"Ah!" said Catherine, "if we were only sure that our affairs go as well on the Donon, we might then rejoice."
"Yes, yes! Frantz told me about that:--it is the devil--there must always be something wrong," replied Marc. "But--but why stay here with our feet in the snow? Let us hope that Piorette will not allow his comrades to be crushed, and let us go and empty our gla.s.ses, which we left half full."
Four other smugglers then arrived, saying that that rascally Yegof would probably come back, with some more brigands like himself.
"Very likely," replied Dives. "We will return to the Falkenstein, since it is Jean-Claude"s orders; but we can"t bring our wagon with us: it would prevent our taking the short cuts; and in an hour all these bandits would be down upon us. Let us go first to Cuny"s. Catherine and Louise will not be sorry to drink a little wine; and the others too. It will put their hearts in the right place again. Up, Bruno!"
He led his horse by the bridle. Two wounded men had been laid in the sledge; two others having been killed, as well as seven or eight Cossacks stretched with their boots wide apart in the snow, were abandoned, and they went on toward the forester"s house.
Frantz was consoling himself for not having been on the Donon: he had finished two Cossacks, and the sight of the inn made him feel in a good humor. Before the door stood the small wagon full of cartridges. Cuny came out, saying: "A hearty welcome, Mistress Lefevre. What a night for women! Be seated! What is going on up there?"
While they were hastily drinking some wine, everything had to be explained over again. The worthy old man in a blouse and green breeches, with his wrinkled face, bald head, and wide-open eyes, listened with clasped hands, exclaiming: "Good G.o.d! Good G.o.d! in what times are we living? One can no longer follow the high-roads without risk of being attacked. It is worse than the old Swedish tales." And he shook his head.
"Come," said Dives, "time flies. We must continue our way."
Everybody being ready, the smugglers led the wagon, which contained some thousands of cartridges and two small kegs of brandy, about three hundred yards off, to the middle of the valley, and then unharnessed the horses.
"Go forward!" shouted Marc; "we will rejoin you in a few minutes."
"But what art thou going to do with the cart?" said Frantz. "Since we have no time to take it to the Falkenstein, it had better be left under Cuny"s shed than in the road."
"Yes, to get the poor old man hanged, when the Cossacks arrive, for they will be here in less than an hour. Do not trouble thyself; I have my own idea."
Frantz rejoined the sledge, which went on its way. In a short time they pa.s.sed by the saw-works of the Marquis and turned sharp to the right, to reach the farm of Bois-de-Chenes, whose tall chimneys could be perceived three-quarters of a league distant on the plateau. They were on the hill-side when Marc Dives and his men overtook them, shouting:
"Halt! Stop a bit! Look down there!"
And, looking down into the gorge, they saw the Cossacks capering round the wagon--about three hundred of them.
"They are coming! Let us fly!" cried Louise.
"Wait a bit," said the smuggler. "We have nothing to fear."
He was still speaking, when an immense sheet of flame sped out from one mountain to the other, illuminating the woods, rocks, and the little house of the forester fifteen hundred yards below; then there was a report so terrible that the earth seemed to tremble.
While those near him gazed in bewilderment and dumb terror at each other, Marc"s bursts of laughter reached their ears, in spite of the din.
"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted he, "I was sure the rogues would stop round the wagon, to drink up my brandy. I knew the match would have just time to reach the powder!"
"Do you think they will pursue us?"
"Their arms and legs are now hanging from the branches of the pine-trees! Come along! And may heaven grant the same fate to all those who have now crossed the Rhine!"
The whole escort, the partisans, the doctor, all had grown silent: so many terrible emotions had filled them with endless thoughts such as do not fall within the experience of every-day life. They said to themselves: "What are men that they destroy, hara.s.s, and ruin each other in this manner? Why do they hate each other so? And what spirit of evil is it that thus excites them?"
But Dives and his men were not at all troubled by these events: they galloped along, laughing and boasting.
"For my part," said the big smuggler, "I never saw such a farce before.
Ha, ha, ha! if I lived a thousand years, I should laugh at it still."
Then he became more serious, and exclaimed: "All the same, Yegof is the cause of this. One must be blind not to see that it was he who led the Germans to the Blutfeld. I shall be sorry if he has been struck down by a piece of my wagon; I have something better in store for him than that. All that I wish is that he may keep in good health till we meet somewhere in a lonely corner of the wood. It is no matter whether it be in one year, ten years, twenty years, provided only that we meet.
The longer it is deferred, the more savage my determination becomes: the daintiest morsels are eaten cold, like a boar"s head in white wine."
He said this with an air of good-humor, but those who knew him perceived beneath it a serious danger for Yegof.
Half an hour later, they all reached the plateau on which the farm of Bois-de-Chenes was situated.
CHAPTER XXI
"ALL IS LOST"
Jerome of St. Quirin had managed to make good his retreat to the farm, and since midnight he had occupied the plateau.
"Who goes there?" cried his sentinels as the escort approached.
"It is we, from the village of Charmes," shouted Marc, in his stentorian voice.
The sentinels approached to examine them, and then they pa.s.sed on their way.
The farm was silent; a sentry, his musket over his arm, was pacing before the granary, where about thirty partisans were asleep upon the straw. At the sight of these great dark roofs, the stables and outhouses belonging to the old building where she had spent her youth, where her father and grandfather had led their tranquil laborious lives in peace, and which she was now about to abandon, perhaps forever, Catherine felt a terrible wrenching at her heart; but no word escaped her. Springing from the sledge, as in other days when she returned from marketing, she said: "Come, Louise, here we are at home, thank G.o.d."
Old d.u.c.h.ene pushed open the door, exclaiming: "Is that you, Madame Lefevre?"
"Yes, it is I. Any news from Jean-Claude?"
"No, Madame."
They entered the large kitchen. Some cinders were still smouldering on the hearth, and in the dark, under the broad chimney, was sitting Jerome of St. Quirin, with his big horsehair hood, his great stick between his knees, and his carbine leaning against the wall.
"Good-day, Jerome," said the old farm-wife.
"Good-day, Catherine," replied the grave chief of the Grosmann. "Have you come from the Donon?"
"Yes: things are going badly, my poor Jerome. The "kaiserlichs" were attacking the farm when we left the plateau. Nothing but white uniforms was to be seen on every side. They were already beginning to cross the breastworks."
"Then you think Hullin will be compelled to abandon the road?"
"Possibly, if Piorette does not come to his a.s.sistance."
The partisans had approached near the fire. Marc Dives bent over the cinders to light his pipe; on rising, he exclaimed: "I ask thee one thing only, Jerome; I know beforehand that they fought well under thy command----"
"We have done our duty," replied the shoemaker. "There are sixty men stretched on the slopes of the Grosmann who will tell you so at the last day."
"Yes; but who, then, guided the Germans? They could not have discovered the pa.s.s of the Blutfeld by themselves."
"Yegof the madman--Yegof," said Jerome, whose gray eyes, encircled by deep wrinkles and thick white eyebrows, seemed to sparkle in the darkness.