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.
"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?"
"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."
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.
An unusual agitation reigned along the entire line of the Vosges; rumors of the coming invasion spread from village to village. Pedlars, wagoners, tinkers, all that wandering population which is constantly floating from mountain to plain, from plain to mountain, brought each day budgets of strange news from Alsace and the banks of the Rhine. They said that every town was being put in a state of defence; that the roads to Metz, to Nancy, Huningue, and Strasbourg, were black with army and provision wagons. On every side were to be seen caissons of powder, shells, and shot, and cavalry, infantry, and artillery hurrying to their posts. Marshal Victor, with twelve thousand men, yet held the Saverne road, but the draw-bridges of all the fortified towns were raised from seven in the evening until eight in the morning.