girl we had rescued from that living tomb.
Headlong we went in a straight line, until suddenly we began to feel
our feet sinking into the soft ground, and then the Finlander turned to
the left, at right angles, and we found ourselves in a denser
undergrowth, where in the darkness our hands and faces became badly
scratched.

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 attracte