Judge of the emotion of Louise and Catherine, seated on their sleigh in the middle of the road. They looked at each other in open-mouthed surprise. Another moment, and they would be in the midst of those bandits. The mountaineers seemed stupefied; it was impossible to return: on one side the meadow slope to descend, on the other the mountain to climb. The old farm-mistress, in her distress, took Louise by the arm, exclaiming: "Let us escape into the woods!" She attempted to get out of the sleigh, but her shoe stuck fast in the straw. Suddenly one of the Cossacks uttered a guttural exclamation, which ran through the whole line. "We are discovered!" cried Doctor Lorquin, drawing his sword. He had hardly said the word when a dozen shots lit up the path from one end to the other, and a regular howling of savages replied to the volley; the Cossacks crossed from the path into the meadow opposite, their reins hanging loosely, knees squared, urging their horses to their utmost speed, and making for the keeper's house with the fleetness of stags. "Ha! they must be riding to the devil!" cried the doctor. But the worthy man spoke too soon; at two or three hundred paces down in the valley, the Cossacks suddenly wheeled round, like a flock of starlings describing a circle--then, with poised lance, and nose bent down between their horses' ears, they galloped furiously right down upon the mountaineers, uttering their hoarse war-cry: "Hurrah! hurrah!" It was a terrible moment! Frantz and the others flung themselves on the wall to cover the sledge. Two seconds after, nothing was heard but the clashing of lances and bayonets, cries of rage answering to imprecations; nothing seen under the shadow of the old oak, through whose branches some pale rays of light still glimmered, but horses rearing on their hind legs, wildly tossing their manes, madly striving to leap over the meadow wall, and above, veritably savage faces, with gleaming eyes, uplifted arms, hurling furious blows, advancing, retreating, and uttering wild shouts fit to make the hair stand erect upon your head. Louise, as pale as death, and the old farm-mistress, with her long thin gray locks, were standing up in the straw. Doctor Lorquin stood before them, parrying the blows with his sword, and all the while he was warding them off he kept shouting: "Lie down! Death and destruction! keep down, will you?" But they did not hear him.