"Villains," he said, "be no more frightened of me than I am of you."
And tearing the chisel out of the wound, he hurled it through the window, winch had been left open. The horrible red-hot tool whirled through the night, and fell some distance off in the snow, which hissed at the contact. The prisoner continued,—
"Do to me what you like."
He was defenceless.
"Seize him," said Thénardier.
Two of the brigands laid their hands on his shoulders, and the masked man with the ventriloquist voice stood in front of him, ready to dash out his brains with a blow of the key at the slightest movement on his part. At the same time Marius heard below him, but so close that he could not see the speakers, the following remarks exchanged in a low voice,—
"There is only one thing to be done."
"Cut his throat!"
"Exactly."
It was the husband and wife holding council, and then Thénardier walked slowly to the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife. Marius clutched the handle of the pistol in a state of extraordinary perplexity. For above an hour he had heard two voices in his conscience, one telling him to respect his father's will, while the other cried to him to succor the prisoner. These two voices continued their struggle uninterruptedly, and caused him an agony. He had vaguely hoped up to this moment to find some mode of reconciling these two duties, but nothing possible had occurred to him. Still the peril pressed; the last moment of delay was passed, for Thénardier, knife in hand, was reflecting a few paces from the prisoner. Marius looked wildly around him, which is the last mechanical resource of despair. All at once he started; at his feet on his table a bright moonbeam lit up and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this sheet he read this line, written in large letters that very morning by the elder of Thénardier's daughters,—"Here are the Slops." An idea, a flash, crossed Marius's mind; this was the solution of the frightful problem that tortured him, sparing the assassin and saving the victim. He knelt down on the chest-of-drawers, stretched forth his arm, seized the paper, softly detached a lump of plaster from the partition, wrapped it up in the paper, and threw it through the hole into the middle of the den. It was high time, for Thénardier had overcome his last fears, or his last scruples, and was going toward the prisoner.