"Like it! I would not change it for the finest house in Strasbourg. For twenty-three years have I kept my goods here--sugar, coffee, powder, tobacco, brandy--and no one the wiser. I have eight horses always on the road."
"Enjoy nothing! Think you there is no pleasure in mocking and outwitting the police--in defying the shrewd officials of the custom-house? And, besides, the people all love you; you sell at half-price; you are the benefactor of the poor."
"Bah! What revenue officer would dare come here?"
"I believe you," muttered Hullin, as he thought that he must again brave the precipice.
"But I am used to it," continued the smuggler, "although, when I first made my way hither with a cask on my shoulder, my heart fluttered as it had not for many a day before."
He took up the lantern and held it so that the light might fall upon the heaps of kegs.
"It is fine English powder," said he; "it rolls like grains of silver in your hand, and is strong as fate. A little goes a long way; a thimbleful is enough for a charge. And there is lead that Europe cannot beat. This evening, Hexe-Baizel shall run some into balls. She knows how, as you shall see."
They turned to leave the cavern, when suddenly a confused noise of voices was borne upon the air. Marc instantly blew out the lantern, and the two men were in a moment plunged in darkness.
"There is some one above," whispered the smuggler. "Who in the fiend's name could have climbed Falkenstein in the snow?"
They listened breathlessly, their eyes fixed upon a ray of pale-blue light which descended through a narrow fissure in the top of the cave. Around this opening hung glittering spars of frost; above it could be seen the crest of a ruined wall. While they gazed thus in profound silence, a head shaggy with disordered hair, a glittering circlet binding the brow, the face long and ending in a pointed red beard--all sharply outlined against the white wintry sky--became visible.
"It is the King of Diamonds!" cried Marc, laughing.
"Poor wretch," murmured Hullin; "he is making a progress to his castles, his bare feet upon the frozen ground, and his tin crown protecting his head from the cold. Look, Dives, he is giving orders to the knights of his court; he stretches his sceptre north and south--all is his. Poor wretch, he makes me shiver to see him with nothing but his dog-skin robe around him."