“It is a lie. This man is English, and I will prove it. But what have I to do with any of you? Oh, Marie, help me!”
Marie Castener appeared, pushing the men aside as though they were bits of furniture. There were other women with her, a dozen of them, and a few men. Manon was down on her knees with Paul’s head in her lap, bending over his grey, dirt-smeared face. He was bleeding from the mouth, and from a bruised wound on the forehead.
“He breathes!”
Marie was down beside her when Ledoux tried to interfere. She turned, and swinging a huge arm, caught him across the face with the back of her hand.
“Get out.”
Two other women pushed him back, and the crowd laughed. Ledoux, looking evil, went round to where Bibi was sitting up, still dazed but potentially dangerous. Ledoux helped him to his feet.
“It was the woman who hit you with a stone. Come on.”
Ledoux was too late, for Beaucourt intervened. It came in force down the Rue de Picardie, led by Philipon, who carried a blacksmith’s hammer. Someone sprang on the side-walk and collared Pompom Crapaud, who was caught at the café doorway with a tin of petroleum and a bunch of straw. The two crowds jostled each other, waiting for some inflammatory word or act that should set them alight, but that faction fight never developed. Philipon’s hammer may have had something to do with it; also, these peasants were quiet fellows; they had the strong bodies and the obstinate blue eyes of the men of the open country. Almost imperceptibly they pushed Goblet’s factory roughs back towards the Rue Romaine, took possession of the central scene, and held it.
Manon was kneeling, body erect, watching Bibi and Ledoux, who had been cut off from their friends. Her eyes met Philipon’s. She pointed.
“Those two.”