Then as some of the men, somewhat awed by his aspect and by the flame of unbridled wrath which shot from his glowing eyes, congregated in a little group of malcontents, egging one another on to more open revolt, he went close up to them, forcing the group to scatter before him, till he stood right in the midst of them, looking down from his great height on the skulking heads which were obstinately turned away from him and on the furtive glances which equally stubbornly avoided his own. "You miserable cowards!" he exclaimed. "Have you no entrails, no hearts, no mind? When the sons of France--her true sons--bleed and die on the fields of Prussia and in the mountains of Italy--sometimes unfed, always ill-clothed, under a grilling sun or in snowstorms and blizzards--dragging half-shattered limbs up the precipitous heights of the Alps, or falling uncared for, unattended and unshriven, into the nearest ditch--when your brothers and your sons die for France with a 'Vive l'Empereur' upon their lips, with the unsullied flag held victorious in their dying hands, you murmur here because food is dear and work heavy! To hell, I say! to hell! Give me that, tool, Mathurin. The Emperor shall not lack for gunpowder because a few traitors refuse to toil for France!" To Fernande, who watched this scene from a remote and dark angle of the workshop, to which she had crept on tiptoe, terrified lest her presence be noticed and considered an outrage in the midst of these turbulent quarrels--to Fernande, it seemed as if the whole personality of de Maurel had undergone an awesome change. There was something almost supernatural in that huge, massive figure with the proud head thrown back, the face lit up by the grey light which came through the skylight above. Then suddenly, with a quick, impatient gesture, he cast off his blouse and shirt and stood there in the midst of the sullen and threatening crowd--a workman among his kindred--a man amongst men; stripped to the waist as they were, with huge, powerful torso bare, and massive arms whereon the muscles stood out as if carved in stone, as he lifted from the floor the enormous iron pestle which Leroux had flung down, and wielded it as if it were a stick. And Fernande bethought herself of all the mythological heroes of old of which she had read as a child in her story-books; of men who were as strong and mighty as the gods; of those who defied Jupiter and Mars and dared to look into the sun, or to enslave the hidden forces of the earth to their will.