"Pooh! We'll soon find the way out, you and I."
"If we had a cannon, we could fire it off, and then they would hear it at Goodfields," said Karl.
For once I was glad of Karl's cannon. I talked and talked about cannon simply to fix my thoughts on something else than the forest, and Karl dried his tears and asked whether there were any great big cannon, as big as—as the whole earth, and didn't I think that the Pope had more cannon than any one else in the world?
"Hush, Karlie boy! keep still. Do you hear something?"
Yes, it was cow-bells. Oh, perhaps Kaspar's bull was coming, that awful bull. "Oh, hurry, hurry, Karlie boy!" We dashed ahead, over branches and mounds; we ran and ran; I stopped and listened, scarcely breathing.
"Do you hear it, Karlie boy?"
Yes, the cow-bells sounded loud and clear through the silence. Well, anyway, we should soon be out of the forest—I thought I knew where we were now.
"Run, Karlie boy! Run, run." There now! There was an opening in the forest! We rushed forward; but just imagine! We were in that little open place again,—there where everything was so horrid, where the great split tree-trunks lay in the swampy moss,—just where I had begun to have that shivery fear deep down inside of me. We had walked round and round in a circle.
And there were the cows! Beyond where the trees were close together, I saw a black cow that lifted its head and sniffed at us; and other cows, many cows,—and oh! there was Kaspar's bull!
I was wild with fright; probably it was then that I threw away my basket, for I saw it no more. Over hillocks and moss, through bushes and thickets, I dragged Karl—who was now pale as death, with big wide open staring eyes, and utterly silent.