CHAPTER XXVII.

As if the exhaustion of hunger had not sufficed to fill up the measure of the misery they were enduring, the unhappy mountaineers, keeping their dreary vigils on the Falkenstein, only opened their mouths to threaten and accuse each other.

"Don't touch me!" screamed Hexe-Baizel, in a voice like a polecat's, to those who looked at her, "don't touch me, or I will bite you!"

Louise grew delirious; her large blue eyes, in place of real objects, saw only shadows flitting over the plateau, skimming over the tops of the trees, and plant themselves on the old tower.

"Here are provisions!" she would exclaim.

Then the others would be furious against the poor child, crying out angrily that she wanted to make game of them, and that she had best beware.

Jerome alone still remained perfectly calm; but the great quantity of snow which he had drunk to appease the inward anguish that was consuming him, bathed all his body and his face with a cold sweat.

Doctor Lorquin had tied a handkerchief round his loins, and tightened it more and more, declaring that he thus satisfied his stomach. He was seated against the tower, with his eyes shut; from hour to hour he opened them, saying:

"We are at the first--at the second--at the third period. One day more, and all will be over!"

He would then begin a dissertation upon the Druids, on Odin, Brahma, Pythagoras, making Latin and Greek quotations, announcing the approaching transformation of the people of Harberg into wolves, into foxes, into animals of all sorts.

"For my part," he would exclaim, "I shall be a lion! I will eat fifteen pounds of beef a-day!"

Then, recovering himself:

"No, I will be a man; I will preach peace, fraternity, justice! Ah! my friends," he would say, "we suffer by our own fault. What have we done, on the other side of the Rhine, for the last ten years? By what right did we want to impose masters on those peoples? Why did we not exchange our ideas, our sentiments, the products of our arts and of our industry, with them? Why did we not go to seek them as brothers, instead of wishing to subjugate them? We should have been well received. What must they have suffered--the unfortunates--during those ten years of violence and rapine? Now they avenge themselves; and it is justice! May the curse of Heaven alight on the wretches who divide the peoples to oppress them!"

After these moments of excitement, he would sink fainting against the wall of the tower, murmuring:

"Bread. Oh, for nothing but a morsel of bread!"

The sons of Materne, crouching among the bushes, gun on shoulder, seemed to be awaiting the passage of game which never arrived; the idea of perpetual ambush sustained their expiring strength.

Some, bent double, were shivering, and felt consumed by fever; they accused Jean-Claude of having led them to the Falkenstein.

Hullin, with superhuman strength of character, still went and came, observing what was passing in the surrounding valleys, without saying anything.

At times he advanced to the very edge of the rock, and with his large compressed jaws, and flashing eye, watched Yegof sitting before a large fire, on the plateau of the Bois-des-Chenes, in the midst of a troop of Cossacks. Since the arrival of the Germans in the valley of the Charmes, the fool had not quitted this post; he seemed, from there, to gloat over the agony of his victims.

Such was the aspect of these unfortunates under the vast canopy of heaven.

The punishment of hunger at the bottom of a dungeon is frightful, no doubt, but beneath a sky bathed in light, in the eyes of a whole country, in face of the resources of nature, it passes all expression.

Now at the close of this nineteenth day, between four and five o'clock in the evening, the weather had lowered: large grey clouds rose behind the snowy summit of the Grosmann; the sun, red as a bullet just out of the furnace, was casting his last rays athwart the murky sky. The silence on the rock was profound. Louise gave no more sign of life. Kasper and Frantz continued motionless among the shrubs like stones. Catherine Lefevre, crouching on the ground, her sharp knees between her skinny arms, her rigid and hard features, her hair hanging over her livid cheeks, with haggard eye, and chin as sharp as a vice, resembled some old sibyl sitting in the midst of the bushes. She spoke no more. That evening, Hullin, Jerome, old Materne, and Doctor Lorquin had assembled round the old farm-mistress to die together. They were all silent, and the last faint rays of twilight illumined the dismal group. To the right, behind a jutting point of the rock, some fires of the Germans glimmered in the abyss. And as they sat there, all at once the old woman, coming out of her long reverie, murmured at first some unintelligible words.

"Dives is here!" said she at length, in a low voice. "I see him; he is leaving the postern, to the right of the arsenal. Gaspard follows him, and----"

Then she counted slowly:

"Two hundred and fifty men," said she; "national guards and soldiers. They cross the bridge; they mount behind the half-moon. Gaspard is speaking with Marc. What is he saying?"

She appeared to listen:

"'Let us make haste;' yes, make haste; time presses; there they are upon the glacis!"

There was a moment's silence. Then all at once the old woman, drawing herself up to her full height, her arms tossed wildly aloft, hair erect, and mouth quite wide open, shouted, in a terrible voice:

"Courage! kill! kill! ah! ah!"

And she fell heavily back.

This fearful cry awakened everybody; it would have awakened the dead. All the besieged seemed to be born again. Something was in the air. Was it hope, life, soul? I know not; but all came hurrying along like a troop of deer, holding their breath to hear. Louise herself moved softly and raised her head. Frantz and Kasper dragged themselves along upon their knees; and, strange to say, Hullin, casting his eyes through the darkness in the direction of Phalsbourg, thought he saw the fire and smoke of a volley of musketry announcing a sortie.

Catherine had resumed her former attitude; but her cheeks, just now as lifeless as a plaster mask, shook violently; her eye was again covered with a dreamy film. All the others listened; it might have been said that their existence hung upon her lips. Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, when the old woman slowly continued:

"They have crossed the enemy's lines. They are hastening to Lutzelbourg. I see them. Gaspard and Dives are in front, with Desmarets, Ulrich, Weber, and our friends from the city. They come! They come!"

She was silent anew; a long while yet she listened; but the vision was gone. Seconds succeeded to seconds, slow as centuries, when suddenly Hexe-Baizel began to say, in a sharp voice:

"She is mad! she has seen nothing. Marc, I know him. He is laughing finely at us. What is it to him if we perish? Provided he has his bottle of wine and chitterlings, and can smoke his pipe quietly in the chimney-corner, it's all the same to him. Ah! the wretch!"

Then all relapsed into silence, and the unfortunates, a moment revived by the hope of a near deliverance, fell back again into despair.

"It is a dream," thought they; "Hexe-Baizel is right; we are condemned to die of hunger."

In the meantime, night was come. When the moon rose behind the tall fir-trees, casting her pale rays on the sorrowful groups of the besieged, Hullin only was still watching, though burnt up with fever. He heard far, very far off in the gorges the voices of the German sentinels calling out "_Wer da! Wer da!_" the camp patrols going their rounds through the woods, the shrill neighing of the horses at picket, their stamping, and the shouts of their keepers. Towards midnight the brave man ended, however, by going to sleep like the rest. When he awoke, the village clock of Charmes was striking four. Hullin, at the sound of its distant vibrations, aroused himself from his stupor; he opened his eyelids, and as he was looking round, in a sort of bewildered manner, striving to recover his faculties, the dim light of a torch passed before his eyes; a fear came over him, and he said to himself:--"Am I going mad? The night is quite dark, and yet I see torches."

And yet the flame re-appeared; he regarded it more closely, then rose abruptly, pressing for a few seconds his hand against his contracted face. Then, hazarding another look, he saw distinctly a fire on the Giromani, on the other side of the Blanru; a fire which swept the heavens with its purple wing, and flickered among the shadows of the fir-trees on the snow. And, recollecting that this signal had been agreed on between himself and Piorette to announce an attack, he began to tremble from head to foot; cold drops of sweat stood on his face, and walking on tiptoe through the darkness, like a blind man, with outstretched hands, he stammered:

"Catherine! Louise! Jerome!"

But no one replied to him, and after having groped about in this way, thinking he was walking, while in reality he was not taking a single step, the unhappy man fell back, exclaiming:

"My children! Catherine! They come! We are saved!"

Immediately there was heard a vague murmur; it seemed as if the dead were re-awakening. There was a burst of dry laughter; it was Hexe-Baizel, gone mad from suffering. Then Catherine exclaimed:

"Hullin! Hullin! Who spoke?"

Jean-Claude, recovered from his emotion, exclaimed, in a firmer tone:

"Jerome, Catherine, Materne, and you all, are you dead? Do you not see that fire down there, on the side of the Blanru? It is Piorette, who is coming to our assistance."

And, at the very same moment, a loud explosion rolled through the gorges of the Jaegerthal with the sound of a tempest. The trumpet of the last judgment would not have produced more effect on the besieged; they suddenly awoke.

"It is Piorette! It is Marc!" was screeched by voices, broken, dry--voices of mere skeletons; "they come to save us!"

And all these poor wretches strove to rise; some sobbed; but they had no more tears. A second explosion brought them to their feet.

"Surely that is platoon firing," exclaimed Hullin; "our people fire also in platoons; we have soldiers of the line; hurrah for France!"

"Yes," replied Jerome, "Dame Catherine was right; the Phalsbourgians are coming to our relief; they are descending the hills of the Sarre, and there is Piorette, now heading the attack on the Blanru."

In effect, the firing began to resound from both sides at once, towards the plateau of the Bois-des-Chenes and the towering heights of the Kilberi.

Then the two leaders embraced each other; and as they walked on tiptoe through the thick darkness, trying to gain the edge of the rock, all of a sudden Materne's voice was heard, loudly exclaiming:

"Take care, my lads, the precipice is there!"

They stopped, looking down at their feet; but there was nothing to be seen; a gust of cold air coming up from the abyss alone warned you of the danger. All the mountain tops and the surrounding gorges were plunged in thick darkness. On the sides of the mountain opposite, the lights from the firing flashed like lightnings, illuminating now an old oak, the dark outline of a rock, now a cluster of furze bushes, and groups of men going and coming as in the midst of a fire. Two thousand feet below, in the depth of the gorges, were heard heavy sounds, the gallop of horses, confused clamours mingling with the word of command. At times the cry of the mountaineer hailing, that prolonged cry, echoing from one mountain top to the other, "He! oh! he!" rose to the topmost height of the Falkenstein like a sigh.

"It is Marc," said Hullin; "it is the voice of Marc."

"Yes, it is Marc who is bidding us keep up our courage," replied Jerome.

All the others, crouching round them, with outstretched neck, and hands grasping the edge of the rock, strained their eyes to see. The firing continued with a vivacity which betrayed the fierceness of the battle, but it was impossible to see anything. Oh, what would they have given to take part in this supreme conflict, the unfortunates! With what ardour would they have thrown themselves into the fray! The dread of being again abandoned, of seeing at daylight their defenders in retreat, rendered them dumb with fear.

Meanwhile, day was beginning to dawn; the first pale glimmer of light was breaking over the dark tops of the mountains; some rays descended into the shadowy valleys; half-an-hour after they silvered the misty vapours of the abyss. Hullin, casting a look through these breaks in the clouds, was able at length to recognise the position. The Germans had lost the heights of the Valtin and the plateau of Bois-des-Chenes. They were now massed in the valley of Charmes, at the foot of the Falkenstein, a third part of the way up the side, to be out of the reach of their adversaries' fire. Opposite the rock, Piorette, master of Bois-des-Chenes, was ordering barricades to be thrown up on the side of Charmes. He was going hither and thither, the end of his pipe between his lips, his felt hat cocked on his ear, his carbine slung over his shoulder. The blue axes of the woodcutters glittered in the morning sun. To the left of the village, on the side of the Valtin, in the middle of the brushwood, Marc Dives, on a little black horse, with a long flowing tail, his long sword in his hand, was pointing to the ruins and the _schlitte_ road. An officer of infantry, and some national guards in blue coats, were listening to him. Gaspard Lefevre, alone, in advance of this group, leaning on his gun, seemed thoughtful. It might be seen from his attitude that he was forming desperate resolutions for the moment of attack. In fine, quite on the summit of the hill, against the wood, two or three hundred men, ranged in line, with grounded arms, stood watching also.

The sight of this small number of defenders wrung the hearts of the besieged; so much the more that the Germans, seven or eight times superior in numbers, were beginning to form two columns of attack to regain the positions they had lost. Their general was sending horsemen in all directions carrying orders. Rows of bayonets were beginning to defile.

"It's all over!" said Hullin to Jerome. "What can five or six hundred men do against four thousand in line of battle? The Phalsbourgians will return home, and say, 'We have done our duty!' And Piorette will be crushed."

All the others thought the same; but that which raised their despair to its height was to see all at once a long file of Cossacks debouch in the valley of Charmes at full gallop, and the fool Yegof at their head, galloping like the wind; his beard, the tail of his horse, his sheepskin, and his red hair all streaming in the wind. He looked at the rock, and brandished his lance above his head. At the bottom of the valley, he spurred straight up to where the major-general of the enemy's army stood. Arrived near him, he made some gestures indicating the other side of the plateau of Bois-des-Chenes.

"Ah! the wretch!" exclaimed Hullin. "See! he is telling him that Piorette has no barricades on that side of the mountain, and that it must be taken in the rear."

In effect a column immediately set itself on march in that direction, whilst another directed its movement towards the barricades to mask that of the first.

"Materne!" exclaimed Jean-Claude, "are there no means of sending a bullet after the fool?"

The old hunter shook his head. "No," said he, "it is impossible; he is out of reach."

At this moment, Catherine gave vent to a savage cry--a hawk's cry. "Let us crush them!--let us crush them as we did at the Blutfeld!"

And this old woman, a moment before so weak, rose and flung herself upon a mass of rock, which she lifted with her two hands; then, with her long scanty gray locks, her hooked nose drawn down to her compressed lips, lank cheeks, and bent back, she advanced with a firm step to the very edge of the abyss, and the rock cleft the air, tracing an immense curve.

A horrible noise was heard below. Splinters of fir-trees flew about in all directions, then an enormous stone was seen to rebound at a hundred paces with fresh impetus, roll down the steep descent, and, with a final bound, fall upon Yegof, and crush him at the very feet of the general of the enemy's forces. All this was accomplished in a few seconds.

Catherine, standing on the edge of the rock, laughed a laugh that sounded more like a rattle, and that seemed as if it would never come to an end.

And all the others, all those phantoms, as if inspired with a new life, threw themselves upon the crumbling ruins of the old _burg_, exclaiming--"Death! death! Let us crush them as at the Blutfeld!"

Never was a more horrible scene beheld. Those beings, at the very gates of the tomb, lean and squalid as skeletons, found fresh strength for carnage. They stumbled no more; they tottered no more. They lifted each one his stone, and ran to hurl it down the precipice; then returned to take another, without even looking at what was passing below.

Now figure to yourselves the stupor of the _kaiserlicks_ at this deluge of ruins and rocks. They had all turned round at the first sound of the stones crashing down one after another over the shrubs and the clumps of trees, and at first they remained as if petrified; but raising their eyes still higher, and seeing other stones descending and descending still, and, above all that, spectres running hither and thither, lifting up their arms, emptying them, and beginning again; seeing their comrades crushed--rows of fifteen and twenty men overthrown at a single blow--an immense cry resounded from the valley of the Charmes, as far as the Falkenstein, and in spite of the voice of the leaders, in spite of the firing, which recommenced right and left, all the Germans fled in disorder to escape this horrible death.

When the rout was at its height, the general of the enemy's army had, however, succeeded in rallying a battalion, and effecting a quiet retreat towards the village. There was something in this man, calm in the midst of disaster, grand and dignified. From time to time he turned round to cast a gloomy look at the falling masses of rock which were making bloody gaps in his column.

Jean-Claude observed him; and in spite of the intoxication of triumph, in spite of the certainty of having escaped famine, the old soldier could not restrain a feeling of admiration.

"Look," said he to Jerome, "he does as we did on returning from the Donon and the Grosmann: he remains to the last, and only yields step by step. Truly there are men of courage in every country."

Marc Dives and Piorette, witnesses of this stroke of fortune, came down through the fir-trees to endeavour to cut off the retreat of the enemy's general, but they could not succeed in their attempt. The battalion, reduced to half, formed a square behind the village of Charmes, and slowly re-ascended the valley of the Sarre, at times stopping, like a wounded wild boar who turns upon the pack, when the men of Piorette and those of Phalsbourg tried to press it too closely.

Thus ended the great battle of Falkenstein, known in the mountain under the name of the _Battle of the Rocks_.