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.