instead of passing through it, and Armitage in his mind applauded the wisdom of the course. If the gipsies should discover what had happened, and pursue them in force, they would certainly expect them to take a straight line for the Konak. They plodded on wearily when the expectation of immediate pursuit had passed, and in the faint lightening of the darkness which preceded dawn, Armitage received a shock.
“Sotīri!” he cried, running forward regardless of his load, and grasping the boy’s shoulder, “you have brought away the bear-cub, not the Lord Harold at all!”
Sotīri laughed—a weary little laugh, but one full of amusement. “And yet it is the Lord Harold, lord. Here is a thick bush; you can strike a match safely.”
Standing in the shelter of the thicket, Armitage obeyed. There before his horrified gaze was the furry form of the little bear. But as he looked, Sotīri tilted the upper jaw back like a cap, and exposed Harold’s dark head and blinking blue eyes.