Half an hour after, it having grown dark, and the cold excessive, she lit a fire of brushwood, which threw a pale and flickering light over the blocks of red stone, to the very end of the cavern where Kateline was now sleeping, with her feet in the straw, and her knees up to her chin. Outside every sound had ceased. Wetterhexe pushed aside the bushes at the entrance, to cast a look upon the mountain-side; then she returned and squatted again beside the fire, her large mouth closely compressed, her flabby eyelids shut, forming large circular wrinkles round her cheeks, she drew over her knees an old woollen coverlet, and seemed to be taking a doze. Not a sound was to be heard, save at long intervals, the faint murmur of the condensed vapour falling back from the vault to the spring. This death-like silence lasted for about two hours; midnight was approaching, when, all at once, a distant sound of footsteps, mingled with discordant clamours, was heard on the mountain-side. Berbel listened; she recognised the sound of the human voice. Then rising, all of a tremble, and armed with her large thistle, she glided to the entrance of the rock, pushed the bushes aside, and saw, at the distance of fifty paces, the fool Yégof, advancing in the bright moonlight. Flourishing his sceptre in the air, he was calling upon his followers, and fighting and struggling as if he were in the thick of a battle. This fearful conflict with invisible beings struck Berbel with superstitious terror; she felt her hair stand on end, and would have fled and hid herself, but, at the same instant, a confused murmur caused her to turn suddenly round, and judge of her alarm when she saw the hot spring boiling more than usual, and clouds of steam rise from it, then detach themselves and move in floating masses towards the door. And whilst, like phantoms, these thick clouds were slowly advancing, Yégof appeared, exclaiming, in a sharp voice: "At last you are here. You have heard me!" Then, with a rapid gesture, he put aside every impediment: a rush of frosty air penetrated the cavern, and the vapours dispersed themselves over the spacious canopy of heaven, wreathing and twisting themselves over the rock as if the dead of that day, and those of centuries past, had renewed, in other spheres, the eternal combat. Yégof, his features livid and contracted beneath the moon's pale rays, his sceptre outstretched, his long beard descending to his breast, and his eyes flashing, saluted each imaginary phantom with a gesture, and called it by its name, saying: "Hail, Bled! hail, Roug! and all of you, my brave companions, hail! The hour you have waited for for centuries is near; the eagles are sharpening their beaks, the earth thirsts for blood; remember the Blutfeld!" Then Yégof abruptly entered the cavern, and crouched down near the spring, with his huge head between his hands, and his elbows on his knees, watching the bubbling of the water, with a wild and haggard eye.