“‘We must take to the hills, little wife,’ said he, as they set out; ‘I know the path well, and I will lead where no soldier can follow. You do not fear, Christine?’
“‘I fear nothing, Ugo,’ she answered; ‘I have no time to think. Surely, they will not follow to the mountains!’
“‘Who can tell?’ cried he; ‘if they had known in the city yonder when I passed through, we had never heard the gate close behind us, sweetheart. They are devils, those Austrians, and hunt men like swine. Some day we shall have our hands upon their throats. God send it soon.’
“He dug spurs into his horse with the words, and leading the pony by the rein, he turned towards the mountains as one who in their shelter would find liberty. A true son of the hills was this woodlander, excellency; hardy as the beasts he hunted, brown-burnt as the leaves in autumn, fearless, dogged, surpassing other men in cleverness with his gun, the subject for hussy tongues and wishes. Dressed up in his coat of green, with boots above his knees, and breeches white as the snow upon the peaks, he might well have been the object of something deeper than friendship in the heart of the little one he had taken to wife. Had it been so, much of that which she suffered in the months to come might have passed her by. But it was not so decreed; love was yet to be born in her heart. And that love was not for Ugo Klun.
“It was growing late in the afternoon when these pretty fugitives struck the mountains which lay between them and their freedom. The road had carried them over the stony plain which borders the seashore; but, turning as the sun began to set, they came upon a narrow bridle-track winding about one of the sandy hills which here stand up boldly to the gates of the Adriatic. At that time the wonder and the fear had passed from little Christine’s face, and she had become silent and brooding. The loneliness of the barren mountains weighed heavily upon her. She saw on all sides nothing but the sullen purple heights, sentinelled by the white boulders of the rock which arose as so many tombstones in her path. All the home she had ever known was now but a haze upon the distant waters. Though no man there had bidden her Godspeed when she began her journey to that phantom world she had pictured, though no woman’s lips had pressed upon her own in sickness or in sorrow, she could yet hunger for the green woods and shady glens she had left for ever. There, at least, she had a roof above her and a warm bed to help her dreams. But here—here in the valley of the stony hills, rising up one above the other until they mingled with the clouds upon the far horizon, what haven had she save the friendship of the man, what shelter but that of the caverns in the heights?
“This from the first was the source of her foreboding; these the thoughts which stilled her tongue. But with the man it was otherwise. Every mile that he could put between the city and himself was a fetter struck off his natural gaiety. The crisp air blowing cool upon the hills exhilarated him and steeled his nerves to new courage. He foresaw happy days of freedom and of love. He looked down upon the wife at his side, and the sweetness of her face filled him with a tenderness he had never known.
“‘Christine, my little Christine!’ he exclaimed as the spires and domes of Sebenico were shut from his view by the gathering of the evening clouds, ‘are you not happy now? Look yonder—we can see the city no more. In another hour we shall laugh at the Austrian, carissima. Let us say good-bye to the sea, for we may never come back to it again.’
“They were standing well up on the hills then, and the waves below them rolled blood-red as the sun’s glory pencilled them with rays of burning light. Here and there upon the horizon the islands stood up to their view, eyots of wood and rock in mists of golden haze. The western sky gave birth to a mighty range of phantom shapes—the shapes of mountains and of cities, of peaks and domes and jagged rocks, cut upon the clouds with chisels of fire. The waters themselves danced with a glittering radiance fair to see. The wind was soft and sweet as a wind blowing from the gardens of spring. Christine herself, standing to observe these things, felt them press a new sense of loneliness upon her.
“‘Ugo,’ she cried for the second time, ‘take me back to Zlarin.’
“His answer to her was a kiss upon her forehead; and bending down from his saddle he put his arm about her and pressed her to him.