"Ha! the Cossacks are showing themselves."
At this exclamation the entire party halted to look around. They were already high above the village, and even the farm. The gray winter dawn was scattering the morning vapors, and in the hollows of the mountain side they saw a number of those wild horsemen, pistol in hand, slowly approaching the old house. They were separated like skirmishers, and seemed to fear a surprise. A few moments after, others followed from the valley of Houx, then others, and still others, all alike standing up in their stirrups to see further. The first, passing the farm-house and seeing nothing to fear, flourished their lances and turned half-way round. The rest came up at a gallop, like rooks following one of their number that rises in the air as if perceiving some prey. In a few seconds the farm was surrounded, and the door pushed open. Another minute and the windows flew out, shattered to pieces; furniture, mattresses, linen followed from every side of the house at once. Catherine, with lips pressed tightly together, gazed calmly at all this destruction. For a long while she said nothing; but suddenly seeing Yegof strike Duchene with the shaft of his lance, and drive him from the house, she could not restrain a cry of indignation.
"The wretch! coward! to strike a poor old man who can no longer defend himself. Ah villain! if I had thee here!"
"Come, Catherine," said Jean-Claude; "we have seen enough, and the sight does us no good."
"You are right," she replied; "let us go. I cannot bear it."
As they ascended, the air grew keener. Louise, the child of the gypsies, with a little basket of provisions on her arm, clambered at the head of the troops. The blue sky, the plains of Alsace and Lorraine, and at the verge of the horizon those of Champagne, the boundless immensity of space wherein sight was lost, inspired an enthusiasm in all. They seemed to have wings, to pierce the blue air like those great birds that glided from the tree tops over the abysses, uttering their free and fearless cries. All the wretchedness of the world beneath, its injustice and its suffering, were forgotten. Louise saw herself a child on the back of her mother—that poor wandering gypsy—and thought, "I have never since been happier; never had less of care; never laughed so much, sang so gayly, and yet we often lacked bread. Ah! those dear days gone!" And the words of old songs rang in her ears.
As they neared the great red rock, crusted with its white and black stones, and hanging over the precipice like the tower of some grand cathedral, Louise and Catherine paused in ecstasy. Above, the sky seemed yet deeper; the path cut in the rock yet narrower. The valleys stretching on till lost in distance, the boundless woods, the far-off lakes of Lorraine, the blue ribbon of the Rhine—all the glorious scene filled them with emotion, and the old woman said thoughtfully:
"Jean-Claude, He who lifted this rock to heaven, whose hand hollowed these valleys, who scattered these forests, those thickets, and even these little mosses upon his earth, will surely render us what we deserve."
While they gazed thus, standing upon the forest terrace of rock, Marc had led his horse to a neighboring cavern, and returned on foot, saying, as he climbed before them.
"Be careful; you may slip."