The punishment of hunger at the bottom of a dungeon is frightful, no doubt, but beneath a sky bathed in light, in the eyes of a whole country, in face of the resources of nature, it passes all expression.
Now at the close of this nineteenth day, between four and five o'clock in the evening, the weather had lowered: large grey clouds rose behind the snowy summit of the Grosmann; the sun, red as a bullet just out of the furnace, was casting his last rays athwart the murky sky. The silence on the rock was profound. Louise gave no more sign of life. Kasper and Frantz continued motionless among the shrubs like stones. Catherine Lefévre, crouching on the ground, her sharp knees between her skinny arms, her rigid and hard features, her hair hanging over her livid cheeks, with haggard eye, and chin as sharp as a vice, resembled some old sibyl sitting in the midst of the bushes. She spoke no more. That evening, Hullin, Jerôme, old Materne, and Doctor Lorquin had assembled round the old farm-mistress to die together. They were all silent, and the last faint rays of twilight illumined the dismal group. To the right, behind a jutting point of the rock, some fires of the Germans glimmered in the abyss. And as they sat there, all at once the old woman, coming out of her long reverie, murmured at first some unintelligible words.
"Divès is here!" said she at length, in a low voice. "I see him; he is leaving the postern, to the right of the arsenal. Gaspard follows him, and——"
Then she counted slowly:
"Two hundred and fifty men," said she; "national guards and soldiers. They cross the bridge; they mount behind the half-moon. Gaspard is speaking with Marc. What is he saying?"
She appeared to listen:
"'Let us make haste;' yes, make haste; time presses; there they are upon the glacis!"
There was a moment's silence. Then all at once the old woman, drawing herself up to her full height, her arms tossed wildly aloft, hair erect, and mouth quite wide open, shouted, in a terrible voice:
"Courage! kill! kill! ah! ah!"
And she fell heavily back.