The man of whom we have spoken, having entered the Rue aux Fêves, which is in the centre of the Cité, slackened his pace: he felt he was on his own soil. The night was dark, and strong gusts of wind, mingled with rain, dashed against the walls. Ten o'clock struck by the distant dial of the Palais de Justice. Women were huddled together under the vaulted arches, deep and dark, like caverns; some hummed popular airs in a low key; others conversed together in whispers; whilst some, dumb and motionless, looked on mechanically at the wet, which fell and flowed in torrents. The man in the carter's frock, stopping suddenly before one of these creatures, silent and sad as she gazed, seized her by the arm, and said, "Ha! good evening, La Goualeuse."[2] [2] Sweet-throated: in reference to the tone of her voice. The girl receded, saying, in a faint and fearful tone, "Good evening, Chourineur.[3] Don't hurt me." [3] One who strikes with the knife; the stabber, or slasher. This man, a liberated convict, had been so named at the hulks. "Now I have you," said the fellow; "you must pay me the glass of 'tape' (_eau d'aff_), or I'll make you dance without music," he added, with a hoarse and brutal laugh. "Oh, Heaven! I have no money," replied Goualeuse, trembling from head to foot, for this man was the dread of the district. "If you're stumped, the ogress of the _tapis-franc_ will give you tick for your pretty face." "She won't; I already owe her for the clothes I'm wearing." "What, you want to shirk it?" shouted the Chourineur, darting after La Goualeuse, who had hid herself in a gully as murk as midnight. "Now, then, my lady, I've got you!" said the vagabond, after groping about for a few moments, and grasping in one of his coarse and powerful hands a slim and delicate wrist; "and now for the dance I promised you." "No, it is _you_ who shall dance!" was uttered by a masculine and deep voice. "A man! Is't you, Bras Rouge? Speak, why don't you? and don't squeeze so hard. I am here in the entrance to your 'ken,' and you it must be." "'Tis not Bras Rouge!" said the voice. "Oh! isn't it? Well, then, if it is not a friend, why, here goes at you," exclaimed the Chourineur. "But whose bit of a hand is it I have got hold of? It must be a woman's!" "It is the fellow to this," responded the voice. And under the delicate skin of this hand, which grasped his throat with sudden ferocity, the Chourineur felt himself held by nerves of iron. The Goualeuse, who had sought refuge in this alley, and lightly ascended a few steps, paused for an instant, and said to her unknown defender, "Thanks, sir, for having taken my part. The Chourineur said he would strike me because I could not pay for his glass of brandy; but I think he only jested. Now I am safe, pray let him go. Take care of yourself, for he is the Chourineur." "If he be the Chourineur, I am a bully boy who never knuckles down," exclaimed the unknown.