"Wait till he's plucked of his feathers!" laughed Groder, and bade her close the shutters. The bandage was removed from my eyes, and by the grey morning light which pierced through the crevices of the window, I perceived that I was in some rough cottage. An old woman stood gaping open-mouthed before me. Groder sharply bade her go and prepare breakfast. Otto unbound my wrists, and pointed to a heap of clothes which lay in a corner, and so they left me to myself. I had some difficulty in putting on these clothes, since my wrists were swollen and well-nigh useless from their long confinement. Indeed, but for a threat which Groder shouted through the door, saying that he would come and assist me to make my toilet, I doubt whether I should have succeeded at all. For breakfast they brought me a pannikin full of a greasy steaming gruel, which I constrained myself to swallow. Then they bound my hands again. Groder wrapped up the clothes which I had taken off in a bundle, and slung it on his back. Otto replaced the bandage on my eyes, and we set out, mounting upwards by a rough mountain track, along which they guided me. About noon Otto called a halt, and none too soon, for I was ready to drop with fatigue and pain. There we made a meal of some dry coarse bread, and washed it down with spirit of a very bitter flavour. 'Twas new to me at the time, but I know now that it was distilled from the gentian flower. Groder lit a fire and burned the bundle of clothes which he had brought with him, the two men sharing my jewels between them. From that point we left the track and climbed up a grass slope, winding this way and that in the ascent. 'Twas as much as I could do to keep my feet, though Otto and Groder supported me upon either side. At the top we dipped down again for a little, crossed a level field of heather, but in what direction I know not, for by this I had lost all sense of our bearings, mounted again, descended again, and towards nightfall came to a hut. Groder thrust me inside, plucked the cloth from my face, and unbound my hands. "'Tis a long day's journey," said he; "but what matters that if you make it only once?" CHAPTER XXI. IN CAPTIVITY HOLLOW. The hut wherein I passed the first month of my captivity was of a more solid construction than is customary at so great a height, and had been built by the order of Count Lukstein for a shelter when the chase brought him hitherwards. For the hillside was covered with a dense forest of fir-trees in which chamois abounded, and now and again, though 'twas never my lot to come across one, a bear might be discovered.