“Let us give them a surprise, Eirene. I expect they think they are coming to a most awful place—a sort of bandits’ lair—and that they have taken their lives in their hands. Tell the guards to make a good deal of fuss about bringing them into the presence of the Prince,—a savage and ferocious insurgent chieftain, of course,—and then let them just come in and find us at afternoon tea.”
The idea seemed to Eirene unworthy of the dignity of the occasion, but Maurice enjoyed it so heartily when it was communicated to him that she withdrew her protest. Tea was prepared, and the guards, not understanding the joke, but perceiving that some fun was on foot, dragged and shoved the prisoners up the steps to the gallery, and suddenly removed the bandages from their eyes. Then Zoe was sorry for her suggestion, for the dazed and astonished aspect of the two officers provoked shouts of laughter from the Emathians, and she was disgusted to think that she had exposed Englishmen to the ridicule of foreigners. But Maurice stepped forward to welcome them.
“Very kind of you to give us a call!” he said, holding out his hand. “I must present you to Princess Theophanis and my sister, Princess Zoe. This is Prince Romanos Christodoridi, my hated rival, who is working with us in the Emathian cause, and this is Colonel Wylie, our Commander-in-Chief, late of the Egyptian Army. You both belong to the Magniloquent, I think?”
The elder officer had recovered his composure by this time, and introduced himself as Lieutenant Cotway, and his companion as Mr Suter, both of the Magniloquent, flagship of Vice-Admiral Essiter. In view of the nature of their reception, both appeared to think it advisable not to enter at the moment upon their reasons for undertaking this adventure, and the midshipman was quickly handing round hot cakes as though to the manner born, while his superior made small-talk for Zoe and Eirene, assuming in them an ordinary feminine interest in the recent Carnival gaieties among the foreign community at Czarigrad. It was a little difficult to know how to talk to ladies met in such peculiar circumstances, but the naval man acquitted himself nobly, and the rest listened and admired him. It was not until tea was over that Maurice took advantage of a pause to say—
“And did you really face the journey up here to bring the ladies all this interesting news?”
“Well, you see, Prince, I was not aware that I should have the honour of meeting them.”
“Then you had another object? Was it official?”
“Perhaps you would prefer me to state it in private?”
“Not at all. We are all in the same boat here.”
“Well, then,” Lieutenant Cotway looked round with a smile in which there was a trace of deprecation, “the Admiral had heard there were some British sympathisers with the insurgents up here, and he sent me—unofficially—to see whether it was true, and if so, to clear them out.”
“By a judicious combination of persuasion and physical force, I suppose? It didn’t strike him that you might find yourselves slightly outnumbered?”
“Why, we had no idea, of course—— I mean, he expected to find the sort of people who come out and spend two days in an insurgent camp, and then go home and shriek against the Roumis in the papers. The sort of people that the insurgents wouldn’t be particularly anxious to keep, you know. But this is a pretty big thing.”
“You flatter us!” said Zoe ironically.
“Well,” said the sailor, with a good-humoured laugh, “it’s so big that I could hardly expect you to leave it and come down meekly to Skandalo with me to be deported.”
“Hardly,” agreed Maurice.
“But old Point Seven will never believe how big it is,” said Mr Suter meditatively. Lieutenant Cotway frowned, and repeated the remark in more decorous language.
“There will be some difficulty in convincing the Admiral how firmly you have established yourself up here, Prince. I suppose it’s quite beyond the bounds of possibility that you and he should meet face to face and hold a palaver?”
“It would merely convince all our people more firmly than ever that England was to be relied on to back them up,” said Maurice. “That is scarcely the impression the Admiral would wish to convey, I presume?”
“The very opposite. But I am sure he would wish to meet you if possible.”
“He had better creep on shore one night, and be smuggled up here in disguise,” said Zoe. “It would be an adventure.”
“If it were only possible for you to visit the flagship, sir?” suggested Lieutenant Cotway, with a polite smile for Zoe.
“It might be done,” said Maurice. “Admiral Essiter is an old family friend. He was with the Naval Brigade in the Soudan in my father’s time.”
“Oh, I remember! The Lieutenant Essiter who brought us home his sword,” said Zoe.
“Maurice,” Eirene broke in harshly, “whether you go or not, I refuse to leave Hagiamavra even for a day.”
“The Admiral’s intentions are dubious, evidently,” said Maurice, with a smile that was a little forced. “I was just going to say,” he added, turning to Eirene, “that I fear Lieutenant Cotway must remain here as a hostage if I go on board the flagship.”
“What would they value him in comparison with you? I shall remain here with Constantine, so that the cause will not be lost if treachery is attempted.”
“It is to be hoped for your sake, Lieutenant, that your Admiral’s tastes do not lie in the direction of kidnapping,” said Prince Romanos, in his most languid tones.
The sailor’s bronzed face flushed. “It is hardly necessary for me to say that Prince Theophanis will leave the Magniloquent as free as when he came on board,” he said. “If I did not believe it, I should scarcely consent to remain here.”
“And if I did not believe it, I should certainly not go,” said Maurice heartily. “I am glad to have the opportunity of putting the real state of affairs before the Admiral. Even if it does no good at present, it may be of advantage afterwards. But I think it will be advisable to make it a surprise visit, for the going to and fro of messengers would lead to the suspicion that something very different was on foot.”
“May I suggest, sir, that you should leave me here to-morrow as the captive of Princess Theophanis, and take Mr Suter down with you? I will write a note to the Admiral by him, and he can go on board and deliver it, leaving you in Skandalo. If the Admiral does not feel able in the circumstances to invite you on board, he may ask you to give him an interview on shore, but if not, then no harm will have been done.”
“Oh, but I hope the Admiral won’t be so inhospitable,” said Zoe, “for I am going down too. I have always wanted to see over a battleship, and I may never have the chance again.”
“The Magniloquents will be tremendously honoured, Princess. The Admiral couldn’t be inhospitable to a lady to save his life. If I may speak for him, I am sure he would wish Prince Theophanis to bring the whole of his party.”
“To give us a piece of his mind?” asked Wylie.
“Possibly, but only in the hope of inducing some of you to back out of this affair before it gets dangerous, you know.”
“Ah, Lieutenant, danger is the one thing we have sought in it that we have not found,” said Prince Romanos. “But count me as a visitor to the Magniloquent, I beg of you.”
“The more the merrier,” said the officer politely.
“You must make friends with the monks before to-morrow,” said Zoe, “or you will have a very dull time when we are all away. Perhaps Prince Romanos will take you to pay your respects to the Hegoumenos now?”
This suggestion broke up the party, as Zoe had intended, and Maurice and his wife were left alone in the deserted gallery. He turned to her quickly.
“Is there any need to advertise our differences in public, Eirene? Must you show your distrust of me so openly?”
“You gave me no choice,” she replied, with quickened breath. “I know how little interest you have in this venture, and how easily you would let yourself be persuaded to give it up. I was obliged to show you, before you committed yourself farther, that any pledges you might give to the Admiral would make no difference to me.”
“You are wrong. I am deeply interested in this venture, for it has cost me too much to retire from it lightly. It has broken up my home and alienated my wife from me. When we left Bashi Konak I knew that there could be no ending to it but death or success.”
Eirene’s lips were trembling. “You are so tiresome!” she said pettishly, trying to hide her involuntary weakness. “You will do nothing without being driven to it, and then you go further than I should ever have asked you. Don’t you see that the Admiral would have thought he had only to get us all safe on board and then sail away?”
“Admiral Essiter? Hardly. But putting that aside, can’t you see how important it is that he and I should meet? Zoe saw it at once, and gave me just the help I wanted.”
“Zoe is only a looker-on. All this is a sort of play to her. She has nothing at stake, and can afford to make herself useful in conversation. She is not distracted between a husband who won’t look after his own interests, and a son whose rights must not be sacrificed. I don’t believe she cares for a single creature.”
“You forget you are talking of my sister,” said Maurice angrily. “As to her not caring for any one, that’s her business and not ours. I should have been thankful to see her happy with Wylie, but I suppose there’s no chance of that now. At any rate, she has stood by us all this time, and you would often have been lonely without her.”
“It’s only for amusement. She has no real interest,” persisted Eirene rebelliously. Maurice gave up the attempt.
“At least,” he said, “I hope you approve of my plan of meeting the Admiral, now that your precautions have obviated the risk of treachery, if there was any?”
“It will make the people more convinced that England is on our side; I am glad of it for that.”
“You seem determined to encourage these false hopes. My sole idea is to lay the actual state of things before Essiter,—not that it will make the slightest difference in his action. If the Powers decide that we are to be bombarded, he will do his part without turning a hair. But he will report our conversation to his Government, and those of the Emathians who survive the fighting and the massacres may have an easier time. They may not get me as Governor-General, but they will get some one who is not in bondage to Czarigrad.”
“They must have you as Governor-General,” said Eirene doggedly.
“Not necessarily, even if we succeed. There is Christodoridi.”
“He is nothing. I have taken no oath to him. Listen, Maurice. For the sake of Constantine’s rights I have opposed you—broken up our home, as you say. Do you think I would deal more kindly with that upstart Romanos? Let him look to himself. If he succeeds, as you call it, and you tamely abdicate your rights in his favour, don’t imagine that I shall also be tame, and retire meekly with you to Stone Acton. I shall intrigue, plot, inspire. I have the means, you know. I must and will see my boy either Prince or Hereditary Prince of Emathia before I die. I should prefer to see him Hereditary Prince, and you in your rightful place upon the throne, but if you won’t work with me, I shall work alone.”
“These are things it is not wise to say,” said Maurice, very pale. “Are you prepared to bring upon the little chap—an innocent child—the guilt of all the bloodshed and civil war that you propose?”
“No, no!” she cried quickly. “The guilt will be mine, and the punishment. Only the success will be his.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE SYMPATHY OF EUROPE.
A guard of twelve stalwart Emathians, armed with the European rifles, escorted the party from Hagiamavra through the hills to Skandalo the next day. Mr Suter, his eyes again bandaged as a precaution against his possible return to guide an invading force through the wilds, was in high spirits over the important part assigned to him as intermediary between the fleet and the insurgent stronghold. He rode next to Zoe, and talked unceasingly whenever the nature of the path allowed it, explaining, among other things, why Admiral Essiter was called “Point Seven,” an explanation which involved the further explanation of a recondite question of naval gunnery. When the riders came abreast of the refugee camp the midshipman’s eyes were unbound, and he rode proudly into the town, attended by one of the guards, and big with importance, though refusing to explain either his night’s absence on shore or his present errand, obtained a passage back to the fleet in one of the Magniloquent’s boats, which had come on shore for fresh meat. The rest followed more slowly, and established themselves in Dr Terminoff’s office, the house of the chief man of the place, to watch what would follow. Dr Terminoff was delighted at the prospect of their visiting the fleet, though for the same perverse reason as Eirene, and declared exultingly that Nilischeff and his party would find themselves altogether checkmated.
“A boat putting off from the Magniloquent!” announced Wylie, who had been watching the flagship through his glasses. “A highly superior boat, too.”
“Oh, it must be the Admiral’s barge!” cried Zoe, drawing upon her recollections of sea-stories read in her youth. “Do please let me look. Isn’t it splendid? Doesn’t it make you feel exactly like Nelson?”
“In a steam-launch? Particularly so,” responded Wylie, surrendering the glass, which Zoe monopolised until the arrival of Mr Suter, bearing a cordial invitation from the Admiral to the son of his old friend to visit him on board the flagship. Going down to the renovated pier, they were received by an officer whose uniform, as Prince Romanos expressed it, “exhibited something more of ornamentation” than that of Lieutenant Cotway, and who at once conciliated the scruples and rejoiced the hearts of the guards by insisting that the invitation included them. Welcomed, after the miraculously short voyage, as honoured guests, the adventurers stood at length on the deck of the Magniloquent, there to be received in state by Admiral Essiter, a small spruce man with a plum-coloured complexion, and the air of finding his own inscrutable thoughts faintly amusing. The expression was probably habitual, not due to the circumstances of the occasion, and Zoe had the idea that, like the protective colouring of some animals, it must be assumable at pleasure, for watching her host keenly at lunch, she saw that a look of anxiety sometimes took its place, though the mask went on again as soon as the Admiral perceived that he was observed. When the meal was over, he asked Maurice to give him a quarter of an hour in his cabin, requesting his officers to entertain the rest of the party, even as the astonished Emathian guards were being initiated into the wonders of the great ship by bands of grinning seamen and marines. To the Admiral’s surprise, Prince Romanos appeared to consider himself included in the invitation given to Maurice.
“Your friend doesn’t speak English, perhaps?” said the host, courteously waving Prince Romanos back. “Will you tell him that Captain Bryson will show him over the ship?”
“I thank you—Mr Admiral,” Prince Romanos was wavering between “M. l’Amiral” and Maurice’s “Admiral,” which sounded to him disagreeably curt; “but I understand perfectly. Only I conceive myself to possess an interest not inferior to that of Prince Theophanis in the subject of your discussion.”
“Prince Christodoridi is the rival heir,” explained Maurice, as the Admiral glanced inquiringly towards him. “I think myself that his claims have not a shadow of foundation, and he, of course, thinks the same of mine, but we are pledged not to fight it out until Emathia is free.”
“Which puts it off for a few hundred years or so? Well, if you don’t mind his being present, it’s not for me to object. You are your father all over. There was a story—I don’t guarantee its truth, mind—that when the square was broken at El Met, he was attacked by an Arab with a long spear, who gave him all he could do to defend himself. Somehow or other, he managed to twist the spear out of the fellow’s grip. Did he finish him off when he had him at his mercy? Not he; he waited till he got up, and handed him back the spear to go on with.”
“No, Admiral; that’s a little too stiff,” said Maurice.
“Well,” said the Admiral deliberately, “I never believed it myself till to-day. Now I do. But, pray, what is the meaning of the farce you are playing in that old rat-hole up yonder, masquerading as a Greek prince, as if your honest English ancestors were not good enough for you?”
“Unfortunately they were not English; they were Greek too, descendants of the last Emperor of the East. I have merely returned to the original form of our name.”
“Merely? and what about your assumption of sovereignty?”
“It was in response to a repeated appeal that I would place myself at the head of the Emathian Christians.”
“And who is backing you, if I may be so indiscreet as to ask? Your men are armed with Mausers, and you have a Maxim or two in position, I hear.”
“Your officers must have made good use of their eyes while they were with us. Yes, we are fairly well supplied, but we have no outside backers. A member of my family left a substantial legacy to be applied to the restoration of the fortunes of the house, and we are using that.”
“You mean that you are playing ducks and drakes with it. Why not have bought up a South American republic, or negotiated with the Emperor of Scythia for a dukedom, if a sensational way of throwing away good money for the sake of a shadow was all you wanted?”
“But it was not. What we hope to do is to free Emathia now, and eventually to turn the Roumis out of Europe.”
“A nice modest programme! Couldn’t you have found some less utterly hopeless material to work upon than the Emathian Christians? I have no particular admiration for the Roumi in civil life, though he’s a first-class fighting man, but he is an intelligent gentleman beside these fellows, who torture and mutilate and burn each other’s women and children because one man calls himself a Patriarchist and the other an Exarchist. Have you ever considered seriously what hope there can be of ruling, except by martial law, a set of people who all profess to be Christians, and yet can’t keep their hands off each other’s throats?”
“We have been considering it for years, and now we are trying an experiment. The thing can scarcely be harder than to keep the peace between Mohammedans and Hindus in India. Two things are wanted,—money to keep us going until we can establish some sort of revenue system—which we have—and a body of impartial police to keep the balance between the creeds. There would probably be objections to our enlisting Englishmen, but Colonel Wylie could work as well with Sikhs, and he could get as many as he wanted, if permission was once given.”
“Your intentions are as excellent as your plans are ingenious,” said the Admiral sarcastically, “but you are altogether too idyllic, the whole lot of you. The coasts of the Egean are not No-man’s-land, waiting to be colonised. For a private individual to seize upon a desirable peninsula and settle down to govern it is simply stealing, though I allow that if it had been done by a sovereign state it would merely be called annexation.”
“It is an experiment,” repeated Maurice. “If we can show that it is possible to induce Emathian Christians of different sects to live peaceably together and to serve under the same flag, surely it is an object-lesson worth trying on a larger scale? We hear a great deal of the sympathy of Europe for Emathia, and the absolute impossibility of showing that sympathy except in words. But you can show it here by simply saying ‘Hands off!’ to Roum when she tries to turn us out of Hagiamavra. In return for not being molested we would pay to Czarigrad a tribute amounting to the present average revenue from the peninsula, and acknowledge the Roumi suzerainty. If, at the end of the year, the condition of Hagiamavra compared favourably with that of the rest of Emathia, a larger area might be entrusted to us—perhaps the vilayet of Therma.”
The Admiral stared at his guest in exasperated consternation. “If you were only starting with an entirely new world, your plan might work,” he said slowly, “but you seem to forget entirely the various interests involved. Europe is quite determined that there shall be no fighting over Emathia—whether rightly or wrongly it’s not for me to say. Of course a devastating warfare in the Balkans might wipe out a few inconvenient nationalities, and sweep the map clean for some such experiment as yours, but the Powers won’t have it. We shall maintain the status quo for a year or two, grumbling more and more every month, no doubt, until Scythia and Pannonia are ready. Then those two public-spirited Powers will unselfishly offer to divide Emathia between them and administer it as it should be administered. The Roumis daren’t protest, Thracia and Dacia and Mœsia daren’t fly at the throats of their betters, and order will reign in the Balkans. That’s the plan mapped out, signed and sealed, and when you set up your personal ambitions as a bar to its realisation, you are simply an impertinence to be brushed out of the way. The Powers will have none of you.”
“The Powers have sometimes yielded points on which they had declared themselves absolutely immovable,” said Maurice. “Think of Minoa.”
“There the claimant had dynastic support of the highest and most extraordinarily widespread kind. You have not.”
“My wife believes we can count upon the benevolence of Scythia. She was brought up at that Court, and the Empress has been sending her kind messages of late.”
“All moonshine. They will fool you to the top of your bent, make use of you, and then throw you over. No, don’t deceive yourselves. Reforms in Emathia, short of the partition of the country, won’t succeed, because they are not meant to succeed. They are intended to lead up to that partition when the time is ripe, and disgusted Europe is only too thankful to any one taking an endless problem off her hands. Scythia and Pannonia can’t afford to let you try your experiment, lest by some miracle it should be successful, and because we are acting with them we shall prevent your trying it. Now will you let me give you my frank advice?”
“I can’t promise to take it, but I shall be grateful.”
“Then look here. You can’t say that I have done anything to injure your prestige in the sight of your followers. I have received you as distinguished guests, and I’ll give you a royal salute if it’s a matter of importance to you. Remain safe on board here, and I’ll send a landing-party to bring off the rest of your people—Europeans, of course I mean. You will retire with a good grace, and leave your rival here in possession. He’s up to the sort of thing—it’s in his blood—and you are not.”
“Mr Admiral, you flatter me,” said Prince Romanos, deeply gratified, with an elaborate bow.
“No, sir, I don’t,” retorted the Admiral. “I think a quixotic conscience is an unlucky possession for a filibuster, and I don’t imagine you have got one. Moreover, you are a single man, and I understand that Teffany has a wife and child on that forsaken mountain-top, besides his sister on board here. Well, Teffany, will you save your face and retire in a blaze of glory—of course to give up all this foolishness and retire into private life for the future?”
“No, Admiral; with many thanks to you, I won’t.”
“So I imagined, since you are your father’s son. Understand, then, that it’s war to the knife. I am here as the representative of the Powers to maintain the authority of Roum, and I’ll do it. If your fellows allow Jalal-ud-din’s forces to advance peaceably and recover the peninsula, that’s all right. Also I shall not land men to take part in any fighting unless it’s a case of rescue. But if your men interfere with the landing of troops, or otherwise carry on hostilities within range of my guns, I shall shell them. And to-night a strict blockade will be declared of all the coasts of the peninsula, and any vessel approaching with supplies of any kind, and not turning back when summoned to do so, will be sunk. What yacht is it that has been provisioning you so far? My midshipman saw that your cook wore a yachtsman’s cap.”
“You can hardly expect us to let you into the secret of our ways and means,” said Maurice lightly. “Well, Admiral, we must thank you for your patience and your warning. When the warning comes true, I hope we may fall into no worse hands than yours.”
“God grant it!” cried the Admiral, with startling vehemence. “Good heavens! Teffany,—Theophanis or whatever you call yourself,—what possessed you to bring ladies and children into this affair?”
Maurice hesitated, and Prince Romanos replied for him. “I think, Mr Admiral, I shall only be doing justice to my friend’s wife and sister if I say that these intrepid ladies brought themselves into it.”
“Ah, I daresay! poor ignorant creatures, expecting to find everything made smooth for them, and every Roumi a plaster saint! But you know better,” he turned fiercely upon Maurice. “What did you do it for?—tell me. What possibility is there of your getting them out unharmed?”
“Simply that if we can hold out long enough, the Liberal Powers may get tired of doing Scythia and Pannonia’s dirty work, and insist on giving us a chance.”
“Then Heaven help you, if that’s all you have to hope for!” The Admiral led the way impetuously out of the cabin and plunged into the group of officers who had been making the tour of the ship with Zoe and Wylie. “If I hadn’t invited you on board,” he said in a shaking voice to his guests, “I’d have put you all under arrest and kept you here safe. As it is, I beg and beseech you to save me the disgrace of kidnapping you by staying on board of your own free will. You, sir!” he turned on Wylie, “how dare you encourage these absurd, illegal, fantastic proceedings? It strikes me that you will hear from the War Office before long, and to some purpose.”
“Possibly the War Office has heard from me already, sir,” said Wylie, and the calmness of the reply restored the Admiral’s composure.
“Well, I wash my hands of it. I have done what I could to save you, and as you won’t be saved, I warn you that you’ll have to take the consequences. Wait! call up those Emathians of yours, if you please,” to Maurice. “I presume that if they leave you in the lurch you will be able to yield with a good conscience.”
The guards were summoned, and stood ranged before the Admiral, with obviously agonising efforts to recall Wylie’s instructions as to attitude.
“I wish you to understand,” said the great man harshly, “that Prince Theophanis is engaged in an enterprise which the Powers have entirely forbidden. This rebellion will be put down by force, and no mercy will be shown to any who take part in it. The warships of the Powers will co-operate with Jalal-ud-din Pasha and his army in restoring tranquillity.”
“Yes, lord,” chorused the guards obediently, when Wylie had translated the speech.
“I don’t believe they understand what I mean. What’s that end man grinning for? Do you all understand?”
“Oh yes, lord, we understand perfectly!” and as the Admiral turned on his heel, the furtive grins became broad ones. He made no further attempt to shake the determination of his guests, but as they were embarking he put a note into Mr Suter’s hand.
“Give that to Mr Cotway at the monastery, and tell him I will endorse any arrangement he makes.”
The incident passed without remark, for there was a general depression pervading the ship. The officers bade the visitors farewell as if they were predestined victims, and a faint cheer which broke out among the men was quickly silenced. Zoe, always sensitive to mental atmosphere, shivered as she sat in the boat, though the sun was only beginning to decline. These impartial observers, who would have liked to help but were forced to oppose, were so plainly convinced that nothing but failure was before Maurice and his cause. And failure, in the circumstances, meant——? A little frightened sigh broke from Zoe’s lips, and Wylie turned and looked at her. He asked her if she was cold, and she did not guess that he had read her thoughts until they had passed through Skandalo, and were on their way to Hagiamavra. Then she found him beside her mule.
“I suppose,” he said in a low voice, “there is no hope even now of your consenting to ease our minds by going on board the fleet—you and Princess Theophanis and Con, I mean, of course?”
“What! forsake Maurice now?” cried Zoe. “Certainly not.”
“But think what a comfort it would be to him—to all of us—to know that you were safe. How can a man fight his best when his wife and sister are in the most frightful danger? And then the necessity of dividing our forces,—the monastery must always be guarded, you know, however badly the men may be wanted elsewhere. And after all, what is to be the end of it?”
“You would really be glad if we left you and took refuge with the Admiral?” she asked meditatively.
“Glad? I could sing for joy!” he cried.
“Ah,” said Zoe, “if you had talked like this before, we might have done it, but now it is too late. To escape now would be like rats leaving a sinking ship.”
“Then it is my fault—my cursed pride? Look here, Princess, have pity upon me. Do you want me to go to my death knowing that I have brought you two into all this?”
“Oh, no!” said Zoe quickly; “I ought not to have put it upon you. Eirene would never have turned back, even at Bashi Konak, and I could not have let her go on alone. Nothing would have made us stay behind, so that may comfort you.”
“Pretty comfort!” he growled. “The facts are the same.”
“Oh, but it is not your fault,” responded Zoe, with such evident conviction of the efficacy of her consolation that he attempted no further remonstrance. He was miserably uneasy at the prospect of the future, and hailed even the necessity of a farther journey, when the monastery had been reached, as a means of banishing thought. Admiral Essiter had sent strict orders that Lieutenant Cotway and Mr Suter were to rejoin the Magniloquent that night, and Wylie set out with an escort to conduct them to the edge of the insurgents’ country. Shortly before reaching the point at which they were to part company, Lieutenant Cotway requested Mr Suter to ride a short distance ahead, much to the disgust of that promising officer, and drew close to Wylie.
“Old Point Seven is awfully cut up about the Princesses,” he said. “Can nothing be done to get them away?”
“Nothing. I’ve tried again to-night,” groaned Wylie.
“Well, look here. I presume, when the smash comes, we shall be round somewhere to pick up the pieces. Afraid we can’t do anything for you—you see that?” Wylie nodded, “but the admiral will stretch a good many points to save the ladies. Now can you suggest anything?”
“Nothing short of carrying them off by force would really be effectual,” said Wylie bitterly.
“No last resort? no way of appealing to their better feelings and getting rid of them in that way? Bright idea! why not kidnap the baby?”
“Because you would never get the chance,” said Wylie, laughing in spite of himself. “His mother doesn’t let him out of her sight night or day. But I believe there’s something in your notion. Princess Theophanis has driven her husband to his ruin, but she doesn’t really want the family wiped out, though you might think it. When things get very black, I think it will be possible to induce her to escape, so as to save the child. Yes, and I see how it’s to be done. You know a place called Ephestilo, on the other coast—not the Skandalo side? There are two bays close together. One looks like an excellent harbour, but the cliffs rise sheer from the water’s edge, and there’s no path up them. Avoid that, and steer for the next bay, where there are pillars and things, ruins of a temple of some sort, and a fishing village. There’s a reef of rocks which only leaves room for one boat to enter at a time, but still there is room, and there’s a path down from the top of the cliffs. When things get to the worst, we’ll send away the ladies there by by-paths, and you can take them on board. Of course this is supposing that we are not surrounded. If we are, it’s good-bye, unless the monks have any secret passages.”
“Not likely in this part. But I’ll back you for getting the ladies out of the monastery somehow. You manage that, and we do the rest. We shall be patrolling both coasts to keep supplies from reaching you. By the bye, can’t you do anything to show us when we are wanted at Ephestilo? It would be rather bad not to be on the spot, in case the Roumis were after them.”
“We might light a beacon-fire, but it would be difficult to distinguish——”
“It would, with camp-fires all round. No, I know what’s far better—blue lights. I was going to smuggle a few books and papers on shore for the ladies,—to the care of your medical friend at Skandalo, of course,—and I’ll put in half a dozen blue lights in a box addressed to you. Then you can burn them at half-hour intervals on the monastery gateway, which has a clear view down to the sea, the night before your last stand, and we shall be ready the next day.”
“Right; and if we are unfortunately obliged to make our last stand without warning—why, that’s one of the accidents to which adventures of this kind are liable, and you will excuse notice.”
CHAPTER XII.
A BAPTISM OF FIRE.
The day after the visit to the fleet found Eirene a prey to nervous headache, and absolutely unable to leave her bed, the slightest sound, even the voice of her little son, intensifying the pain almost to the point of distraction. Zoe was frightened, fearing fever, and wished to entreat Admiral Essiter to abate his righteous wrath and allow the Magniloquent’s surgeon to come and see her; but Eirene, groaning on her uneasy couch—a mattress from the yacht laid upon a stone divan—forbade her to gratify the oppressor by so abject an appeal.
“It’s only because of yesterday,” she moaned. “The strain was awful.”
“Why? You don’t mean that Lieutenant Cotway tried to escape—when he was a hostage?”
“Of course not. He was telling Con stories and cutting out a boat for him all day—gave me no trouble whatever. But I had to think—if there was treachery—if you were not allowed to come back——”
“Well?” demanded Zoe, with keen curiosity.
“I should have given him over to the Emathians and told them to treat him as they thought right. And—a good many of them have been brigands, you know.”
“Eirene, you must be mad! You make my blood run cold.”
“I made up my mind to do it. The Powers must learn that we are in earnest. But it was not necessary.”
“I should think not!” Zoe spoke with good-humoured tolerance. “Don’t try to be mediæval another time, Eirene; you haven’t the physique for it. Your amiable predecessor, the Empress Isidora, would have handed over an innocent man to torture without a qualm, no doubt, but we poor moderns don’t possess her nerves. Now I am going to take Con for a walk and leave you perfectly quiet. But do, for goodness’ sake, put these ideas out of your head.”
Eirene struggled up from her pillow. “I won’t have you take Constantine to the camp without me!” she cried. “He will be playing with the children and getting fever. Oh!” and she lay down again with a moan of pain.
“I am not going near the camp,” said Zoe patiently, covering her up. “We are going to look for orchises on the cliffs. One of the fishermen’s children at Ephestilo gave me a great bunch the other day, which she said grew just beyond there, and Con is longing to find them.”
“You’ll let him fall over,” protested Eirene faintly, “or the Roumis will land——”
“Ephestilo is the last place they will choose if they do, for Colonel Wylie and the Emathians are practising coast defence there this very morning. And the place for the orchises is in the next bay, where no one could land if they tried. And I shan’t let him fall over the cliff, Eirene. You know he’s always good with me,—not that he gets much chance of showing it,—and of course we won’t even go near any dangerous places.”
Eirene, vanquished, turned her face to the wall with another groan, and Zoe pulled the makeshift curtain they had arranged over the doorless doorway so as to deaden the light, and went out to find her little nephew, who was waiting for her in the gallery. He was a quiet, serious child, reproducing, to her secret joy, in bodily and mental characteristics the sobered Maurice of these later years, with hardly a trace of Eirene. A cause of contention from his very birth, he had developed a longing for peace and quietness strange in a child, and was always on the alert to escape from his mother’s exacting devotion to follow his father about, content to remain unnoticed if he might hold his hand. Eirene resented bitterly what she chose to consider this perverseness, and Maurice was constrained to discourage as much as possible his little son’s desire for his society. “Not to-day, old man,” he had said this same morning. “Poor mamma is ill, and will want Con.”
Zoe had heard this, and it was with something of unholy satisfaction that she witnessed Eirene’s unavailing struggles to conceal the agony the boy’s voice and movements caused her. He should have a treat to-day, she told herself, and be a real child for once, not the unconscious inheritor of strife-provoking dynastic claims.
“Such a big bastick, Auntie Zoe!” he exclaimed, dragging towards her one of the baskets used by the lay-brethren of the monastery when they made foraging expeditions down to Skandalo; “and steward has given me a lot of little cakes, all tied up in leaves.”
“Paper havin’ run short, ma’am,” said the cook, appearing from his sanctum at the end of the gallery; “but I thought maybe you’d like to take some lunch with you.”
“Thank you, steward; it’s a very good idea. Oh, Con, what a lovely walk we will have! Now gently, so as not to wake poor mamma.”
They crept down the steps and out at the gate, Constantine saluting the monk who kept watch there in his own tongue, and receiving a blessing in return, then out along the rocky path. There was no need for a guard to-day, as the walk lay within the region constantly patrolled by the insurgents, and Zoe felt extraordinarily free and happy, in marked contrast with the gloom that had oppressed her the night before. She carried the basket, and Constantine was absolutely obedient, holding her hand and walking on the inside when the path was narrow. As she answered his endless questions she scoffed mentally at Eirene’s fears. What harm could befall the child on such a day?
Descending the hills in the direction of the sea, they came in sight of the bay of Ephestilo, with Wylie and his motley force hard at work. Zoe and her nephew stood for some time watching, fascinated, the stealthy entrance of a boat through the opening in the reef, and its reception by riflemen posted at various points. Wylie was marking the different ranges covered by the course the boat must take, and was so deeply occupied that Zoe would not allow Constantine to run down and disturb him, even to ask what was that funny thing he had in his hand? why did the boat come in so slowly? why did the men only pretend to fire? and a score of other whats and whys. They tore themselves away at last, and walked on over the short turf of the cliffs to the next bay, which presented a very different aspect from that of Ephestilo, with its village of fishermen’s huts clustered on the slope, and boats drawn up on the shore. Here there was only one hut, built of rough limestone blocks and sods of turf, and looking as uninviting as the reputed character of its occupant, a solitary man who had once been a fisherman of Ephestilo. He had done, or been suspected of doing, something that cut him off for ever from the society of his kind. What it was Zoe had never been able to find out exactly, but she gathered that it was some service to the Roumi authorities, who had been able to protect him from the vengeance of his fellows until it gradually became clear that his lonely and blasted existence was a stronger deterrent against following his example than even his death would have been. No smoke rose from the roof of Janni’s abode as Zoe and the child went by it at a distance, Constantine holding tightly to his aunt’s hand, for he had somehow picked up the prevalent idea of the ill-omened nature of the spot. But the cottage once passed, all was enchantment, for the face of this cliff was broken away in the most fascinating manner, hollows full of rich grass and flowers alternating with bare faces of limestone rock. From here the sea looked so close that one might have believed the gradual slope extended to the beach itself, but Zoe knew well that about half-way down it broke off suddenly, encircling the bay with sheer cliffs and isolated needles of rock.
“Don’t run on in front, Con. Wait for me!” she called, noticing that the space of turf they were treading was crossed in various directions by footmarks, as if it was trodden not infrequently by some one who was yet careful not to make a path. It seemed as though Janni must have some eyrie in the cliffs, some look-out post where he spent his solitary days, and she was by no means anxious to come upon him suddenly. Constantine came back at her call, and in another moment she was able to reward him by showing him that what he had acclaimed as an insect was in reality a flower. Thenceforward she had no more anxiety as to his wandering in advance. His patience was admirable, and his method thorough. Every hollow to which they came must be absolutely cleared of orchises before he would consent to go on to another, and all the while his little tongue kept up a dropping fire of questions on the natural history of flowers and bees. Working their way steadily downwards, they came at length to a spot so thick with blossoms that even Constantine’s energy flagged in contemplating it, and he suggested sitting down to consider where it would be best to begin. This seemed a suitable moment for bringing out the steward’s provision of cakes, and when they had been consumed Constantine set to work like a giant refreshed. Zoe was glad to see him happily occupied, for she had caught sight of a ledge a little way farther down, on which the flowers seemed to be of quite a different variety. It was easy for her to reach it, but the descent would not be very safe for her nephew, and she meant to attempt it alone.
Scrambling down, and tearing her gown in the process, she was rather disgusted to find that the flowers were merely overblown specimens of the kind she had been picking all morning, but when she sat down to pin up the hanging braid, she found that she was rewarded for her trouble by an exquisite view of the entrance to the bay. The water was very blue in the noontide stillness, and the cliffs rose straight from it with a curious effect of being painted in different shades of white. She was mentally cataloguing them when her attention was attracted by something moving at the base of the headland on the left—the one remote from the direction of Ephestilo. Scarcely able to believe her eyes, she watched narrowly, and saw that it was a boat—a boat creeping into the bay, as close under the cliffs as the depth of water would allow. The evident wish of the occupants for secrecy, and the curious fact that they should be rowing hard at a time of day when all the fisher population were enjoying their siesta, struck her as suspicious, and she ran over the probabilities hastily in her mind. It could hardly be a Roumi raid, for what could one boatful of men do? Perhaps it was a boat from the fleet, examining the bay to see if it afforded any landing-place that would need to be watched in view of the blockade. Secure in her conviction of the inaccessibility of her perch, she sat watching the boat, until she saw a glass turned upon her, and realised that her white gown must be clearly visible against the grass on which she was sitting. Then astonishment seized her, for she distinctly saw a man in the boat take up a gun and aim it in her direction, but it was pushed down by another, and he did not fire.
Zoe was very angry. Whether the people in the boat were fishermen, as their caps seemed to show, or sailors from the fleet in some attempt at disguise, they had no right to try and frighten inoffensive females who were merely looking at them. Well, she was not going to be frightened. She would remain where she was, and do her best to find out who these intruders might be. When the boat passed beneath her, she must hear their voices, for even at this distance the sound of the oars was audible in the clear air, and it would be hard if she could not distinguish what language they were speaking. It was out of sight now, and she sat and waited, fixing her eyes on a tall needle of rock which rose up close to her platform, and looked as though it had once formed part of it, but was now, as she found by crawling to the edge and looking over, separated from it right down to the water-level, as if by one straight, clean cut. The sound of voices was so long in coming that at last she grew tired of waiting, and, taking off her hat lest it should be seen, she lay down and peered through the grass that fringed the edge of the hollow—then drew back with a feeling of absolute suffocation, as if the blood had all ebbed from her heart and rushed to her throat. The men had landed, landed there below her, where no landing-place existed, and one of them was beginning to work his way up between the needle and the cliff, as though the fissure was a “chimney” in the Alps. The boat, with two men in it, one of whom had a gun, was rowing out again, evidently to keep her in sight, lest she should escape before the climber reached her.
Zoe drew back, sat up, and mechanically pinned on her hat again. Her lips were saying hurriedly, “I must be calm. I must keep cool,” even while voices seemed to fill the air, crying “Constantine! Constantine!” She had brought him into danger, and she must save him, even if it cost her own life. “Con!” she called gently, for fear of attracting the attention of the men below; “Con, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Auntie Zoe.” The roguish little face peered over the ledge above her. “Shall I come? I haven’t nearly finished this place yet.”
“No. I want you to be a very brave boy, Con.” She tried hard to speak so as to impress the child without frightening him. “Dare you go all the way back by yourself, to the place where we saw Colonel Wylie with that funny thing this morning, and take him a message?”
“Oh, Auntie Zoe!” the disappointment was poignant. “There’s sixty million flowers here that I haven’t picked yet.”
“It’s to do something for father, Con. There are naughty men who want to hurt him. Tell Colonel Wylie that they are here in a boat, and he must come round in another boat and catch them. Poor Auntie must stay here till Colonel Wylie comes, so tell him to be quick. Don’t walk on the nice grass, Con—it—it isn’t safe—until you get to the very top, and then run. Oh, Con!” as the sound of something being dragged over the stones reached her, “don’t take the basket. Auntie will bring it when she comes. Think of father!”
She sent the appeal after him despairingly, for she knew well his tenacity of purpose. “And if any of the flowers fall out, he’ll stop and pick them up!” she groaned to herself. How long would he take to get to the top of the cliff? How would his little scrambling childish feet manage to clamber up those slippery limestone slopes? If he avoided the grassy hollows, as she had told him to do, his holland overall would hardly be seen against the rocks by any one who was not looking specially for it. She must occupy the attention of the men in the boat, and keep them from looking at the cliff above her, whence the rattle of fragments of stone as they fell showed her that Constantine was somehow working his way up. She stood forward and looked out to sea, as though watching for ships, her figure boldly outlined against the green of the hollow. Suddenly the boat shot out from beneath her into her field of vision, and she started violently, making vehement gestures of astonishment, as though unable to credit what she saw. Both men were watching her every movement, and the rifle was pointed directly at her. If she could keep their eyes fixed on herself, Constantine would be able to escape. Making a speaking-trumpet of her hands, she called out the Greek “Good day!” and inquired whether the fishing had been successful. The men in the boat did not appear to understand, but they were evidently amused, and returned answers which she could not distinguish. But they were not speaking either Greek or the Thracian dialect used by the majority of the Slavic Emathians, of this she was sure. She stood there, calling out incoherencies in Greek, and receiving irrelevant replies in the unknown tongue, until voice and strength failed her simultaneously, for the approach of the climber in the chimney became audible in grunts and a kind of shuffling noise. She had sufficient presence of mind to wave her hand to the men in the boat before she sat down, trying to look as though it was not because her limbs refused to support her. Still apparently gazing out to sea, she watched, with dilated eyes and panting breath, for the appearance of a red-capped head above the brink. When would it come? and what should she do? Constantine must have reached the top of the cliff by this time, and now that he was safe, the love of life regained its strength in her. She looked round once at the rocky slope above her, with a wild idea of leaping at it and scrambling up too fast for the man in the boat to be able to take aim. But it was so steep. She would have found it difficult to climb at any time, and now she was trembling all over. And even above it there was no possible shelter until nearly the top of the cliff, where a projecting rock might hide her from the view of the marksman in the boat. But nothing could shelter her from the men who were climbing up. Could she pretend to meet them unsuspiciously—disarm their hostility, temporise, hold them in talk until help was in sight? If she addressed the first that appeared in French, which all educated Roumis might be supposed to understand——? But a moment’s thought reminded her that the first man was certain to be Janni, who had doubtless discovered and often used this way of reaching his abode, and who would let down a rope, or even a rope-ladder, before his confederates would venture on the climb. And Janni—dark-browed Janni, who scowled angrily even at little Constantine, and knew no language but his own, which she only spoke very imperfectly,—how could she hope to conciliate him? Could she—would she have the courage to push him down when he was climbing over the edge? For that moment he would be at her mercy, since the man in the boat would not venture to fire for fear of hitting him. But no, she had not the nerves for it, as she had said to Eirene so long ago. “And besides, I don’t know that he means anything dreadful. He may be merely coming home with some friends,” she told herself by way of half-excuse, and then laughed at her own moral cowardice.
There was a sudden quickening of attitude on the part of the men in the boat. The rifle was raised, and pointed not at Zoe, but at the top of the cliff far above her. There was the sound of something striking the rock overhead, bringing down a shower of small fragments, and almost simultaneously came the report. Other bullets followed, and then there was a report closer at hand—from overhead, in fact. Something struck the sea near the boat, raising a little splash, and then, after—but only momentarily after—a second near report, the man who held the gun seemed to crumple up, and the weapon dropped from his hands into the water. Looking up, Zoe had a fleeting impression of a man kneeling at the top of the cliff, with a rifle raised to his shoulder; but as she looked, he lowered it, and began to swing himself down, taking a more direct way than the pleasant path by which she had wandered with Constantine. Then her attention was distracted, for a face surmounted by a red cap appeared over the edge of the hollow, and resolved itself into that of Janni the fisherman, with a knife held between his teeth. His eyes seemed to fascinate her. She could not move, and watched in helpless silence while he drew himself up gradually to her level.
There was a click on the ledge above her, where Constantine had been left. “Jammed!” said Wylie’s voice, in a tone of such angry disgust that she nearly laughed, just as Janni pulled himself over the brink with a final effort, and ran at her, brandishing the knife.
“Take my hand,” said the voice overhead, clear and hard, and turning mechanically to obey, she saw that Wylie was lying on the ledge above, stretching out his left hand to her, while his right held the rifle clubbed. She sprang at the rock, and scrambled wildly up its slippery face. Presently Wylie was assisting her with both hands instead of one, and now she crouched panting on the ledge beside him. Looking round involuntarily for Janni and his knife, she saw that he was not, as she had imagined, an inch or two behind her. He was kneeling at the edge of the hollow she had left, fixing the end of a rope-ladder that he had carried with him, and another man, with a rifle on his back, was already visible upon it. Wylie whirled her to her feet, and dragged her up the path.
“He was not really going for you,” he said, in an odd, muffled voice. “That was a dodge to keep me from coming down and preventing his fixing the ladder. He knew that when once this thing had jammed I could do him no harm except at close quarters.”
He went on to discourse of the iniquities of the Mauser rifle, still in the same curious voice, as if he was talking for talking’s sake, without in the least thinking of what he said, and Zoe made no effort to understand or respond. For one moment, as he lay on the ledge, she had caught in his eyes the look she had not seen there for seven years, and she could think of nothing else. She had not deceived herself. He did care. Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER XIII.
KNIGHTLY EMULATION.
“I—I can’t go any farther,” panted Zoe at last, as Wylie half-dragged, half-carried her up the cliff.
“You must. But only a little way. As far as that rock.”
He pointed to the projection she had noticed as affording a possible shelter if she could reach it, and she let him drag her on. Almost unconscious, with failing eyes and swimming brain, she found herself seated on the grass on the farther side of the rock, and realised that he was speaking to her.
“You may rest here for two minutes exactly.”
He turned his back and stood looking down the cliff, and she strove painfully to collect her thoughts and to recover her breath.
“Time’s up,” he said, turning half round. “Go on, and don’t stop till you get to the top. Then run.”
“But you?” she murmured faintly.
“I stay here until you are at the top, of course. The quicker you are, the better for me.”
“I won’t go and leave you.”
“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.”
“No, I don’t. About the landslip, I mean.”
“Your scream made me look up, and I jumped back and flattened myself against the cliff almost unconsciously. The Roumis were outside, and besides, they didn’t understand what you meant, of course. Some of them were carried down by the fall of cliff, and the rest made for their ladder with all possible speed. If they ever get to their boat, ours is waiting to intercept them.”
“Then they were Roumis?”
“Undoubtedly. I always suspected Janni, but there was no reason for arresting him, and he didn’t seem to have any means of doing actual harm. Of course the idea was that these fellows should hide in his house till nightfall, and then co-operate in some way with an attack on Ephestilo from the outside, probably setting the village and the boats on fire and creating a panic, under cover of which a landing might be effected.”
“It was very dreadful, I know, but—they took their lives in their hands, and—don’t you think that some of those who were buried under the fall of cliff may not be dead?” asked Zoe incoherently.
“If you remember, I suggested just now that we should hurry back to the monastery,” he replied with admirable politeness. “As soon as I have placed you in safety, I shall return and see what can be done.”
“Oh, but let us turn back and do it now. Let me help.”
“Certainly not,” in a tone of such finality that Zoe did not venture even to protest. Once again she smiled involuntarily, and when Wylie looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and injury, was driven to attempt an explanation.
“I can’t help feeling rather proud that it was through me this plot was foiled,” she said meekly. “Yesterday you were so convinced that Eirene and I were nothing but a care and an anxiety, you know.”
“I’m afraid I still consider your services overbalanced by your presence here,” was the ungallant reply.
“I am so sorry,” in a voice as though tears were not far off. “What can we do to make ourselves more worth having? Do you want us to fight?”
“Fight? No! There are two women in men’s clothes among my fellows, who give me more trouble than all the rest put together.”
“How horrid!” said Zoe.
“Oh, the men are awfully good to them, and consider them a sort of saints. But they don’t drill—of course I haven’t given them the chance—and they won’t see the necessity of it for others. What they want is blood, like the old lady in Dickens, and they are always haranguing the men and stirring them up to bother me to lead them to the slaughter of the Roumis. They have wrongs to avenge, no doubt; but it’s furies like that who make the men lose their heads and lead to regrettable incidents when there comes a fight.”
“Princess!” They had reached the crest of a rise, and Prince Romanos, flushed and disturbed, met them with a rush. “What is this that I hear? You have been in danger—proper care was not taken for your safety? Allow me to relieve you, Colonel. You will doubtless be glad to return to your duties.”
“Colonel Wylie’s duty at the present moment is to see me to the monastery,” said Zoe, angry for Wylie’s sake rather than her own. “He has said so twice.”
But Wylie failed in the basest manner to second her. “If the Prince will allow me to surrender the charge to him, I will venture to leave you, ma’am,” and he removed her hand resolutely from his arm. Zoe could have wept.
“If I didn’t care for you so much, I should hate you!” she said to him in her thoughts. “But after all, it is not your fault, but the fault of your pride. That is fighting hard, but you yourself are on my side. And how sorry you will be some day for all the horrid things you have said!”
The thought assisted her to parry good-humouredly the anxious inquiries of Prince Romanos, who could not understand how she could be at all calm, far less cheerful, after what she had gone through; and since he did not know of the cordial received as Wylie drew her up on the ledge, she might well seem to him a remarkably equable person. The Greek, who had been silent and thoughtful since his visit to the Magniloquent, took her friendliness as a good omen, and was encouraged by it to talk about himself, a subject on which he was still brimful of recondite information. Negativing Zoe’s suggestion that they should go down into Ephestilo to fetch Constantine, with the assurance that he had met him joyously riding towards the monastery on the shoulder of a stalwart Emathian, the poet claimed the attention of his auditor with a deep sigh.
“I am afraid you are sorry I was rescued,” said Zoe, for the sake of saying something.
“Not sorry you were rescued, Princess, but sorry—yes, desolated—that Colonel Wylie enjoyed the honour of rescuing you. Why, why was it not to the wretched Apolis that thus supreme distinction came?”
“Because he didn’t happen to be in the neighbourhood, I suppose,” said Zoe prosaically.
“Ah, Princess, do you imply that you blame this neglect of his? Not more than he does, I assure you. But from henceforth Apolis shall be the shadow of Zeto. Never shall she look round without beholding him!”
“Dear me, I hope not!” cried Zoe in alarm. “Think, Prince, your duty is at the front, not with the non-combatants. You came here to fight.”
“And does Zeto bid me fight? Then shall the sword of Apolis be doubly winged with victory! What trophies will he lay at her feet! in what imperishable poems shall be celebrated the fame of her who called upon a flâneur and sent a hero to the fight!”
“It’s very satisfactory to know from your own lips that you are a hero—or is it that you are going to be one?” said Zoe, much amused. “But you mustn’t ascribe the glory to me. We are on opposite sides, you know.”
“Ah, no, not on opposite sides. Apolis can be opposed to no family that numbers Zeto among its members. But there are possible arrangements—— Only yesterday I received encouragement—an actual promise of support—from the most unexpected quarter. Your brother is above all things a reasonable man; I have his pledge to allow matters to take their course.” Zoe was looking at him in utter bewilderment, but he did not see it. “In the fairy tales it is always the Prince who wins the Princess, is it not so?”
“Not a bit of it!” declared Zoe vigorously. “It is just as often the poor and nameless knight,” with a tender intonation the significance of which was lost upon Prince Romanos. “And really,” sudden indignation getting the better of her, “have you forgotten all that happened at Bashi Konak? I am not going to treat it as a dream, if you are.”
“Princess!” reproachfully, “do you forget that I am a basely deceived, an injured man?—that the woman to whom I gave my heart’s allegiance proved herself the tool of my enemies?”
“Of what enemies, pray? I remember you accused me before of having employed some one to keep you from following us. Who was it? I want this cleared up. Was it Donna Olimpia Pazzi?”
Prince Romanos shuddered pitifully. “It is hard for the man who has loved and been deceived to hear without a pang the name of the forsworn one,” he said. “It was that miserable woman, whom I would have trusted with my life, and who tried to rob me of my honour.”
“But what did she do?”
“I received a message entreating me to bid her farewell. We met—at our usual rendezvous. I was surprised to find the time so much earlier than I thought. We sat hand in hand, plunged in the ‘sweet sorrow’ of which your Shakespeare speaks. It was indeed an hour of blissful woe. Suddenly my eye falls upon a small travelling-clock on a bracket. It indicates a time at least three-quarters of an hour later than the large clock on the side-table, and I had already thought that I was prolonging my stay to its utmost limits. I spring to my feet, I proclaim my immediate departure. But she—that faithless one—endeavours to hinder me. She throws herself before me, she holds me with her white hands. Finding me resolute, she locks the door, and before my face hides the key in her dress, daring me to take it. I wrench it from her, in spite of her entreaties, her struggles——”
“I suppose you think that was a heroic thing to do?” cried Zoe in disgust.
“Princess, she had set herself to ruin my career. I paused before unlocking the door, and loaded her with reproaches, as she knelt, sobbing, where I had left her. I refused to hear her. ‘You have endeavoured to betray me,’ I told her. ‘Were I only a Christodoridi, I should repay your treachery with death. But I am also Apolis, and therefore I grant you the boon of life, in which to realise the value of the love which I now tear from my heart. Live, and hate yourself!’”
“Truly dramatic!” said Zoe. “Well, if that is the way in which you treat a poor girl whose only fault is that she loved you better than your career——”
“Ah, if I could only believe that!” he interrupted, his face visibly brightening. “But no, she set herself to betray me. She played the game of my enemies. From whom could she have learnt of my departure but from them?”
“What enemies?” demanded Zoe again. “Do you still insinuate that we had anything to do with it?”
“You had excellent reasons, I admit it. My opposition to your brother, my—equivocal conduct to yourself——”
“Oh!” she cried in despair, “will you never believe that when you turned your attention to Donna Olimpia, it simply relieved me of a standing worry?”
He looked at her with deep admiration. “Princess, you are more than woman. I confess that I have not discovered in your brother the capacity—the faculty, I should say—for such a plot, and if you assure me that you cherished no grudge against me, I rejoice to proclaim my conviction of your ignorance of it.”
“So far was I from cherishing a grudge, that when once you left off following me about, your affairs did not even interest me,” said Zoe, rather hastily.
“Ah, there spoke the woman, after all! That blessed little touch of pique! But have no fear of me, Princess. You shall not be ‘worried’ by your patient Apolis. You impose a probation, a test? So be it, then. You shall see me emerge from it with credit, or die in the attempt.”
“I don’t impose anything of the kind!” in alarm. Evidently nothing but the plain declaration that she cared for some one else would pierce the armour of this man’s self-conceit, and she had far too little confidence in his discretion to make it. “I hope you will emerge with credit, of course, but it has nothing to do with me.”
“Ah, cruel! But since you will it——” with a deep sigh. “Henceforth Apolis is silent, until his moment of triumph. Then—— But it is forbidden. I understand. I am discreet as the tomb.”