He had lighted his pipe, and from time to time turned to contemplate the immense stretch of country spread out before him.
Nothing can be more magnificent than the view of snow-covered wooded mountains, rising peak after peak far into the pale-blue sky until sight is lost in distance, and separated by dark valleys, each with its torrent flowing over mossy stones, green and polished like bronze.
And then the silence—the silence of winter—broken only by the foot-fall on the soft, white ground, or the dash of snow falling from the higher branches of the firs to the lower, which bend beneath the weight; or mayhap the shrill screams of a pair of eagles, whirling far above the treetops, startle the ear. But all this must be seen and felt; it cannot be described.
About an hour after his departure from the village, Hullin, climbing over rock after rock, reached the foot of the cliff of Arbousiers. A sort of terrace, full of stones, and only three or four feet in width, entirely surrounds this mass of granite. The narrow way, itself surrounded only by the tops of trees shooting from the precipice below, seems dangerous, but is scarcely so in reality, for dizziness is all that is to be feared in passing along it. Above the ruin-covered rock overhangs the path.
Jean-Claude approached the smuggler's retreat. He halted a few moments upon the terrace, put his pipe back into his pocket, and then advanced along the passage, which described a half-circle and terminated in a notch in the rock. At its end he perceived the two windows of the cave and the half-open door.
At the same moment Hexe-Baizel appeared, sweeping the threshold with a huge broom of green twigs. She was short and withered; her head covered with a mass of dishevelled red hair, her cheeks hollow, her nose pointed, her little eyes glittering like burning coals, her mouth small and garnished with very white teeth. Her costume consisted of a short and very dirty woollen gown, and her small, muscular arms were bare to the elbow, notwithstanding the intense cold of winter at such a height; a pair of worn-out slippers half-covered her feet.
"Ha! good-morning, Hexe-Baizel," cried Jean-Claude, in a tone of good-natured raillery. "Stout, fat, happy, and contented as usual, I see."
Hexe-Baizel turned like a startled weasel. She shook her hair, and her eyes flashed fire. But she calmed herself at once, and said, in a short, dry voice, as if speaking to herself:
"Hullin the sabot-maker! What does he want here?"