"Impossible, Catherine! I am sorry; but we should have to cut steps in the ice to descend; and the Austrians, who will be back in an hour or two, would make use of them in their next attack. But we must go and announce our victory through the villages, and to Labarbe, and Jerome, and Piarette. Holla! Simon, Niklo, Marchal! carry the news to our comrades. Materne, see that you look sharp, and report the least movement."
They went together to the farmhouse, and Jean-Claude met the reserve as he passed, and Marc-Dives on horseback in the midst of his men. The smuggler complained bitterly of having had no part in the fight; he felt disgraced, dishonored.
"Bah!" said Hullin, "so much the better. Watch on our right; if we are attacked there, you will have enough to do."
Dives said nothing; his good humor could not so easily be restored; nor that of his men—smugglers like himself—who, wrapped in their mantles, and with their long rapiers dangling from their sides, seemed meditating vengeance for what they deemed a slight.
Hullin, unable to pacify them, entered the farm-house. Doctor Lorquin was extracting the ball from the wound of Baumgarten, who uttered terrible shrieks.
Pelsly, standing at the threshold, trembled in every limb. Jean-Claude demanded paper and ink to send his orders to the posts, and the poor Anabaptist had scarcely strength to go for them. The messengers departed, proud enough to be the bearers of the tidings of the first battle and victory.
A few mountaineers in the great hall were warming themselves at the stove, and discussing the details of the fight in animated tones. Daniel Spitz had his two fingers amputated, and sat behind the stove, his hand wrapped in lint.
The men who had been posted behind the abatis before daybreak, not having yet breakfasted, were—each with a huge piece of bread and a glass of wine—making up for lost time, all the time shouting, gesticulating, and boasting as much as their full mouths would allow them to, and every now and then, when some one would speak of poor Riffi and his misfortunes, they were ready to burst their sides laughing.
It was eleven o'clock, when Marc-Dives rushed into the hall, crying: