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. {167} "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.