And the old woman, but a moment ago so feeble, seized a fragment of rock which she lifted with both hands; then, with her long gray hair floating in the wind, her hooked nose bent over her compressed and colorless lips, and her wrinkled cheeks rigid as iron, she rushed with firm steps to the edge of the cliff, and the rock cleft the air.
A horrible clamor arose from beneath, through which could be heard the crash of broken branches; then the enormous mass rebounded a hundred feet outward—dashed down the steep slope, again flew out into the open air, down, down, falling full on Yegof, and crushing him at the general's feet! All was the work of a moment.
Catherine, erect on the edge of the cliff, laughed a long, rattling laugh.
Then the others, those phantoms, spectres, as if a new life had been given them, dashed over the ruins of the ancient burg, shrieking:
"Death! Death to the Germans! Crush them as we did at Blutfeld."
Never did eye behold a scene more terrible. Wretches at the gates of the tomb—lean, fleshless as skeletons found again their strength and their courage. They blenched not; each man seized his fragment of rock, hurled it over the precipice, and rushed back to find another, without even waiting to see the effect of the one he had thrown.
No pen can paint the terror of the Kaiserliks as this storm of rocks dashed down upon their heads. All turned as they heard the crashing bushes and trees, and at first stood gazing as if petrified. Raising their eyes, they saw others, and still others, rushing down, and, above, figures like spectres appear and disappear, hurling missiles of death into the air; they saw around them their crushed and mangled comrades—lines of fifteen or twenty men stricken down at once. A wild cry echoed from the depths of the valley to the peak of Falkenstein, and despite the commands of their leaders, despite the hail of shot that began to pour from right and left upon them, the Germans, careless whither they went, fled anywhere—anywhere to avoid the horrid death that smote them there.
In the thick of the rout, however, the Austrian general succeeded in rallying a battalion and brought it in good order to the village. Calm and collected amid disaster and death, he seemed worthy his high rank. He turned gloomily, from time to time, to gaze on the falling rocks, which still ploughed bloody furrows through his column.
Jean-Claude observed him, and in spite of the intoxication of victory, and the joy of having escaped the horrors of a death by famine, the old soldier could not restrain his admiration.