"Look," he cried to Jerome, "he does as we did on the retreat from Donon and Grossmann. He is the last to retire, and only yields his ground foot by foot. Truly there are brave men of all countries!"
Marc-Dives and Pivrette, witnessing this turn of fortune, descended among the fir-trees to cut off the enemy's retreat; but the effort was in vain. The battalion, reduced one half, formed square behind the village of Charmes, and then retreated slowly up the valley of the Sarre, halting at times, like a wounded and hunted wild-boar turning upon his tormentors, whenever the men of Pivrette or from Phalsbourg pressed them too closely.
Thus ended the great battle of Falkenstein, known among the mountains as the Battle of the Rocks.
Chapter XXVI.
Scarcely had the fight ceased, when, toward 8 o'clock, Marc-Dives, Gaspard, and some thirty mountaineers, bearing baskets of food, reached the peak of Falkenstein. What a spectacle awaited them there! The besieged, stretched on the earth, seemed dead. In vain they shook the bodies and shouted in their ears; no answer came. Gaspard Lefevre, seeing his mother and Louise lying motionless with teeth fast locked together, told Marc, in his agony, that unless they recovered he would blow out his brains with his own musket. Marc replied that every one was free to do as he pleased; but that for his part, he would do no such thing on Hexe-Baizel's account. At length, old Colon placed his basket on a stone. Kasper Materne suddenly sighed, opened his eyes, and, seeing the food, began clacking his teeth like a famished fox.
They knew what that meant, and Marc-Dives passed his flask under the nose of each one, which was sufficient to resuscitate them. They wanted to devour all the provisions at once; but Doctor Lorquin had sense enough remaining to warn Marc not to listen to them, for the least excess would be sure death. Each one received, therefore, only a small piece of bread, an egg, and a glass of wine, which restored their powers singularly. Then they placed Catherine, Louise, and the entire party on sleds, and descended to the village.
Who could describe the enthusiasm and emotion of their friends, when they saw them arrive, more meagre than Lazarus risen from his grave! They were gazed at, embraced, hugged, and every new-comer from Abreschwiller, Dagsberg, Saint-Quirin, or anywhere else, had to repeat the ceremony.
Marc-Dives was obliged twenty times to relate the story of his journey to Phalsbourg. Luck had been against the brave smuggler. After having almost by miracle escaped the bullets of the Kaiserliks, he fell, in the valley of Spartzprod, into the middle of a troop of Cossacks, who robbed him of every thing. Then for two weeks he had to roam about the Russian posts, which surrounded the city, drawing the fire of their sentries and running the risk dozens of times of being arrested as a spy, before he was able to enter the works. Then the commandant Meunier, fearing from the weakness of the garrison, at first refused all help, and it was only at the pressing entreaty of the inhabitants of the city that he at length consented to detach two companies for the purpose.
The mountaineers, listening to this recital, could not cease admiring the courage of Marc, and his perseverance amid so many perils.