“Look!” cried our guide, backing water, and bringing the boat to a standstill.  “They are in search of us!  If we are discovered they will fire.  It is their orders.  No boat is allowed upon this lake.”

Elma sat watching our pursuers, but still calm and silent.  She seemed to intrust herself entirely to me.

The guards were rowing rapidly, the oars sounding in the rowlocks, evidently in the belief that we had made for the river.  But the Finlander had apparently foreseen this, and for that reason we were lying safe from observation in the deep shadow of an overhanging tree.

A gray mist was slowly rising from the water, and the Finn, noticing it, hoped that it might favor us.  In Finland in late autumn the mists are often as thick as our proverbial London fogs, only whiter, denser, and more frosty.

“If we disembark we shall be compelled to make a detour of fully four days in the forest, in order to pass the marshes,” he pointed out in a low whisper.  “But if we can enter the river we can go ashore anywhere and get by foot to some place where the lady can lie in hiding.”

“What do you advise?  We are entirely in your hands.  The Chief of Police told me he could trust you.”

“I think it will be best to risk it,” he said in Russian after a brief pause.  “We will tie up the boat, and I will go along the bank and see what the guards are doing.  You will remain here, and I shall not be seen.  The rushes and undergrowth are higher further along.  But if there is danger while I am absent get out and go straight westward until you find the marsh, then keep along its banks due south,” and drawing up the boat to the bank the shrewd, big-boned fellow disappeared into the dark undergrowth.

There were no signs yet of the break of day.  Indeed, the stars were now hidden, and the great plane of water was every moment growing more indistinct as we both sat in silence.  My ears were strained to catch the dipping of an oar or a voice, but beyond the lapping of the water beneath the boat there was no other sound.  I took the hand of the fair-faced girl at my side and pressed it.  In return she pressed mine.

It was the only means by which we could exchange confidences.  She whom I had sought through all those months sat at my side, yet powerless to utter one single word.

Still holding her hands in both my own I gripped them to show her that I intended to be her champion, while she turned to me in confidence as though happy that it should be so.  What, I wondered, was her history?  What was the mystery surrounding her?  What could be that secret which had caused her enemies to thus brutally maim and mutilate her, and afterwards send her to that grim, terrible fortress that still loomed up before us in the gloom?  Surely her secret must affect some person very seriously, or such drastic means would never be employed to secure her silence.

Suddenly I heard a stealthy footstep approaching, and next moment a low voice spoke which I recognized as that of our friend, the Finn.