I had some difficulty in putting on these clothes, since my wrists were swollen and well-nigh useless from their long confinement. Indeed, but for a threat which Groder shouted through the door, saying that he would come and assist me to make my toilet, I doubt whether I should have succeeded at all.
For breakfast they brought me a pannikin full of a greasy steaming gruel, which I constrained myself to swallow. Then they bound my hands again. Groder wrapped up the clothes which I had taken off in a bundle, and slung it on his back. Otto replaced the bandage on my eyes, and we set out, mounting upwards by a rough mountain track, along which they guided me. About noon Otto called a halt, and none too soon, for I was ready to drop with fatigue and pain. There we made a meal of some dry coarse bread, and washed it down with spirit of a very bitter flavour. 'Twas new to me at the time, but I know now that it was distilled from the gentian flower. Groder lit a fire and burned the bundle of clothes which he had brought with him, the two men sharing my jewels between them.
From that point we left the track and climbed up a grass slope, winding this way and that in the ascent. 'Twas as much as I could do to keep my feet, though Otto and Groder supported me upon either side. At the top we dipped down again for a little, crossed a level field of heather, but in what direction I know not, for by this I had lost all sense of our bearings, mounted again, descended again, and towards nightfall came to a hut. Groder thrust me inside, plucked the cloth from my face, and unbound my hands.
"'Tis a long day's journey," said he; "but what matters that if you make it only once?"
The hut wherein I passed the first month of my captivity was of a more solid construction than is customary at so great a height, and had been built by the order of Count Lukstein for a shelter when the chase brought him hitherwards. For the hillside was covered with a dense forest of fir-trees in which chamois abounded, and now and again, though 'twas never my lot to come across one, a bear might be discovered.
The hut had a sort of vestibule paved with cobble-stones and roofed with pine-wood. From this hall a room led out upon either side, though only that upon the right hand was used by the wood-cutters who dwelt here. Of these there were two, and they lived and slept in the one room, cooking the gruel or porridge, which formed our chief food, in a great cauldron slung over a rough fireplace of stones in the centre of the floor. There was no chimney to carry off the smoke, not so much as a hole in the wall; but the smoke found its way out as best it might through the door. From the hall a ladder led up through a trap-door into a loft above, and as soon as we had supped, Groder bade me mount it, and followed me himself. The wood-cutters below removed the ladder, Groder closed the trap, and, spreading some branches of fir upon it, laid him down and went to sleep. I followed his example in the matter of making my bed, but, as you may believe, I got little sleep that night. For one thing my arms and legs were now become so swollen and painful that it tortured me even to move them, and it was full two days before I was sufficiently recovered to be able to descend from the loft. By that time Otto had got him back to the valley, and I was left under the authority of Groder, which he used without scruple or intermission. Each morning at daybreak the ladder was hoisted to the loft. We descended and despatched a hasty breakfast; thereupon I was given an axe, and the four of us proceeded into the forest, where we felled trees the day long. Through the gaps in the clearings I would look across the valley to the bleak rocks and naked snow-fields, and thoughts of English meadows knee-deep in grass, and of rooks cawing through a summer afternoon, would force themselves into my mind until I grew well-nigh daft with longing for a sight of them. At nightfall we returned to the hut and partook of a meal, and no words wasted. When the meal was finished I was straightway banished to my loft, where I lay in the dark, and heard through the floor the wood-cutters breaking into all sorts of rough jests and songs now that I was no longer present to check their merriment For towards me they consistently showed the greatest taciturnity and sullen reserve. 'Twas seldom that any one except Groder addressed a word to me, and in truth I would lief he had been as silent as the rest. For when he opened his mouth 'twas only to utter some command in a harsh, growling tone as though he spoke to a cur, and to couple thereto a coarse and unseemly oath.