Chapter XIV.

At seven o'clock everything was still quiet.

From time to time Dr. Lorquin opened a window of the great hall and looked abroad. Nothing was stirring; even the fires had gone out.

Louise, seated near her father, gazed sadly and tenderly upon him. She seemed to fear that she would never again see him, and her reddened eyes showed that she had been weeping.

Hullin, though firm, showed signs of emotion.

The doctor and the Anabaptist, both grave and solemn in their manner, were conversing, and Lagarmitte, behind the stove, listened thoughtfully to their words.

"We have not only the right, but it is our duty to defend ourselves," the doctor was saying. "Our fathers cleared these woods and cultivated the land. They are now rightfully ours."

"Doubtless," answered the Anabaptist; "but it is written, Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not spill thy brother's blood!"

Catherine Lefevre, whom this view of matters annoyed, turned suddenly from her work, saying:

"Then if we believed as you do, we would let the Germans and Russians drive us from house and home. Your religion is a famous one for thieves! The Allies ask nothing better, I am sure. I do not wish to insult you, Pelsly; you have been brought up in these notions; but we will defend you despite yourself. I love to hear of peace, but not when the enemy is at our doors."

Pelsly remained mute from astonishment, and Doctor Lorquin could not repress a smile.

At the same moment the door opened, and a sentry entered, crying:

"Master Jean-Claude, come! I believe they are advancing."

"I am coming, Simon," answered Hullin, rising. "Embrace me, Louise. Courage, my child; fear not, all will go well."

He clasped her to his bosom and his eyes filled with tears. She seemed more dead than living.

"Be sure," said he to Catherine, "to let no one go out or approach the windows."

He rushed from the house to the edge of the plateau, and cast his eyes toward Grandfontaine and Framont, thousands of feet below him.

The Germans had arrived the evening before, a few hours after the Cossacks. They had passed the night, to the number of five or six thousand, in barns, stables, or under sheds, and were now clustering like ants, pouring from every door in tens and twenties, and hurrying to buckle on knapsacks, fasten sabres, or fix bayonets.

Others--cavalry--Uhlans, Cossacks, hussars, in green, gray, and blue uniforms, faced with red or yellow, with caps of waxed cloth or lamb-skin, were hastily saddling their horses or rolling their blankets.

{474}

Trumpets were sounding at every street-corner, and drummers were tightening their drum-cords. Every phase of military life seemed there.

A few peasants, stretching their heads out of their windows, gazed at all this; women crowded at the garret-windows, and innkeepers filled flasks.

Nothing escaped Hullin, and such scenes were not new to him, but Lagarmitte was petrified with wonder.

"How many they are!" he cried.

"Bah!" returned Hullin; "what does that matter? In my time, we annihilated three armies of fifty thousand each of that same race in six months, and we were not one to four. Rest easy, however; we shall not have to kill all these; they will fly like hares. You will see."

These judicious reflections uttered, he turned back to the _abatis_, and the two followed a path which had been made in the snow a couple of days before. The snow, hardened by the frost, had become ice, and the trees formed an impassable barrier. Below lay the ruined road.

As he appeared, Jean-Claude saw the mountaineers from Dagsberg in groups, twenty paces distant from each other, in round holes like nests which they had dug for themselves. These brave fellows were seated on their haversacks, their fox-skin caps pulled down over their heads and their muskets between their knees. They had only to rise to view the road fifty yards beneath them at the foot of a very slippery slope.

"Ha, Master Jean-Claude! When is the work to begin?"

"Easy, my boys; do not be impatient; in an hour you will have enough to do."

"So much the better."

"Aim well at the height of the breast, and don't expose yourselves more than you can help."

"Never fear for us, Master Jean-Claude."

"Do not forget to cease firing when Lagarmitte winds his horn; we cannot afford to lose powder."

He found Materne at his post, lighting his pipe; the old man's beard was frozen almost solid.

"They seem to be in no hurry to attack," said Jean-Claude. "Can it be that they will take another route through the mountains?"

"Never fear it," answered the old man. "They need the road for their artillery and baggage. Listen! The bugles are sounding, 'Boots and saddles.' But do you know, Hullin," asked the hunter with a low chuckle, "what I saw a while ago in Grandfontaine? I saw four Austrians knock old Dubreuil, the friend of the Allies, down and thrash him well with sticks, the old wretch! It did my heart good. I suppose he refused some of his wine to his good friends."

Hullin listened to no more; for, happening to cast his eyes to the valley, he saw a regiment of infantry debouching on the road. Beyond, in the street, cavalry were advancing, five or six officers galloping in front.

"At last!" cried the old soldier, his face lighting up with a look of fierce determination--"at last!"

And dashing along the line, he cried:

"Attention, men of the Vosges!"

Lagarmitte followed with his bugle. Ten minutes after, when the two, all breathless, had reached the pinnacle of the rock, they saw the enemy's column fifteen hundred feet beneath them, about three thousand strong, with their long white coats, canvas-gaiters, bear-skin shakos, and red mustaches, their young officers, sword in hand, curveting in the intervals between the companies, and from time to time turning round and shouting hoarsely, "Forvertz! forvertz!" while above the line the bayonets flashed and glittered in the sun.

{475}

They were pressing on to the _abatis_ at the _pas de charge_.

Old Materne, too, saw the Germans advancing, and his keen eyes could even note the individuals of the mass. In a moment he had chosen his quarry.

In the middle of the column, on a tall bay horse, rode an old officer, wearing a white peruke, a three-cornered hat heavily laced with gold, and a yellow sash. His breast was covered with ribbons, and his thick black plumes danced merrily as he cantered on.

"There is my man!" muttered the hunter, as he slowly brought his piece to his shoulder.

A report, a wreath of white smoke, and the old officer had disappeared. In a moment the whole line of intrenchments rattled with musketry; but the Austrians, without replying, pressed steadily upward, their ranks as regular and well aligned as if they were on parade; and to speak truth, many a brave mountaineer, mayhap the father of a family, as he saw that forest of bayonets come on, thought that perhaps he might better have remained at home in his village than have shouldered his rifle for its defence. But as the proverb says, the wine was drawn, naught but to drink remained!

When two hundred paces from the abatis, the enemy halted, and began a rolling fire, such as the mountain echoes had never before replied to. Bullets hailed on every side, cutting the branches, scattering the icicles, and flattening themselves on the rocks; their continued hiss was like the humming of a swarm of bees. All this did not arrest the fire of the mountaineers, and soon both sides were buried in thick gray smoke; but at the end of ten minutes more, the drums beat out the charge, and again the mass of bayonets dashed toward the _abatis_; and again the cry of "Forvertz! forvertz!" rang out, but now nearer and nearer, until the firm earth trembled beneath the tramp of thousands of feet.

Materne, rising to his full height, with quivering cheeks and flashing eyes, shouted, "Up! up!"

It was time. Many of the Austrians, almost all of them students of philosophy, or law, or medicine, gathered from the breweries of Munich, Jena, and other towns--men who fought against us because they believed that Napoleon's fall would alone give them freedom--many of these intrepid fellows had clambered on all-fours over the frozen snow and hurled themselves upon the works. But each who climbed the _abatis_ was met by a blow from a clubbed musket, and flung back among his comrades.

Then did the strength and bravery of old Rochart the wood-cutter show themselves. Man after man of these children of the Vaterland did he stretch upon the whitened earth. Old Materne's bayonet ran with blood. The little tailor, Riffi, loaded and fired into the mass with the cool courage of a veteran, and Joseph Larnette, Hans Baumgarten, whose shoulder was pierced by a ball, Daniel Spitz, who lost two fingers by a sabre stroke, and a host of others, will be for ever honored by their countrymen for their deeds that day. For more than a quarter of an hour the fight was hand to hand. Nearly all the students had fallen, and the others, veterans accustomed to retiring honorably, turned to retrace their steps. {476} At first they retreated slowly; then faster and faster. Their officers urged them to the attack once more, and seconded their words with blows from the flat of their swords, but in vain; bullets poured among them from the _abatis_, and soon all order was lost; the retreat was a wild rout.

Materne laughed grimly as he gazed after the flying foe, lately advancing in such proud array, and shook his rifle above his head in joy.

At the bottom of the slope lay hundreds of wounded. The snow was red with blood, and in the midst of heaps of slain were two young officers yet living, but crushed beneath the weight of their dead horses.

It was horrible! But men are oftentimes savage as the beasts of the forests. Not a man among the flushed mountaineers seemed to have a thought for all the misery he saw before him; it even seemed to rejoice many.

Little Riffi, carried away by a sublime ardor for plunder, glided down the steep. He had caught a glimpse of a splendid horse, that of the colonel whom Materne had shot, which, protected by a corner of the rock, stood safe and sound.

"You are mine!" cried the tailor, as he seized the bridle. "How astonished my wife Sapience will be!"

All the others envied him as he mounted his prize; but their envy was soon checked when they saw the noble animal dash at full speed toward the Austrians. The little tailor tugged at the bridle, and shouted, and cursed, and prayed, but all to no purpose. Materne would have fired, but he feared that in that wild gallop he might kill the man, and soon Riffi disappeared among the enemy's bayonets.

All thought he would be massacred at once, but an hour later they saw him pass through the street of Grandfontaine, his hands bound behind his back, and a corporal following with uplifted cane.

Poor Riffi! He did not long enjoy his triumph, and his comrades at length laughed at his sad fate as merrily as if he had been a Kaiserlik. Such is the nature of man; as long as he feels no ill himself, the troubles of others affect him little.