15 (17)
MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT
MARIUS had sprung out of the barricade. Combeferre had followed him. But it was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of cartridges; Marius brought back the child.
“Alas!” thought he, “what the father had done for his father he was returning to the son; only Thénardier had brought back his father living, while he brought back the child dead.”
When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, like the child‘s, was covered with blood.
Just as he had stooped down to pick up Gavroche, a ball grazed his skull; he did not perceive it.
Courfeyrac took off his cravat and bound up Marius’ forehead.
Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had brought back.
This gave each man fifteen shots.
Jean Valjean was still at the same place, motionless upon his block. When Combeferre presented him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head.
“There is a rare eccentric,” said Combeferre in a low tone to Enjolras. “He finds means not to fight in this barricade.”
“Which does not prevent him from defending it,” answered Enjolras.
“Heroism has its originals,” replied Combeferre.
Suddenly between two discharges they heard the distant sound of a clock striking.
“It is noon,” said Combeferre.
The twelve strokes had not sounded when Enjolras sprang to his feet, and flung down from the top of the barricade this thundering shout:
“Carry some paving-stones into the house. Fortify the windows with them. Half the men to the muskets, the other half to the stones. Not a minute to lose.”
A platoon of sappers, their axes on their shoulders, had just appeared in order of battle at the end of the street.
This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? The column of attack, evidently. The sappers, whose duty it is to demolish the barricade, must always precede the soldiers whose duty it is to scale it.
Enjolras’ order was executed with the correct haste peculiar to ships and barricades, the only places of combat whence escape is impossible. In less than a minute, two-thirds of the paving-stones which Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinth were carried up to the first story and to the garret; and before a second minute had elapsed, these stones, artistically laid one upon another, walled up half the height of the window on the first story and the dormer windows of the attic. A few openings, carefully arranged by Feuilly, chief builder, allowed musket barrels to pass through. This armament of the windows could be performed the more easily since the grapeshot had ceased. The two pieces were now firing balls upon the centre of the wall, in order to make a hole, and if it were possible, a breach for the assault.
Then they barricaded the basement window, and they held in readiness the iron cross-pieces which served to bar the door of the tavern on the inside at night.
The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the tavern was the donjon.
With the paving-stones which remained, they closed up the opening beside the barricade.
As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to husband their ammunition, and as the besiegers know it, the besiegers perfect their arrangements with a sort of provoking leisure, expose themselves to fire before the time, but in appearance more than in reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always made with a certain methodical slowness, after which, the thunderbolt.
This slowness allowed Enjolras to look over the whole, and to perfect the whole. He felt that since such men were to die, their death should be a masterpiece.
He said to Marius: “We are the two chiefs; I will give the last orders within. You stay outside and watch.”
Marius posted himself for observation upon the crest of the barricade.
Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which, we remember, was the hospital, nailed up.
“No spattering on the wounded,” said he.
He gave his last instructions in the basement-room in a quick, but deep and calm voice; Feuilly listened, and answered in the name of all.
“Second story, hold your axes ready to cut the staircase. You have them?”
“Yes,” said Feuilly.
“How many?”
“Two axes and a pole-axe.”
“Very well. There are twenty-six effective men left.”
“How many muskets are there?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Eight too many. Keep these eight muskets loaded like the rest, and at hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six in ambush at the dormer windows and at the window on the second story to fire upon the assailants through the loopholes in the paving-stones. Let there be no useless labourer here. Immediately, when the drum beats the charge, let the twenty from below rush to the barricade. The first there will get the best places.”
These dispositions made, he turned towards Javert, and said to him:
“I won’t forget you.”
And, laying a pistol on the table, he added:
“The last man to leave this room will blow out the spy’s brains!” “Here?” inquired a voice.
“No, do not leave this corpse with ours. You can climb over the little barricade on the Rue Mondétour. It is only four feet high. The man is well tied. You will take him there, and execute him there.”
There was one man, at that moment, who was more impassible than Enjolras; it was Javert.
Here Jean Valjean appeared.
He was in the throng of insurgents. He stepped forward, and said to Enjolras:
“You are the commander?”
“Yes.”
“You thanked me just now.”
“In the name of the republic. The barricade has two saviours, Marius Pontmercy and you.”
“Do you think that I deserve a reward?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, I ask one.”
“What?”
“To blow out that man’s brains myself.”
Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an imperceptible movement, and said:
“That is appropriate.”
As for Enjolras, he had begun to reload his carbine; he cast his eyes about him:
“No objection.”
And turning towards Jean Valjean: “Take the spy.”
Jean Valjean, in fact, took possession of Javert by sitting down on the end of the table. He caught up the pistol, and a slight click announced that he had cocked it.
Almost at the same moment, they heard a flourish of trumpets.
“Come on!” cried Marius, from the top of the barricade.
Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to him, and, looking fixedly upon the insurgents, said to them:
“Your health is hardly better than mine.”
“All outside?” cried Enjolras.
The insurgents sprang forward in a tumult, and, as they went out, they received in the back, allow us the expression, this speech from Javert:
“Farewell till immediately!”