* * * * *
A sigh of music was blown into the cavern. Sidonia turned her head and gazed up in his face with wide, bewildered eyes.
"It is Geiger-Hans," she murmured, and rubbed her eyes, as though she thought she were still dreaming. Then she sat up, looked round, and memory leaped back. She smiled, yawned, and drew herself together. "Well," she said, with a sidelong glance at the pit-mouth, "we have had luck, you and I! Don't you want to get out of this, Herr von Kielmansegg?" she asked briskly, as he sat wondering at her. "Or do you think it would be a nice place to turn hermit in? See, this is the way," said she, and pointed to a narrow and most insecure ledge skirting the deep; "we shall have to crawl on hands and knees. And, sir, I think our cloaks must be sacrificed."
As she spoke, she gathered them together and pushed them from her. They rolled down, and Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.
Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.
"I will lead," said she.
Sunshine, sky, grass, wide airs! Till that moment Steven had never known what these things could mean to man. He sat on a sun-warmed rock by the side of the precipitous, all but obliterated pathway that led zigzag upwards to the broken rampart. Sidonia stood shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light. By tacit consent both paused upon this moment of physical relief before considering their next course. From above, the plaintive strain they had heard within their prison was again borne down towards them on the breeze. Sidonia's fingers, busy in her tresses, stopped. She bent her ear.
Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light.