“This is the way,” he said; “who should know it if not I?”
“By the Friend, smith, it may be your way,” said the man, “but it was not the way your woman took following your trail, and I hard upon hers.”
“You saw that?” cried Ravenutzi. “A woman, my wife, following me to—to the place where we are going?” Herman said it was the first time he had seen Ravenutzi beside himself; he grew gray, a film came before his eyes through which the pupils opened, blank pits of horror.
“You saw that,” he cried, “and you let her go!”
“Ah,” said the man, “but I judged you the better game.”
Ravenutzi twisted like a man on a rope. He set off running.
“This is the way,” he said, “it is shorter so.” And the rest ran on to keep up with him. They came in this running fashion to the place of the boulders where the woman had lain face downward in the dust, and passed over the sag in the hills where she had been last seen disappearing. Beyond this was stony country; great boulders huge as houses lay all a-heap at the foot of a steep ridge. Smaller stones and rubble from the slope had drifted down and choked the upper crannies between the boulders, so that under them were windy galleries and spacious caves. There was no game nor foodful plant, only coarse tufts of grass between wide stones, nothing to draw men, only shelter and safe hiding.
When they came near this place, Ravenutzi began to go more slowly, forewarned perhaps and afraid of what he should find there. He raised a call, cautiously at first, got no answer, called loudly, grew anxious, set off running again, the men hard behind him. The place fronted westward; the shadows retreating inward gave to the caverns under the rocks a shallow look. The men could not have told from the outside which of them would have yielded passage, but Ravenutzi plunged into one, which proved an arched gallery. It opened into a sort of court, from which a water-worn gully led steeply up to a ledge on which opened a cave, overhung and guarded at the entrance by fire-blackened stones. They were slow enough going up this steep, to observe a woman who sat at the mouth of the cave with her knees drawn up under her hands, and her head bent upon them. They saw that she was tall and had long hair that coiled flatly about her throat and between her breasts.