But no one replied to him, and after having groped about in this way, thinking he was walking, while in reality he was not taking a single step, the unhappy man fell back, exclaiming:
"My children! Catherine! They come! We are saved!"
Immediately there was heard a vague murmur; it seemed as if the dead were re-awakening. There was a burst of dry laughter; it was Hexe-Baizel, gone mad from suffering. Then Catherine exclaimed:
"Hullin! Hullin! Who spoke?"
Jean-Claude, recovered from his emotion, exclaimed, in a firmer tone:
"Jerôme, Catherine, Materne, and you all, are you dead? Do you not see that fire down there, on the side of the Blanru? It is Piorette, who is coming to our assistance."
And, at the very same moment, a loud explosion rolled through the gorges of the Jægerthâl with the sound of a tempest. The trumpet of the last judgment would not have produced more effect on the besieged; they suddenly awoke.
"It is Piorette! It is Marc!" was screeched by voices, broken, dry—voices of mere skeletons; "they come to save us!"
And all these poor wretches strove to rise; some sobbed; but they had no more tears. A second explosion brought them to their feet.