He was afraid!... His fear was shown by the convulsive trembling which agitated his wretched body, by his ghastly pallor, by the cold drops of sweat rolling down his forehead.... He was no longer a man: it was a lamentable bit of human wreckage the hooligans had before them!... And the more lamentable this wreck showed itself to be, the less worthy of their interest it seemed!
When Jules gasped out once again:
"I swear to you it was not I! No!... I did not do it!"
The hooligans, moved by a common impulse, rose, indignant, furious, mad with rage.
"That's a good one, that is!" yelled Nibet, who, beside himself with rage, suddenly forgot his avowed respect for judicial forms.
"Since he is determined to tell lies, and hasn't the pluck to say what he's done, there's only one thing for us to do, and that's to stop his mouth up!... Ernestine, put the plug back!"
And as the girl once more rolled the scarf round and round the head of the miserable Jules, Nibet turned to his comrades.
"Now then? One hasn't any need to waste more time over it!... We know all the story—not so?... It's settled, I tell you!... A fellow who has done what he has done, what does he deserve?... You answer first, Mother Toulouche, since you are the oldest?..."
Mother Toulouche stretched out a trembling hand, as though calling on Heaven to witness an oath.
"I," said the old woman, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I don't hesitate!... Comrades who flinch, sneaks who betray, get rid of them, say I!... I condemn him to death!..."