Long before his pursuers had reached the courtyard and alarmed the
watch at the barbican, the American had crawled out upon dry land
and hastened across the broad clearing to the patch of stunted trees
that grew lower down upon the steep hillside before the castle.
He shrank from the thought of leaving Blentz without knowing
positively that Joseph had made good the escape of himself and the
princess, but he finally argued that even if they had been retaken,
he could serve her best by hastening to her father and fetching the
only succor that might prevail against the strength of Blentz--armed
men in sufficient force to storm the ancient fortress.
He had scarcely entered the wood when he heard the sound of the
searchers at the moat, and saw the rays of their lanterns flitting
hither and thither as they moved back and forth along the bank.
Then the young man turned his face from the castle and set forth
across the unfamiliar country in the direction of the Old Forest and
the castle Von der Tann.
The memory of the warm lips that had so recently been pressed to his
urged him on in the service of the wondrous girl who had come so
suddenly into his life, bringing to him the realization of a love
that he knew must alter, for happiness or for sorrow, all the
balance of his existence, even unto death.
He dreaded the day of reckoning when, at last, she must learn that
he was no king.
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