And while she was standing there for a few moments, all of a sudden a hum of voices struck upon her ear; she turned, and saw Hullin with the three smugglers, who were conversing gravely together on the other side of the plateau. They had not perceived her, and seemed engaged in a serious discussion. Old Brenn, standing on the edge of the rock, with the blackened stump of a pipe between his teeth, his cheek wrinkled like an old cabbage-leaf, his round nose, gray moustache, flabby eyelid drooping over his blood-shot eye, and the long sleeves of his gaberdine falling by his side, was looking at the different points which Hullin was showing him on the mountain; and the two others, wrapped in their long gray cloaks, were pacing to and fro, shading their brows with their hands, and seeming absorbed in profound attention. Catherine drew near, and soon she heard: "Then you do not believe it will be possible to descend on either side?" "No, Jean-Claude, there is no way," replied Brenn, "those brigands know the country, every inch of it; all the paths are guarded. See, look at the deer pasture all along that pond; the preventive officers never had a thought of even noticing it; well, the Allies are defending it. And, below there, the passage of the Rothstein, a regular goat-walk, which you never pass above once in ten years--you can see the glitter of a bayonet behind the rock, can you not? And that other here, where I have carried on my little game for eight years without ever meeting a gendarme--they are holding that too. The very devil himself must have shown them the defiles." "Yes!" exclaimed the tall Toubac, "and if it is not the devil who has put his foot in it, it must, at least, be Yégof." "But," replied Hullin, "it seems to me as if three or four firm determined men might carry one of those outposts." "No, they are supported one by the other; at the first report of a gun, you would have a regiment upon your back," replied Brenn. "Besides, supposing we should have a chance of passing, how should we return with provisions? For my part, this is my opinion: The thing is impossible!" There was a silence of some moments. "But still," said Toubac, "if Hullin wishes it, we will try, all the same." "We will try what?" said Brenn, "to break our backs in trying to escape ourselves, and leave the others in the net. It's all the same to me; if the rest go--I go! But as to saying that we shall return with provisions, I maintain that it's impossible. Let us see, Toubac, by which way would you pass, and by which way would you return? It's no use in this case promising; you must perform. If you know a passage, tell it me. For twenty years I have beaten the mountain with Marc, and I know every road, every path within ten leagues from here, and I do not see any other passage than in heaven!" Hullin turned round at this moment and saw Dame Lefévre, who was standing a few paces off, and listening attentively.