[CHAPTER IX.]
EMPLOYMENT OF THE POACHER'S OLD SKILL AND
HIS UNERRING SHOT, WHICH HAD AN INFLUENCE
ON THE CONDEMNATION IN 1796.
Opinions varied in the barricade, for the firing of the piece was going to begin again, and the barricade could not hold out for a quarter of an hour under the grape-shot; it was absolutely necessary to abate the firing. Enjolras gave the command.
"We must have a mattress here."
"We have none," said Combeferre; "the wounded are lying on them."
Jean Valjean, seated apart on a bench, near the corner of the wine-shop, with his gun between his legs, had not up to the present taken any part in what was going on. He did not seem to hear the combatants saying around him, "There is a gun that does nothing." On hearing the order given by Enjolras, he rose. It will be remembered that on the arrival of the insurgents in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, in her terror of the bullets, placed her mattress in front of her window. This window, a garret window, was on the roof of a six-storied house, a little beyond the barricade. The mattress, placed across it, leaning at the bottom upon two clothes-props, was held above by two ropes, which, at a distance, seemed two pieces of pack-thread, and were fastened to nails driven into the frames of the roof. These cords could be distinctly seen on the sky, like hairs.
"Can any one lend me a double-barrelled gun?" Jean Valjean asked.
Enjolras, who had just reloaded his, handed it to him. Jean Valjean aimed at the garret window and fired; one of the two cords of the mattress was cut asunder, and it hung by only one thread. Jean Valjean fired the second shot, and the second cord lashed the garret window; the mattress glided between the two poles and fell into the street The insurgents applauded, and every voice cried,—
"There is a mattress."
"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and fetch it?"