"Marc," said Hullin, "forgive me. I have suffered too much; I was wrong; misfortune has made me distrustful. Give me your hand. Go; save us; save Catherine; save my child! I say now to you, that our only hope lies in you."
Hullin's voice quivered. Dives softened, but he said:
"Very well, Jean-Claude; but in such a moment you should not have spoken so. Never let us again speak of it! I will leave my body on the way or I will return to deliver you. I will start to-night. The Kaiserliks already surround the mountain. No matter; I have a good horse, and I was always lucky."
At six o'clock darkness had fallen on every peak. Hundreds of fires flashing in the gorges showed where the Germans were preparing their evening meal. Marc-Dives descended, groping his way. Hullin listened for a few seconds to his comrade's footsteps, and then turned, buried in thought, to the old tower, where he had established his headquarters. He lifted the thick woolen curtain which closed the entrance, and saw Catherine, Louise, and the others gathered round a little fire, which lighted up the grey walls. The old woman, seated on an oaken block, her hands clasped around her knees, gazed fixedly at the flame, her lips set tightly together, and her face seemingly tinged with a greenish tint in its extreme pallor. Jerome, standing behind Catherine, his folded arms resting on his staff, touched the slimy roof with his otter-skin cap. All were sad and disheartened. Hexe-Baizel, who was lifting the cover of a great pot, and Doctor Lorquin, scraping the old wall with the point of his sabre, alone kept their accustomed looks.
"Here we are," said the doctor, "returned to the times of the Triboci. These walls are more than two thousand years old. A fine quantity of water must have flowed from the heights of Falkenstein and Grossmann through the Sarre and the Rhine since fire was made before in this tower."
"Yes," replied Catherine, as if awakening from a dream, "and many besides us have here suffered cold, hunger, want. Who knows how many? And when a hundred, or two or three hundred years shall have passed, still others may here seek shelter. They, like us, will find the walls cold and the floor damp. They will make a little fire, and gazing on each other as we now gaze, will ask, Who suffered here before us, and why did they suffer? Were they pursued, hunted as we have been, that they would fain hide themselves in such a miserable den? And then they will think of by-gone years, and no one may answer them!"
Jean-Claude drew near. In a few moments, raising her head she said, as she looked at him:
"Well, we are blockaded; the enemy seeks to reduce us by famine."
"True, Catherine,' 5 replied Hullin. "I did not expect that. I counted on an attack; but the Kaiserliks are not yet so sure of us as they imagine. Dives has just started for Phalsbourg. He knows the commandant; and if they only send a hundred men to our succor—"
"We must not rely on it," interrupted the old woman. "Marc may be captured or killed; and even should he succeed in making his way through their lines, how could he enter Phalsbourg? You know the city is besieged by the Russians."