CHAPTER X
HOW WULF TOOK ELISE FROM THE SWARTZBURG
It was a little past midnight, and the air was black and soft as velvet when two figures crept across the inner bailey and gained the outer court of the castle. Not easy was the journey for them, but feeling by hand and foot along the pave and the walls, Wulf led, his fingers never leaving the masonry, while Elise crept after him, holding fast by his sleeve.
One by one Wulf counted the buttresses of the wall, until one more would, he knew, bring them to the postern gate.
“Gotta Brent’s son followed me on watch here,” he whispered to Elise. “He is a sleepy fellow, and will not have got well settled to the tramp yet.”
“Thou’lt not harm him, Wulf?” she breathed back anxiously. “Ne’er again could I be happy if any hurt came to an innocent person through me.”
“Nay; let thy heart be easy,” replied Wulf. “I will but fix him in easy position for the good long sleep he loves. He were no fellow to be put on watch in time of danger.”
Just then the clank of metal came to their ears, and they knew that the sentinel was drawing near on his beat.
Close back they pressed into the deep shadow of the bastion, while Elise put both hands over her heart in an instinct to muffle its wild beating. It seemed to her straining ears to sound above the shuffle of coming steps and the rattle of the watchman’s armor and weapons.
Almost beside them, lantern in hand, the watch paused; but his body was between them and his light, and its rays did not shine into the bastion. After a moment he raised the staff which he carried and struck a sharp blow against the stones.
The sudden sound wrung from Elise a little outcry, which she checked on her very lips, as it were; but the sentry must have caught somewhat of it, for he bent toward them, and Wulf braced himself to spring upon him, when of a sudden a call rang out from the sentinel on the watch-tower, far adown the wall.
“One hour past midnight, and all’s well,” it said; and the watchman beside them took it up, bellowing forth the words until they sounded fair awful coming out of the darkness. From elsewhere—Wulf judged it to be the castle keep—the watch-cry sounded again, and ere it had clean died away Wulf gave a forward spring, catching the sentinel just as he was turning to walk adown his beat.
In a flash the fellow had received a blow from his own staff that quieted him. Then, dashing out the lantern, Wulf, as best he could in the darkness, thrust a soft leathern gag into the man’s mouth, making it fast by cords at the back of his head. Then he bound him, hand and foot, and, taking from the fellow’s girdle the key of the postern, he grasped Elise’s hand, and together they made out to open the gate and creep forth.
Between them and liberty there yet lay the ditch; but well Wulf knew where, at the foot of the steps leading from the postern, the warden’s boat was tied, and, with every sense sharpened by the dangers about them, he managed to get Elise into the small craft. By now a few stars shone through the darkness, lighting them, feebly enough, to the other side, and presently the pair had clambered again ahead.
“Now for it!” whispered Wulf. “Gird thy skirts well, for an we win away now, ’twill be by foot-fleetness.”
Bravely Elise obeyed him, and taking her hand again, Wulf led off at a long, low run, none too hard for her prowess, yet getting well over the ground. Thus they began descending the defile. It was cruel work for a tender maid, but Elise was of such stuff as in years gone had made her ancestors the warrior comrades of kings; she neither moaned nor flinched, but kept steady pace at Wulf’s side.
Thus they fared for a matter of two or three miles, and had gotten well away down the pass when they caught, on the still night air, an alarum of horns that would be from the castle. Plainly something was astir, and that, most likely, the discovery that some one had come or gone by the postern gate.
“The boat will soon tell them which ’tis,” said Wulf, “and they’ll be after us just now.”
They quickened pace, and, reckless of danger on the rough foothold, sped flockmeal down the stony road, Wulf with an arm about the maiden’s waist, that he might lift her along over the roughest places, she with a hand on his shoulder, hastening stoutly beside him.
By now they were beyond the steepest of the way, and near to where the stream that kept it company toward the valley widened over the plain for a matter of some miles by length, but of no great width, in a sedgy, grass-tufted morass, with here and there clumps of wild bog-willow and tall reeds.
The noise of pursuit sounded loud and terrible behind them, and they could almost tell the different voices of the men. Then, without warning, over the crest of the mountains towering up on one side rose the late moon, full and lambent, flooding the whole scene with light.
“Quick! quick!” cried Wulf; and fair lifting his companion, he swung down the rocks that edged the cliff, sliding, slipping, scrambling, still holding her safe, until with a spring they gained the shelter of the willows.
There they lay breathless for a moment, while above them a party of horsemen swept by in full cry.
“They will soon be back,” said Wulf, “for well will they guess that naught human can have won very far ahead of them. We must e’en pick our way over yonder, Elise.”
“We can never!” gasped the girl, almost in despair.
“That were a long day,” answered Wulf, easily. “I wot not if any other man from the castle can do it, but well know I how it can be done, and come aland in the thick of the wood.”
Stooping, he lifted Elise in his strong arms, and resting her light weight on shoulder and chest, went easily forward, now stepping upon a reedy islet of green, just showing in the moonlight, now plunging almost waist-deep in water below which, other trips had taught him, was foothold, but never stopping until he drew near the other side. Then, sore wearied, he raised Elise, that she might lay hold on some overhanging boughs and swing herself up among them, after which Wulf crawled ashore and lay panting, while Elise bent over him, calling him softly by name, and taking blame to herself for all his weariness.
He did but wait to get his breath, however; then, as they heard the hue and cry of the returning horsemen, he started up again. By the noise they could tell that another party had come down the pass and joined the first, but they did not linger to listen to them, but, freshened by their short rest, plunged into the forest.
Well was it for them that Wulf knew, as some men to-day know their home cities, the wayless depths of that wood. Open were they to him as a tilled field to the plowman, and with the sureness of a hiving bee he led Elise through the great tree-aisles. Here and there where boughs were thinner the moon’s rays sifted in, and served now to lighten, now merely to deepen the shadow; but for the most part it was fair dark, until, after long travel, as they came to a little bit of open where ancient forest fire had cleared the trees, they saw that the moonlight had given place to the first gray tint of dawn.
On they went for yet another hour, and now it was clear daylight when, sounding through the woods, came again the noise of horsemen. Evidently the baron’s men had skirted the stream and struck through the forest. For all the fugitives knew, they might show before them any moment now.
“Wulf,” cried Elise, “do thou leave me here. I can go no farther, but go thou on. I will stay to meet them. They dare not kill me,—would they might!—but if I stay and go back with them to the castle, thou canst escape, and thy death will not be at my charge.”
“Hush!” Wulf answered, almost roughly. “Dost think I will do thy bidding in this? But here is no place to hide. We must get on, an we may, where the bush is thicker. So hearten thyself for one more trial.”
His arm once more on her waist, they ran on—she sobbing with weariness and fear for him—through the forest.
But nearer and nearer, louder and more clear, came the noise of their pursuers, and still more feebly ran the tired pair, stumbling over fallen boughs and matted tangles of dead leaves.
“Wulf! I am like to die of weariness,” gasped Elise, at last. “Go on alone, I beg thee.”
“Hark!” Wulf interrupted, with a quick gesture. “What is that?”
They were at the edge of another open, which they were minded to skirt, fearful to cross it and risk discovery; but beyond it came the sound of still another body of horsemen, crashing through the forest.
“Belike the party have divided,” Wulf whispered, “the better to find us.” But, even as he spoke, a squire rode from the brash into the open, bearing a banner that Wulf had never before seen. He shrank back into the thicket, keeping tight hold of Elise’s hand; but the newcomer had evidently ridden out by mistake from the body of his fellows, and retired again by the way he came. They could hear him going on through the brush.
“They are not Swartzburg riders,” Wulf said, and then a mighty din arose among the trees. The woods rang on all sides with the cries of fighting-men and the clashing of weapons, and in another moment Wulf made out clearly the battle-cry of Baron Everhardt’s men. But above it and all the din of fighting, there rose another cry: “For God and the emperor!” so that he knew that a party of Rudolf’s men, if not his whole army, had fallen in with the pursuers, and his hot young blood stirred with longing to be in the fray.
Then he bethought him of the matter at hand.
“Now! now, Elise! this is our chance! We must be off! One more dash and we shall be where any band of horsemen will have much ado to follow, and well on our way to the convent.”
He pressed to her lips an opened bottle filled with goat’s milk, urging her to drink, and when she had done so she looked up at him with fresh courage in her eyes.
“I am ready,” she said, rising. He stopped the bottle and secured it at his belt, and again they went on, dashing forward, unmindful of any noise they might make when all the wood was so full of direful sound. The new hope that had come to Elise gave her fresh strength, so that it seemed to her as if she had but just begun to run.
In this fashion they traveled on until at last Wulf halted in the deepest depth of the great forest.
“We shall be safe to rest here,” he said, still speaking softly, “while we break our fast.” And there, beneath the dark old trees that seemed to bend and gather over them to hide and to comfort, they sank down, scarce able to move or speak.