minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which he

averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and

in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or

wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch.

“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?”

“Nothing.”

“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So!

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Light them, you!”

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot.

Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it

burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to

recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they were

in the raging flood once more.

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself.

Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper

foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the

Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be

marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the

governor would escape, and the people’s blood (suddenly of some

value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged.

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed

to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and

red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was