With mid-afternoon they resumed their weary advance and maintained their plodding way through the night. Along toward dawn of this, the third, day of their flight, a suggestive, recurrent, monotonous sigh in the air told their hopeful ears that they were drawing near a large body of water.
"Do you hear it, Calvert?" she asked ecstatically, a convulsive hand upon his elbow.
"Yes," he answered in a voice husky with thanksgiving, "it is right over the breast of that bank of firs. Oh, little girl," he said bending the depths of his eyes into her soul, "I am glad for you. You are safe."
"I have been safe all along with you, Calvert," she smiled up into his face.
He half turned away his head, her smile was as intoxicating as strong wine. "Don't say that," he said guiltily. "I am but a man and more than once—in the solitude—I was tempted."
She smiled an Eve-taught reproof. "Yet you did not yield, my lover. Come, let us race the last few steps for the first view of the river."
Their clothes in flags, disheveled, bruised, unkempt, like wild things of the woods, they rushed from the forest to the edge of the river. The Vistula!
"There lies Austria," he cried exultantly, pointing to the other shore.
"And here—and here," she cried with a little sob halting her words,—"and here lies—here lies poor, poor Krovitch." Tears came and saved her reason, for under the heavy strain her senses reeled. Then both together they searched for the ferry; but doubtless miles away from the end of the tiny path, it was a hopeless task to search further. As despondently they gave up the quest, Carter turned a grove-covered bend in the river.
"Look, Trusia," he called back to her; "a yacht—an American yacht! See," he cried in a frenzy of delight, "there is the flag. The flag—the stars and stripes! Oh, fate is kind." He seized the girl and whirled her around in a dervish dance of joy, hallooing at the top of his voice.