n I knew that, notwithstanding our
escape, we were now lost. They were too close upon us to admit of
eluding them. The peril we had dreaded had fallen. The Finn's presence
on the bank had evidently been detected by a boat drawn up at the shore,
and he had been followed to where we had lain in what we had so
foolishly believed to be a safe hiding-place. Nought else was to be done
but to face the inevitable. Three times the red fire of a rifle belched
angrily in our faces, and yet, by good fortune, neither of us was
struck. Yet we knew too well that the intention of our pursuers was to
kill us.

"Quick, Excellency! Fly! while there is yet time!" gasped the Finn,
grasping my hand and half dragging me from the boat, while, I, in turn,
placed Elma upon the bank.

"_Hoida!_ This way! Swiftly!" cried our guide, and the three of us,
heedless of the consequences, plunged forward into the impenetrable
darkness, just as our fierce pursuers came alongside where we had only a
moment ago been seated. They shouted wildly as they sprang to land after
us, but our guide, who had been born and bred in these forests, knew
well how to travel in a semi-circle, and how to conceal himself. It was
a race for freedom--nay, for very life.

So dark that we could see before us hardly a foot, we were compelled to
place our hands in front of us to avoid collision with the big tree
trunks, while ever and anon we found ourselves entangled in the mass of
dead creepers and vegetable parasites that formed the dense undergrowth.
Around us on every side we heard the shouts and curses of our pursuers,
while above the rest we heard an authoritative voice, evidently that of
a sergeant of the guard, cry--

"Shoot the man, but spare the woman! The Colonel wants her back. Don't
let her escape! We shall be well rewarded. So keep on, comrades! _Mene
edemmaeski!_"

But the trembling girl beside me heard nothing, and perhaps indeed it
was best that she could not hear. My only fear was that our pursuers, of
whom there now seemed to be a dozen, had extended, with the intention of
encircling us. They, no doubt, knew every inch of that giant forest with
its numerous bogs and marshes, and if they could not discover us would
no doubt drive us into one or other of the bogs, where escape was
impossible.

Our gallant guide, on the other hand, seemed to utterly disregard the
danger and kept on, every now and then stretching out his hand and
helping along the afflicted