"There's my father," said she to Heinrich.
"Well, then," he replied, "we'll turn up here to the right of the pass, towards the ploughed field. It will be hard work; but there's no getting through 'Breakneck.' We shall get to the mill this way, and you can speak to your father then."
"Stop," cried Fieka, "don't turn up to the right towards the mill; turn down to the left, away from it; I don't want to speak to him.--Look there now! He has seen us; he's making signs to us!"
"Fieka," said Heinrich, doing as she told him, "what are you doing this for? Why do you want to get out of your father's way?"
"Because I can't help him till I have given the Colonel the letter. Who knows, how the French might take it, if I spoke to him? There might be some dispute, and if we were taken before the Colonel so, it's not likely he would look on us with much favour. And then too, why should I be holding out hopes to my old father, when they are so far off? It's enough for the moment that he knows we are near him."
The cannon were now gradually got out of their bed of mud, and the procession began to move on once more. The prisoners were led along one side of the pass; and Heinrich drove along the other--as well as he could over old Nahmaker's ploughed field. Fieka looked out for the Colonel.
"I shall know him again when I see him," she said to Heinrich. "He has a kind face for all that it looked hard when he commanded them to take the Burmeister."
Thus talking, they passed by the cannon and many a knot of French plodding heavily through the deep mud. At last, close to the sign of the "Bremsenkranz" they saw the Colonel on horseback slowly making his way onwards, side by side with some of his officers.--
"Drive on a little way past them, Heinrich," said Fieka, "and stop at the edge of the bank, and I will get down."
This was done. As the Colonel approached, Fieka stood in the foot-path in his way, advanced a couple of steps towards him and said--"Herr, I have a letter for you."