It was towards this corner of the place, dimly lighted by the reflection of a distant street lamp, that the gamin guided his two “brats.”
The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him that we are dealing with simple reality, and that twenty years ago, the tribunals were called upon to judge, under the charge of vagabondage, and mutilation of a public monument, a child who had been caught asleep in this very elephant of the Bastille. This fact noted, we proceed.
On arriving in the vicinity of the colossus, Gavroche comprehended the effect which the infinitely great might produce on the infinitely small, and said:—
“Don’t be scared, infants.”
Then he entered through a gap in the fence into the elephant’s enclosure and helped the young ones to clamber through the breach. The two children, somewhat frightened, followed Gavroche without uttering a word, and confided themselves to this little Providence in rags which had given them bread and had promised them a shelter.
There, extended along the fence, lay a ladder which by day served the laborers in the neighboring timber-yard. Gavroche raised it with remarkable vigor, and placed it against one of the elephant’s forelegs. Near the point where the ladder ended, a sort of black hole in the belly of the colossus could be distinguished.
Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole to his guests, and said to them:—
“Climb up and go in.”
The two little boys exchanged terrified glances.
“You’re afraid, brats!” exclaimed Gavroche.