He was not far from the path taken by
those from Western Europe, and he was uplifted by the knowledge. The
feeling that he, too, was a crusader grew strongly upon him, and by
night and day was his support.
He crossed the border at last and came to Salzburg in the mountains,
where the gray-green Salzach flows down from the glaciers and divides
the town. The place was thronged with soldiers, and the summit of the
frowning Muenchburg was alive with activity. Here in the very heart of
the Teutonic confederation, far from hostile frontiers, travelers were
not subjected to such rigid scrutiny. It was deemed that everything was
safely German, and John could travel at ease almost like an inhabitant
of the land.
Salzburg looked familiar to him. There had been much to photograph it
upon his mind. He remembered the uneasy night he and his uncle had
passed there before his flight with Lannes, which had taken him into
such a train of vast events. It had been only seven or eight months
before but it seemed many times as long. He had felt himself a boy in
Vienna, he felt himself a man now. He had been through great battles,
he had seen the world in convulsion, his life a dozen times had hung on
a hair, and since it is experience that makes a man he was older than
most of those twice his age.
He was stopping after his custom at an obscure inn, and in the moonlight
he strolled through the little city.
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