"I"ve naught to do with women, Captain, and I see none in our company.
I only see two good comrades before me, one lacking a bit of muscle it may be, but lacking no courage. He shall go between us, and Anton shall cover our rear. There"s such pleasure in the thought of striking another blow that there"s even a hope in it that we may win though."
"Stefan is right," Maritza said. "Let us make the attempt to-morrow."
"Why not to-day?" Stefan asked.
"The food is not all gone," she said; "besides, the day holds possibilities. Let us wait a day, Captain."
"If the attempt is to be made, why not make it to-night? The darkness will help us," said Ellerey.
"I prefer dying in the sunlight," said Stefan, "but so long as I die in the open the stars will serve."
"In the night if you will, but not to-night," pleaded Maritza, laying her hand on Ellerey"s arm. "Let it be to-morrow night.
"Hope dies hard with you, Princess."
"I have a fancy to look upon another dawn," she returned. "Perhaps to-morrow is the anniversary of some great event in my history, and that is why I long to see it. I do not know, but in us all there is a vein of superst.i.tion. I will go and relieve Anton."
Stefan watched her as she went up the stairs and disappeared into the upper chamber.
"If anyone could make me change my opinion of women, she would," he said; but Ellerey took no notice of the remark. He had commenced walking up and down, deep in thought.
The day pa.s.sed quietly. The brigands made no attempt to storm the tower, and the huge stone above the doorway remained balanced on the wall. But to those within the hours dragged heavily. Stefan spent his time feeling the edge of his sword and seeing that the revolvers were in good order and loaded. The occupation seemed to bring him nearer to his emanc.i.p.ation. Ellerey walked from wall to wall, turning with the regularity of a wild beast in a cage. A dozen times or more he climbed to the roof, but hardly spoke a word to whoever happened to be sentry there. Maritza lay down and appeared to sleep a good deal when her duty on the roof was over, for she demanded to take her turn with the rest; and Anton was restless and nervous. He lay down, but he did not sleep; his eyes were constantly on the Princess.
"You know what we have decided?" said Ellerey to him during the day.
"Yes, Captain."
"You have no better plan?"
"No, Captain, so that I die with her I am content." The day drew slowly to its ending. A camp-fire blazed upon the plateau, and two in the pa.s.s below, around which the besiegers gathered. Still there were no signs that an attack was meditated, and Ellerey watched the moving figures for a long time and marked the position of the sentries. Such knowledge might prove useful to-morrow night. And he determined which direction to take should Providence so far favor them as to allow them to gain the pa.s.s. It was a relief to find even this employment to occupy his mind.
After the weary day the night was almost welcome. First Stefan, then Ellerey, had watched through the early hours; now Anton paced the roof restlessly while Maritza still slept. She was to go on duty at dawn, so might she see the new day break as she wished. When Ellerey came down, Stefan was sleeping heavily, and the Princess lay in her corner with her arm under her head, a picture of graceful repose and rest.
The thought of the certain death that awaited her made Ellerey sick almost, and with a shudder and a curse at his own impotence, he cast himself down. For a time he tossed and turned restlessly this way and that until, utterly wearied out, sleep fell upon him and held him fast, smoothing the care from his face with pleasant dreams. Now he climbed a stretch of sunny, wind-swept downs, the song of a lark and the sighing sound of the long waving gra.s.s in his ears; now he heard the rustle of silk beside him and a sweet low voice and pleasant laughter answered him, a little foot stepped out bravely beside his own, and a little hand rested confidently in his. There was music and laughter about him, and then a sudden pause, and darkness, and out of it a sharp crackling sound.
"What was that?"
Ellerey had started up only half awake. It was Stefan"s sudden question which thoroughly aroused him. The dawn had come and a dim light was in the chamber, strangely dim and sombre after the light and movement in his dream. He looked across at Maritza"s corner and saw that it was empty.
"We have slept soundly, Stefan," he said, springing to his feet. "The Princess has gone on duty."
"It sounded like revolver shots to me," the soldier answered as he followed Ellerey quickly to the roof. They stepped from the broken stairs into the open, and then stood still, turning to look at each other. There was no one there. The stone still rested on the wall, and a rope which had been in the lower chamber lay sprawling over the roof, one end of it hanging a few feet over the parapet. Both men ran to the wall together. The plateau was empty, not a man remained there. No sentry paced along the edge of it, no one stood there at the head of the zig-zag path.
"Gone!" Ellerey exclaimed. It was not of the brigands he was thinking, and Stefan knew it.
"By that rope. And Anton, too. Maybe we woke none too soon, Captain."
And then, as Ellerey turned questioning eyes to him, he added: "There"s the look of treachery in this."
Ellerey did not answer, but the question asked a moment later showed the direction his thoughts were taking.
"Have they really gone?" he said, pointing to the plateau.
The soldier shook his head doubtfully and then suddenly leant forward, his hand stretched out toward the pa.s.s before them. "Look yonder!"
The light was growing stronger every moment, and the moving figures in the valley could be seen distinctly. There was more going forward there than the awakening of a camp to a new day. The men were moving in orderly groups, and there was no curling smoke from newly-lighted fires. "They are on the march, Captain: and--look, is not the lad in the midst of them?"
Ellerey"s eyes might not have served him to pick out the slim figure, but thus directed he had no doubt it was the Princess in the midst of the men who marched quickly along the pa.s.s for a little way and then turned aside and seemed to be swallowed up in the foot of the mountain opposite.
"She could not have gone of her own accord, Stefan. They must have found means to capture her."
"Anton may have helped them, perhaps."
"No; he was faithful--my life on that. Great heavens! She is in their power, in Vasilici"s power, and we stand here doing nothing."
"She may have gone willingly," said Stefan, as Ellerey rushed toward the steps; "besides, what can we do?"
"Come or stay as you will!" Ellerey shouted as he disappeared.
"She went willingly," Stefan murmured, lingering behind for a moment to look at the rope. "At least, she climbed down to them, not they up to her. I never trusted Anton. If I hadn"t taken a liking to Grigosie I shouldn"t trust the Princess. She"s a woman."
Although only a few moments had elapsed, Ellerey was already throwing down the barricade at the door in the lower chamber of the tower. Stefan first looked at his weapons and then went across to the corner which the Princess had occupied. Ellerey did not notice him, and he rose from his knees there only as Ellerey had sufficiently thrown down the stones to draw back the bolt and open the door wide enough to get out.
"One moment, Captain. I am with you, but be prepared for attack."
Ellerey, sword in one hand, revolver in the other, rushed out on to the plateau, Stefan at his heels. No shout rang out, no man sprang from his hiding-place among the ruins to bar their way. Even the valley was empty. The last of the men who had encamped there had been swallowed up by the mountain opposite.
"Captain, the token which the Princess said was hidden under the loose brick yonder is gone."
The sword which Ellerey held ready to defend himself fell suddenly, almost as it had done when he recognized that he had raised it against a woman. Shame had sent the color to his cheeks then, and the color came into his face now, anger bringing it there. Had she deceived from first to last, played carelessly with all the finer feelings that were in him, using them boldly and deliberately for her own end? These were the thoughts which ran swiftly through his mind, and well might they stir him to anger. Then came the reaction, suddenly, swiftly. No, she could not have deceived him in this manner. There was some reason for her going, something unforeseen had happened. After all they had come through together, she could not be guilty of treachery.
"You found nothing else?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.
"Yes, this. A piece of stone lay upon it to keep it in its place close to where she slept last night."
Ellerey seized the sc.r.a.p of paper Stefan held out to him.
"I have brought you to this," he read, written faintly in pencil; "I have thought of a plan to save you. At dawn I shall have gone, but so will the brigands. You will be free to go to Sturatzberg, if you will, or across the mountains northward to safety. I wonder which way you will take? Mine is a desperate venture. If I fail, think of me sometimes, for to me also there has often come the memory of that breezy morning in England--Maritza."
"Look, Captain!" Stefan cried.
On the slope of the opposite hills, where the path rose over a spur, a party of the marching brigands had come into view. The sunlight had come, and it touched the men as they went. The distance was too great to distinguish the slim figure in the midst, but one spot of white showed clearly, quivering as the sunlight touched it. For a moment it disappeared, then it fluttered again, and, as Ellerey looked, a crowd of conflicting thoughts and emotions were in his brain. This was not treachery, but sacrifice.
"A waving handkerchief, Captain; a signal of farewell," Stefan murmured in a low gruff voice.
CHAPTER XXI
THE RESCUE