"Am I deaf? Baizel, go fetch us a bottle of Brimbelle-wasser to warm us. What Hullin tells me fills me with joy. Those beggarly Kaiserliks won't have things go as easily as they imagine. Our people will defend themselves, and well!"
"They will! they will!"
"And there are those among them who will pay for what is needed."
"Catherine Lefevre will pay, and it is she who sends me here," said Hullin.
Then Marc arose, and, extending his hand toward the precipice, exclaimed:
"She is a woman among a thousand. Her soul is as great as yonder rock, Oxenstein. Never saw I a grander. I drink to her health. Drink too, Jean-Claude."
Hullin drank, and Hexe-Baizel followed the example.
"The bargain is made," cried Dives; "but, Hullin, it will not be easy to beat back the foe! All the hunters, the workmen, and the wood-cutters in the mountain will not be too many. I have just come from beyond the Rhine. The earth is black with Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians, Cossacks, hussars. The villages cannot contain them, and they are encamped upon the plains, in the valleys, on the heights, in the cities, everywhere, everywhere!"
A sharp cry pierced the air.
"It is a buzzard chasing its prey," said Marc.