Almost beside them, lantern in hand, the watch paused; but his body was between them and his light, and its rays did not shine into the bastion. After a moment he raised the staff which he carried and struck a sharp blow against the stones. The sudden sound wrung from Elise a little outcry, which she checked on her very lips, as it were; but the sentry must have caught somewhat of it, for he bent toward them, and Wulf braced himself to spring upon him, when of a sudden a call rang out from the sentinel on the watch-tower, far adown the wall. “One hour past midnight, and all’s well,” it said; and the watchman beside them took it up, bellowing forth the words until they sounded fair awful coming out of the darkness. From elsewhere—Wulf judged it to be the castle keep—the watch-cry sounded again, and ere it had clean died away Wulf gave a forward spring, catching the sentinel just as he was turning to walk adown his beat. In a flash the fellow had received a blow from his own staff that quieted him. Then, dashing out the lantern, Wulf, as best he could in the darkness, thrust a soft leathern gag into the man’s mouth, making it fast by cords at the back of his head. Then he bound him, hand and foot, and, taking from the fellow’s girdle the key of the postern, he grasped Elise’s hand, and together they made out to open the gate and creep forth. Between them and liberty there yet lay the ditch; but well Wulf knew where, at the foot of the steps leading from the postern, the warden’s boat was tied, and, with every sense sharpened by the dangers about them, he managed to get Elise into the small craft. By now a few stars shone through the darkness, lighting them, feebly enough, to the other side, and presently the pair had clambered again ahead. “Now for it!” whispered Wulf. “Gird thy skirts well, for an we win away now, ’twill be by foot-fleetness.” Bravely Elise obeyed him, and taking her hand again, Wulf led off at a long, low run, none too hard for her prowess, yet getting well over the ground. Thus they began descending the defile. It was cruel work for a tender maid, but Elise was of such stuff as in years gone had made her ancestors the warrior comrades of kings; she neither moaned nor flinched, but kept steady pace at Wulf’s side. Thus they fared for a matter of two or three miles, and had gotten well away down the pass when they caught, on the still night air, an alarum of horns that would be from the castle. Plainly something was astir, and that, most likely, the discovery that some one had come or gone by the postern gate. “The boat will soon tell them which ’tis,” said Wulf, “and they’ll be after us just now.” They quickened pace, and, reckless of danger on the rough foothold, sped flockmeal down the stony road, Wulf with an arm about the maiden’s waist, that he might lift her along over the roughest places, she with a hand on his shoulder, hastening stoutly beside him.