Renwick raised his head at last. "Marishka," he whispered, "it is time that we made a move." He released her suddenly, listened at the doors, and then moved to the table beside her.
"First, we had better put out the light—then perhaps we can see if there is anyone outside."
Marishka snuffed the candle, and they went to a window overlooking the courtyard, drew the hangings and peered out. The din in the valley below them was increasing, a hurrying of wagons, horses and guns in the narrow road. Were more Austrian reinforcements coming up? It seemed so. From the mountains beyond, the rattle of small-arm fire had risen to a steady roar, but the detonations of heavy ordnance were less frequent.
"The Austrians—may be winning," he said calmly.
She pressed his hand. "I am sorry," she said bravely.
But there was a world of meaning for Renwick in the way she whispered it.
"Your people shall be my people," she murmured again. "And your God, my God."
He could only return her pressure in silence.
He would have been little happy if he could have said how much.
Together they peered through the slip of the silken hanging to the rampart below. Flashes of reflections from the end of the Pass played like sheet lightning, and in the fitful illuminations they could see the figure of the old man, Strohmeyer, reclining in the shadow by the postern gate. The drawbridge was still raised, and beyond it they could see in the flashes, the length of the causeway stretching out into the darkness of the mountainside beyond. Strohmeyer did not move. It almost seemed as though he were asleep.