"Eight too many. Keep those guns loaded like the others, and within reach. Place your sabres and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six will ambush themselves in the garret and at the first-floor window, to fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in the paving-stones. There must not be an idle workman here. Presently, when the drummer sounds the charge, the twenty men below will rush to the barricade, and the first to arrive will be the best placed." These arrangements made, he turned to Javert, and said to him,-- "I have not forgotten you." And laying a pistol on the table he added,-- "The last man to leave here will blow out this spy's brains." "Here?" a voice answered. "No, let us not have this corpse near ours. It is easy to stride over the small barricade in Mondétour Lane, as it is only four feet high. This man is securely bound, so lead him there and execute him." Some one was at this moment even more stoical than Enjolras; it was Javert. Here Jean Valjean appeared; he was mixed up with the group of insurgents, but stepped forward and said to Enjolras,-- "Are you the commander?" "Yes." "You thanked me just now." "In the name of the Republic. The barricade has two saviors,--Marius Pontmercy and yourself." "Do you think that I deserve a reward?" "Certainly." "Well, then, I ask one." "What is it?" "To let me blow out that man's brains myself." Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, gave an imperceptible start, and said, "It is fair." As for Enjolras, he was reloading his gun. He looked around him. "Is there no objection?" And he turned to Jean Valjean. "Take the spy." Jean Valjean took possession of Javert by seating himself on the end of the table. He seized the pistol, and a faint clink showed that he had cocked it. Almost at the same moment the bugle-call was heard. "Mind yourselves!" Marius shouted from the top of the barricade. Javert began laughing that noiseless laugh peculiar to him, and, looking intently at the insurgents, said to them,-- "You are no healthier than I am." "All outside," Enjolras cried. The insurgents rushed tumultuously forth, and as they passed, Javert smote them on the back, so to speak, with the expression, "We shall meet again soon." CHAPTER XIX. JEAN VALJEAN REVENGES HIMSELF. So soon as Jean Valjean was alone with Javert he undid the rope which fastened the prisoner round the waist, the knot of which was under the table. After this, he made him a signal to rise. Javert obeyed with that indefinable smile in which the supremacy of enchained authority is condensed. Jean Valjean seized Javert by the martingale, as he would have taken an ox by its halter, and dragging him after him, quitted the wine-shop slowly, for Javert, having his feet hobbled, could only take very short steps. Jean Valjean held the pistol in his hand, and they thus crossed the inner trapeze of the barricade; the insurgents, prepared for the imminent attack, turned their backs.