It was too much to expect any one to keep awake. The watchers thought that if they only threw on enough fuel the fires would last. Scarcely had the sleepers had time to fly home in their dreams and greet the dear ones there, when a sudden uproar wakened them all with a start. It was the whinnying of frightened horses. The thicket had caught fire from the unguarded watch-fires, and was one sheet of flame when the men awoke. "Up the mountain!" cried Richard, running to his horse and seeking the nearest way of escape from the spreading sea of fire that raged around him. There was light enough now to show them the way only too clearly, and a perilous, breakneck path it was. The extremity of the danger in their rear, however, gave to men and horses an almost preternatural strength, and they accomplished in a short time an ascent that made them dizzy to look back upon. They stood there a moment, steaming with perspiration in the cold night air, and not daring to linger. They were forced to push on, if only to keep warm. There was no halting for consultation now; every man made the best of his way forward; if any should faint by the way they would have to lie where they fell. Day dawned at last,--the most harrowing day of their long flight. Ice-clad peaks and fields of snow greeted the eye on every side, with nothing to guide a traveller's course but the sun in the heavens. Two days had passed since the men had tasted food. They sought to quench their thirst with lumps of snow, but only made matters worse. One thing, however, troubled them more than hunger or thirst. Their horses were beginning to fail them, falling exhausted, one after another, in the deep snow; and whenever one of the animals fell, its rider stood by its side, with tears in his eyes, more than half inclined to lie down too and give up the fight. But old Paul would allow no such nonsense. Alternately swearing and coaxing, and calling upon the saints, he spurred on the stragglers, helped to raise a fallen horse where help was of any avail, brought up the reserve horses to take the places of those left behind, and infused fresh courage into all by the mere force of his example. "Not a man must be lost!" he cried. "We shall soon be at home now." "Yes, at home in heaven," muttered one weary hussar to another. The men were scattered over a distance of two miles, Richard taking the lead and breaking a path through the deep snow, while Paul brought up the rear. It was almost a miracle that their strength still held out. Their clothes were frozen stiff, and their swords had become a grievous burden to them. The horses' girths flapped loosely against their sides, their shoes had fallen off, and their hoofs were torn and bruised. And no one could tell when or how or where it would all end.