“I must leave you here.—Heaven keep you safe this night,” he ended, with broken voice.
She reined over close to him and held out her hand.
“My good Bernheim, nothing is going to happen to me,” she said; “but if there should, it will be for you and Epping to seat the Archduke where he belongs, and to confound Lotzen and his satellites—promise me.”
The Colonel’s face twitched, and his eyes glistened, and for a moment he bowed his head on his breast; then he leaned over and kissed her gauntlet.
“As God reigns, it shall be done, my mistress,” he said; “and though I have to kill Lotzen with my own hand.”
Instead of taking the road to the Castle they continued up the valley a little way, to where a narrow brook tumbled noisily across the track, eager to reach the foaming Dreer. Here Jessac dismounted, and, leading his horse, turned upstream. There was no path, and the starlight availed nothing in the heavy timber, yet the old man never hesitated, winding his way among the trees and around the rocks as readily as though it were day. After half a mile, the ground began to ascend sharply; almost immediately he halted, and at his direction they turned the horses over to the orderlies, and followed him on foot.
“The postern path, such as it is, is yonder,” he said, and a few steps brought them to it, just where it ended its plunge down the bald side of the hill from the Castle that now towered almost straight above them, a mass of black forbiddingness respousséd against the sky-line by the reflection of the gate-way lamp.
Colonel Moore made a last appeal to the Princess to abandon her purpose to accompany them, and was good-naturedly overruled, and peremptorily ordered to lead on.
“Would you have a Dalberg retire with the enemy in sight?” she ended.
The postern path was now no path—only a narrow, water-washed gully; yet, even so, it was the only means of access to the summit from that side,—or indeed, from any side save in front—elsewhere the tangle of brambles and the rocks, with the almost perpendicular elevation, made ascent practically impossible by daylight, and absolutely impossible by night. In fact, this way had long been abandoned, and the present course lay close under the wall, and over the moat by a narrow foot bridge, and then along it to the road just below the main gate. Jessac had not ventured to use it, however, because it was exposed to the light of the lamp, and so was in full view of the porter on duty in the tower.