It was but just in time; the rough soldiers were close behind.
“Ha! who went there?” she heard a hoarse voice say, as she noiselessly closed the door. “Saw you not the ivy move? Press through and see who passed.”
“It was but a frightened hare—I saw it run,” said another, with a less terrible voice.
“Nothing taller ever passed that branch,” said another; and the speakers passed out of hearing.
There lay the three paths: the one straight on before—but so open, so exposed, any one who happened to be passing for miles round might have seen and pursued her, while either of the others offered instant cover and security. Klein-Else was sorely tempted to try one of them.
“If I had heard all his instructions,” she reasoned, “it would have been different: I would then have done all he told me, whithersoever it might have led; but now I know not what he meant. I may go a little way along this path—and then what shall I do? Maybe, I shall fall into a greater danger than that from which he would have saved me!”
And she turned to seek the shelter of the friendly cottages in the valley beneath. But the words seemed to live in the air around her,—
“Another destiny is for you!”
Trembling and confused, she would have plunged into the hiding-place of the pine-forest above; but the wind that moaned through their lofty branches seemed charged with the words,—