"It is she or her spirit," he exclaimed.

Instinctively he stepped behind a tree, and at this sign of flight
there was a shout from the men. One shot an arrow, which passed
harmlessly to the side, and then they all came at him. He had only
time to see that more villagers were coming out of the houses, and
that the girl had turned away to join the other woman, when his
wits came back to him, and turning into the path he set off as
fast as he could put his feet to the ground.

For a time the chase was hot: he could hear the men scattering so
as to cover the wood behind him, and once or twice the leaders
seemed near. Estein was fleet of foot, however, and the wood so
dense that it was hard to follow a man for far, and at last the
sound of his pursuers died away, and he felt that, for the time at
least, he was safe. But he had long left the path, and there was
nothing to guide him save glimpses of the sinking sun, the ice
that showed the north side of twigs and stems, and in more open
spaces the lie of the branches to the prevalent wind. And as he
wandered on, his mind hardly grasped the bearing and significance
of forest clues. Twenty times, at least, he dismissed the
resemblance he had seen as the work of fancy. The girl had been
too far off to read her features, her figure was not really like,
and, most weighty argument, it was out of all reason that she
should be in this land of forests, so distant from her island
home. Still each time he dismissed it the resemblance came back
fresh and strong, to be sent away again. He had lost all idea of
where he was, and the sun had already set, when more by good luck
than by good guidance, the trees grew thinner in front, and he
found himself once more in the glade of the stream.