"Yes; it is their last passage. The earth is covered with snow, and the seed lies buried in its bosom. Well, look now; there are more men down below there than those birds can number. No matter, Jean-Claude, we will beat them, provided everyone puts his shoulder to the wheel. Hexe-Baizel, light the lantern; I will show Hullin our stores of powder and shot." Hexe-Baizel, at this information, could not restrain a grimace. "No one, for twenty years," said she, "has ever entered the cave. He can surely believe us on our word. We take his word that he is going to pay us. I shall not light the lantern, no!" Marc, without a word, stretched out his hand, and seized a thick cudgel from the wood pile close by; then the old woman, bristling with rage, disappeared into the inner hole like a ferret, and came a few seconds after with a great horn lantern, which Divès quietly lit at the blazing hearth. "Baizel," said the smuggler, replacing the stick in the corner, "you should know that Jean-Claude is the old friend of my childhood, and that I put a deal more trust in him than in you, old polecat; for if you were not afraid of being hung the same day as me, I should have dangled at the end of a rope long ago. Come, Hullin, follow me." They went out, and the smuggler, turning to the left, went straight towards the gap which was yawning on the very edge of the Valtin, at the height of two hundred feet in the air. He put aside the foliage of a small oak growing up from below, strode over it, and disappeared as if suddenly launched into the abyss below. Jean-Claude shuddered; but almost immediately afterwards he saw, against the ledge of the rock, the head of Divès, who called to him: "Hullin, place your hand to the left, you will find a hole; put your foot out boldly, you will feel a step, and then turn upon your heel." Master Jean-Claude obeyed, not without trembling; he felt the hole in the rock, he encountered the step, and taking a half-turn, he found himself face to face with his companion, in a sort of arched niche, abutting formerly, no doubt, on some postern gate. At the bottom of the niche was a low vault. "How on earth did you discover that?" exclaimed Hullin, quite thunderstruck.