g vanished in serene majesty.

With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses
when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and
make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force
the captain to show himself.

"Wretches!" said he, "have no more fear of me than I have for you!"

And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window,
which had been left open; the horrible, glowing tool disappeared into
the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow.

The prisoner resumed:--

"Do what you please with me." He was disarmed.

"Seize him!" said Thenardier.

Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked
man with the ventriloquist's voice took up his station in front of him,
ready to smash his skull at the slightest movement.

At the same time, Marius heard below him, at the base of the partition,
but so near that he could not see who was speaking, this colloquy
conducted in a low tone:--

"There is only one thing left to do."

"Cut his throat."

"That's it."

It was the husband and wife taking counsel together.

Thenardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer, and
took out the knife. Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol.
Unprecedented perplexity! For the last hour he had had two voices in his
conscience, the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the
other crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices continued
uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him to agony. Up to that
moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should find some means
of reconciling these two duties, but nothing within the limits of
possibility had presented itself.

However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been
reached; Thenardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces distant from
the prisoner.

Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource of
despair. All at once a shudder ran through him.

At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the full moon
illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this
paper he read the following line written that very morning, in large
letters, by the eldest of the Thenardier girls:--

"THE BOBBIES ARE HERE."

An idea, a flash, crossed Marius' mind; this was the expedient of which
he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem which was
torturing him, of