138 0 Les Miserables
crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices con-
tinued uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him
to agony. Up to that moment he had cherished a vague hope
that he should find some means of reconciling these two
duties, but nothing within the limits of possibility had pre-
sented itself.
However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay
had been reached; Thenardier was standing thoughtfully a
few paces distant from the prisoner.
Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical
resource of despair. All at once a shudder ran through him.
At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the
full moon illuminated and seemed to point out to him a
sheet of paper. On this paper he read the following line writ-
ten that very morning, in large letters, by the eldest of the
Thenardier girls:—
‘THE BOBBIES ARE HERE.’
An idea, a flash, crossed Marius’ mind; this was the
expedient of which he was in search, the solution of that
frightful problem which was torturing him, of sparing the
assassin and saving the victim.
He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm,
seized the sheet of paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from
the wall, wrapped the paper round it, and tossed the whole
through the crevice into the middle of the den.
It was high time. Thenardier had conquered his last fears
or his last scruples, and was advancing on the prisoner.
‘Something is falling!’ cried the Thenardier woman.
‘What is it?’ asked her husband.