"Catherine, it is in vain I have known you so long," cried Jean-Claude, quite touched; "you are always astonishing me. No sacrifice is too great for you, neither money, care, nor trouble." "Ah," replied the old farm-wife, rising and springing from her cart, "you tease and worry me, Jean-Claude. I am going to warm myself." She gave Dubourg the reins of her horse, and looking back, said, "Jean-Claude, those fires are a pleasure to behold. But where is Louise?" "Louise spent the night cutting and sewing bandages with Pelsly's two daughters. She is at the ambulance: over there you see, where the light is shining." "Poor child!" said Catherine, "I will go and help her. That will warm me." Hullin watched her retreating figure, and made a gesture, as though saying, "What a woman!" At this moment, Divès and his people were carrying the powder into the shed, and as Jean-Claude approached the nearest fire, what was his surprise to see, among the crowd of partisans, Yégof the madman, crowned as usual, gravely seated on a stone, with his feet in the ashes, and draped in his rags as though they were a royal mantle. Anything more strange than this figure by the fire-light could not be imagined. Yégof was the only one awake of the crowd, and might readily have been taken for some barbarian king musing in the midst of his sleeping horde. Hullin only saw in him a madman, and laying his hand softly on his shoulder, said, ironically: "I salute thee, Yégof! Thou art come, then, to lend us the help of thy invincible arm and of thy countless armies?" The madman, without showing the least surprise, replied: "That depends on thee, Hullin; thy fate, and that of all these people, is in thy hands. I have suspended my anger, and I will allow thee to pronounce sentence." "What sentence?" demanded Jean-Claude. The other, without replying, continued, in a low solemn voice: "Behold us two on the eve of a great battle, as we were sixteen hundred years ago. At that time, I, the chief of so many people, came among thy tribe to ask a passage." "Sixteen hundred years ago!" said Hullin. "Zounds! Yégof, that makes us terribly old! But it is of no consequence--each to his taste." "Yes," rejoined the madman, "but, with thy usual obstinacy, thou wouldst hear nothing. Men died on the Blutfeld--men who now call for vengeance!" "Ah, the Blutfeld!" said Jean-Claude. "Yes, yes, an old story; I seem to have heard it before." Yégof reddened, and his eyes sparkled. "Thou pridest thyself on thy victory!" cried he; "but take care--take care! blood calls for blood!" And in a calmer tone, "Listen," he added. "I am not angry with thee. Thou art brave; the children of thy race might mingle with those of mine. I am anxious for an alliance with thee--thou knowest it." "There, he is going to begin about Louise," thought Jean-Claude. And, foreseeing a formal demand, he said: "Yégof, I am sorry, but I must leave thee. I have so much to see after----"