"I want to see my friend Marc, beautiful Hexe-Baizel," replied Jean-Claude. "We have business together."
"What business?"
"Ah! that is our affair. Come, let me pass; I must speak to-him."
"Marc is asleep."
"Well, we must wake him. Time presses."
So saying, Hullin bent beneath the door-way, and entered the cave, which was irregular in shape and seamed with numerous fissures in its walls. Near the entrance the rock, rising suddenly, formed a sort of natural hearth, on which burned a few coals and some branches of the juniper. The cooking utensils of Hexe-Baizel consisted of an iron pot, an earthen jar, two cracked plates, and three or four pewter forks; her furniture, of a wooden stool, a hatchet to split wood, a salt-box fastened to the rocky wall, and her great broom of green twigs. At the right, her kitchen opened upon another cavern by an irregularly shaped aperture wider at the top than below, and closed by two planks and a cross-bar.
"Well, where is Marc?" asked Hullin, seating himself at the corner of the hearth.
"I have already told you that he is asleep. He came home very late last night, and he must not be disturbed; do you understand?"
"I understand very well, Hexe-Baizel, but I have no time to wait."