A natural gully, or shallow ravine, twisted and zigzagged down the side of the rock. In wet weather, it became a little watercourse, conducting all the rain that fell on the western roofs of the castle down to the filthy and picturesque hamlet of Ehrenberg, with its dirty population of five hundred Wallack and Croat peasants, and a horde of dirtier gypsies, nested in the outskirts. In dry weather, the gully served as a pathway, which the soldiers often used in their descents to the village.
Max began to descend, and Morton followed at his heels. The fresh wind, the open view, the unwonted sense of treading mother earth, wrought on him strangely; not, as on the wrestler of old, to nerve him with renewed force. He grew faint, dizzy, and half blind; and as he staggered after his guide, he felt for the first time how the prison had sapped away his strength.
In ten minutes, they were at the bottom, and picking their way past the rear of the squalid cottages, among rickety outhouses, broken fences, heaps of litter, pigs, children, and other impediments. Most of the men were absent; a few women only stared at them as they passed. With one very pretty Wallack girl, Max, for the sake of appearances, exchanged a few words of bantering gallantry. She stood looking after him admiringly. Behind the next cottage, a yellow Hungarian shepherd dog, large as a wolf, jumped suddenly from a heap of rotten straw, on which he had been dozing, and made a fierce dash at Max's leg; but the latter gave him a kick in the teeth, which sent him off yelping, followed by a brickbat, and a curse from the Wallack damsel.
Beyond the village, the ground was without trees or shrubs for a full half mile; yet it was uneven,—not to say broken; and Max, who had made a careful reconnaissance, knew that if they could but reach unnoticed a hollow some twenty rods from the skirts of the hamlet, no eye from the ramparts could see them. Towards this, therefore, he walked, with an air of great nonchalance, Morton following, his heart in his throat. Their movements were either unseen, or failed to excite suspicion; and taking a beaten track into the hollow, they came upon a spring at the foot of a rock, where three women were pounding clothes on a stone with clubs, by way of washing them; while a lazy boor, in a broad felt hat, lay on the ground listlessly watching the process.
In five minutes more, the hollow ceased to conceal them; and, to Morton's great dismay, they stood again within eyeshot of the castle. Max, however, with the skill of an old deer stalker, soon managed to place, first, a large rock, then the rugged shoulder of a hill, between themselves and the detested battlements. Next they gained the partial shelter of the scattered scrub oaks and pines which formed a ragged outskirt to the deeper forest behind, and, in a few moments more, reached the dark asylum of its matted boughs and underwood.
Thus far they had walked at the leisurely pace of a pair of idle strollers; but no sooner were they well out of sight, than Max cried, "Come on!" and set out at a run. When he turned, however, and saw the pale face of Morton, already tired with unwonted effort, he took a flask of brandy from his pocket. The fiery draught strung Morton's sinews afresh. They pushed on, over hills and hollows, by cattle paths and brooks, across open glades, and through wooded tracts, dense and breathless as an American forest.
"Look!" said Max, stopping on a rising ground, and pointing back over the woods. Three miles off, the rock of Ehrenberg rose in view, bearing aloft its heavy load of battlements and towers. Morton gave it one look, prayed it might be the last, and motioned his companion forward again.
They came to a lazy brook, stealing out of a marsh. In the mud by its side was the slough where a wild boar had wallowed. The solitude and savageness of the place shot a fresh life through Morton's failing veins. The sense came upon him that his fate was now in his own hands; the resolve that he would never be taken alive. He called Max to stop.
"Have you any weapon besides your bayonet?"
Max produced a pair of pistols, which he had contrived to appropriate; and, keeping one of them, handed the other to Morton.