Princess Maritza Part 44

CHAPTER XX

TREACHERY OR SACRIFICE

All that night the stone, menacingly balanced on the wall above the door, remained in its place. The brigands had no desire to court a useless death, and they could afford to wait.

At dawn Ellerey ascended to the roof of the tower and found Anton pacing its narrow limits to keep the warmth in his limbs.

"Nothing happened, Anton?"

"Nothing, Captain."

"You have helped your mistress into a desperate strait. How could you hope for anything else but failure?"

"The Princess has told you, Captain?"

"Aye, man, but that was a woman's hope--a brave one if you will, but there was no weighing of chances, no counting the cost in it. Was there nothing more than this desperate hope at the back of your mind, no sane man's reasoning to see the peril of it?"

"I am but a servant to obey," Anton answered. "Yet desperate ventures have succeeded, and we had honesty on our side, Captain. Ours is the just cause, and that counts for something."

"No wonder Princess Maritza's history is one of failure if her counsellors have advised after this manner," said Ellerey.

"Are you certain she has failed, Captain?" Anton asked, turning quickly toward him. The earnestness of the question, added to its seeming absurdity, was startling. Could there be any doubt of the failure?

"Can your eyes penetrate beyond the spur of the hills yonder and see an army marching to our rescue, or your ears catch the welcome sound of tramping feet?" Ellerey said, pointing to the head of the pa.s.s.

"No, Captain."

"Is there any hope that a single man has set out from Sturatzberg to help us?"

"I know of none," was the answer.

"And about us the plateau is full of men, and below us in the pa.s.s men wait--enemies all. Outside this tower there is certain death for us, and within there is food enough to satisfy one man for a day perhaps."

"I know, Captain, and yet the Princess may not have failed."

Ellerey did not answer. He leant against the parapet watching the day grow brighter, and Anton resumed his quick pacing to and fro.

The men on the plateau and below in the pa.s.s were beginning to stir.

Sentries were changed. There was the murmur of voices, and presently rising curls of faint blue smoke from fires cooking the morning meal.

There was sunlight on the higher slopes, and the song of birds in the air, a welcome new day to myriads of creatures on the earth. To the man looking out across the panorama of mountain peak and gorge everything seemed a mockery. There was something cruel in gladdening the eyes with the beauty of earth and sky when in a few short hours those eyes must close forever. In the full possession of his life and strength the man rebelled against his fate. It was the end of a rat in a trap--ign.o.ble, inglorious. That he would fall in striking a last blow for a woman who cared naught for him had little attraction for him just now. If he could save her, if his death could bring some good thing to pa.s.s, it would be different.

Once or twice Anton stopped in his pacing backward and forward to look steadily toward the head of the pa.s.s.

"Can you hear the tramping feet?" Ellerey asked when he stopped again.

"No, Captain."

"Can you see anything?"

"No, Captain; but it is too good a morning to accept failure."

"The sun doesn't put on mourning for every miserable dog that dies."

And then, as Anton resumed his walk without a word, Stefan's voice was heard calling Ellerey to breakfast.

All the stones which had once served for seats and a table had been piled up against the door, and the food was spread in a little circle in the centre of the floor. It was Stefan's arrangement. He had refused all help from the Princess, gruffly but firmly, although the gruffness may have been something less than his usual manner and intended for courtesy. Maritza stood with her hands behind her watching him, a smile upon her lips.

"There's more table than breakfast, Captain," he said as Ellerey came down; "but it's as well to have things orderly. There's little enough to say grace for, but there's a lesson in the display, for all that.

It represents all that stands between us and starvation."

"With care, Stefan, we can live for--" And then Ellerey paused.

"Quite so, Captain. I've been trying to fix a limit myself and failed."

Ellerey looked at the sc.r.a.ps of food. At any other time he would have spurned them as a meal of any sort; but in such a case as theirs was, morsels of food bulk large with possibilities.

"To-day and perhaps to-morrow," he muttered.

"Yes, we'll be quite ready to welcome a change of diet by to-morrow night," said Stefan, "and for my part I shouldn't quarrel with any kind of food and drink which happened to arrive sooner. There's no drawing from the mountain stream now and the flasks hold little."

"Much may happen in two days," said Maritza quietly.

"True. They may storm the tower successfully and put us beyond the want of food before to-morrow night," Ellerey answered.

They ate their small portions in silence, and having eaten them remained silent. Each one was conscious that there was something to be said, yet each one waited for the other to say it.

"Captain." It was a relief to hear Stefan's voice, and Ellerey looked up. "Captain, I make no claim to be much of a man at giving advice.

I've seldom been asked for it, and I've usually been in a large enough company for it to be done without; but as we are, I take it each one of us becomes of more importance than under ordinary circ.u.mstances."

Ellerey nodded.

"Well, then, my case is this: Years ago someone found me in the streets, and for some reason known only to themselves decided that I should live. I may have been hungry then--I don't remember--but I've never been hungry since. I may have had to steal my victuals, but anyway I've got them. It follows, therefore, that in fighting hunger I'm not to be depended on. The weapons in use for such a fray are new to me, and I don't know how to handle them. I'm afraid of the enemy."

"Well, Stefan?"

"Now death, I suppose, is as certain within the next few hours as anything well can be, and I should like to meet the kind of death I understand. Let us fix a time for hauling down the barricade, and then make a dash for it. We'll get as far as the path, perhaps--there is just a chance that some of us may get farther; but anyhow, we die in the open."

"Have you thought of the Princess?" Ellerey asked.

"The circ.u.mstances don't make it easy to forget her," Stefan answered.

"Nor difficult to hate her," said Maritza.

"I took a kind of liking to Grigosie which somehow keeps me back from hating her," Stefan went on, speaking to Ellerey and not looking at the Princess. "I don't suppose, however, that she knows much more about starvation than I do, and dying in the open may suit her case as well as mine."

"But a woman, Stefan?"