Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/349

TRUE TO HER LOVE She bade her friends farewell, and then ordered Lukovitch to throw open the gate. She and the three Englishmen rode through, Henry Brown leading the pack-horse by the bridle. The mountains were growing gray with the first approaches of dawn.

As she rode through, Sophy paused a moment, leaned sideways in her saddle, and kissed the ancient lintel of the door.

"Peace be on this place," she said, "and peace to the tomb where Monseigneur lies buried!"

"Peace be on thy head and fortune with thee!" answered Lukovitch in the traditional words of farewell. He kissed her hand again, and they departed.

It was high morning when they rode up the ascent to St. Peter's Pass and came to the spot where their cross-track joined the main road over the pass from Dobrava and the capital. In silence they mounted to the summit. The road under their horses' feet was trampled with the march of the thousands of men who had passed over it in an irresistible advance on Slavna.

At the summit of the pass they stopped, and Sophy turned to look back. She sat there for a long while in silence.

"I have loved this land," at last she said. "It has given me much, and very much it has taken away. Now the face of it is to be changed. But in my heart the memory of it will not change." She looked across the valley, across the sparkling face of Lake Talti, to the gray walls of Volseni, and kissed her hand. "Farewell, Monseigneur!" she whispered, very low.

The day of Kravonia was done. The head of the great snake had reached Slavna. Countess Ellenburg and young Alexis were in flight. Stenovics 331