child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the
swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet;
but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two
portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one for himself,
gave the large one to his brother, and said to him:

"Ram that into your muzzle."

CHAPTER XVII--MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT

Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he
was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of
cartridges; Marius bore the child.

"Alas!" he thought, "that which the father had done for his father, he
was requiting to the son; only, Thenardier had brought back his father
alive; he was bringing back the child dead."

When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face,
like the child, was inundated with blood.

At the moment when he had stooped to lift Gavroche, a bullet had grazed
his head; he had not noticed it.

Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow.

They laid Gavroche on the same table with Mabeuf, and spread over the
two corpses the black shawl. There was enough of it for both the old man
and the child.

Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had
brought in.

This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire.

Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on his stone post.
When Combeferre offered him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head.

"Here's a rare eccentric," said Combeferre in a low voice to Enjolras.
"He finds a way of not fighting in this barricade."

"Which does not prevent him from defending it," responded Enjolras.

"Heroism has its originals," resumed Combeferre.

And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added:

"He is another sort from Father Mabeuf."

One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which was battering the
barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed
the whirlwind of this sort of war can form no idea of the singular
moments of tranquillity mingled with these convulsions. Men go and
come, they talk, they jest, they lounge. Some one whom we know heard a
combatant say to him in the midst of the grape-shot: "We are here as
at a bachelor breakfast." The redoubt of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, we
repeat, seemed very calm within. All mutations and all phases had been,
or were about to be, exhausted. The position, from critical,