The fugitives avoided, by a detour through fields, the bridge that crossed to Melsungen; and they continued southward along the right bank of the Fulda. Now and then they stopped to rest their horses. Dawn found them suffering from fatigue, but they rode on. At a farmhouse they stopped and fed their horses, also refreshing themselves with milk and eggs. At noon they arrived at the town of Fulda, having covered the sixty miles from Cassel, without change of horses and over bad roads, in eleven hours. On entering Fulda they gave the officer of the guard false names and a prepared story. They learned that a close watch was being kept for an officer in a scarlet cloak; so Dick was thankful for having exchanged with poor Antoine. The search begun yesterday had, thus, evidently extended as far as to Fulda. With the discovery of Von Sungen's fate, new parties would be sent in every direction. Dick was loath to lose time, but the fatigue of all three was so great that dinner and a few hours of sleep were taken at the inn at Fulda. Four o'clock in the afternoon saw the fugitives again on the road. The shortest route to France was by way of Frankfort, for which city they now made, intending to travel by night, and to give a wide berth to whatever walled towns might lie in the way. Fortunately, their horses were of a stock characterized by great endurance. They had been about two hours out of Fulda, when they saw a horseman galloping up behind them. As this cavalier himself looked back frequently, it appeared more likely that he feared pursuit than that he was to be feared as a pursuer. When he was quite near, Romberg cried out: "By God's thunder, it is the traitor, Mesmer! So they have let him escape, after all!" "Escape?" said Dick, with a grim kind of smile. "Do you call his falling into our hands an escape?" And Dick turned to go and meet the newcomer. But Catherine caught his arm, so that he had to rein up to avoid dragging her from her horse. "Let this be my affair," said Romberg, and immediately rode towards Mesmer, drawing his sword as he did so. Mesmer suddenly recognized the two gentlemen and divined Romberg's purpose. Bringing his horse to an abrupt stop, he drew a pistol, with which he had in some way provided himself, and fired straight at Romberg as the latter came up. Romberg instantly tumbled from the horse to the road, and lay still, retaining his sword in the rigid grasp of death. Dick gave a cry of grief and wrath, tore his arm from Catherine's hold, and galloped towards Mesmer, drawing his own pistol and firing as he went. A shriek cleft the air, and the traitor rolled on the earth, close to the body that he himself had bereft of life a moment ago.