"Well," said she, "prepare the table; everybody is waiting over there. Come, Katel, go and lay the cloth." The girl went running out to do so. They all crossed the dark yard and made their way toward the large room. Doctor Lorquin, Dubois, Marc Divès, Materne, and his two boys, all very hungry, were awaiting the soup impatiently. "How about our wounded, doctor?" said Hullin, on entering. "They have all been attended to, Master Jean-Claude. You have given us plenty of work to do; but the weather is favorable; there is nothing to fear from putrid fevers; things wear a pleasant aspect." Katel, Lesselé, and Louise soon came in bearing an immense tureen of smoking soup and two sirloins of roast beef, which they deposited on the table. They all sat down without ceremony--old Materne to the right of Jean-Claude, Catherine Lefèvre to the left; and from that time the clatter of spoons and forks and the gurgling of the bottles took the place of conversation till half-past eight in the evening. The glow which might be seen from the outside upon the windows, proved that the volunteers were doing justice to Louise's cookery, which contributed greatly to the enjoyment of her guests. At nine o'clock Marc Divès was on his way to Falkenstein with the prisoners. At ten everybody was asleep at the farm, on the plateau, and around the watchfires. The silence was only broken by the passing of the patrols and the challenge of the sentinels. Thus terminated, this great day, after the mountaineers had proved that they had not degenerated from their ancestors. Other events, not less important, were soon to succeed those which had already taken place: for in this world, when one obstacle is surmounted, others present themselves. Human life resembles a restless sea: one wave follows another from the old world to the new, and nothing arrests its ever-lasting movement. CHAPTER XVIII THE CAVE OF LUITPRANDT All through the battle, till the close of night, the good people of Grandfontaine had observed the poor crazy Yégof standing upon the crest of the Little Donon, and, his crown on his head, with his sceptre held aloft, like a Merovingian king, shouting commands to his phantom armies. What passed through his mind when he saw the utter rout of the Germans no one can say; but at the last cannon-shot he disappeared. Where did he betake himself? On this point the people of Tiefenbach have the following story:--