Page 1361 - les-miserables

new phase, saw no inconvenience in waiting a while longer.
Who knows whether some chance would not arise which
would deliver him from the horrible alternative of allow-
ing Ursule’s father to perish, or of destroying the colonel’s
saviour?
A herculean struggle had begun. With one blow full in
the chest, M. Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, roll-
ing in the middle of the room, then with two backward
sweeps of his hand he had overthrown two more assailants,
and he held one under each of his knees; the wretches were
rattling in the throat beneath this pressure as under a gran-
ite millstone; but the other four had seized the formidable
old man by both arms and the back of his neck, and were
holding him doubled up over the two ‘chimney-builders’ on
the floor.
Thus, the master of some and mastered by the rest,
crushing those beneath him and stifling under those on top
of him, endeavoring in vain to shake off all the efforts which
were heaped upon him, M. Leblanc disappeared under the
horrible group of ruffians like the wild boar beneath a howl-
ing pile of dogs and hounds.
They succeeded in overthrowing him upon the bed
nearest the window, and there they held him in awe. The
Thenardier woman had not released her clutch on his hair.
‘Don’t you mix yourself up in this affair,’ said Thenar-
dier. ‘You’ll tear your shawl.’
The Thenardier obeyed, as the female wolf obeys the
male wolf, with a growl.
‘Now,’ said Thenardier, ‘search him, you other fellows!’

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