"We can be back within a quarter of an hour," said the American, cheerfully, to her. "According to my reckoning, we must be almost at the place."
"But the ground is so damp here," said Bertha, "and mother has particularly cautioned us against getting wet feet--and you too, Doctor."
The doctor was silent, and cast an anxious uneasy glance towards his comrade. Bertha looked up in astonishment at the men, and now first observed in their whole behaviour something strange and unfamiliar--and, like a dash of cold through heart and marrow, the idea of treachery arose in her mind.
"We will turn back," she said, suppressing her fears with all the power of which her strong heart was capable. "We will turn back--Mr. Trevor must have missed the direction; no deer-calf could lie hereabouts, the ground is wet and swampy."
"Where lies the boat?" whispered Normann to his comrade; "are we far from it?"
"Over yonder--scarce a hundred yards from this."
"We must bind them," said Turner. "Scipio will come running with the ropes, as soon as I give the signal."
Bertha had seized the hand of her sister convulsively--and the latter looked up to her timidly, but still without any foreboding of what was in agitation.
"Why do the men whisper so together?" she asked her sister. "Cannot they find the spot? But, Bertha, what's the matter--why, you are as pale as a corpse! Oh, Doctor!"
She turned round towards the doctor, but in the next moment she herself stood in need of the support of her sister; she started back with a loud cry of horror, and hid her face in her hands.
Before her, a cocked pistol in his hand, stood the American, and, with a look which raised fears of the worst, in a threatening whisper, hissed out these words--
"Dare to scream!--dare to call for help!--and one of you falls a corpse--the other her murderess!"
"Doctor!" begged Louisa, in a low voice--"oh! can you not protect us from this dreadful man?"
But, without even bestowing a look upon the petitioner, the doctor exclaimed--"Give the signal, Turner!--we dare not lose a second more; if Wolfgang should learn under what pretext we have led the women into the woods at this season, his suspicions will be roused, and in tracking he equals an Indian."