Hullin's voice trembled: Divès allowed himself to be moved by it; only he added:
"For all that, Jean-Claude, you should not have spoken so to me at such a moment; let us never speak of it again! I will leave my skin by the way, or else return to deliver you; this very evening at night time, I will set forth! The kaiserlicks are already encircling the mountain; no matter, I have a good horse, and, besides, I've always been lucky."
By six o'clock the loftiest of the mountain tops were wrapped in darkness. Hundreds of fires sparkling at the bottom of the gorges announced that the Germans were preparing their evening meal. Marc Divès descended the footpath on tiptoe. Hullin listened a few seconds longer to the sound of his comrade's footsteps; then he directed his own, in a meditative mood, towards the old tower where the head-quarters had been established. He raised the thick woollen covering which shut in the owl's nest, and saw Catherine, Louise, and the others crouching round a little fire which threw its feeble light upon the grey walls. The old farm-mistress, seated on a block of oak, with her hands clasped round her knees, was watching the flame with fixed eye, compressed lips, and livid complexion; Louise, leaning with her back against the wall, seemed absorbed in a dream; Jerôme, standing behind Catherine, with his hands crossed upon his stick, touched with his thick otter-skin cap the rotten roof. All were sad and dispirited. Hexe-Baizel, who was lifting up the lid of a saucepan, and Doctor Lorquin, who was scraping the mortar of the old wall with the point of his sword, alone preserved their wonted aspect.
"Here we are," said the doctor, "come back to the time of the Triboques. These walls are more than two thousand years old. A good quantity of water must have flowed from the heights of the Falkenstein and the Grosmann, by the Sarre to the Rhine, since a fire was lit in this tower."
"Yes," replied Catherine, like one awaking from a dream; "and many others beside us have suffered here cold, hunger, and poverty. Who has known of it? No one. And in a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, others, perhaps, will come again to seek shelter in this same place. They will find, like us, the cold wall, the damp earth. They will make a little fire. They will look round as we do. And they will say, like us: 'Who has suffered before us here? Why have they suffered? They were then pursued, hunted, as we are, to come and hide themselves in this miserable hole.' And they will think of times past, and none will be able to reply to them!"
Jean-Claude had approached. In a few seconds, the old farm-mistress, raising her head, began to say, as she regarded him:
"Well! We are surrounded—the enemy wants to reduce us by famine!"
"It is true, Catherine," replied Hullin. "I did not expect that. I reckoned on an attack by main force; but the kaiserlicks are not yet quite as far advanced as they think. Divès has just set out for Phalsbourg; he is acquainted with the governor of the place. And if they will send only a few hundred men to our succour——"
"We must not count upon it," interrupted the old woman. "Marc may be taken or killed by the Germans. And then, even suppose that he succeeds in crossing their lines, how will he be able to enter Phalsbourg? You know well that the place is besieged by the Russians!"
Then every one became silent.