On they went for yet another hour, and now it was clear daylight when, sounding through the woods, came again the noise of horsemen. Evidently the baron’s men had skirted the stream and struck through the forest. For all the fugitives knew, they might show before them any moment now. “Wulf,” cried Elise, “do thou leave me here. I can go no farther, but go thou on. I will stay to meet them. They dare not kill me,—would they might!—but if I stay and go back with them to the castle, thou canst escape, and thy death will not be at my charge.” “Hush!” Wulf answered, almost roughly. “Dost think I will do thy bidding in this? But here is no place to hide. We must get on, an we may, where the bush is thicker. So hearten thyself for one more trial.” His arm once more on her waist, they ran on—she sobbing with weariness and fear for him—through the forest. But nearer and nearer, louder and more clear, came the noise of their pursuers, and still more feebly ran the tired pair, stumbling over fallen boughs and matted tangles of dead leaves. “Wulf! I am like to die of weariness,” gasped Elise, at last. “Go on alone, I beg thee.” “Hark!” Wulf interrupted, with a quick gesture. “What is that?” They were at the edge of another open, which they were minded to skirt, fearful to cross it and risk discovery; but beyond it came the sound of still another body of horsemen, crashing through the forest. “Belike the party have divided,” Wulf whispered, “the better to find us.” But, even as he spoke, a squire rode from the brash into the open, bearing a banner that Wulf had never before seen. He shrank back into the thicket, keeping tight hold of Elise’s hand; but the newcomer had evidently ridden out by mistake from the body of his fellows, and retired again by the way he came. They could hear him going on through the brush. “They are not Swartzburg riders,” Wulf said, and then a mighty din arose among the trees. The woods rang on all sides with the cries of fighting-men and the clashing of weapons, and in another moment Wulf made out clearly the battle-cry of Baron Everhardt’s men. But above it and all the din of fighting, there rose another cry: “For God and the emperor!” so that he knew that a party of Rudolf’s men, if not his whole army, had fallen in with the pursuers, and his hot young blood stirred with longing to be in the fray. Then he bethought him of the matter at hand. “Now! now, Elise! this is our chance! We must be off! One more dash and we shall be where any band of horsemen will have much ado to follow, and well on our way to the convent.” He pressed to her lips an opened bottle filled with goat’s milk, urging her to drink, and when she had done so she looked up at him with fresh courage in her eyes.