Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/28

 more before them, a cloud of dust suddenly arose, and in the midst of it appeared horsemen riding furiously.

The travelers hurriedly turned aside into the thickets, and worked their way with all speed in an angular direction into the broken forest. Hiding among some rocks where horsemen could not easily pursue, they waited for the enemy, if they should prove such. The travelers had been perceived, for as soon as the horsemen arrived near the place where they had been seen they halted, and pointed towards the forest with loud cries and threatening gestures. They were a wild, fierce, dirty and forbidding troop. The small snub noses, high cheek bones, sunken fiery eyes, and streaming hair of Tartars could not be mistaken. They wore caps of sheepskin, and brandished long spears with horse-hair pennons. Their saddle was a sheepskin strapped on with hide, and between this saddle and the horse were stretched strips of meat. They did not venture into the thickets, and soon disappeared again along the road the travelers had just traversed.

After this incident the wayfarers advanced with great circumspection, listening for every sound, and scanning the road before them from every available point. At length smoke appeared in the forest. Some heavy, lumbering wagons with broad wooden wheels, each consisting of two solid semi-circles of wood joined and fastened together with thick wooden pins, were drawn up on the edge of the road, and among the trees. A long series of smoldering fires