CHAPTER IX.
Marx had gone out to reconnoitre in a more cheerful mood, for the doctor had made good the loss sustained in the death of his old nag, and he returned at noon with good news.
A wood-carrier, whom he met on the high-road, had told him where Jorg, the charcoal-burner, lived.
The fugitives could reach his hut before night, and in so doing approach nearer the Rhine valley.

Everything was ready for departure, but old Rahel objected to travelling further.

She was sitting on a stone before the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and it seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses.

Gazing into vacancy with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour.

She neither heard the doctor's call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the former grasped her to compel her to rise, uttered a loud shriek.