e Villons
in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance finds means
sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common wooden-handled knife,
to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these plates without
affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow on the edge of the sou
in such a manner that the plates will adhere again. This can be screwed
together and unscrewed at will; it is a box. In this box he hides a
watch-spring, and this watch-spring, properly handled, cuts good-sized
chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate convict is supposed to possess
merely a sou; not at all, he possesses liberty. It was a large sou of
this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found
under the bed near the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel
which would fit the sou.

It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his person at the
moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal
it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he
unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords which fastened him,
which would explain the faint noise and almost imperceptible movements
which Marius had observed.

As he had not been able to bend down, for fear of betraying himself, he
had not cut the bonds of his left leg.

The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise.

"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thenardier. "He still holds by one leg,
and he can't get away. I'll answer for that. I tied that paw for him."

In the meanwhile, the prisoner had begun to speak:--

"You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it.
When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make me write
what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say what I do not
choose to say--"

He stripped up his left sleeve, and added:--

"See here."

At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing chisel
which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on his bare flesh.

The crackling of the burning flesh became audible, and the odor peculiar
to chambers of torture filled the hovel.

[Illustration: Red Hot Chisel 3b8-20-red-hot-chisel]

Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered, hardly a
muscle of the old man's face contracted, and while the red-hot iron
sank into the smoking wound, impassive and almost august, he fixed on
Thenardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no hatred, and where
sufferin