They had meanwhile passed the second village, and the troops on the march were behind them, and as the road was now both smooth and clear, the horses were really doing their best. They had by this time reached the border of the forest, and again they were obliged to proceed at a walking pace, for the road, which was old and ill-kept, had been made much worse by the foot-deep furrows which the pressure of the cannons had produced upon the soft soil. There were many traces of a hot combat having been waged here; cartridge-cases abounded, being scattered all over the place; there were plenty of broken branches, moreover, and now they actually came upon a kind of barricade; and it was impossible to drive round it, since on either side great trees skirted the road.
"Confound those soldiers!" said Otto; "they carry on as though they were in the enemy's country. We shall have to get out and walk whilst John clears away this obstacle, so as to enable him to pass; fortunately, it does not seem to be very firmly built. The lake is within a hundred yards of this."
The wood did indeed form a kind of glade, and in this spot a fairly broad one; and the road now lay between the sedge-grown banks of the little lake on the left and the edge of the forest on the right. This was close to the very place chosen for the hostile meeting. At first the sedge prevented a clear view, but, hurrying along, the friends soon discovered the centre, and thence they could see the rest of the ground, up to the spot where the wood came closing in again. All was deserted and silent.
Otto said--
"When they came, they probably found too much company hereabouts. Rely upon it, they have passed along the cutting, and are now in glade number two. Come along, I know every inch of the ground. Look,--a carriage has stopped here, and has then gone on through the cutting. And here is no end of traces of horses' hoofs. I have no idea where, they can all come from!"
The tracks of carriage-wheels and traces of horses' hoofs continued all along the cutting; but the friends had only advanced a few yards in the same direction when it occurred to Otto that his coachman, on finding nobody on the appointed spot, would probably drive straight ahead, possibly all the way to Rinstedt. The man was quite fool enough to do so, he said; so perhaps he had better turn back and instruct him, whilst Bertram went on. It was impossible, he added, for Bertram to miss the place now.
So Otto turned and Bertram hurried on. Already a certain gathering brightness indicated the whereabouts of the glade which Otto had spoken of, and to which the slope was now leading, but leading so gradually that Bertram could not yet get a glimpse of it, although he surely must be very near it, for he heard human voices and the neighing of a horse. And now he saw at least a portion of the glade, and there were several horses on the spot--as he perceived to his amazement--and grooms were holding the horses. Looking again, and more carefully, he noticed that several of the horses had side-saddles. An abrupt thought flashed across him. He recoiled involuntarily somewhat to the left, and then, standing behind some broad-stemmed fir-trees at the very edge of the glade, he saw before him a scene which for a moment held him spell-bound with terror.
Four or five men, Colonel von Waldor and Herr von Busche among them, were lifting a wounded man or a dead man upon a low country cart filled with straw, and then the doctor and his assistant received their charge and laid him carefully down, raising his head as they did so. The evening light shone brightly on the pallid face--Kurt's face; but, Heaven be thanked, Kurt wounded, but not dead! His eyes were open, and a smile flitted across his pallid features as Erna bent over him where he lay. Her fair countenance, darkened by the riding-hat which she wore, was as pale as his own, but she, too, was smiling, and she bent lower and lower still, and closed those lips of his that would speak and that were not to speak, with a kiss; and then she leapt down from the cart and bounded straightway, with Herr von Busche's help, into the saddle, her horse having meanwhile been brought to her. The Colonel, too, had mounted by this time, and the cart now set off, the wounded man being supported by the doctor's assistant; the doctor had also mounted his horse and joined the procession, which, following the cutting in the opposite direction, soon vanished within the glade. There remained but Herr von Busche and Alexandra, whom Bertram only saw after the cart had disappeared; there were two grooms, too, and they were now bringing up the horses; one of them a spare one, probably the one which poor Kurt had been riding.
The whole scene only occupied a few minutes, during which Bertram just had time to overcome the first paralysing feelings of horror. What subsequently retained and restrained him in the sheltering darkness of the trees, was a flood of curiously mingled feelings, out of which there emerged with potent forces the warning: They have found each other for life and death; step not again between them; touch not again with clumsy hands the dainty and complicated wheels of a fate which laughs your calculations to scorn!
He would have liked best to creep away unseen by any one, but here was Otto ascending the cutting, and loudly calling Bertram's name. Alexandra, who was just about to let Herr von Busche help her into the saddle, started; Herr von Busche sang out in reply to Otto; Bertram stepped forth from under the trees, and the Princess hurried up to him, gathering her riding-habit with one hand, and holding out the other to him.