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.