CHAPTER XLIII.
| Like bloodhounds now they search me out;— Hark to the whistle and the shout!— The chase is up,—but they shall know, The stag at bay's a dangerous foe.—Lady of the Lake. |
Three or four weeks passed. They were deep within the bounds of Tyrol. By avoiding towns and highways, travelling often in the night, making prize of every stray sheep, pig, or fowl, and a diligent robbing of henroosts, they had thus far contrived to elude arrest, and support life.
Morton was greatly changed. Body and mind, he was formed for hardship, and toils which would have broken a weaker frame had nerved and strengthened his. But of late their suffering had increased. They found but poor forage among the poverty-pinched mountaineers, and for two days, had had no better sustenance than the soft inner bark of the pine trees. This, with previous abstinence, had sunk them to the last extremity, and brought Max to the verge of despair.
It was a rainy afternoon; rain drizzling in the valleys, clouds hanging on the mountains, dark vapors steaming up from the chasms, and clinging sullenly to the edge of the pine forests. Max and Morton sat under a dripping rock, on a mountain which overhangs a nameless little valley, not far to the north of the Val di Sole.
"Keep a good heart, Max," said Morton, "it shall go hard but you and I will get out of this scrape yet."
Max shook his head despondingly. His bold spirit was starved out of him. Morton's courage, unlike that of his companion, was the result more of his mental habits than of a native constitutional intrepidity, and was therefore much less subject to the changes of his bodily condition. He had proved Max, and knew him to be brave as he was warm and true-hearted; but the corporal's valor, like that of Homer's heroes, was best displayed on a full stomach.
"There's nothing else for it," said Morton; "we must take the bull by the horns. One of those houses below is an inn, or something that pretends to be one. I can see the bush fastened to the door post. We must go and buy food; or else lie here and die."
"It is better to be shot than starve," said Max.
"Come on, then. You must be spokesman. I am go for nothing in that way; but if there's any trouble, I'll stand by you as well as I can."