Her voice grew louder, and, before Hullin could interrupt, she continued half angrily:
"Say what you will, Jean-Claude, a great peril hangs over us. Yes, yes, all this seems senseless, and is only a dream, but it was not a dream; it was what had passed and what I saw again and recognized in my sleep. Listen! We were as we were to-day—after a great victory—where I know not—in a sort of huge wooden hut, crossed by strong beams and defended by palisades. We were secure and careless. All whom I saw around me I knew. There were you, Marc Dives, Old Duchêne, and many others—old men long since dead—my father and old Hugo Rochart of Harberg, the uncle of him who has just died, all in gray blouses, and with long beards and bare necks. We were rejoicing and drinking from great vessels of red earth, when a cry arose, 'The enemy are returning!' And Yegof on horseback, his beard streaming in the wind, his crown surrounded with spikes, an axe in his hand, and his eyes glittering like a wolfs, appeared before me. I rushed at him with a stake; he awaited me, and I saw no more. But I felt a sharp pain at my throat; a cold blast struck my face, and it seemed as if my head were swinging at the end of a cord. Yegof had hung it to his saddle and was galloping away." The old woman ended her story in such a tone of belief that brave Jean-Claude shuddered.
There were a few moments of silence; then Hullin, rousing himself, replied:
"It was but a dream. I, too, often have horrible ones. It was the noise, the shrieks, the terror of yesterday tormenting you, Catherine."
"No!" she answered firmly, as she resumed her work; "it was not that. In good truth, during the whole of the battle—even when the cannon thundered upon us—I feared nothing; I was sure we would be victorious, for that too I had seen. But now I fear!"
"But the Austrians have evacuated Schirmeck; all the line of the Vosges is defended; we have more men than we need, and still more are arriving every moment."
"No matter!"
Hullin shrugged his shoulders.
"Come, come, Catherine! You are feverish. Try to calm yourself and dispel such gloomy thoughts. I laugh at all these dreams as I would at the Grand Turk with his pipe and blue stockings. We have men, munitions, and defences, and these are better than the rosiest-colored dreams."