The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (130 page)

“I have already told you that he is asleep. He returned home late yesterday. My husband must sleep, don’t you hear?”

“I hear very well, dear Hexe-Baizel; but I have no time to wait.”

“Then go away!”

“Go away? It is easy said; only I won’t go away. I did not walk three miles, to turn back with my hands in my pockets.”

“Is it thou, Hullin?” interrupted a brusque voice coming from the neighboring cavern.

“Yes, Marc.”

“Ah! I’m coming.”

The sound of straw in motion could be heard; then the wooden barrier was withdrawn; and a huge frame, three feet broad from one shoulder to the other, wiry, bony, with neck and ears brick-color, and thick brown hair, appeared in the doorway, and Marc Divès drew himself up before Hullin, yawning and stretching his long arms with a short sigh.

At first sight, the physiognomy of Marc Divès seemed peaceable enough: his low broad forehead, bare temples, short curly hair coming down in a point almost to the eyebrows, his straight nose and long chin—above all the quiet expression in his brown eyes—would have caused him to be classed among the ruminating rather than the wilder animals; but one would have been wrong in thinking so. Certain rumors were prevalent in the country that Marc Divès, when attacked by the custom-house people, had never any hesitation to use his axe or carbine to decide the dispute; to him were attributed several serious accidents which had happened to the fiscal agents; but proofs were completely wanting. The smuggler, owing to his thorough knowledge of all the mountain defiles and by-roads from Dagsburg to Sarrbrück, and from Raon-l’Etape to Bâle in Switzerland, was always fifteen leagues from any place where a wicked action had been committed. And then he had such an ingenuous look! and those who connected him with sinister tales generally finished badly: which clearly shows the justice with which Providence sways the world.

“Faith, Hullin,” said Marc, after having left his lair, “I was thinking of thee yesterday evening, and if thou hadst not appeared, I should have gone expressly to the saw-mills of Valtin to meet thee. Sit down! Hexe-Baizel, give a chair to Hullin!”

Then he placed himself on the hearth, his back to the fire, in front of the open door, which was raked by all the winds of Alsace and Switzerland.

Through this opening there was a magnificent view: it might be compared to a picture framed in the rock—an enormous picture, embracing the whole valley of the Rhine, and the mountains beyond, which melted away in the mist. And then one could breathe so freely! and the little fire, which glimmered in the owl’s-nest, was a place to look on, with its red light, after one had gazed into the azure expanse.

“Marc,” said Hullin, after a short pause, “may I speak before thy wife?”

“We are as one, she and I.”

“Well, Marc, I am come to buy powder and lead of thee.”

“To kill hares, is it not so?” observed the smuggler, winking.

“No, to fight against the Germans and Russians.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“And thou wilt want much powder and lead?”

“All that thou canst supply.”

“I can supply as much as three thousand francs’ worth to-day,” said the smuggler.

“Then I’ll take it.”

“And as much more in a week,” added Marc, with the same calm manner and eager look.

“I take that also.”

“You will take it!” cried Hexe-Baizel. “You will take it! I should think so! But who is to pay?”

“Hold thy tongue!” said Marc, roughly, “Hullin takes it: and his word is enough for me.” And holding out his large hand cordially: “Jean-Claude, here is my hand: the powder and lead are thine: but I must have my price, dost thou understand?”

“Yes, Marc: only I intend paying thee at once.”

“He will pay, Hexe-Baizel, dost thou hear?”

“Eh, I am not deaf, Baizel. Go and find a bottle of ‘brimbelle-wasse’ for us, so that we may warm our hearts a little. What Hullin tells me rejoices me. These rascally ‘kaiserlichs’ will not have the easy game against us that I thought. It appears that we are going to defend ourselves, and right well.”

“Yes, right well!”

“And there are people who can pay?”

“Catherine Lefèvre pays, and she it is who sends me,” said Hullin.

Then Marc Divès rose, and in a solemn tone, and pointing toward the precipice, exclaimed, “She is a woman indeed—a woman as grand as that rock down there, the Oxenstein, the greatest I have ever seen in my life. I drink to her health. Drink also, Jean-Claude.”

Hullin drank, then Hexe-Baizel.

“Now everything has been said,” continued Divès; “but listen, Hullin. Do not believe that it will be an easy matter to check the enemy: all the hunters, all the sawyers, all the wood-cutters and carriers on the mountains will not be too many. I come from the other side of the Rhine. They are so many—those Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians, Cossacks, and Hussars—they are so many, that the earth is black with them. The villages cannot hold them: they camp on the plains, in the valleys, on the hills, in the towns, in the open air—they are to be found everywhere.”

At that moment a shrill cry was heard.

“It is a buzzard chasing something,” said Marc, stopping.

But just then a shadow came over the rock. A cloud of chaffinches cleared the abyss, and hundreds of buzzards and hawks fought above them in their rapid flight, uttering loud screams to terrify their prey, while the mass seemed stationary, so dense was it. The regular movement of these thousands of wings produced, in the silence, a sound like that of dead leaves blown in the wind.

“That is the departure of the chaffinches of the Ardennes,” said Hullin.

“Yes, it is the last passage: the beech-nuts are buried under the snow, and the seeds also. Well, then, look! there are more men over there than birds in this pass. All the same, Jean-Claude, we will get over them, so long as every one bears a hand in it! Hexe-Baizel, light the lantern: I am going to show Hullin our supplies of powder and lead.”

Hexe-Baizel made a face at this proposition. “For twenty years,” said she, “no one has gone into the cave. He can surely believe our word. We believe, for our part, that he will pay us. I will not light the lantern—no, indeed!”

Marc, without saying anything, put out his hand and caught up a cudgel from the pile of wood; thereupon the old woman darted into the nearest hole like a weasel, and, two seconds later, came out with a big horn lantern, which Divès quietly lit at the fire on the hearth.

“Baizel,” said he, replacing the stick in its corner, “thou must know that Jean-Claude is an old friend of my childhood, and that I confide much more in him than in thee, old wench; for wert thou not afraid of being hanged the same day as myself, I should long ago have been swinging to a rope’s end. Come, Hullin, follow me.”

They went out, and the smuggler, turning to the left, walked straight toward the chasm, which projected over the Valtin two hundred feet in the air. He pushed aside the branches of a little oak, which had its roots down below, put forth his leg, and disappeared as though pitched into the abyss. Jean-Claude shuddered, but directly after he saw, against the side of the rock, the head of Divès, who called to him, “Hullin, put out thy hand to the left—there is a hole. Stretch thy leg out boldly—thou wilt feel a step, and then turn around.”

Master Jean-Claude obeyed, with some trepidation. He could feel the hole in the rock, he found the step, and turning slightly, was face to face with his comrade in a sort of arched niche, evidently abutting on a sally-port in times past. At the end of the niche there was a low vault.

“How the devil didst thou discover that?” exclaimed Hullin, much astonished.

“In seeking after nests thirty-five years ago. I was one day on the rock, and I had often observed flying from there a horned-owl and its mate, two splendid birds: their heads were the size of my fists, and the wings six feet broad. I could hear their young calling, and I said to myself, ‘They are near the cavern, at the end of the terrace. If I could get round a little beyond the chasm I should have them! By dint of looking and bending over, I perceived at last a corner of the step above the precipice. There was a strong holly-bush at one side. I caught hold of it, put out my leg, and, faith, I found myself here. What a fight, Hullin! The old birds wanted to tear out my eyes. Luckily, it was broad daylight. They went at me like cocks, opened their beaks and hissed, but the sun dazzled them. I kicked them. Finally, they fell on to the top of an old pine-tree down there, and all the jays in the country, the thrushes, chaffinches and tom-tits, flew about them till nightfall, plucking out their feathers. Thou canst not imagine, Jean-Claude, the quantity of bones, rat-skins, leverets, and carrion of all sorts that they had heaped up in this niche. It was pestilential. I threw it all into the Jägerthal, and I discovered this passage. But I must also tell thee that there were two young ones. I twisted their necks and poked them into my bag. Afterward, I quietly entered, and thou shalt see what I found. Come!”

They slipped under the narrow archway, formed of enormous red stones, where the light threw only a flickering glimmer.

Thirty paces farther on, a vast circular cave, low in the middle, and formed in the rock itself, appeared to Hullin. About fifty little casks were arranged at the bottom in shape of pyramids, and, at the sides, a large number of ingots of lead and bales of tobacco, which filled the air with its smell. Marc deposited his lantern at the entrance of the vault, and regarded his hiding-place with gratification and a smile upon his lips.

“That is what I discovered,” said he; “the cave was empty, only in the centre of it was the carcass of an animal, snowy white,—no doubt some fox, dead of old age. The rascal had known of the passage before I had. He slept safely here. Who on earth would have dreamed of pursuing him? In those days, Hullin, I was twelve years old. I immediately thought that this place might one day be of use to me. I did not know then what use. But, later on, when I had begun my first attempts at smuggling—at Landau, Kehl, Bâle—with Jacob Zimmer, and during two winters all the custom-house people were after us, the idea of my old cavern began to haunt me from morning till evening. I had made the acquaintance of Hexe-Baizel, who was then one of the farm-servants at Bois-de-Chênes with Catherine’s father. She brought me twenty-five louis as marriage-portion, and we settled ourselves in the cavern of the Arbousiers.”

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.

“Poor devil!” said Hullin, gravely; “he has come to walk about his castle, his bare feet on the ice, and a tin crown on his head! But look! he is speaking: he is giving orders to his courtiers; he points with his sceptre to the north and to the south—all belongs to him; he is master of the heavens and earth! Poor devil! merely to see him in those trousers of his, with his dog-skin on his back, makes me cold all over.”