"Then leave as soon as you please."
"That is very fine, but I don't intend to leave just yet. I did not make this journey to return empty handed."
"Is that you, Hullin?" interrupted a rough voice in the inner cavern.
"Ay, Marc."
"Wait a moment, I am coming."
A noise of rustling straw was heard, then the planks were removed, and a tall man, three feet at least from shoulder to shoulder, bony, bent, with ears and neck of a dull brick color and disordered brown hair, bent in the aperture, and then Marc-Dives stood erect before Hullin, gaping and stretching his long arms.
At first sight the countenance of Marc-Dives seemed mild enough; his broad, low forehead, temples only thinly covered with hair, pointed nose, long chin, and calm, brown eyes would seem to betoken the quiet, easy-going man, but one who should so class him would sooner or later discover his mistake. Rumor said that Marc-Dives had little scruple in using his axe or carbine when the custom-house officials invaded his premises, but proofs were wanting. The smuggler, thanks to his complete knowledge of all the defiles of the mountain, and of all the roads from Dagsbourg to Sarrebrück, from Raon l'Etape to Bâle in Switzerland, always seemed twenty miles from the place where such conflicts occurred. Then he had such a harmless air—in short, the rumors against him inevitably recoiled upon those who started them.
"I was thinking of you last night, Hullin," cried Marc, coming out of his den, "and if you hadn't come I should have gone all the way to the saw-mill to meet you. Sit down. Hexe-Baizel, give Hullin a chair."
He himself sat upon the wide hearth, with his back to the fire, opposite the open door, around which blew the winds of Alsace and of Switzerland.
The view through the narrow opening was magnificent—a rock-framed picture, but how grand a one! There lay the whole valley of the Rhine, and beyond the mountains melting into mist. The air, too, was so fresh and pure, and when the blue expanse without tired the eyes, the little fire within, with its red, dancing flames, was there to relieve them.