hey.

D'Artagnan jogged Raoul's elbow. "Yes, my braves, a reinforcement," said
he; "_cordieu!_ there is a famous fire. Whom are you going to cook?"

The two men uttered a shout of jovial laughter, and, instead of
answering, threw on more wood. D'Artagnan could not take his eyes off
them.

"I suppose," said one of the fire-makers, "they sent you to tell us the
time--did not they?"

"Without doubt they have," said D'Artagnan, anxious to know what was
going on; "why should I be here else, if it were not for that?"

"Then place yourself at the window, if you please, and observe."
D'Artagnan smiled in his mustache, made a sign to Raoul, and placed
himself at the window.

Chapter LXII. Vive Colbert!

The spectacle which the Greve now presented was a frightful one. The
heads, leveled by the perspective, extended afar, thick and agitated as
the ears of corn in a vast plain. From time to time a fresh report, or a
distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash. Now
and then there were great movements. All those ears of corn bent, and
became waves more agitated than those of the ocean, which rolled from
the extremities to the center, and beat, like the tides, against the
hedge of archers who surrounded the gibbets. Then the handles of
the halberds were let fall upon the heads and shoulders of the rash
invaders; at times, also, it was the steel as well as the wood, and,
in that case, a large empty circle was formed around the guard; a space
conquered upon the extremities, which underwent, in their turn the
oppression of the sudden movement, which drove them against the parapets
of the Seine. From the window, that commanded a view of the whole Place,
D'Artagnan saw, with interior satisfaction, that such of the musketeers
and guards as found themselves involved in the crowd, were able, with
blows of their fists and the hilts of theirs swords, to keep room. He
even remarked that they had succeeded, by that _esprit de corps_ which
doubles the strength of the soldier, in getting together in one group to
the amount of about fifty men; and that, with the exception of a dozen
stragglers whom he still saw rolling here and there, the nucleus was
complete, and within reach of his voice. But it was not the musketeers
and guards that drew the attention of D'Artagnan. Around the gibbets,
and particularly at the entrances to the arcade of Saint-Jean, moved
a noisy mass, a busy mass; daring faces, resolute demeanor