At this moment a sharp cry resounded through the air.
"It is a buzzard on the wing," said Marc, interrupting himself.
But at the same moment a dark shadow passed over the rock. A cloud of greenfinches flew over the abyss, and hundreds of buzzards and hawks were seen taking their rapid, angular flight overhead, uttering harsh cries to frighten their prey, while the whole seemed struggling together in a compact mass that looked motionless by reason of its density. The regular movement of these thousands of wings produced in the stillness a sound like that of dead leaves stirred by the north wind.
"That is the flight of the greenfinches of Ardennes," said Hullin.
"Yes; it is their last passage. The earth is covered with snow, and the seed lies buried in its bosom. Well, look now; there are more men down below there than those birds can number. No matter, Jean-Claude, we will beat them, provided everyone puts his shoulder to the wheel. Hexe-Baizel, light the lantern; I will show Hullin our stores of powder and shot."
Hexe-Baizel, at this information, could not restrain a grimace.
"No one, for twenty years," said she, "has ever entered the cave. He can surely believe us on our word. We take his word that he is going to pay us. I shall not light the lantern, no!"
Marc, without a word, stretched out his hand, and seized a thick cudgel from the wood pile close by; then the old woman, bristling with rage, disappeared into the inner hole like a ferret, and came a few seconds after with a great horn lantern, which Divès quietly lit at the blazing hearth.
"Baizel," said the smuggler, replacing the stick in the corner, "you should know that Jean-Claude is the old friend of my childhood, and that I put a deal more trust in him than in you, old polecat; for if you were not afraid of being hung the same day as me, I should have dangled at the end of a rope long ago. Come, Hullin, follow me."
They went out, and the smuggler, turning to the left, went straight towards the gap which was yawning on the very edge of the Valtin, at the height of two hundred feet in the air. He put aside the foliage of a small oak growing up from below, strode over it, and disappeared as if suddenly launched into the abyss below. Jean-Claude shuddered; but almost immediately afterwards he saw, against the ledge of the rock, the head of Divès, who called to him: