But help was near. They were suddenly startled by a sound—a distant cry—and at the same moment they caught sight of a man who had come running from the direction of the cottage. As soon as he perceived he was seen, he held up both arms: it was a signal to them not to move—as if movement were possible to them in this prostration of fear! He came along with an incredible rapidity, by the outskirts of the morass, until he was opposite them, and then he ventured in a little distance. But he did not attempt to approach them; with his hand he directed them which way to go; and they—their heart in their mouth the while—obeyed him as well as they could. By the time they got near to where he was waiting, they found themselves with some firmer consistency under their feet; and then, without a word, he turned and led the way off the morass, they following. There he paused for a second, to give them a brief direction. "You must keep along the side; it is very dangerous," he said, in a somewhat cold manner. But in an instant Mary had divined who this was. The young man with the pale, clear-cut features and coal-black eyes belonged to no shepherd’s hut. "I—I want to thank you, sir," she said, breathlessly (he had raised his cap to them slightly, and was going away). "If it had not been for you, what should we have done? It is a dreadful place—we were afraid to move—" He glanced at her and her companion with some swift scrutiny. "You are wet," said he, in the same distant and reserved fashion. "You will find a fire in the widow’s cottage." "You might show us the way," said Käthchen, half-piteously. "We are frightened." After that he could not well leave them; though, to be sure, the way to the cottage was plain and easy enough, so long as they kept back from the dangerous Meall-na-Fearn bog. He walked ahead of them, slowly; he did not attempt to speak to them. His demeanour had not been unfriendly; on the contrary, it had been courteous; but it was courtesy of a curiously formal and reticent kind. Perhaps he had not known who these strangers were when he came so quickly to their help. And in truth the two girls could hardly follow him; for now all the enfeeblement of the terror they had suffered had come upon them; they were no longer strung up by a shuddering apprehension of being entombed in that hideous morass; and the previous fatigue, physical and nervous, that they had fought against so heroically, was beginning to tell now, especially upon Mary. At length she did stop; she said "Käthchen! Käthchen!" in a low voice; her figure swayed, as if she would fall to the earth; and then she sank to her knees, and burst into a wild fit of hysterical weeping, covering her face with her hands. Their guide did not happen to notice: he was going on: and it was becoming dark. "Stay a moment, sir!" said Käthchen, in tones of indignant remonstrance. "My friend is tired out." He came back at once.