And then, with that prayer of gratitude upon her lips, with her head raised to ecstacy of joy, there was borne to her ears the barking of dogs and the loud yells of men—the sounds of an active and terrible pursuit! The enemy was close at hand!
CHAPTER XIV.
NEVA STILL DEFIANT.
The sounds of active and hostile pursuit, growing every instant louder as the pursuers neared Neva’s temporary halting-place, startled the young fugitive into renewed flight. She started up like a wearied bird from its nest, and fled onward through tangled shrubbery and over outcropping boulders, tripping now and then over some loose rock, which, at the touch of her light feet, went rumbling down the steep mountain side with a crash that rang in her ears, frightening her to yet greater speed. She sped through thickets of the dwarfed mountain pines and firs, and over open and sterile patches of ground, where there were no trees nor friendly rocks to screen her flying figure, and the drizzling Scotch mist fell around her like a dusky vail, and the skies were gloomy above her, and the air was keen with wintry chill.
And still was borne to her ears, sometimes louder, sometimes fainter, the sounds of the barking of dogs and the shouts of men. These sounds quickened Neva’s flagging steps, but she could not outrun her pursuers. They were on her track, and sooner or later, unless she could out-wit them, or hide from them, they must capture her.
Her wild eyes searched the mountain side as she hurried on. There was no hole in the rocks into which she might creep, and lie concealed until her enemies should have passed. The trees were too low and scraggy to offer her shelter among their few and scanty foliaged branches. Her way was difficult and tortuous, and with a sudden change of purpose, Neva turned aside from her course of skirting the mountain, and plunged downward toward the mountain’s base.
“I shall come down upon the side nearly opposite the loch,” she thought. “At any rate, I have passed beyond the plateau.”
In the course of ten minutes more, she struck into a rude wagon track, which Neva conjectured led from the Wilderness to some farm-house or hamlet upon the opposite side of the mountain. She followed the circuitous, steep, and slowly descending track, looking, as she ran, like some wild spirit of the mist.
The sounds of pursuit faded out of hearing, and again she sat down to rest, her limbs giving way beneath her. Her tongue was parched and swollen, and the blood surged through her frame still with that one gigantic throbbing, and her feet ached with an utter weariness, yet she got up presently and staggered on, with fearing backward glances over her shoulders, and her eyes staring wildly from out the wet whiteness of her young face.
“I can’t keep on much longer,” she murmured aloud. “I feel very strange and ill. Perhaps I shall die here, and alone. Oh, is there no help for me?”
No answer came to that piteous cry save the wailing of the winds among the pine boughs, and the dashing of the sleet-like rain in her face. She moved more and more slowly. Her garments seemed strangely heavy to her, and her feet grew more and more like leaden clogs weighing her down to the earth.