"Two hundred and fifty men," she exclaimed; "National Guards and soldiers. They cross the ditch; they mount behind the demilune. Gaspard is speaking with Marc. What does he say?"
She appeared to listen.
"Let us hurry!—yes, hurry! Time flies! There they are on the glacis!"
There was a long pause; then the old woman suddenly arose, with outstretched arms and hair on end, and screamed aloud in a terrible voice:—"Courage! Kill, kill! Ah, ah!" And she fell down heavily.
This fearful cry awoke them all; it would have aroused the dead. The besieged seemed born anew. Something was abroad. Was it hope, life, a spirit? I know not; but all rose up on their hands and knees, like wild beasts, holding their breath to hear. Louise even moved softly and lifted her head; Frantz and Kasper dragged themselves along; and, strange to say, Hullin, turning his eyes toward Phalsbourg, thought he saw through the darkness the flashes of a fusillade announcing a sortie.
Catherine had resumed her first appearance; but her cheeks, before still and pale as those of a corpse, trembled now. The others listened as though their salvation hung on her lips. A quarter of an hour nearly had passed, when the old dame slowly recommenced:—"They have passed the enemy's lines; they are running toward Lutzelbourg. I see them! Gaspard and Divès are before, with Desmarets, Ulrich, Weber, and our friends of the town. They come! they come!"
She again became silent. Long did they listen; but the vision was gone. Seconds followed seconds slowly like centuries. At length, Hexe-Baizel, in an angry voice, began to say:—"She is mad! She saw nothing! Marc, I know him: he is making fun of us. What does it matter to him if we perish? So long as he has his bottle and tobacco and can smoke his pipe in peace by the fireside, all the rest is nothing. Ah, the wretch!"
Then all relapsed into silence, and the unhappy creatures, reanimated for an instant by hope of a speedy deliverance, again fell into despair.
"It is a dream," thought they; "Hexe-Baizel is right: we are condemned to die of hunger."
While this was going on night arrived. When the moon rose behind the high pine-trees, and lit up the gloomy group, Hullin alone kept watch, in spite of his raging fever. Far off—very far off in the gorges—he heard the voices of the German sentries; "Wer da? Wer da?" the rounds of the patrols in the woods; the shrill neighing of the horses at the picket, and the shouts of their keepers. Toward midnight the worthy fellow fell asleep like the rest. When he awoke, the clock of the village of Charmes struck four. At the sound of the distant chimes, Hullin shook off his drowsiness, and he opened his eyes. As he gazed unconsciously into the darkness, trying to collect his thoughts, the vague glimmer of a torch passed before his eyes. A feeling of dread came over him, and he said to himself:—"Am I mad? The night is dark, and I see torches!"