Part 11 (2/2)

Suddenly he felt vulgar. He spoke to her this time with real meaning. ” I beg of 'you never to mention it again. That will be the best way.”

But to this she would not accede. ”No, we will often want to speak of it.”

He replied ”How do you like Greece? Don't you think that some of these ruins are rather out of shape in the popular mind? Now, for my part, I would rather look at a good strong finish at a horserace than to see ten thousand Parthenons in a bunch.”

She was immediately in the position of defending him from himself. ”You would rather see no such thing. You shouldn't talk in that utterly trivial way. I like the Parthenon, of course, but I can't think of it now because my head. is too full of my escape from where I was so-so frightened.”

Coleman grinned. ” Were you really frightened?”

” Naturally,” she answered. ” I suppose I was more frightened for mother and father, but I was frightened enough for myself. It was not-not a nice thing.”

”No, it wasn't,” said Coleman. ”I could hardly believe my senses, when the minister at Athens told me that, you all had ventured into such a trap, and there is no doubt but what you can be glad that you are well out of it.”

She seemed to have some struggle with herself and then she deliberately said: ”Thanks to you.”

Coleman embarked on what he intended to make a series of high-minded protests. ” Not at all-” but at that moment the dragoman whirled back from the van-guard with a great collection of the difficulties which had been gathering upon him. Coleman was obliged to resign Marjory and again take up the active leaders.h.i.+p. He disposed of the dragoman's difficulties mainly by declaring that they were not difficulties at all. He had learned that this was the way to deal with dragomen.

The fog had already lifted from the valley and, as they pa.s.sed along the wooded mountain-side the fragrance of leaves and earth came to them. Ahead, along the hooded road, they could see the blue clad figures of Greek infantrymen.

Finally they pa.s.sed an encampment of a battalion whose line was at a right angle to the highway. A hundred yards in advance was the bridge across the Louros river. And there a battery of artillery was encamped. The dragoman became involved in all sorts of discussions with other Greeks, but Coleman stuck to his elbow and stifled all aimless oration. The Wainwright party waited for them in the rear in an observant but patient group.

Across a plain, the hills directly behind Arta loomed up showing the straight yellow scar of a modern entrenchment. To the north of Arta were some grey mountains with a dimly marked road winding to the summit. On one side of this road were two shadows. It took a moment for the eye to find these shadows, but when this was accomplished it was plain that they were men. The captain of the battery explained to the dragoman that he did not know that they were not also Turks.

In which case the road to Arta was a dangerous path. It was no good news to Coleman. He waited a moment in order to gain composure and then walked back to the Wainwright party.

They must have known at once from his peculiar gravity that all was not well. Five of the students and the professor immediately asked: ”What is it?”

He had at first some old-fas.h.i.+oned idea of concealing the ill tidings from the ladies, but he perceived what flagrant nonsense this would be in circ.u.mstances in which all were fairly likely to incur equal dangers, and at any rate he did not see his way clear to allow their imagination to run riot over a situation which might not turn out to be too bad. He said slowly: ” You see those mountains over there? Well, troops have been seen there and the captain of this battery thinks they are Turks. If they are Turks the road to Arta is distinctly-er-unsafe.”

This new blow first affected the Wainwright party as being too much to endure. ” They thought they had gone through enough. This was a general sentiment. Afterward the emotion took colour according to the individual character. One student laughed and said: ” Well, I see our finish.”

Another student piped out: ” How do they know they are Turks? What makes them think they are Turks ”

Another student expressed himself with a sigh. ”This is a long way from the Bowery.”

The professor said nothing but looked annihilated; Mrs.

Wainwright wept profoundly; Marjory looked expectantly toward Coleman.

As for the correspondent he was adamantine and reliable and stern, for he had not the slightest idea that those men on the distant hill were Turks at all.

CHAPTER XIV.

”OH,” said a student, ” this game ought to quit. I feel like thirty cents. We didn't come out here to be pursued about the country by these Turks. Why don't they stop it ?”

Coleman was remarking: ”Really, the only sensible thing to do now is to have breakfast. There is no use in worrying ourselves silly over this thing until we've got to.”

They spread the blankets on the ground and sat about a feast of bread, water cress and tinned beef. Coleman was the real host, but he contrived to make the professor appear as that honourable person. They ate, casting their eyes from time to time at the distant mountain with its two shadows. People began to fly down the road from Jannina, peasants hurriedly driving little flocks, women and children on donkeys and little horses which they clubbed unceasingly. One man rode at a gallop, shrieking and flailing his arms in the air. They were all Christian peasants of Turkey, but they were in flight now because they did not wish to be at home if the Turk was going to return and reap revenge for his mortification. The Wainwright party looked at Coleman in abrupt questioning.

”Oh, it's all right,” he said, easily. ”They are always taking on that way.”

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