To get a good idea of this terrible scene, you must imagine the crowd on the plateau of Minières. The cries, the neighings of horses, the flight of some, who threw down their arms in order to run the faster, the desperation of others;--beyond the ravine, the ladders covered with white uniforms and bristling with bayonets; the mountaineers above the escarpment defending themselves with obstinacy; the hill-sides, the road, and, above all, the space outside the breastworks, encumbered with dead and wounded;--the great numbers of the enemy, their muskets over their shoulders and their officers in the midst of them, pressing forward into action; and, finally, Materne standing on the crest of the hill, his bayonet in the air, his mouth opened wide, shouting wildly to his son Frantz, who was advancing with his troop, Master Jean-Claude at their head, to aid the mountaineers. You should have heard the fusillade, the platoon and file firing, and, above all, the distant confused shouts, intermixed with sharp wails dying away among the mountain echoes. To gain a good idea of the scene, you should imagine all these as concentrated into one moment and surveyed with a rapid glance. But Divès was not of a contemplative turn: he lost no time in making poetical reflections on the uproar and savagery of the battle. With one look he had taken in the whole situation; so, springing from his horse, he went up to the first gun, which was still loaded, aimed it at the ladders, and fired. Then there arose wild clamors, and the smuggler, peering through the smoke, saw that fearful havoc had been made in the enemy's ranks. He waved his hands in sign of triumph, and the mountaineers on the breastworks answered with a general hurrah. "Now then, dismount," said he to his men, "and don't go to sleep. A cartridge, a ball, and some turf. We will sweep the road. Look out!" The smugglers put themselves in position, and continued to fire with enthusiasm upon the white coats. The bullets rained into their ranks. At the tenth discharge there was a general _sauve-qui-peut_. "Fire! fire!" shouted Marc. And the partisans, now supported by Frantz's troop, regained, under Hullin's directions, the positions which they had for the moment lost. The whole of the hill-side was soon covered with dead and wounded. It was then four in the evening; night was approaching. The last ball fell into the street of Grandfontaine, and rebounding on the angle of the pavement, knocked down the chimney of the "Red Ox." About six hundred men perished that day: there were, of course, many mountaineers among them, but the greater number were "kaiserlichs." Had it not been for the fire of Marc Divès's cannon, all would have been lost; the partisans were not one against ten, and the enemy had already begun to gain on the trenches. CHAPTER XVI PAINFUL SCENES