band of armed men by that path without their being discovered.
If ye will take the advice of one who was a warrior in his youth, there
is some hope that, God permitting, we may all escape. Ye know the Crow
Cliff? Well, the small boat is lying there. It is well known that men
dare not swim down the rapid, unless they are acquainted with the run of
the water and the formation of the rock. Thy men know it well, the
King's men know it not. With a boat the maidens may descend in safety.
The men can leap into the river and escape before the enemy could come
at them by the hill road."

"Excellently planned," exclaimed Erling in an eager tone; "but, hermit,
how dost thou propose to fetch the maidens hither?"

"By going and conducting them. There is much risk, no doubt, but their
case is desperate, for their retreat is certain to be discovered."

"Away then," said Ulf, "minutes are precious. We will await thee here,
and, at the worst, if they should be captured, we can but die in
attempting their rescue."

Without uttering another word the hermit rose, re-entered the underwood,
sank down on his hands and knees, and disappeared with a cat-like
quietness that had been worthy of one of the red warriors of America.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

IN WHICH IS DESCRIBED A DESPERATE ATTEMPT AT RESCUE, A BOLD LEAP FOR
FREEDOM, AND A TRIUMPHANT ESCAPE.

The Crow Cliff, to which Christian had referred, was a high precipitous
rock that jutted out into the river just below Haldorstede. It was the
termination of the high ridge on the face of which Erling had posted his
men, and could be easily reached from the spot where they lay concealed,
as well as from the stede itself, but there was no possibility of
passing down the river in that direction by land, owing to the
precipitous nature of the ground. The ordinary path down the valley,
which elsewhere followed the curvatures of the river, made at this point
a wide detour into the woods, went in a zigzag form up the steep ascent
of the ridge, descended similarly on the other side, and did not rejoin
the river for nearly half a mile below. The waters were so pent up by
the Crow Cliff that they rushed along its base in a furious rapid,
which, a hundred yards down, descended in a perpendicular fall of about
fifteen feet in depth. The descent of this rapid by a boat was quite
possible, for there was a little bay at the lower end of Crow Cliff,
just above the foss, into which it could