midnight
Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round in the gulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots , while the brown bear , followed by her shaggy family , who sport and tumble around her in the snow , slowly descends from their retreat invaded by the frost . But these are neither the most savage nor the most cruel inhabitants that winter brings into these mountains ; the daring smuggler raises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of nature and of politics . There unknown treaties , secret exchanges , are made between the two Navarres , amid fogs and winds . It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that , about two months after the scenes we have witnessed in Paris , two travellers , coming from Spain , stopped at midnight , fatigued and dismayed . They heard musket-shots in the mountain . `` The scoundrels ! how they have pursued us ! ''