Holding their belongings high above their heads, with their hearts in their mouths, King and the Englishman felt their way carefully along the bed of the stream. Not a sound was to be heard, except the barking of dogs in the distance. The stillness of death hung over the land. So still, that the almost imperceptible sounds they made in breathing and moving seemed like great volumes of noise in their tense ears.
A hundred yards from the gate they crawled ashore and made their way up over the steep bank into the thick, wild underbrush. Not a word had been spoken up to this time.
"Quietly now, Hobbs. Let us get out of these duds. 'Gad, they're like ice. From now on, Hobbs, you lead the way. I'll do my customary act of following."
Hobbs was shivering from the cold. "I say, Mr. King, you're a wonder, that's wot you are. Think of going under those bally gates!"
"That's right, Hobbs, think of it, but don't talk."
They stealthily stripped themselves of the wet garments, and, after no end of trouble, succeeded in getting into the dry substitutes. Then they lowered the wet bundles into the water and quietly stole off through the brush, Hobbs in the lead, intent upon striking the King's Highway, a mile or two above town. It was slow, arduous going, because of the extreme caution required. A wide detour was made by the canny Hobbs--wider, in fact, than the impatient American thought wholly necessary. In time, however, they came to the Highway.
"Well, we've got a start, Hobbs. We'll win out, just as I said we would. Easy as falling off a log."
"I'm not so blooming sure of that," said Hobbs. He was recalling a recent flight along this very road. "We're a long way from being out of the woods."
"Don't be a kill-joy, Hobbs. Look at the bright side of things."
"I'll do that in the morning, when the sun's up," said Hobbs, with a sigh. "Come along, sir. We take this path here for the upper road. It's a good two hours' walk up the mountain to Rabot's, where we get the horses."
All the way up the black, narrow mountain path Hobbs kept the lead. King followed, his thoughts divided between the blackness ahead and the single, steady light in a certain window now far behind. He had seen the lighted window in the upper balcony as he passed the Castle on the way to the gate. Somehow he knew she was there saying good-bye and Godspeed to him.
At four o'clock, as the sun reached up with his long, red fingers from behind the Monastery mountain, Truxton King and Hobbs rode away from Rabot's cottage high in the hills, refreshed and sound of heart. Rabot's son rode with them, a sturdy, loyal lad, who had leaped joyously at the chance to serve his Prince. Undisturbed, they rode straight for the passes below St. Valentine's. Behind and below them lay the sleeping, restless, unhappy city of Edelweiss, with closed gates and unfriendly, sullen walls. There reigned the darkest fiend that Graustark, in all her history, had ever come to know.