Thy lust is to be free? So thou shalt be. Free of the forest! Drive him to the woods, boys! Turn him loose to find his fodder with the deer!"
He sent me staggering with a thrust of his arm, and the foresters at once seized me. I resisted them, instinctively, but they overpowered me. I had the sense to see the futility of exhausting myself in a struggle there and so controlled my temper and allowed them to lead me away.
* * *
7
They carried out the Count's instructions there and then. Though they had been, if not friendly, at least not openly hostile when I had been in the Doctor's company among them that morning, now they handled me with no more attention to my questions than if I had been an animal. They dealt with me with a brusque, callous efficiency, not actually striking me when I was slow to obey, but letting me see plainly and promptly enough how expert they were in dealing with any show of resistance.
They took me to some room in that collection of buildings near the game park, and there they made me strip off the clothes the Doctor had lent me and put on a strange costume which they took from a store that seemed well furnished with similar outfits. It consisted of a pair of knee-breeches made of some peculiar stuff, which might be taken at first sight for deerskin, but which I found to be a fabric, elastic as a living skin and with a nap on its face, short, thick and lying close like an animal's hair. They gave me a tight-fitting jersey of the same material with long sleeves, and then, taking a surprising amount of trouble over the job, fitted me with a pair of real deerskin moccasins which laced firmly and comfortably on my feet.
As soon as I was thus fitted out, they bundled me outside again into a yard where there stood a kind of small, horse-drawn van, or not so much a van as a square wooden cage on wheels. I was thrust inside, the door fastened on me, and with a couple of foresters sitting on top, I was driven off along a dark lane of the forest.
We went smartly, up hill and down dale over a fairly good earth road for something like four or five miles, all through thick beech and oak woods. Then we stopped, and I was made to walk, the driver of the van going ahead with a lantern from his vehicle, the others marching on with a gun muzzle held in the small of my back. We followed a narrow, sandy path in an open glade. There was some cloud over the moon; I might by a sudden spring have broken away and given them the slip but that I was convinced they meant to do me no bodily harm immediately: strange as von Hackelnberg's orders were, they had been plain and obviously meant to be literally carried out. I knew now that the forest of Hackelnberg was most effectively fenced; to be free in it was only to be in a wider prison, but to be master of my own movements within those limits seemed to me to be a long step forward towards complete escape; I was not going to ruin my chances by risking a shot in the legs.
We stopped and the lantern shone on a tiny hut just within a grove of trees. It was made of a neat, close trellis of boughs and deeply thatched with reeds. They pushed me to the dark little doorway and one of them said harshly:
"Here you stay. You'll find food near-by. But if we see you we shall shoot you like a wild beast, or set the hounds on you!"
He lunged suddenly with the gun barrel and sent me flying forward into the dark hut, where I lay for a moment on the floor, winded and helpless from the blow. When I straightened up the lantern was already disappearing far down the glade.
I groped about in the hut and suddenly recoiled in fright as my hand touched a mass of hair that moved. I heard a gasping, suppressed shriek, and realised that the thing was more afraid than I was myself. There was a loud rustling of straw or dead leaves and something big blundered against my legs in a scrambling bolt for the doorway. I grabbed at it and found myself clutching a man.
He collapsed weakly on the ground,
He sent me staggering with a thrust of his arm, and the foresters at once seized me. I resisted them, instinctively, but they overpowered me. I had the sense to see the futility of exhausting myself in a struggle there and so controlled my temper and allowed them to lead me away.
* * *
7
They carried out the Count's instructions there and then. Though they had been, if not friendly, at least not openly hostile when I had been in the Doctor's company among them that morning, now they handled me with no more attention to my questions than if I had been an animal. They dealt with me with a brusque, callous efficiency, not actually striking me when I was slow to obey, but letting me see plainly and promptly enough how expert they were in dealing with any show of resistance.
They took me to some room in that collection of buildings near the game park, and there they made me strip off the clothes the Doctor had lent me and put on a strange costume which they took from a store that seemed well furnished with similar outfits. It consisted of a pair of knee-breeches made of some peculiar stuff, which might be taken at first sight for deerskin, but which I found to be a fabric, elastic as a living skin and with a nap on its face, short, thick and lying close like an animal's hair. They gave me a tight-fitting jersey of the same material with long sleeves, and then, taking a surprising amount of trouble over the job, fitted me with a pair of real deerskin moccasins which laced firmly and comfortably on my feet.
As soon as I was thus fitted out, they bundled me outside again into a yard where there stood a kind of small, horse-drawn van, or not so much a van as a square wooden cage on wheels. I was thrust inside, the door fastened on me, and with a couple of foresters sitting on top, I was driven off along a dark lane of the forest.
We went smartly, up hill and down dale over a fairly good earth road for something like four or five miles, all through thick beech and oak woods. Then we stopped, and I was made to walk, the driver of the van going ahead with a lantern from his vehicle, the others marching on with a gun muzzle held in the small of my back. We followed a narrow, sandy path in an open glade. There was some cloud over the moon; I might by a sudden spring have broken away and given them the slip but that I was convinced they meant to do me no bodily harm immediately: strange as von Hackelnberg's orders were, they had been plain and obviously meant to be literally carried out. I knew now that the forest of Hackelnberg was most effectively fenced; to be free in it was only to be in a wider prison, but to be master of my own movements within those limits seemed to me to be a long step forward towards complete escape; I was not going to ruin my chances by risking a shot in the legs.
We stopped and the lantern shone on a tiny hut just within a grove of trees. It was made of a neat, close trellis of boughs and deeply thatched with reeds. They pushed me to the dark little doorway and one of them said harshly:
"Here you stay. You'll find food near-by. But if we see you we shall shoot you like a wild beast, or set the hounds on you!"
He lunged suddenly with the gun barrel and sent me flying forward into the dark hut, where I lay for a moment on the floor, winded and helpless from the blow. When I straightened up the lantern was already disappearing far down the glade.
I groped about in the hut and suddenly recoiled in fright as my hand touched a mass of hair that moved. I heard a gasping, suppressed shriek, and realised that the thing was more afraid than I was myself. There was a loud rustling of straw or dead leaves and something big blundered against my legs in a scrambling bolt for the doorway. I grabbed at it and found myself clutching a man.
He collapsed weakly on the ground,
Similar Books
