Accordingly, it was so done; the men relieved each other regularly, although nothing suspicious further occurred, and, Normann was too securely guarded to escape. It was not till the sun rose on the following morning, in all his splendour and majesty, that they broke up to depart, and to follow the tracks of the horsemen who had ridden on before.
The only remaining horse was now applied to the use of the two young ladies, and Bertha, with Louisa mounted behind her, sat as firmly in the saddle as though she had been used to romp about on horseback from infancy. But Werner walked by her side, and held the bridle of the spirited horse, as it stamped along, or she might not have mustered courage to do so. Normann was compelled to accompany the party with his hands tied behind his back, and with Von Schwanthal marching close after him; while the little negro was dispatched to the nearest town, to fetch the sheriff, in order to deliver up the criminal into his hands. Scipio, on the other hand, who had offered himself as their conductor, was to keep up a good fire at the mouth of the Halchee, to collect the scattered settlers, who, it was conjectured, had missed their way, and bivouacked in the woods. Helldorf assured them that he was able readily to find the road from the horse and wagon tracks.
Sure enough, the remaining pursuers of the kidnappers, although they had not exactly lost themselves, yet had so entangled themselves in thickets and briers, that they found it impossible to get on after darkness had set in. Now they tumbled into a ditch, then stumbled over a branch or a root, and tore their hands and faces in a most melancholy manner. In all their troubles, they had kept closer and closer together, in order by their mutual vicinity to keep off, in part at least, the uncomfortable feeling which seized upon them, however brave they might be, when they gazed into the surrounding darkness, whence now and then, wild, strange, and sometimes fearful cries of animals resounded and filled them with terror. By the next morning's light, however, they followed the course of the Halchee, which brought them to the shores of the Mississippi, where the trusty black received them, and gave them tidings of all that had occurred.
