Baron
Friedel has the sense to be patient rather than risk his bones if he
cannot move safely in the dark."
"Up after him!" said Ebbo, emitting a variety of shouts intimating
speedy aid, and receiving a halloo in reply that reassured even his
mother. Equipped with a rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz
and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina implored her
son to let her come so far as where she should not impede the others.
He gave her his arm, and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a
winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she could never
have climbed had daylight shown her what it overhung. Guided by the
constant exchange of jodeln, they reached a height where the wind
blew cold and wild, and Ebbo pointed to an intensely black shadow
overhung by a peak rising like the gable of a house into the sky.
"Yonder lies the tarn," he said. "Don't stir. This way lies the
cliff. Fried-mund!" exchanging the jodel for the name.
"Here!--this way! Under the Red Eyrie," called back the wanderer;
and steering their course round the rocks above the pool, the
rescuers made their way towards the base of the peak, which was in
fact the summit of the mountain, the top of the Eagle's Ladder, the
highest step of which they had attained.
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