Divès paused; and Hullin, who had become very thoughtful, asked him,--"This hole, then, pleases thee much, Marc?" "Pleases me! Why, I would not go and live in the most beautiful house in Strasbourg for two thousand pounds a year. For twenty-three years I have here hidden my wares: sugar, coffee, powder, tobacco, brandy--everything goes in here. I have eight horses always travelling." "But thou hast no happiness." "I have no happiness! Dost thou think it is nothing to laugh at the gendarmes, excisemen, custom-house people; to enrage them, to outdo them, to hear on all sides, 'That rascally Marc--isn't he a sharp one! How he manages his business! He can do as he likes with the law and its agents,' and this and that. Hé! hé! hé! I can tell thee, I can, that it is the greatest pleasure in the world. And then the people like it: they get everything half price; one helps the poor, and keeps himself warm and well-off." "Yes, but what dangers!" "Bah! a customs'-guard would never think of crossing the chasm." "I should suppose not," thought Hullin, remembering that he must cross the precipice again. "At the same time thou art not altogether wrong, Jean-Claude. When I first had to enter this place with those little barrels on my back, I streamed with perspiration; now I am accustomed to it." "And if thy foot slipped?" "There would be an end of me! I would as soon die, spiked on a pine, as to cough weeks and months on a mattress." Divès then shed the light of his lantern on the piles of kegs reaching to the top of the vault. "It is the finest English powder," said he; "it runs like silver grains in the hand, and fires like Old Nick. No need to use much of it--a thimbleful is enough. And here is lead, unmixed with tin. From this very evening, Hexe-Baizel shall begin casting balls. She knows all about it, thou wilt see." They were beginning to return by the path leading to the chasm, when suddenly a confused murmur of words began to fill the air. Marc blew out his lantern, and they stopped still in the darkness. "Some one is walking up there," the smuggler softly said. "Who on earth has been able to climb up the Falkenstein in such snow?" They listened, holding their breath, and their eyes fixed on the ray of bluish light which came down through a small chink into the cavern. Around the cleft grew a few shrubs, sparkling with frost; above, could be perceived the ridge of an old wall. While they were watching, keeping profound silence, there appeared at the foot of the wall a large shaggy head bound round with a shining circle, a long face, then a pointed red beard,--the whole standing out in curious relief against the white winter sky. "It is 'The King of Diamonds,'" observed Marc, laughing.