cades
which still remained standing.

The sun was mounting above the horizon.

An insurgent hailed Enjolras.

"We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like this, without
anything to eat?"

Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an
affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the end
of the street.

CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS

Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to
insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles
which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he
assailed it with a burst of irony.

"You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me,
you are wasting your row. That's not thunder, it's a cough."

And the bystanders laughed.

Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril,
like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine
was lacking, they poured out gayety to all.

"I admire Enjolras," said Bossuet. "His impassive temerity astounds
me. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras
complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of us
have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave.
When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to
fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for the capers
that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself killed for
Angelique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman
is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that sets the man off.
Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be
intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice
and as bold as fire."

Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him,
that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: "Patria."

Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed:

"News!"

And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added:

"My name is Eight-Pounder."

In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second
piece of ordnance.

The artillery-men rapidly performed their manoeuvres in force and placed
this second piece in line with the first.

This outlined the catastrophe.

A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing
p