Another gun was fired as signal, echoing through the wood, but the sound came from the opposite direction to that we were traveling; therefore we hoped that we had eluded those whose earnest desire it was to capture us for the reward. Suddenly, however, a second gun, an answering signal, was fired from straight before us, and that revealed the truth. We were actually between the two parties, and they were closing in upon us! They had already driven us to the edge of the bog. The Finlander recognized our peril as quickly as I did, and halted.
"Let us turn straight back," he urged breathlessly. "We may yet elude them."
And then we again turned off at right angles, traveling as quickly as we were able back towards the lake shore. It was an exciting chase in the darkness, for we knew not whither we were going, nor into what pitfall or ravine or treacherous marsh we might fall. Once we saw afar through the trees the light of a lantern held by a guard, and already the sweet-faced girl beside me seemed tired and terribly fatigued. But we hurried on and on, striving to make no noise, and yet the crackling of wood beneath our feet seemed to us to sound like the noise of thunder.
At last, breathless, we halted to listen. We were already in sight of the gray mist where lay the silent lake that held so many secrets. There was not a sound. The guards had gone straight on, believing they had driven us into that deadly bog wherein, if we had entered, we must have been slowly sucked down and engulfed. They were surrounding it, no doubt, feeling certain of their prey.
But we crept along the water's edge, until in the gray light we could distinguish two empty boats-that of the guards and our own. We were again at the spot where we had disembarked.
"Let us row to the head of the lake," suggested the Finn. "We may then land and escape them." And a moment later we were all three in the guards' boat, rowing with all our might under the deep shadow of the bank northward, in the opposite direction to the town of Nystad.
We kept a sharp look-out for any other boat, but saw none. The signals ashore had attracted all the guards to that spot to join in the search, and now, having doubled back and again embarked, we were every moment increasing the distance between ourselves and our pursuers. I think we must have rowed several miles, for ere we landed again, upon a low, flat and barren shore, the first gray streak of day was showing in the east.
Elma noticed it, and kept her great brown eyes fixed upon it thoughtfully. It was the dawn for her-the dawn of a new life. Our eyes met; she smiled at me, and then gazed again eastward, full of silent meaning.
Having landed, we drew the boat up and concealed it in the undergrowth so that the guards, on searching, should not know the direction we had taken, and then we went straight on northward across the low-lying lands, to where the forest showed dark against the morning gray. The mist had now somewhat cleared, but the air was keen and frosty.
This wood, we found, was of tall high pines, where walking was not difficult, a wide wilderness of trees which, hour after hour, we traversed in the vain endeavor to find the rough path which our guide told us led for a hundred miles from Alavo down to Tammerfors, the manufacturing center of the country. But to discover a path in a forest forty miles wide is a matter of considerable difficulty, and for hours we wandered on and on, but alas! always in vain.
Faint and hungry, yet we still kept courage. Fortunately we found a little spring, and all three of us drank eagerly with our hands. But of food we had nothing, save a small piece of hard rye bread which the Finn had in his pocket, the remains of his evening meal; and this we gave to Elma, who, half famished, ate it quickly. We knew quite well that it would be an easy matter to die of starvation in that great trackless forest, therefore we kept on undaunted, while the yellow autumn sun struggled through the dark pines, glinting on the straight gray trunks and reflecting a golden light in that dead unbroken silence.
How many miles we trudged I have no idea. It was a consolation to know that we now had no pursuers, yet what fate lay before us we knew not. If we could only find that forest-road we might come across some wood-cutter's hut, where we could obtain rough food of some sort, yet our guide, used as he was to those enormous woods of central Finland, was utterly out of his bearings, and no mark of civilization attracted his quick, experienced eye. The light above gradually faded, and over a sharp stone Elma stumbled and ripped her shoe.
I looked at my watch, and found that it was already five o'clock. In an hour it would be dark, the beginning of the long northern night. Elma, who was weary and footsore, asked by signs to be permitted to lay down and rest. Therefore we gathered a bed of dried leaves for her, and she lay down, and while we watched she was soon asleep. The Finn, who declared that he did not suffer from the cold, removed his coat and placed it tenderly upon her shoulders.
While there was still a ray of light I watched her white refined features as she slept, and was sorely tempted to bend and imprint a kiss upon that soft inviting cheek. Yet I had no right to do so-no right to take such an advantage.
The long cold night passed wearily, and the howling of the wolves caused me to grip my revolver, yet at daybreak we arose refreshed, and notwithstanding the terrible pangs of hunger now gnawing at our vitals, we were prepared to renew our desperate dash for liberty.
Although I had paper, I possessed no pencil with which to write, therefore I could only communicate by signs with the mysterious prisoner of Kajana, the beautiful dark-eyed girl who held me irrevocably beneath the spell of her beauty. All the little acts of homage I was able to perform she accepted with a quiet, calm dignity, while in her deep luminous eyes I read an unfathomable mystery.
The mist had not cleared, for it was soon after dawn when we again moved along, hungry, chill, and yet hopeful. At a spring we obtained some water, and then, in silent procession, pressed forward in search of the rough track of the woodcutters.
Elma's torn shoe gave her considerable trouble, and noticing her limping, I induced her to sit down while I took it off, hoping to be able to mend it, but, having unlaced it, I saw that upon her stocking was a large patch of congealed blood, where her foot itself had also been cut. I managed to beat the nails of the shoe with a stone, so that its sole should not be lost, and she readjusted it, allowing me to lace it up for her and smiling the while.
Forward we trudged, ever forward, across that enormous forest where the myriad treetrunks presented the same dismal scene everywhere, a forest untrodden save by wild, half-savage lumbermen. Throughout that dull gray day we marched onward, faint with hunger, yet suffering but little pain, for the first pangs were now past, and were succeeded by slight light-headedness. My only fear was that we should be compelled to spend another night without shelter, and what its effect might be upon the delicately-reared girl whose hand I held tenderly in mine. Surely my position was a strange one. Her terrible affliction seemed to cause her to be entirely dependent upon me.
Suddenly, just as the yellow sunlight overhead had begun to fade, the flat-faced Finn, whose name he had told me was Felix Estlander, cried joyfully-
"Polushaite! Look, Excellency! Ah! The road at last!"
And as we glanced before us we saw that his quick, well-trained eyes had detected away in the twilight, at some distance, a path traversing our vista among the gray-green tree-trunks. Then, hurrying along, we found ourselves upon a track, on which we turned to the right-a track, rough and deeply-rutted by the felled trunks that were dragged along it to the nearest river.