Chapter XXII · THE LOST PATH.

"Fifty miles, and for you afoot! Oh, Horace, Horace, I can never be so selfish as to ride!" said Gwenny, in sorrow and commiseration.

"It is only two very long days' marches, Gwenny," he replied, cheerfully, for his heart was beating happily, and he paused a moment to look back, to caress, and kiss the gloveless hand that held the reins. "The last portion we may take leisurely," he added, "for then we shall be near old Colin Campbell's headquarters. What a trump Madame Tegoborski has proved after all! and yesterday I actually thought of tying her neck and heels with a vine trailer. Thank Heaven, the darkness comes on fast!"

But unfortunately, with the darkness there set in a dense white mist from the Euxine. It came rolling in masses along the grassy valleys and up the rocky mountain slopes, and ere long amid it and the obscurity of the night, all trace of the narrow roadway became as completely lost as if it lay under the snow drifts of that night of the fatal march to Tchorgoun!

Muffled in a warm cloak of the Hospoza's, Gwenny did not feel cold; but her heart, like that of her companion, became filled with natural anxiety. They had completely lost the path now, and the horse, though led carefully by the bridle, stumbled and lost its footing every moment amid loose stones, caper-bushes, and stunted turpentine trees, on what seemed to be the slope of a mountain side. At last Horace paused in utter irresolution, and the bead drops rolled from his temples. For aught he knew to the contrary, he and his companion might be proceeding straight to, and not from, Yaila, and daybreak might find them in sight of it!

Lost together on a dark mountain side in Crim Tartary, how strange it seemed to Horace, the knowledge that the girl whose soft and plaintive accents came to his ear from time to time, was the same bright and light-hearted Gwenny from whom he had parted in the drawing-room at Willowdean when he left home to rejoin the Fusileers, and dared only press her hand—she whom he had clasped to his breast so tenderly before. Yet so it was, and truth is stranger than fiction!

The livelong night they wandered slowly and irresolutely there, and Gwenny was sinking with fatigue, while Horace, preternaturally wakeful and nervous, listened for every passing sound; but none came on the soft breeze that sighed through the waste so lightly as scarcely to roll the mist before it. No Russian drum or bugle, no sound of alarm-bell, and no Cossack halloo were then "piercing the night's dull ear." All was still, and when grey dawn began to break and the mists to exhale upward, the wanderers found themselves yet somewhere about the base of the Tchatr Dagh, and near a Tartar farm or large cottage. Horace swept the landscape with a keen and haggard eye; no vestige of Yaila, with its four green domes, and no sign of scouting horseman could be seen. All the land seemed woody and fertile, but desolate of people. That was well and his mind was relieved; but his delicate companion required instant rest and succour, so he approached the dwelling of the Tartar with mingled hope and anxiety.

Early abroad, the Tartar farmer met them at his door, and surveyed them with doubt and mistrust. He was a keen-eyed and sharp-featured man, of middle age; his shaggy, black brows seeming to mingle with the fur of his sable cap. His features were not of the flat Mongolian type, but were pleasing, regular, and fair. He saw that the lady was weary, and required alike food and rest; and when she had dismounted, he led them into a room, softly carpeted and cushioned, with a fireplace in it—a mark of civilization—and a little table, some twelve inches high, in the centre, whereon he placed milk, curds, and cake; but Ramornie made Gwenny imbibe some Crimskoi wine from a crystal cup; and being without money, she pressed upon the Tartar's acceptance one of the rings she wore, and he took it, glancing with undisguised covetousness at those which still remained upon her slender fingers.

To his alarm, Horace discovered that they were not far from the hated Yaila. In fact, amid the mist, they had been describing a kind of circle in their peregrinations overnight, at the base of the Tchatr Dagh, and even the southern end of the pine wood was still visible!

Gwenny seemed already so worn and weary, after all she had undergone of late, that Ramornie had great fear of her ability to keep in her saddle till she could reach Balaclava; and he conceived the idea of getting succour from thence half-way.

In a strange Polyglot kind of language, partly Turkish, English, and Italian, eked out by signs, he continued to make the Tartar understand that he wished a message taken to Balaclava, and his host averring that he had a swift horse, offered to bear it, if paid therefor; so all Gwenny's rings were to be his on the answer coming back, and she freely proffered them.

"May Allah increase the glory and the substance of my lord!" whined the Tartar; "and mayest thou never know hunger!" he added to Gwenny, giving her the kindest wish of his people. "Drink," he continued, giving her more of the effervescing and refreshing Crimskoi; "it is pure as the holy well of Mecca:" but she closed her eyes wearily, as if to sleep, and Ramornie surveyed her with apprehension and solicitude, as she lay back on the cushioned divan, listless and pale.

Oh, if she should become seriously ill on his hands in that wild and out-of-the-way place—so near Yaila, too!

He asked for writing materials. None were to be had; but a quill plucked from a hen's wing, a little gunpowder mixed with water, and a fly-leaf, torn from an old Koran, thus making the message more sacred, supplied the three requisites: and Ramornie wrote a note to be delivered to the officer commanding the nearest out-post, imploring that succour should be sent along the road that led by the seashore from Balaclava towards Alushta; and adding, that if an attack on Yaila were projected, there were only in the place two Russian battalions, of four companies each, and twenty pieces of cannon, the heaviest being 32-pounders. He added his name, rank, and regiment; and requested the Tartar to depart at once, showing him all the rings that glittered on the white hands of the now sleeping girl, as the reward of his speed and fidelity.

"May Allah increase the glory——" began the Tartar again.

"There, now," interrupted Horace, "that will do. Be off; spare not spur nor whip, and the reader of my message may also reward you for our sake."

"Speech is silver; silence is gold," replied the Tartar, sententiously, and a few minutes after saw him mounted and away at a gallop southward, by the road towards the headquarters of Sir Colin Campbell; and again hope began to dawn in the breast of Ramornie.

In front of the flat-roofed farmhouse there rose a steep ridge of rocks. Up these he clambered to watch the progress of his messenger; and how great were his disgust, his disappointment, and anger, when he saw the fellow, after conceiving himself quite out of sight, ride directly north, and disappear past the edge of the old pine wood, along the road direct for Yaila.

He had gone to betray them to Galitzin—to that Galitzin, whose scouting Cossacks might even now be within a few versts of them!

Inspired anew by anxiety and alarm, he hastened to rouse poor weary Gwendoleyne, and replacing her in the saddle, after appropriating a sabre that hung on the wall, they set forth in search of another place of rest or refuge.

A narrow, winding, and sombre path, overhung by oaks and beeches, soon hid the house of the traitor from the fugitives. The morning was clear now, and the sun shone cheerily along the mighty green slopes and impending cliffs of the Tchatr Dagh. After a time the trees were left behind, and rocks alone bordered the way. Ramornie looked for a place of shelter, and if possible, of repose, for his delicate companion, for Gwenny was sinking fast. At length, his keen and haggard eyes detected a dark fissure in the red marble cliffs. He hobbled the horse in a little thicket of turpentine trees, and half leading, half carrying his tender charge, he conveyed her into what ultimately proved to be a cave, strewed apparently with dry chips and white branches of trees; but these, in fact, were human bones—the relics of a Tartar slaughter—for they were in the famous grotto of Foul Kouba.

He placed her on a ledge of rock, and wrapping her cloak about her, kissed her on both eyelids, and bade her sleep if she could, while he would wait and watch. Looking forth from the mouth of this uncouth hiding-place, he could discern about six miles distant the four white towers of Yaila shining in the sun; but no figures were stirring in the open ground between.

Again he turned to watch his sleeping charge, and then what were his horror and dismay to see the figure of an armed Cossack, who had evidently issued from the inner part of their retreat, bending over her with curiosity, pistol in hand.