Gavroche replied,-- "Well, it is raining; what then?" Courfeyrac cried, "Come in." "Directly," said Gavroche. And with one bound he reached the street. It will be borne in mind that Fannicot's company, in retiring, left behind it a number of corpses; some twenty dead lay here and there all along the pavement of the street. That made twenty cartouche-boxes for Gavroche, and a stock of cartridges for the barricade. The smoke lay in the street like a fog; any one who has seen a cloud in a mountain gorge, between two precipitous escarpments, can form an idea of this smoke, contracted, and as it were rendered denser, by the two dark lines of tall houses. It rose slowly, and was incessantly renewed; whence came a gradual obscurity, which dulled even the bright daylight. The combatants could scarce see one another from either end of the street, which was, however, very short. This darkness, probably desired and calculated on by the chiefs who were about to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful for Gavroche. Under the cloak of this smoke, and thanks to his shortness, he was enabled to advance a considerable distance along the street unnoticed, and he plundered the first seven or eight cartouche-boxes without any great danger. He crawled on his stomach, galloped on all fours, took his hamper in his teeth, writhed, glided, undulated, wound from one corpse to another, and emptied the cartouche-box as a monkey opens a nut. They did not cry to him from the barricade, to which he was still rather close, to return, for fear of attracting attention to him. On one corpse, which was a corporal's, he found a powder-flask. "For thirst," he said, as he put it in his pocket. While moving forward, he at length reached the point where the fog of the fire became transparent, so that the sharp-shooters of the line, drawn up behind their parapet of paving-stones, and the National Guard at the corner of the street, all at once pointed out to one another something stirring in the street. At the moment when Gavroche was taking the cartridges from a sergeant lying near a post, a bullet struck the corpse. "Oh, for shame!" said Gavroche; "they are killing my dead for me." A second bullet caused the stones to strike fire close to him, while a third upset his hamper. Gavroche looked and saw that it came from the National Guards. He stood upright, with his hair floating in the breeze, his hands on his hips, and his eyes fixed on the National Guards who were firing, and he sang,-- "On est laid à Nanterre, C'est la faute à Voltaire, Et bête à Palaiseau, C'est la faute à Rousseau." Then he picked up his hamper, put into it the cartridges scattered around without missing one, and walked toward the firing party, to despoil another cartouche-box. Then a fourth bullet missed him. Gavroche sang,-- "Je ne suis pas notaire, C'est la faute à Voltaire; Je suis petit oiseau, C'est la faute à Rousseau."