CHAPTER XXVIII.
The battle was hardly over, about eight o'clock, when Marc Divès, Gaspard, and about thirty mountaineers, with panniers of provisions, ascended the Falkenstein. What a spectacle awaited them up there! All the besieged, stretched on the ground, seemed dead. It was in vain to shake them, to shout in their ears, "Jean-Claude! Catherine! Jerôme!"—they answered not. Gaspard Lefévre, seeing his mother and Louise motionless and with clenched teeth, told Marc that if they did not recover he would blow out his brains with his gun. Marc replied that every one was free to do as he pleased, but that, for his part, he should not blow out his brains for Hexe-Baizel. At length, old Colon having deposited his pannier on a stone, Kasper Materne suddenly sniffed its contents, opened his eyes, and, seeing the provisions, began to clash his teeth like a fox on the chase.
Then they understood what was the meaning of that; and Marc Divès, going from one to the other, simply held his flask under their noses, which sufficed to bring them round. They wanted to swallow all at once; but Doctor Lorquin, in spite of his delirium, had still the good sense to warn Marc not to listen to them, and that the least over-feeding would kill them. So, for this reason, each one received nothing but a little bread, an egg, and a glass of wine, which singularly revived their moral courage. They then placed Catherine, Louise, and the others upon schlittes, and re-descended to the village.
As to painting now the enthusiasm and emotion of their friends when they saw them return, leaner than Lazarus rising from the grave, it is a thing impossible. They looked at each other, embraced; and at each fresh comer from Abreschwiller, from Dagsburg, from St. Quirin, or elsewhere, it was all gone over again.
Marc Divès was obliged to relate more than twenty times the story of his journey to Phalsbourg. The brave smuggler had not been much favoured by fortune. After having escaped by miracle from the bullets of the kaiserlicks, he had fallen, in the valley of Spartzprod, into the midst of a troop of Cossacks, who had stripped him of everything. He had been compelled to wander afterwards during two weeks round the Russian posts that encircled the town, braving the fire of the sentinels and risking twenty times to be arrested as a spy, before being able to penetrate into the place. To crown all, the governor, Meunier, alleging the weakness of the garrison, had at first refused all assistance; and it was only at the pressing solicitation of the citizens of the town that he at length consented to detach two companies.
The mountaineers, listening to this recital, admired the courage of Marc, his perseverance in the midst of dangers.
"Oh!" the big smuggler would good-humouredly reply to those who congratulated him, "I have only done my duty. Could I leave my comrades to perish? I knew well it was no easy matter. Those dogs of Cossacks are more cunning than Custom-house officers; they will scent you out like ravens. But no matter; we have outwitted them all the same."
When five or six days were passed, every one was afoot. Captain Vidal, of Phalsbourg, had left twenty-five men at the Falkenstein to guard the ammunition. Gaspard Lefévre was of the number. The young fellow came down every morning to the village. The Allies had all passed into Lorraine; no more was seen of them in Alsace, except round the strong places.