Chapter V.

When Jean-Claude, the next morning, pushed open his window-shutters, he saw the neighboring mountains--Jaegerthal, Grosmann, Donon--covered with snow. This first sight of winter--when it overtakes us in our sleep--has a strange attraction about it. The old firs, the moss-covered rocks, were yesterday still clothed in their verdure, but now they glitter with frost, and fill our soul with an indescribable sense of sadness. {165} "Another year has passed away," we murmur to ourselves; "another rude season must pass away before the flowers return!" And we hurry to don our great-coat or to light a roaring fire. Our little retreat is full of white light, and without we hear the sparrows--the poor sparrows crouching beneath the eaves and bushes--who with ruffled feathers seem to cry, "No breakfast this morning--no breakfast!"

Hullin put on his heavy double-soled shoes and his thickest jacket. He heard Louise walking over his head in the little garret.

"Louise," he cried, "I am going."

"What! to-day again?"

"Yes, my child; I must. My business is not yet finished."

Then pulling his broad felt hat over his head, he went half-way up the stairs, and said in a low tone:

"You must not expect me back very soon, child, for I must go a long way off. Do not be uneasy. If they ask you where I am gone, say to Cousin Mathias, at Saverne."

"Will you not have some breakfast before starting?"

"No; I have put a loaf of bread and the little flask of brandy in my pocket. Farewell, my child. Be happy, and think of Gaspard."

And, without waiting for more questions, he seized his staff and left the cottage, directing his steps toward the hill to the left of the village. At the end of a quarter of an hour he had passed it and reached the path of the Three Fountains, which winds around Falkenstein by an old wall. The first snow never lasts long in the damp shadows of the valleys, and it had already begun to melt and form a stream in the pathway. Hullin mounted the wall to escape the water, and throwing a glance toward the village saw a few old women sweeping the snow from before their doors, and a few old men exchanging their morning greetings and smoking their morning pipes at their thresholds. He pursued his way along dreamily, murmuring: "How tranquil all is there! None suspect that danger is nigh, and yet in a few days what tumults, what shrieks, what crashing of cannon and clattering of muskets will fill the air!"

Powder was the first necessity, and we have seen how Catherine Lefevre turned her thoughts to Marc-Dives the smuggler; but she did not speak of his amiable helpmate, Hexe-Baizel.

The couple lived at the other side of Falkenstein, beneath the cliff on which the ruined castle stood. They had hollowed out for themselves a very comfortable den, although it possessed but one entrance and two little windows, but rumor hinted that it communicated with ancient subterranean passages. These last, however, the custom-house officials were never able to discover, notwithstanding several visits they made the worthy pair with this object in view. Jean-Claude and Marc-Dives knew one another from infancy; they had many a time together driven the owl and the hawk from their nests, and still saw one another at least once a week at the saw-mill. Hullin placed full reliance upon the smuggler, but he somewhat mistrusted Madame Hexe-Baizel. "However," said he, as he neared their domicile, "we shall see."

He had lighted his pipe, and from time to time turned to contemplate the immense stretch of country spread out before him.

Nothing can be more magnificent than the view of snow-covered wooded mountains, rising peak after peak far into the pale-blue sky until sight is lost in distance, and separated by dark valleys, each with its torrent flowing over mossy stones, green and polished like bronze.

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And then the silence--the silence of winter--broken only by the foot-fall on the soft, white ground, or the dash of snow falling from the higher branches of the firs to the lower, which bend beneath the weight; or mayhap the shrill screams of a pair of eagles, whirling far above the treetops, startle the ear. But all this must be seen and felt; it cannot be described.

About an hour after his departure from the village, Hullin, climbing over rock after rock, reached the foot of the cliff of Arbousiers. A sort of terrace, full of stones, and only three or four feet in width, entirely surrounds this mass of granite. The narrow way, itself surrounded only by the tops of trees shooting from the precipice below, seems dangerous, but is scarcely so in reality, for dizziness is all that is to be feared in passing along it. Above the ruin-covered rock overhangs the path.

Jean-Claude approached the smuggler's retreat. He halted a few moments upon the terrace, put his pipe back into his pocket, and then advanced along the passage, which described a half-circle and terminated in a notch in the rock. At its end he perceived the two windows of the cave and the half-open door.

At the same moment Hexe-Baizel appeared, sweeping the threshold with a huge broom of green twigs. She was short and withered; her head covered with a mass of dishevelled red hair, her cheeks hollow, her nose pointed, her little eyes glittering like burning coals, her mouth small and garnished with very white teeth. Her costume consisted of a short and very dirty woollen gown, and her small, muscular arms were bare to the elbow, notwithstanding the intense cold of winter at such a height; a pair of worn-out slippers half-covered her feet.

"Ha! good-morning, Hexe-Baizel," cried Jean-Claude, in a tone of good-natured raillery. "Stout, fat, happy, and contented as usual, I see."

Hexe-Baizel turned like a startled weasel. She shook her hair, and her eyes flashed fire. But she calmed herself at once, and said, in a short, dry voice, as if speaking to herself:

"Hullin the sabot-maker! What does he want here?"

"I want to see my friend Marc, beautiful Hexe-Baizel," replied Jean-Claude. "We have business together."

"What business?"

"Ah! that is our affair. Come, let me pass; I must speak to-him."

"Marc is asleep."

"Well, we must wake him. Time presses."

So saying, Hullin bent beneath the door-way, and entered the cave, which was irregular in shape and seamed with numerous fissures in its walls. Near the entrance the rock, rising suddenly, formed a sort of natural hearth, on which burned a few coals and some branches of the juniper. The cooking utensils of Hexe-Baizel consisted of an iron pot, an earthen jar, two cracked plates, and three or four pewter forks; her furniture, of a wooden stool, a hatchet to split wood, a salt-box fastened to the rocky wall, and her great broom of green twigs. At the right, her kitchen opened upon another cavern by an irregularly shaped aperture wider at the top than below, and closed by two planks and a cross-bar.

"Well, where is Marc?" asked Hullin, seating himself at the corner of the hearth.

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"I have already told you that he is asleep. He came home very late last night, and he must not be disturbed; do you understand?"

"I understand very well, Hexe-Baizel, but I have no time to wait."

"Then leave as soon as you please."

"That is very fine, but I don't intend to leave just yet. I did not make this journey to return empty handed."

"Is that you, Hullin?" interrupted a rough voice in the inner cavern.

"Ay, Marc."

"Wait a moment, I am coming."

A noise of rustling straw was heard, then the planks were removed, and a tall man, three feet at least from shoulder to shoulder, bony, bent, with ears and neck of a dull brick color and disordered brown hair, bent in the aperture, and then Marc-Dives stood erect before Hullin, gaping and stretching his long arms.

At first sight the countenance of Marc-Dives seemed mild enough; his broad, low forehead, temples only thinly covered with hair, pointed nose, long chin, and calm, brown eyes would seem to betoken the quiet, easy-going man, but one who should so class him would sooner or later discover his mistake. Rumor said that Marc-Dives had little scruple in using his axe or carbine when the custom-house officials invaded his premises, but proofs were wanting. The smuggler, thanks to his complete knowledge of all the defiles of the mountain, and of all the roads from Dagsbourg to Sarrebrück, from Raon l'Etape to Bâle in Switzerland, always seemed twenty miles from the place where such conflicts occurred. Then he had such a harmless air--in short, the rumors against him inevitably recoiled upon those who started them.

"I was thinking of you last night, Hullin," cried Marc, coming out of his den, "and if you hadn't come I should have gone all the way to the saw-mill to meet you. Sit down. Hexe-Baizel, give Hullin a chair."

He himself sat upon the wide hearth, with his back to the fire, opposite the open door, around which blew the winds of Alsace and of Switzerland.

The view through the narrow opening was magnificent--a rock-framed picture, but how grand a one! There lay the whole valley of the Rhine, and beyond the mountains melting into mist. The air, too, was so fresh and pure, and when the blue expanse without tired the eyes, the little fire within, with its red, dancing flames, was there to relieve them.

"Marc," said Hullin, after a moment's silence, "can I speak before your wife?"

"It is the same as speaking to me alone."

"Well. I have come to buy powder and lead of you."

"To shoot hares, I suppose," returned the smuggler, half-closing his eye and gazing keenly at Jean-Claude.

"No; to fight the Germans and the Russians."

There was another silence.

"And you want a good deal, I suppose."

"As much as you can furnish."

"I can furnish three thousand francs' worth to-day," said the smuggler.

"I will take it."

"And as much more in a week," continued Marc calmly, still gazing steadily at his friend.

"I will take it."

"You will take it!" cried Hexe-Baizel--"you will take it! I believe you, but who will pay for it?"

"Silence!" said Marc roughly.

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"Hullin will take it; his word is enough."

Then, stretching out his broad hand to the sabot-maker, he exclaimed:

"Jean-Claude, here is my hand! The powder and lead are yours; but I wish to stand my share of the expense. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Marc, but I intend to pay at once."

"He will pay himself," cried Hexe-Baizel. "Do you hear?"

"Am I deaf? Baizel, go fetch us a bottle of _Brimbelle-wasser_ to warm us. What Hullin tells me fills me with joy. Those beggarly _Kaiserliks_ won't have things go as easily as they imagine. Our people will defend themselves, and well!"

"They will! they will!"

"And there are those among them who will pay for what is needed."

"Catherine Lefevre will pay, and it is she who sends me here," said Hullin.

Then Marc arose, and, extending his hand toward the precipice, exclaimed:

"She is a woman among a thousand. Her soul is as great as yonder rock, Oxenstein. Never saw I a grander. I drink to her health. Drink too, Jean-Claude."

Hullin drank, and Hexe-Baizel followed the example.

"The bargain is made," cried Dives; "but, Hullin, it will not be easy to beat back the foe! All the hunters, the workmen, and the wood-cutters in the mountain will not be too many. I have just come from beyond the Rhine. The earth is black with Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians, Cossacks, hussars. The villages cannot contain them, and they are encamped upon the plains, in the valleys, on the heights, in the cities, everywhere, everywhere!"

A sharp cry pierced the air.

"It is a buzzard chasing its prey," said Marc.

At the same instant a shadow passed over the rock. A cloud of chaffinches and small birds swept over the cave, and hundreds of buzzards and hawks dashed on above them, with loud screams. So dense and broad was the feathered mass, that it seemed almost immovable while the fluttering of so many thousand wings sounded like dead leaves driving before the wind.

"It is the birds leaving Ardennes," said Hullin.

"Yes, the last of them. Their corn and seeds are buried in the snow. But there are more men in the enemy's armies than birds yonder. No matter, Jean-Claude; France will live though the world assail her. Hexe-Baizel, light the lantern; I wish to show Jean-Claude our stock of ammunition."

Hexe-Baizel could not willingly obey this command.

"No one," said she, "has been in the cave for twenty years. He can as well take your word for it. We take his for payment. I will not light the lantern--not I!"

Marc, without saying a word, stretched forth his hand and grasped a stout stick. The old woman, trembling in every limb, disappeared like a ferret through a small aperture, and in a moment returned with a large horn lantern, which Dives tranquilly lighted at the hearth.

"Baizel," said he, replacing the stick, "you know that Jean-Claude is my friend, and has been since we were boys, and that I would trust him much sooner than I would you, old snarler; for you know well that if you did not fear being hung the same day, I would long since have danced at the end of a rope. Come, Hullin, follow me."

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They went out together, and the smuggler, turning to the left, kept on toward the notch, which projected over the Valtin two hundred feet in the air. He pushed aside the foliage of a stunted oak, and then disappeared as if hurled into the abyss. Jean-Claude trembled, but he saw at the same moment Dives's head advancing along the wall of rock. The smuggler called out:

"Hullin, place your hand on the left side; there is a hole there; stretch out your foot boldly; you will feel a step, and then turn upon your heel."

Master Jean-Claude obeyed, not without fear and trembling; he felt the hole in the rock, found the step, and, turning half-way around, presently stood face to face with his friend in a niche which must formerly have belonged to some postern. At the end of the niche a low vault opened.

"How in the world was this discovered?" cried the wondering Hullin.

"I came on it while hunting for nests, thirty-five years ago. I had often seen a magnificent eagle with his mate upon this rock; they were splendid birds, full six feet across the wings. I heard the cries of their young beyond the notch, and, after many a trial, found myself here. What a battle we had! They tried to tear my eyes out, and when I killed them I cleared their nest of the bones that lay there after I had twisted the necks of the young; then I kept on, and you shall see what I found. Come."

They glided together beneath the low and narrow vault, formed of enormous red stones, over which the lantern threw a sickly glare.

At the end of about thirty steps a vast circular cave, formed from the living rock, appeared, on the floor of which were perhaps fifty piles of little kegs, and on the sides a great number of bars of lead and bags of tobacco. The air of the cavern was strongly impregnated with the strong odor of the last.

Marc placed his lantern at the entrance and gazed around with a well-satisfied smile.

"Here is what I found," said he, "only the cave was empty, save that in the middle of the floor yonder lay the skeleton of an animal--of a fox, which had probably died there of old age. The rogue had discovered the way before I did, and he could sleep in safety here. At that time, Jean-Claude, I was twelve years of age. I thought then that the place might some day be useful to me, I knew not how; but afterward, when I made my first essays at my trade with Jacob Zimmer, and when for two winters the revenue officers were on our track, the remembrance of my cave returned. I had made the acquaintance of Hexe-Baizel, who was a servant at the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, then owned by Catherine's father. She brought me twenty-five louis by way of dowry, and we set up our establishment in this cavern of the Arbousiers."

Dives was silent, and Hullin asked:

"You like this den, then?"

"Like it! I would not change it for the finest house in Strasbourg. For twenty-three years have I kept my goods here--sugar, coffee, powder, tobacco, brandy--and no one the wiser. I have eight horses always on the road."

"But you enjoy nothing of your wealth."

"Enjoy nothing! Think you there is no pleasure in mocking and outwitting the police--in defying the shrewd officials of the custom-house? And, besides, the people all love you; you sell at half-price; you are the benefactor of the poor."

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"But the danger!"

"Bah! What revenue officer would dare come here?"

"I believe you," muttered Hullin, as he thought that he must again brave the precipice.

"But I am used to it," continued the smuggler, "although, when I first made my way hither with a cask on my shoulder, my heart fluttered as it had not for many a day before."

He took up the lantern and held it so that the light might fall upon the heaps of kegs.

"It is fine English powder," said he; "it rolls like grains of silver in your hand, and is strong as fate. A little goes a long way; a thimbleful is enough for a charge. And there is lead that Europe cannot beat. This evening, Hexe-Baizel shall run some into balls. She knows how, as you shall see."

They turned to leave the cavern, when suddenly a confused noise of voices was borne upon the air. Marc instantly blew out the lantern, and the two men were in a moment plunged in darkness.

"There is some one above," whispered the smuggler. "Who in the fiend's name could have climbed Falkenstein in the snow?"

They listened breathlessly, their eyes fixed upon a ray of pale-blue light which descended through a narrow fissure in the top of the cave. Around this opening hung glittering spars of frost; above it could be seen the crest of a ruined wall. While they gazed thus in profound silence, a head shaggy with disordered hair, a glittering circlet binding the brow, the face long and ending in a pointed red beard--all sharply outlined against the white wintry sky--became visible.

"It is the King of Diamonds!" cried Marc, laughing.

"Poor wretch," murmured Hullin; "he is making a progress to his castles, his bare feet upon the frozen ground, and his tin crown protecting his head from the cold. Look, Dives, he is giving orders to the knights of his court; he stretches his sceptre north and south--all is his. Poor wretch, he makes me shiver to see him with nothing but his dog-skin robe around him."

"He makes me think," laughed the smuggler, "of some round-paunched burgomaster, or village mayor, rolling back in his chair as he dilates upon his wealth: 'H'm, I am Hans Aden; I have ten acres of fine meadow-land; I have two houses, a vine, my orchard, my garden--h'm, I have this, that, and the other.' The next day a colic seizes him, and then, good-night! We are fools, all of us. Come, Hullin, after all, the sight of that miserable creature talking to the winds and of his famine-stricken crow makes my teeth chatter too."

They passed on to the entrance of the vault, and the glare of day breaking suddenly upon them dazzled Hullin. The tall form of his companion guided him, however, and he pressed on after him.

"Step firmly," said Marc, "and do as you see me; your right hand in the hole, right foot on the step, half a turn, and here we are!"

They returned to the kitchen, where Hexe-Baizel told them that Yegof was among the ruins.

At the same moment the raven sailed past the door over the abyss, and uttered its hoarse cry; they heard the frozen heather bend beneath steps, and the fool appeared on the narrow terrace; he was wan and haggard, and cried, looking toward the fire:

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"Marc-Dives, try to leave this soon; I warn you. The fortifications of my domains must be free from such vermin. Take your measures accordingly."

Then perceiving Jean-Claude, he knit his brows.

"Thou here, Hullin?" said he. "Art thou yet far-sighted enough to accept the proposals I deigned to make thee? Knowest thou that the alliance I offered is the only means of saving thyself from the destruction that broods upon thy race?"

Hullin could not avoid laughing.

"No, Yegof," he replied; "my sight is not yet clear enough; it is dazed by the honor you offer me. But Louise is not yet old enough to marry."

The fool seemed at once to grow more gloomy and thoughtful. He stood at the edge of the terrace, his back to the abyss, as if in his own hall, and the whirling of the raven around his head disturbed him not in the least.

At length he raised his sceptre, and said, frowning:

"I have twice demanded her, Hullin; twice thou hast dared to refuse me. Once more shall the demand be renewed--but once--dost hear?--and then the decrees of fate shall be accomplished."

And turning upon his heel, with a firm step and haughty carriage, notwithstanding the steepness of the descent, he passed down the rocky path.

Hullin, Marc-Dives, and even the acrid Hexe-Baizel, burst into peals of laughter.

"He is a fool!" said Hexe-Baizel.

"I think you are not altogether wrong," sneered the smuggler. "Poor Yegof is losing his head entirely. But listen, Baizel; you will begin at once to cast bullets of all calibres; I am off for Switzerland. In a week, at latest, the remainder of our munitions will be here. Give me my boots."

Drawing on the last, and wrapping a thick red woollen scarf about his neck, the smuggler took from a hook on the wall a herdsman's dark-green coat which he threw over his shoulders; then, covering his head with a broad felt hat and seizing a cudgel, he cried:

"Do not forget what I say, old woman, or if you do, beware! Forward, Jean-Claude!"

Hullin followed his host without even bidding Hexe-Baizel farewell, and she, for her part, deigned not to see her departing guest to the door. When they had reached the foot of the cliff, Dives stopped, saying:

"You are going to the mountain villages, are you not, Hullin?"

"Yes; I must give the alarm."

"Do not forget Materne of Hengst and his two sons, and Labarbe of Dagsbourg, and Jerome of Saint-Quirin. Tell them there will be powder and ball in plenty; that Catherine Lefevre and I, Marc-Dives, will see to it."

"Fear not, Marc; I know my men."

They shook hands warmly and parted, the smuggler wending his way to the right toward Donon, Hullin taking the path to the left toward the Sarre.

The distance was rapidly widening between them, when Hullin called out:

"Halloo, Marc! Tell Catherine, as you pass, that all goes well, and that I have gone among the villages."

The other replied by a nod, and the two pursued their different ways.

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