All the band gathered round the sleigh, and the doctor alighted. Some struck a match to light their pipes, but no one said anything, for they were all thinking of the Donon. What was passing there? Would Jean-Claude succeed in holding his position until the arrival of Piorette? So many painful things, so many mournful reflections passed through the minds of these brave fellows, that no one had the least desire to speak.
When they had been standing for about five minutes beneath the old oak, just as the cloud was slowly retiring, and the pale moonlight streamed through the gorge, all at once, at two hundred paces opposite them, a dark figure on horseback appeared in the footpath among the fir-trees. The moon's rays, falling full on this tall dark figure, revealed distinctly to them a Cossack, with his sheepskin cap, and his long lance under his arm, the point behind. He was coming along at a gentle trot. Frantz had already taken aim, when behind the first appeared another lance, then another Cossack, then another, and among the dark shadows of the trees, and under the pale canopy of heaven, the trampling of horses and glittering of lances announced the approach of the Cossacks in single file, who were coming straight towards the sledge, but leisurely, like people who are searching for something, some with upturned faces, others leaning forward over the saddle as though to look underneath the bushes; altogether there were more than thirty of them.
Judge of the emotion of Louise and Catherine, seated on their sleigh in the middle of the road. They looked at each other in open-mouthed surprise. Another moment, and they would be in the midst of those bandits. The mountaineers seemed stupefied; it was impossible to return: on one side the meadow slope to descend, on the other the mountain to climb. The old farm-mistress, in her distress, took Louise by the arm, exclaiming: "Let us escape into the woods!"
She attempted to get out of the sleigh, but her shoe stuck fast in the straw.
Suddenly one of the Cossacks uttered a guttural exclamation, which ran through the whole line.
"We are discovered!" cried Doctor Lorquin, drawing his sword.
He had hardly said the word when a dozen shots lit up the path from one end to the other, and a regular howling of savages replied to the volley; the Cossacks crossed from the path into the meadow opposite, their reins hanging loosely, knees squared, urging their horses to their utmost speed, and making for the keeper's house with the fleetness of stags.
"Ha! they must be riding to the devil!" cried the doctor.
But the worthy man spoke too soon; at two or three hundred paces down in the valley, the Cossacks suddenly wheeled round, like a flock of starlings describing a circle—then, with poised lance, and nose bent down between their horses' ears, they galloped furiously right down upon the mountaineers, uttering their hoarse war-cry: "Hurrah! hurrah!"
It was a terrible moment!