But judge of his surprise when, on issuing from it, he saw the fool Yégof appear at the turn of the footpath, and come straight towards him in the bright moonlight. The honest man immediately remembered the terrible story told in the kitchen of Bois-de-Chênes, and he felt afraid; but quite another feeling came over him when behind the fool, at fifteen or twenty paces, he beheld, stealthily approaching in their turn, five grey wolves, two big and three smaller ones. At first he took them for dogs, but they were wolves. They followed Yégof step by step, and he did not appear to see them; his raven hovered overhead, flitting from the full moonlight to the shadow of the rocks, and then returning; the wolves, with flaming eyes, their sharp muzzles turned up, were sniffing the air; the fool raised his sceptre. The shepherd pulled to the door of the shed as quick as lightning, but Yégof did not see him. He advanced into the gorge as into a spacious audience-chamber; to the right and left rose the steep rocks, far above which myriads of stars were shining. You might have heard a fly move; the wolves trod the ground noiselessly; not a sound was there, and the raven had just perched on the top of an old withered oak that grew upon one of the rocks opposite; his shining plumage looked still darker than usual, as he turned his head, and seemed to be listening. It was a strange sight. Robin said to himself:--"The fool sees nothing, hears nothing; they will devour him. If he stumbles, if his foot slips, it is all over with him." But in the middle of the gorge, Yégof, having turned round, sat down upon a stone, and the five wolves, all round him, still sniffing the air, squatted on their haunches in the snow. And then, a really terrible sight, the fool raising his sceptre, addressed a speech to them, calling them each by their names. The wolves answered him with dismal howls. Now this is what he said to them:--"Hé! Child, Bléed, Merweg, and thou, Sirimar, my ancient, we are met together, then, once again! You have come back fat. There has been good cheer in Germany, eh?" Then, pointing to the snow-covered gorge:--"You remember the great battle?" First one of the wolves began to howl slowly in a dismal voice, then another, then all the five together. This lasted a good ten minutes. The raven, perched on the withered branch, did not stir. Robin would gladly have fled. He put up his prayers, invoked all the saints, and, in particular, his own patron, for whom all the shepherds of the mountain have the highest veneration. But the wolves still continued to utter their dismal howlings, awakening all the echoes of the Blutfeld.