"I can supply you to-day with three thousand francs' worth," said the smuggler. "I will take it." "And as much more in a week's time," added Marc, with the same calm tone and thoughtful eye. "I will take it." "You will take it!" exclaimed Hexe-Baizel; "you will take it! No doubt; but who's to pay for it?" "Be silent!" said Marc, in a harsh tone; "Hullin shall have it; his word is enough for me." Then, extending his huge hand, with a cordial expression:--"Jean-Claude, here is my hand; the powder and shot are yours; but I should like to have the spending of my share of them, you understand?" "Yes, Marc; and one thing more. I purpose paying you at once." "He is going to pay!" said Hexe-Baizel; "you hear?" "Yes; I'm not deaf! Baizel, go and fetch us a bottle of _brimbelle-wasser_; that'll warm our hearts a bit. I am rejoiced at what Hullin has just told me. Those beggars of _kaiserliks_ will not have it quite so much their own way as I thought. It seems we are going to defend ourselves, and with a good will." "Yes, with a right good will." "And there are those who will pay for it?" "It is Catherine Lefévre who will pay for it, and it is she who has sent me," said Hullin. Then Marc Divès rose, and in a solemn voice, and with his hand extended towards the summits of the steep mountains, he exclaimed:--"She is a woman as grand and as firm as that rock down below there, the Oxenstein, the largest I ever saw in my life. I drink to her health. Drink you, too, Jean-Claude." Hullin drank, as did also the old woman. "And now there is nothing more to be said," exclaimed Divès; "but, hark ye, Hullin; you must not fancy this will be an easy matter; all the hunters, all the _ségares_,[7] all the _schlitteurs_, all the woodcutters of the mountain, will not be too many for the work that is to be done. I have just come from the other side of the Rhine. There are Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians, Cossacks, Hussars. There are--why, the country swarms with them. They blacken the face of the land; they camp in the plains, in the valleys, on the heights, in the cities, in the open air, everywhere; they are everywhere." At this moment a sharp cry resounded through the air. "It is a buzzard on the wing," said Marc, interrupting himself. But at the same moment a dark shadow passed over the rock. A cloud of greenfinches flew over the abyss, and hundreds of buzzards and hawks were seen taking their rapid, angular flight overhead, uttering harsh cries to frighten their prey, while the whole seemed struggling together in a compact mass that looked motionless by reason of its density. The regular movement of these thousands of wings produced in the stillness a sound like that of dead leaves stirred by the north wind. "That is the flight of the greenfinches of Ardennes," said Hullin.