D’Artagnan jogged Raoul’s elbow. “Yes, my braves, a reinforcement,” said he; “cordieu! there is a famous fire. Whom are you going to cook?” The two men uttered a shout of jovial laughter, and, instead of answering, threw on more wood. D’Artagnan could not take his eyes off them. “I suppose,” said one of the fire-makers, “they sent you to tell us the time—did not they?” “Without doubt they have,” said D’Artagnan, anxious to know what was going on; “why should I be here else, if it were not for that?” “Then place yourself at the window, if you please, and observe.” D’Artagnan smiled in his mustache, made a sign to Raoul, and placed himself at the window. CHAPTER 62. Vive Colbert! The spectacle which the Greve now presented was a frightful one. The heads, leveled by the perspective, extended afar, thick and agitated as the ears of corn in a vast plain. From time to time a fresh report, or a distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash. Now and then there were great movements. All those ears of corn bent, and became waves more agitated than those of the ocean, which rolled from the extremities to the center, and beat, like the tides, against the hedge of archers who surrounded the gibbets. Then the handles of the halberds were let fall upon the heads and shoulders of the rash invaders; at times, also, it was the steel as well as the wood, and, in that case, a large empty circle was formed around the guard; a space conquered upon the extremities, which underwent, in their turn the oppression of the sudden movement, which drove them against the parapets of the Seine. From the window, that commanded a view of the whole Place, D’Artagnan saw, with interior satisfaction, that such of the musketeers and guards as found themselves involved in the crowd, were able, with blows of their fists and the hilts of their swords, to keep room. He even remarked that they had succeeded, by that esprit de corps which doubles the strength of the soldier, in getting together in one group to the amount of about fifty men; and that, with the exception of a dozen stragglers whom he still saw rolling here and there, the nucleus was complete, and within reach of his voice. But it was not the musketeers and guards only that drew the attention of D’Artagnan. Around the gibbets, and particularly at the entrances to the arcade of Saint Jean, moved a noisy mass, a busy mass; daring faces, resolute demeanors were to be seen here and there, mingled with silly faces and indifferent demeanors; signals were exchanged, hands given and taken. D’Artagnan remarked among the groups, and those groups the most animated, the face of the cavalier whom he had seen enter by the door of communication from his garden, and who had gone upstairs to harangue the drinkers. That man was organizing troops and giving orders. “Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I was not deceived; I know that man,—it is Menneville. What the devil is he doing here?”