.
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.

The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had t