As the carriage bounded and rumbled along the starlit road, Stephanie took her lover's head upon her soft shoulder, putting her arm about him and drawing him to her as a mother does her child, and kissed him softly, tenderly, as a mother does, and Nigel fell into a deep, peaceful slumber, his last murmur being her name—"Stephanie."
Very peacefully he slept, despite the rumbling and swaying of the carriage, and the Archduchess, satisfied that his breathing was natural, gave herself up to the maturing of her plan, listening now and then to the clattering of the hoofs of their attendants' horses upon the hard road not far behind. At the rate they had travelled she decided that there was yet time to spare. She feared the Elector not at all, her brother Ferdinand about as much, as far as her own self was concerned. But she feared immeasurably for Nigel. The thought that she must be parted from him almost inevitably, directly they had pledged their mutual marriage vows, crushed her with a leaden weight.
They stopped somewhere. She could not guess. The horses were steaming with their exertions. Men threw cloths over them while they rested in their traces. Then they resumed the journey, and presently Nigel awoke, ashamed that he had slept, but with strength of mind and body renewed.
They reached a little village called Obertraubling, two leagues short of Ratisbon.
The carriage stopped. Nigel sprang out. It was of no use, the postboy said. One horse had gone lame. He could kill the horse by thrashing him, but to get to Ratisbon with the carriage was impossible in the time. He had done his best. Neither Blick nor his troopers nor his groom had come up. Nigel went from one poor house and inn to another in search of one or two fresh horses. Not a horse was to be found.
"No one had a horse if not Farmer Grabstein, the last house in the village."
Postboy and coachman led the stumbling horses along to the house of Farmer Grabstein. No one was about. Nigel knocked at the door and it yielded. There was a fire upon the hearth. There was food of a rough sort upon the table. There were even candles hanging from a beam. He lit one at the embers and stuck it in a candlestick. Then he went back to the carriage and bade Stephanie alight.
She came into the farmhouse and sat down on a bench in the fireplace to warm herself while Nigel made a search. Downstairs there was no one. Upstairs (it was a rough wooden stair, steep as a ladder) were garrets under the thatch. Rolled up in undistinguishable bundles appeared to be some human beings. The air was fetid with their breath and their personal exhalations. Was it worth while to wake them? At all events the Archduchess could not go up that stair.
Then he bade the men put their horses in the stable and sleep there beside them. It would at least be warm.
"Stephanie! My beloved! There is no help for it but wait here till Blick comes up. Then he must get into Ratisbon and bring out horses by hook or by crook! The night is yet young. Our plans have gone dismally awry. Yet I would not have it different if it were not for the tongue of rumour that will even now be busy in Ratisbon!"