At the close of the nineteenth day, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, the weather was gloomy; large gray clouds rose behind the snowy summit of the Grosmann; the red sun, like a ball of fire, threw a few last rays into the misty horizon. The silence on the rock was unbroken. Louise no longer gave signs of life; Kasper and Frantz remained among the bushes immovable as stones; Catherine Lefèvre, crouching on the earth, her skinny arms clasped round her pointed knees, with hard, rigid features, her hair hanging over her clammy cheeks, looked like some old sibyl seated in the heather. She had ceased speaking. That evening, Hullin, Jérome, old Materne, and Doctor Lorquin gathered themselves around the old farm-mistress to die. They were silent, and the last rays of twilight fell upon the wretched group. To the right, behind a jutting rock, a few German watch-fires sparkled in the abyss. Suddenly the old dame, rousing from her dreams, began to murmur some unintelligible words. "Divès is coming," said she, in a low voice. "I see him. He goes out from the door to the right of the arsenal. Gaspard follows him, and----" Then she began to count. "Two hundred and fifty men," she exclaimed; "National Guards and soldiers. They cross the ditch; they mount behind the demilune. Gaspard is speaking with Marc. What does he say?" She appeared to listen. "Let us hurry!--yes, hurry! Time flies! There they are on the glacis!" There was a long pause; then the old woman suddenly arose, with outstretched arms and hair on end, and screamed aloud in a terrible voice:--"Courage! Kill, kill! Ah, ah!" And she fell down heavily. This fearful cry awoke them all; it would have aroused the dead. The besieged seemed born anew. Something was abroad. Was it hope, life, a spirit? I know not; but all rose up on their hands and knees, like wild beasts, holding their breath to hear. Louise even moved softly and lifted her head; Frantz and Kasper dragged themselves along; and, strange to say, Hullin, turning his eyes toward Phalsbourg, thought he saw through the darkness the flashes of a fusillade announcing a sortie. Catherine had resumed her first appearance; but her cheeks, before still and pale as those of a corpse, trembled now. The others listened as though their salvation hung on her lips. A quarter of an hour nearly had passed, when the old dame slowly recommenced:--"They have passed the enemy's lines; they are running toward Lutzelbourg. I see them! Gaspard and Divès are before, with Desmarets, Ulrich, Weber, and our friends of the town. They come! they come!"