A journey across the Alps was in those days regarded as a very perilous enterprise in the winter season, and the fact that he should have been rescued from such a strait appeared almost miraculous.

They stayed for two days quietly in the city, Cuthbert declining the invitation of the young noble to accompany him to the houses of his friends, as he did not wish that any suspicion should be excited as to his nationality, and preferred remaining quiet to having forced upon him the necessity of making false statements.

As to his followers, there was no fear of the people among whom they mixed detecting that they were English.

To the Bavarian inhabitants, all languages, save their native German, were alike unintelligible; and even had French been commonly spoken, the dialects of that tongue, such as would naturally be spoken by archers and men-at-arms, would have been a Greek to those accustomed only to Norman French.
Upon the third day, however, an incident occurred which upset Cuthbert's calculations, and nearly involved the whole party in ruin.

The town was, as the young baron had said, governed by a noble who was a near relation of Conrad of Montferat, and who was the bitter enemy of the English.