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第906页


  In short, he had been administering to himself little inward remonstrances and he feared Marius' reproaches.
  In order to extricate himself from the predicament, he took the simplest course; he lied abominably.
  "Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter.
  The lady was asleep. She will have the letter when she wakes up.
  Marius had had two objects in sending that letter:
  to bid farewell to Cosette and to save Gavroche.
  He was obliged to content himself with the half of his desire.
  The despatch of his letter and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the barricade, was a coincidence which occurred to him. He pointed out M. Fauchelevent to Gavroche.
  "Do you know that man?"
  "No," said Gavroche.
  Gavroche had, in fact, as we have just mentioned, seen Jean Valjean only at night.
  The troubled and unhealthy conjectures which had outlined themselves in Marius' mind were dissipated.
  Did he know M. Fauchelevent's opinions? Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican.
  Hence his very natural presence in this combat.
  In the meanwhile, Gavroche was shouting, at the other end of the barricade:
  "My gun!"
  Courfeyrac had it returned to him.
  Gavroche warned "his comrades" as he called them, that the barricade was blocked.
  He had had great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of the line whose arms were piled in the Rue de la Petite Truanderie was on the watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side, the municipal guard occupied the Rue des Precheurs. The bulk of the army was facing them in front.
  This information given, Gavroche added:
  "I authorize you to hit 'em a tremendous whack."
  Meanwhile, Enjolras was straining his ears and watching at his embrasure.
  The assailants, dissatisfied, no doubt, with their shot, had not repeated it.
  A company of infantry of the line had come up and occupied the end of the street behind the piece of ordnance.
  The soldiers were tearing up the pavement and constructing with the stones a small, low wall, a sort of side-work not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the barricade.
  In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in the Rue Saint-Denis.
  Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound which is produced when the shells of grape-shot are drawn from the caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation and incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the cannoneers began to load the piece.
  The chief seized the lint-stock himself and lowered it to the vent.
  "Down with your heads, hug the wall!" shouted Enjolras, "and all on your knees along the barricade!"
  The insurgents who were straggling in front of the wine-shop, and who had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche's arrival, rushed pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras' order could be executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a round of grape-shot. This is what it was, in fact.