"You will know by and by," I replied. I went to Schweyer's. He had two large saddle-pistols, which he put quickly into his apron-belt with the axe; his two boys, Nickel and Frantz, took the ladder and ropes, and we ran to the French gate. The sergeant was not yet there; but two minutes after he came running down the street by the rampart with thirty veterans in file, their muskets on their shoulders. The officer guarding the postern had only to see the order to let us go out, and a few minutes after we were in the trenches behind the hospital, where the sergeant ranged his men. "It is cognac!" he told them; "twenty-four pipes of cognac! So, comrades, attention! The garrison is without brandy; those who do not like brandy have only to fall to the rear." But they all wanted to be in front, and laughed in anticipation. We went up the stairway, and were ranged in order in the covered ways. It might have been five o'clock. Looking from the top of the glacis we could see the broad meadow of Eichmatt, and above it the hills of Mittelbronn covered with snow. The sky was full of clouds, and night was coming on. It was very cold. "Forward!" said the sergeant. And we gained the highway. The veterans ran, in two files, at the right and left, their backs rounded, and their muskets in their shoulder-belts; the snow was up to their knees. Schweyer, his two boys, and I walked behind. At the end of a quarter of an hour, the veterans, who ran all the way, had left us far behind; we heard for some time their cartridge-boxes rattling, but soon this sound was lost in the distance, and then we heard the dog of the Trois-Maisons barking in his chain. The deep silence of the night gave me a chance to think. If it had not been for the thought of my spirits of wine, I would have gone straight back to Phalsburg, but fortunately that thought prevailed, and I said: "Make haste, Schweyer, make haste!" "Make haste!" he exclaimed angrily, "you can make haste to get back your spirits of wine, but what do we care for it? Is the highway the place for us? Are we bandits that we should risk our lives?" I understood at once that he wanted to escape, and was enraged. "Take care, Schweyer," said I, "take care! If you and your boys go back, people will say that you have been a traitor to the city brandy, and that is worse than being a traitor to the flag, especially in a cooper." "The devil take thee!" said he, "we ought never to have come." However, he kept on ascending the hill with me. Nickel and Frantz followed us without hurrying. When we reached the plateau we saw lights in the village. All was still and seemed quiet, although there was a great crowd around the two first houses. The door of the _Bunch of Grapes_ was wide open, and its kitchen fire shone through the passage to the street where my two wagons stood.