Part 206 (2/2)

Towards ten o'clock in the evening, one of the two or three persons who pa.s.sed through the Rue Plumet, an old, belated bourgeois who was making haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute, as he skirted the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, heard a dull and threatening voice saying:--

”I'm no longer surprised that he comes here every evening.”

The pa.s.ser-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace.

This pa.s.ser-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, six men, who were marching separately and at some distance from each other, along the wall, and who might have been taken for a gray patrol, entered the Rue Plumet.

The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the others; a second later, all six were reunited.

These men began to talk in a low voice.

”This is the place,” said one of them.

”Is there a cab [dog] in the garden?” asked another.

”I don't know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that we'll make him eat.”

”Have you some putty to break the pane with?”

”Yes.”

”The railing is old,” interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a ventriloquist.

”So much the better,” said the second who had spoken. ”It won't screech under the saw, and it won't be hard to cut.”

The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect the gate, as Eponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in succession, and shaking them cautiously.

Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, fell upon his arm; he felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push in the middle of his breast, and a hoa.r.s.e voice said to him, but not loudly:--

”There's a dog.”

At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him.

The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as ferocious beasts who are uneasy; their terrified air evokes terror.

He recoiled and stammered:--

”What jade is this?”

”Your daughter.”

It was, in fact, Eponine, who had addressed Thenardier.

At the apparition of Eponine, the other five, that is to say, Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparna.s.se had noiselessly drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night.

Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands.

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