"You would pursue her, eh? Then I will stop you."
And with these words seizing a large grey rock from among those which were heaped upon the summit, he rolled it down the side of the mountain just as the Turks had reached a narrow defile.
With a noise like thunder the huge mass of rock plunged its way down the mountain-side, taking great leaps into the air whenever it encountered any obstacle. Ah! how the galloping rock plunged among the terrified horsemen—only a streak of blood remained in its track, horses and horsemen were equally crushed beneath it.
With a second, with a third rock also he greeted them. The cavasses, at their wits' end, fled back, and never stopped till they had clambered up the opposite ridge; they did not feel safe among the plunging rocks below and there they could be seen deliberating how it was possible to reach the road behind their backs.
Guessing their intention, the Prince sent his servant to fling a rock down upon them from the hillside beyond, which, as it came clattering down, made the cavasses believe that their enemies were in force, and they climbed higher up still.
"There they will remain till evening," thought the Prince to himself; "so they will not overtake Mariska after all."
And so it conveniently turned out. The cavasses, after consulting together for a long time fruitlessly as to what road they should take to get out of the dangerous pass, began to yell from their lofty perch at their invisible foes, threatening them with the highest displeasure of the Sultan if they did not allow them to pass through in peace; and when a fresh shower of rocks came down by way of reply, they unsaddled their horses and allowing them to graze about at will, lit a fire and squatted down beside it.
Meanwhile, the hunted lady, exchanging her tired horses for four fresh ones in the first Transylvanian village she came to, pressed onwards without stopping. Travelling all night she reached Szamosújvár in the early morning. The Prince was no longer there. He had migrated in hot haste, they said, before the rising of the sun, to Klausenberg.
Mariska did not descend from her carriage, but only changed her horses. Three days and three nights she had already been travelling, without rest, in sickness and despair. And again she must hasten on farther. It was evening when they reached Klausenberg. The coachman, when he saw the towers in the distance, turned round to her with the comforting assurance that they would now be at Klausenberg very shortly. At these words the lady begged the coachman not to go so quickly, and when he lashed up his horses still more vigorously notwithstanding, and cast a look behind him, she also looked through the window at the back of the carriage and saw a band of horsemen galloping after them along the road.