She made him glad almost to delirium when she put up her hands and drew his wet face to hers, and kissed him on both cheeks. He hurried away to the wall with happy laughter, and when he had climbed up the rope and they knew that he was safe within the house, Engel took Margaret's mother in his arms, and the little company walked on into the dark forest. CHAPTER XXVIII THE NIGHT RIDE IN THE FOREST Once within the shelter of the forest, Engel placed Margaret's mother carefully at the root of one of the giant oaks and on the sheltered side, so that neither wind nor rain could harm her. "We will wait here a little while," he said quietly, "and that will give you time to recover a bit from all the exertion and pain to which our adventures have put you, Mistress Byrckmann." "No, let us not stay!" she exclaimed, taking her husband's hand, and by an effort which surprised him drawing herself on to her feet, where she stood with her hands on his arm. "Let us go forward. They will find that we have left our home, and they will say that we must have left the city; then they will come here to search for us." Shuddering at the thought, and weak though she was, she drew her husband forward. "Then you shall take my arm; or, better still, since I am fresh and Engel is not, I will carry you!" exclaimed Herman; and before she could say a word by way of protest, he had her frail body in his arms. "Go ahead," he said, when Engel protested that he was equal to three or four miles more. "Show the way, since no one knows the forest as you do." More than once, when the wind howled among the trees and made the going dangerous because great branches sometimes broke away and crashed to the ground, the travellers thought they heard the cries of men, and they paused to know whether they were being pursued. When an hour had gone, and Margaret's mother had twice changed bearers, the forester said they were nearing a farm where he thought he could hire some horses. He was going to point to a clearing where the house was standing when the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, in spite of the swish of the forest leaves in the storm. "They are after us!" said Margaret, in awestricken tones, and she looked around, dark though it was, to know if any place offered for their hiding. "Come this way!" the forester exclaimed, and, having just given up his burden to Herman, he caught at Margaret's hand. He drew her, and the others followed, among the bushes, away from the road, and waited in hiding to know what the sounds meant.