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The combat was hardly over, when, toward eight o'clock, Marc Dives, Gaspard, and about thirty mountaineers, laden with provisions, ascended the Falkenstein. What a spectacle awaited them! The besieged, stretched on the earth, appeared to be dead. It seemed useless to shake them, to cry into their ears; "Jean-Claude! Catherine? Jerome! " There came no reply. Gaspard Lefevre, seeing his mother and Louise immovable, with clinched teeth, told Marc, that if they did not return to life, he would blow out his brains with his gun. Marc replied that each man must do as he liked; but for his part he should not do likewise on Hexe-Baizel's account. At length old Colon, having laid his burden down on a stone, Kasper Materne opened his eyes, and seeing the provisions, his teeth began to chatter like those of a fox pursued by the hounds.
They immediately understood the meaning of this symptom; and Marc Dives, going from one to the other, passed his gourd under their noses, which sufficed to bring them to. They wanted to drink its contents all up at once; but Doctor Lorquin, notwithstanding his condition, had still enough sense to warn Marc not to allow them to do so, and the slightest action of choking would be fatal to them. Each one, therefore, only received a morsel of bread, an egg, and a glass of wine, which wonderfully revived their spirits; then Catherine, Louise, and the others, were laid on sledges and were brought down to the village.