And while with dazzled eyes they gazed at each other, mute with horror, Marc's peal of laughter mingled in the sound that yet rang in their ears.
"Ha, ha, ha!" he shouted; "I knew the beggars would gather round the wagon to drink my brandy, and that the match would have time to reach the powder. Do you think they will follow us further? Their limbs adorn the firs. So perish all of their kind who have crossed the Rhine!"
The entire party, partisans, the doctor, everyone, had become silent. So many fearful scenes, scenes which common life knows not, gave all food for endless thought. Each one murmured to himself, "Why must men thus torture, tear, ruin one another? Why should they thus hate each other? And what ferocious spirit urges them to such deeds, if not the spirit of evil, the archdemon himself?"
Dives alone and his men were unmoved, and galloped on laughing and applauding what had been done.
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried the tall smuggler; "I never saw such a joke! I could laugh a thousand years at it."
Then he became gloomy, and said,
"Yegof is at the bottom of all this. One must be blind not to see that it was he who guided the Germans to Blutfeld. I would be sorry if he were finished by a piece of my wagon; I have something better in store for him. All that I wish is, that he may remain sound and healthy until I meet him some day in a corner of the woods. Let it be one, ten, or twenty years—only let it come! The longer I wait, the keener will be my appetite; good morsels are best cold, like wild-boar's cheek in white wine."
He said all this with a good-humored air; but those who knew him knew that beneath that lay danger for Yegof.
Half an hour after, all reached the field of Bois-de-Chênes.