There could be no doubt that Cecil had interested Margarita tenderly and deeply. She had studied him closely; she was acute, and had gathered, from much he had mentioned incidentally at Palenka, that he had been unfortunate already in life, young though he was, and that he had 'a history,' as Mary Montgomerie and Annabelle Erroll had surmised before.
She guessed that his boyhood and youth had not been quite happy, and this, more from his reserve concerning them than from confessions made. She gathered, too, that over his early years no father's love or protection had been thrown; that he had no brother or sister, but had possessed a mother on whose memory he doted, and at the mention of whose name she saw the expression of his eyes soften, and heard at times his voice grow tremulous; and she loved him all the more for the little halo of mystery that seemed to surround him.
And she had remarked, with pain, how the rich gloss had left his dark brown hair, and that there were haggard lines about his eyes and mouth; and that much of the soldierly débonnaire frankness and manner in his bearing was gone now.
Empowered by the possession of Tchernaieff's signed permission 'for the bearer to visit the prisoner,' and encouraged by the absence of her brother Palenka at the headquarters of General Dochtouroff, she came again at noon to make final arrangements for his escape and flight.
'But how to get out of Deligrad?' said he, after their first greetings were over; and here we may mention that, literally, grad means a fortress in that part of the world.
'That will be my task,' replied Margarita.
'But to fly, like a coward, or a criminal!'
'I wish you could fly like a bird,' said she, playfully. 'Heed not scruples—what scruples have these people with you? There is no shame in such a flight. Believe me, Cecil, I do not speak unadvisedly. If you would be a living man—at the least an unfettered prisoner, being taken you know not whither,' she continued, in a voice that suddenly broke, 'you must be out of Deligrad to-morrow night. Let us not waste time. Listen, and obey me; I will find the occasion, the means, the guide, a sure means of escape, if you will but avail yourself of them.'
Did she mean to accompany him in his flight? He half feared so, not knowing how far the wild impulses of this fair continental might carry her; but he was not left long in doubt.
'Once clear of Deligrad and the advanced posts,' said she, 'you will proceed by Banga and Nissa, but that town must be avoided, as it is fortified with ramparts, palisades, and closely-watched gates; then by Mustapha-pacha or Glana; but that being a fortress, must be avoided too; and once beyond Stolo, oh, Cecil, we shall be safe!'
'We?'
'I must accompany you to ensure your safety; it is only some fifty miles; and if my share in your flight is discovered, as it is sure to be, what will be my fate? Then Bulgaria or cold Britain must be my abiding-place, after all.'
'Nous verrons,' was the dubious response of Cecil, as he took her hand in his, and her eyes drooped. 'And your plan?' he asked, with an ill-repressed smile.
'Ottilie—you remember Ottilie; she is a tall girl; and will come hither about dusk, armed with a pass, and wearing the cap and capote of a Russian officer. Clad in this costume, you take her place and pass out; she will give you the parole, when I get it.'
'Leaving her here?'
'Yes.'
'And what will be her punishment?'
'Palenka will save her, I have not the slightest doubt.'
'Could he not, then, save you? Is there no other plan?'
'Listen to me,' she continued, impetuously. 'To give each of the sentinels a cup of drugged vodka would be easy enough, and doubtless they would drink them to the last drop. I have seen such things done on the stage at the theatre in Vienna, and read of such things again and again in romances; but they would be discovered asleep on their post, ere you were clear of this—so the disguise is the most perfect plan, and the darkness will favour it.'
As they spoke their hands were fondly linked for a time—his, in a spirit of purest gratitude; hers, passionately—there was no concealing that!
'You will give the parole,' she continued, in a low voice, 'and pass on to the group of cottages lying yonder in the hollow on the right of the camp, and there old Theodore will be waiting with horses when the evening gun is fired. No more; you know all, and now I must be gone.'
'Farewell, Margarita; to me you are a protecting angel—yet, ere you go——' he bent down and kissed her, as her face fell on his neck.
'Regard me as a sister,' she faltered: and in a moment more he was alone, with a confused sense of not having exhibited sufficient gratitude or regard for one who was risking so much for him.
After she was gone the hours passed slowly, while Cecil remained sunk in thoughts that were far from being pleasant.
Times there were when he felt sullenly and doggedly resigned to the inevitable, whatever it might be—to await what fate had in store for him. His essay in a new country, a new service and field, for laudable ambition, had proved a miserable and total failure, and life seemed to have no prize for him now that was worth consideration.
Other times there were when a fierce gust of impatience and indignation possessed him, and he paced his room like a caged lion—impatience of coercion and just indignation at the severe treatment to which he was subjected, the unjust suspicion under which he lay, and the dangers which menaced him at the hands of the ignorant, prejudiced, and uninquiring officials at whose mercy he found himself.
Thus he fell the more readily into Margarita's scheme of seeking safety in flight, and so ending all connection between himself and the Servian army.
'Death or Siberia—death or Siberia! What manner of death?' he would ask of himself; 'a soldier's, surely?'
He felt sometimes, in his over-tension of thought, that peculiar emotion which many must have experienced—as though he was not himself, but had two separate identities; and that the old self was far away from that prison room, before the windows of which the two Russian sentinels seemed to tread for ever to and fro, with their bayonets glittering within arm's length of him.
Were misfortune and he to go for ever hand in hand? He deemed that already he had offered up hostages, bitterly, to evil destiny, when he was thrust out of his beloved regiment, when he lost Mary, and was cast, nameless, on the world; and lo! the hand of fate was on him again, and more heavily than ever.
And ever and anon a gust of rage at Guebhard shook his breast, with a longing for just vengeance upon him. Guebhard was evidently one of those strange and pernicious creatures who crop up at rare times in all phases of society, and have existed in all ages of mankind—one of a miserable band of men who, according to an essayist, resemble the lowest animals of creation, and are far more pitiless when their hate or hunger are raised. 'They are as crafty as they are cruel; they watch, wait, and see whom they can destroy, and outrage every feeling dear to the majority of mankind; and to call such men brutes is to throw scorn upon creatures who may be considered superior to them in every way.'
Such a man was Mattei Guebhard!
Cecil could punish him, certainly, by carrying off Margarita, and taking her for ever beyond his reach; but how was he—Cecil—a fugitive in Bulgaria, without a ducat in his pocket, to subsist there, and with a beautiful girl on his hands, unless he offered his sword and his services to Osman Pasha, whose army was ere long to advance upon Plevna?
Anything—any risk—he thought, was better than utter inaction. The suspense of his position was intolerable; and it would be easier, he imagined, when the worst had come, whatever it was, when it was faced, and all was over for ever!
So the day passed slowly on towards evening; the sounds in the busy and crowded camp began to lessen and nearly die away; sunset drew near, and the in-lying pickets were beginning to fall in with greatcoats and knapsacks, and Cecil looked from time to time towards the group of white walled cottages, shadowed by dark cypresses, in the hollow near the camp, where even now, perhaps, old Theodore awaited him with the horses, and his heart leaped when suddenly the evening-gun boomed from the earthen rampart on the summit of the position, and the Servian tricolour came fluttering down the staff as it was struck for the night.
Steps sounded on the wooden stairs, and a personage entered, clad in Russian uniform, ushered by the serjeant of the guard. The moment the latter withdrew, Ottilie, for it was she, divested herself of a false beard and moustache of grizzled hair, and it seemed strange to see suddenly the smooth and handsome face, the dark laughing eyes and pouting lips of the pretty Servian girl.
She wore the deep peak of a flat Russian forage-cap well down over her face, which was also further hidden by the high fur-collar of a long regimental grey capote, which reached nearly to the ground, and in them she proceeded at once to invest Cecil, saying that Theodore awaited him at the appointed place.
Obedient to the will of her mistress, Ottilie, poor girl, seemed to have none of her own, and had no fear for herself save in disobeying the orders of Margarita.
Cecil, even now, lingered in adopting the costume she brought him—lingered with mingled repugnance and rage at having to adopt such a rôle. Then came an emotion of disgust at a service which forced such a rôle upon him, mingled with a longing for the freedom proffered, and so close at hand. Already, in fancy, he seemed to be in the open air—the free breezy atmosphere, at liberty, and in the saddle, galloping on and on towards the Bulgarian frontier; already he seemed to feel the horse under him; to be inhaling the perfume of night, the fragrance of the pine-forests by the broad-flowing Morava; but then he thought of the girl whom he was to leave in his place, and his heart died within him!
She covered her face with her hands, and, while she wept bitterly, exclaimed, in broken accents:
'Oh, Herr Lieutenant, I have destroyed you! I have forgotten the pass-word!'
'Perhaps it is as well,' said he, with stern composure; 'but don't weep, my brave girl, and, hush! cloak yourself again, some one is coming.'
Steps, voices, and lights were all on the creaking stairs without, and the guard on the house were now under arms in front of it. Who were coming? What had caused an alarm? Had the plot of Margarita been discovered.
'Quick, disguise yourself and begone—you have not a moment to lose,' exclaimed Cecil, compelling Ottilie to resume her costume and prepare to withdraw; and it seemed to him that while life lasted, if for thirty years, as it might do now only for thirty minutes, he would never forget the memory of those voices and steps on the staircase, or the glare of light that streamed under the door across the bare floor of his room.
The idea of resistance, mad and desperate, of shooting down the first man who entered (for Ottilie had given him pistols), occurred to Cecil; but only to be relinquished, as he thought of the poor girl whom he might involve in ruin if he shed blood; and, throwing the weapons to the other end of the apartment, he drew himself proudly up to await whatever fate had in store for him now; and he did not doubt that it was terribly close and finally arranged, when, among the group who entered, he recognised his former grim visitors, the deputy minister of police, and the provost-marshal of the camp!