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!'