"There is no one in there, for the altar is not hollow," said one of the soldiers. The footsteps thereupon moved away from the altar, and soon all was silent in the chapel. Wallner and Lizzie heard only footsteps and voices outside, they moved away farther and farther, and after a few seconds not a sound broke the silence.
The fugitives lay still behind the altar, motionless, listening, with hearts throbbing impetuously. Could they dare to leave their place of concealment? Was it not, perhaps, a mere stratagem of the enemy to keep silent? Had the soldiers surrounded the chapel, and were they waiting merely for them to come out? They waited and listened for hours, but their cowering position benumbed their blood; it stiffened their limbs and made their heads ache. "Father, I can no longer stand it," murmured Eliza; "I will die rather than stay here any longer."
"Come, Lizzie," said Wallner, raising himself up and jumping over the altar, "come! I, too, think it is better for us to die than hide thus like thieves."
They joined hands and left the chapel, looking anxiously in all directions. But every thing remained silent, and not a Bavarian soldier made his appearance.
"They are gone, indeed they are gone," said Wallner, triumphantly. "Now we must make haste, my girl; we shall ascend the height; the footpath leads up here in the rear of the chapel; within two hours we shall reach the summit, and, if our feet do not slip, if we do not fall into the depth, if no avalanche overwhelms us, and if the storm does not freeze us, I think we shall reach the Isel-Tauerkamm to-night, and sleep at the inn there. May the Holy Virgin protect us!"
And the Holy Virgin did seem to guard the intrepid wanderers—to enable them to cross abysses on frail bridges; to prevent them from sinking into invisible clefts and pits covered with snow; to make them safely escape the avalanches falling down here and there, and protect them from freezing to death.
Toward dusk they reached at length the inn on the Isel-Tauerkamm, utterly exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and frost, and entered the bar-room on the ground-floor. Nobody was there but the landlord, a gloomy, morose-looking man, who eyed the new-comers with evident distrust.
When the two wanderers, scarcely able to utter a word, seated themselves on the bench at the narrow table, the land-lord stepped up to them.
"I am not allowed to harbor any one without seeing his passport," he said. "There are all sorts of fugitive vagabonds prowling around here to hide from the Bavarians, who are searching the whole district to-day. Give me your passport, therefore."
Wallner handed him the paper in silence. The landlord read it attentively, and seemed to compare the two with the description in the passport. "H'm!" he said, "the carpet-dealer and his son—that corresponds to what the passport says; but where is the bundle of carpets?"