As I shook the water off me like some big dog I plunged into the brush with the same recklessness I had crossed the creek, though now my wet garments by their weight and their clinging about my legs impeded my progress almost beyond endurance; but as I stood panting and almost choking for breath I saw at no great distance ahead in a little, moonlit glade, mine enemy, still not looking back, so that I felt relieved to know she had not yet seen me. On and on we went in this manner, she seemingly without effort, while I stumbled and fell repeatedly over rocks and gullies and fallen trees, yet beyond being severely shaken and bruised I received no great hurts. Of a sudden, as we reached the foot of the mountain she changed her way, hitherto toward the southwest, abruptly to the southeast, almost at the same spot I had come on the footprints of Brother Alburtus that sad day. She too, now as I continually kept nigh enough to catch sight of her among the bushes and trees, followed that same winding way up the mountain side, higher and higher. Once she turned half about and stood still as though listening carefully, and ere I could hide behind a tree I thought she saw me, but if so she gave no sign by hastening her flight, if flight it could be called, for she appeared in no great hurry. But now and then she would turn sharply about and stand still for a moment as if listening, and always when I was in plain view. We had now come nigh to the very spot where I found Brother Alburtus dying in the snow. Farther up the mountain I could see plainly his rocky tomb, and then, though I had glanced but a moment aside from my pursuit, she had completely vanished. I looked about me in every direction, but I could see naught of her, nor could I as much as hear the faintest sound. And then as suddenly as though it had come out of the earth, I saw on the top of that great rock whence our brother had fallen such a sight as for a moment almost benumbed me with fear; for there standing out clear in the bright moonlight was the tall figure of some dark being, so that my first overpowering fear was the witch had suddenly changed her human shape into that of the Evil One.