Everybody being ready, the smugglers led the wagon, which contained some thousands of cartridges and two small kegs of brandy, about three hundred yards off, to the middle of the valley, and then unharnessed the horses. "Go forward!" shouted Marc; "we will rejoin you in a few minutes." "But what art thou going to do with the cart?" said Frantz. "Since we have no time to take it to the Falkenstein, it had better be left under Cuny's shed than in the road." "Yes, to get the poor old man hanged, when the Cossacks arrive, for they will be here in less than an hour. Do not trouble thyself; I have my own idea." Frantz rejoined the sledge, which went on its way. In a short time they passed by the saw-works of the Marquis and turned sharp to the right, to reach the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, whose tall chimneys could be perceived three-quarters of a league distant on the plateau. They were on the hill-side when Marc Divès and his men overtook them, shouting: "Halt! Stop a bit! Look down there!" And, looking down into the gorge, they saw the Cossacks capering round the wagon--about three hundred of them. "They are coming! Let us fly!" cried Louise. "Wait a bit," said the smuggler. "We have nothing to fear." He was still speaking, when an immense sheet of flame sped out from one mountain to the other, illuminating the woods, rocks, and the little house of the forester fifteen hundred yards below; then there was a report so terrible that the earth seemed to tremble. While those near him gazed in bewilderment and dumb terror at each other, Marc's bursts of laughter reached their ears, in spite of the din. "Ha, ha, ha!" shouted he, "I was sure the rogues would stop round the wagon, to drink up my brandy. I knew the match would have just time to reach the powder!" "Do you think they will pursue us?" "Their arms and legs are now hanging from the branches of the pine-trees! Come along! And may heaven grant the same fate to all those who have now crossed the Rhine!" The whole escort, the partisans, the doctor, all had grown silent: so many terrible emotions had filled them with endless thoughts such as do not fall within the experience of every-day life. They said to themselves: "What are men that they destroy, harass, and ruin each other in this manner? Why do they hate each other so? And what spirit of evil is it that thus excites them?" But Divès and his men were not at all troubled by these events: they galloped along, laughing and boasting.