The others caught up with us as I got into my saddle again, and we made no delay, as the incident was not of sufficient moment.
We passed one or two huts, that appeared to be uninhabited, and came at last to the open, or rather to a space of a few hundred acres, ringed round by the forest, and saw in the centre of the clearing a low, rambling old house of stone, enclosed with a high wall, and near the tall gateway a few scattered wooden huts.
Some fowls and pigs were straying about, and a few dejected looking cows and a couple of horses were grazing near at hand; but there was no sign of human life.
"_Diable!_ Where are they all?" exclaimed Vassilitzi, frowning and biting his mustache.
"Mine. It was a hunting lodge once; now it represents all my--our--possessions. But where are the people?"
He rode to the nearest hut, kicked open the crazy door, and shouted imperatively; but there was no reply. The whole place was deserted.
Thence to the gateway, with its solid oak doors. He jumped down and tried them, petulantly muttering what certainly sounded like a string of oaths. But they were locked and barred.
The others rode up, Anne and Loris first, the men straggling after.
Anne was swaying in her saddle; her face was ashy pale. I think she would have fallen but that Loris steadied her with his arm.
"What now?" she gasped. "There has been no fighting;" she glanced wildly around, "and yet--where are they all? We left twenty to guard her, within, besides these others." She stretched her hand towards the empty huts.
"Give the signal!" she continued, turning to Loris. "If there are any within they will answer that!"
He drew his revolver and fired five shots in the air; while we all sat, staring at him, and wondering what would happen next; at least that was what I was wondering. The silence was so uncanny!
At last there was a movement within. Halting footsteps approached the gates, and a man's voice, hoarse and weak, demanded: "Who is there?"
"It is Yossof," Anne exclaimed. "How comes he here alone? Where is my mother, Yossof?"
I started as I heard that. Her mother was alive, then, though Anne had said she could not remember her, and Treherne had told me she died soon after her arrest, more than twenty years back.