At first there seemed to be a score of horsemen, but, as these came on, others emerged from the forest darkness in their wake, and others after those. On and on they came, and presently the foremost rode past, easily and carelessly, talking, and at odd times snaps of a soldier's song came. The cavalcade moved on, and it seemed to those who watched, bending low in their saddles and peering through the bushes that hid them, that there were more than scores. They seemed to be hundreds, each man fully armed. Then after them came the rolling wheels of heavy guns drawn by horses who sometimes strained at the weight when the wheels sank into the soft moss-grown path. It was a little army, the rear being brought up by more horsemen, whose faces were lit up by the flaring torches. The watchers looked anxiously, unconsciously, indeed, to know whether Cochlaeus was amongst them, and there was the feeling of intense relief when they found that he was not. "Where can they be going to?" each asked, as the last of the horsemen rode out of sight, and no more light from the torches lit up the forest trees; but the cavalcade had gone, and the road was free. They started on their way again, Herman and Engel discussing the alternatives. "Let us take Worms later," said Herman again, just as he had been saying when the soldiers came into view. It was one thing to say so much; another thing to tell where the other place might be; but the suggestion set the forester thinking. "I know!" he exclaimed, slapping his thigh with his great hand, and the smart crack made his horse start. "I have an uncle--and he has a daughter--and I love her, Herman, just as you love that sweet girl behind us. And my cousin loves me." He said all this in little more than a whisper, but Herman marked the thrill in the forester's voice. "She lives two miles from here, in a mill like my father's, and just now she's all alone, for her father's away, and will not be back for another month. She can hide us all, and the horses can go out to graze, and no questions asked, because my uncle deals in horseflesh freely, making a mint o' money. I'll only have to say, 'Mary, we're in trouble--every one of us, and in danger, too, and it means the rack for some of us, or worse, if you can't hide us somewhere.' And she'll do it. I know she will, if only for her love for me; but add to that her love for what Cochlaeus would call heresy, and we shall win her care. Shall we try it?" "Why ask me?" exclaimed Herman, whose heart was beating high with hope, and who was thinking of the safety it promised for his darling. "Turn that way at once, if you know how to get there." "I've never got there from this side, but always from across the river, where I know every inch of the way. If we get a bit nearer the water I can, perhaps, get my bearings."