And he continued to advance. Mother Thénardier, with flying hair and terrible looks, straddled her legs, bent back, and wildly hurled the paving-stone at Javert. He stooped, the stone passed over him, struck the wall, from which it dislodged a mass of plaster, and then ricochetted from angle to angle till it fell exhausted at Javert's feet. At the same moment Javert reached the Thénardiers; one of his large hands settled on the wife's shoulder, the other on the husband's head. "Handcuffs here!" he shouted. The policemen flocked in, and in a few seconds Javert's orders were carried out. The woman, quite crushed, looked at her own and her husband's manacled hands, fell on the ground, and bursting into tears, cried,-- "My daughters!" "Oh, they are all right!" said Javert. By this time the police had noticed the drunken man sleeping behind the door, and shook him; he woke up and stammered,-- "Is it all over, Jondrette?" "Yes," Javert answered. The six bound bandits were standing together, with their spectral faces, three daubed with black, and three masked. "Keep on your masks," said Javert And, passing them in review, like a Frederick II. at a Potsdam parade, he said to the three "sweeps,"-- "Good-day, Bigrenaille." "Good-day, Brujon." "Good-day, Deux Milliards." Then turning to the three masks he said to the man with the pole-axe, "Good-day, Gueulemer," and to the man with the cudgel, "Good-day, Babet," and to the ventriloquist, "Here's luck, Claquesous!" At this moment he noticed the prisoner, who had not said a word since the arrival of the police, and held his head down. "Untie the gentleman," said Javert, "and let no one leave the room." After saying this he sat down in a lordly way at the table, on which the candle and the inkstand were still standing, took a stamped paper from his pocket, and began writing his report. When he had written a few lines, which are always the same formula, he raised his eyes. "Bring the gentleman here whom these gentlemen had tied up." The agents look around. "Well," Javert asked, "where is he?" The prisoner of the bandits, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. The door was guarded, but the window was not. So soon as he found himself released, and while Javert was writing, he took advantage of the trouble, the tumult, the crowd, the darkness, and the moment when attention was not fixed upon him, to rush to the window. An agent ran up and looked out; he could see nobody, but the rope-ladder was still trembling. "The devil!" said Javert between his teeth; "he must have been the best of the lot." CHAPTER XXII. THE LITTLE CHILD WHO CRIED IN VOLUME SECOND.