Then ensue minutes that seem endless. Michael is ascending slowly, laboriously, but at last she sees him; he plants his mountain-staff firmly and swings himself up beside her, clasps her in his arms, and she clings to him as if never to leave him more. But this blissful moment of forgetfulness is brief: danger still threatens; not an instant must be lost. "We must go," urged Michael. "The fir is tottering, and may fall at any moment; these clefts are never safe. Come, dearest." He clasped his arm about her, and she leaned upon him in unquestioning confidence, as he half led, half carried her down the rocky slope. The moon had emerged again, and lighted them on their way, revealing at the same time all the terrors of the path by which Hertha had ascended half unconsciously, and the perils of which were doubled in descending. But not in vain had Michael lived for ten years in these mountains; the man had not forgotten what had been familiar to the boy for whom no rocky summit had been too lofty, no cleft too deep. Thus they made the descent, the abyss close beside them, the wild uproar of the stormy night about them, their hearts filled with an exultant joy that no tempest, no abyss, could affect. At last they reached a place of safety. Michael had kept his word: he had snatched his bliss from the Eagle ridge. Morning was approaching, and the tempest was subsiding; it no longer raged with savage fury, and the heavens were gradually clearing; the clouds slowly dispersed, and about the mountain-tops the first gray glimmer of dawn appeared. Michael made a halt as they issued from the rocky gorge. The mountain chapel was almost a mile away, and his exhausted companion was obliged to rest. All peril was past; there was no difficulty about the rest of the way if it were traversed by daylight. He found a shelter for Hertha beneath a protecting rock, where she sat shielded from the wind, while he stood beside her. The young Countess's attire had suffered sadly: her dark wrap was torn and muddy, she had lost her hat, her heavy braids hung loose about her shoulders, as, pale and weary, she leaned her head back against the wall of rock. And yet Michael thought he never had seen her look half so lovely as at this moment,--his love, whom he had battled for and won through storm and tempest. They had scarcely spoken on the way hither, each step was taken at the risk of life, and now they were still silent, gazing upward at the Eagle ridge, where the gray dawn was beginning to yield to a crimson tint that deepened every moment. At last Michael bent over her and said, gently, "Hertha!" She looked up at him, and suddenly held out to him both her hands. "Michael, how did you ever find me in those abysses? You could have had no clue to guide you."