"Fortunate! Ah! I believe you. It is not more than ten minutes since I arrived with my ammunition waggon at Cuny's house. 'Don't go to the Donon,' said he to me; 'for the last hour the sky has been all red on that side. There is fighting going on there, you may be sure.' 'You think so?' 'Yes, I do indeed.' 'Then Joson shall go out and look about and see how the land lays.' 'Good.' Joson had no sooner gone than I hear shouts like five hundred devils. 'What's the matter, Cuny?' 'Can't say.' We push the door open, and we see the hurly-burly. Ha!" continued the tall smuggler, "it did not take me long to be among them. I leap on my good horse, Fox, and then forward. What a piece of luck!" "Ah!" said Catherine, "if we were only sure that our affairs were going as well as the Donon, we might rejoice in good earnest." "Yes, yes, Frantz told me all about that--that's the devil; there must be always some hitch," replied Marc. "In short--in short, we are still stuck fast here, with our feet in the snow. Let us hope that Piorette will not leave his comrades long in that plight, and now let us empty our glasses, which are still half full." Other smugglers had just arrived, saying that that wretch of a Yégof might be back soon, with a lot more of his own sort at his back. "That is true," replied Divès. "We will return to the Falkenstein, since that is Jean-Claude's order; but we cannot take our waggon with us; it would prevent our taking the cross-roads, and, in an hour, all those bandits would be down on us tooth and nail. Let us go, in the first place, back to Cuny's; Catherine and Louise will not be sorry to drink a cup of wine, nor the others either; it will warm their hearts for them. Come up, Bruno!" He took the horse by the bridle. Two wounded men had just been laid on the sleigh. Two others having been killed, with seven or eight Cossacks lying dead upon the snow, their large boots wide apart, were obliged to be abandoned, and they proceeded directly towards the house of the old ranger. Frantz was consoling himself for not having been at the Donon. He had run two Cossacks through, and the sight of the inn besides tended to put him into good humour. In front of the door the ammunition waggon was stationed. Cuny came out to meet them, exclaiming: "Welcome, Dame Lefévre; what a night for women! Sit down! What is going on up above there?" Whilst they were hastily draining a bottle, he was obliged to have everything explained to him over again. The good old man, dressed in a simple jerkin and green breeches, with his wrinkled face and bald head, listened eagerly, his eyes quite round with surprise, his hands clasped as he exclaimed: "Good God! good God! what times we live in! Now-a-days you cannot go along the high road without the risk of being attacked. It is worse than the old stories of the Swedes." And he shook his head. "Come," cried Divès, "time presses; let us be going!"