Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor
had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he
returned at noon with good news.

A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg,
the charcoal-burner, lived.

The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach
nearer the Rhine valley. Everything was ready for departure, but old
Rahel objected to travelling further. She was sitting on a stone before
the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and it
seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses. Gazing into vacancy
with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould
dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour. She
neither heard the doctor's call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the
former grasped her to compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek. At last
the smith succeeded in persuading her to sit down on the sledge, and the
party moved forward.

Adam had harnessed himself to the front of the vehicle. Marx went to and
fro, pushing when necessary. The dumb woman waded through the snow by
her husband's side. "Poor wife!" he said once; but she pressed his arm
closer, looking up into his eyes as if she wished to say: "Surely I shall
lack nothing, if only you are spared to me!"

She enjoyed his presence as if it were a favor granted by destiny, but
only at chance moments, for she could not banish her fear for him, and
of the pursuers--her dread of uncertainty and wandering.

If snow rattled from a pine-tree, if she noticed Lopez turn his head, or