Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/396

GERMINAL the window again, simply shrugging his shoulders. Richomme then found it vain to entreat them in his own name, and to repeat that the thing must be arranged between mates; they repelled him, suspecting him. But he was obstinate and remained amongst them.

"By God! let them break my head as well as yours, for I don't leave you while you are so foolish!"

Étienne, whom he begged to help him in making them hear reason, made a movement of powerlessness. It was too late, there were now more than five hundred of them. And besides the madmen who were rushing up to chase away the Borains, some came out of inquisitiveness, or to joke and amuse themselves over the battle. In the midst of one group, at some distance, Zacharie and Philomène were looking on as at a theatre, so peacefully that they had brought their two children, Achille and Désirée. Another stream was arriving from Réquillart, including Mouquet and Mouquette. The former at once went on, grinning, to slap his friend Zacharie's shoulders; while Mouquette, in a very excited condition, rushed to the first rank of the evil-disposed.

Every minute, however, the captain looked down the Montsou road. The desired reinforcements had not arrived, and his sixty men could not hold out longer. At last it occurred to him to strike the imagination of the crowd, and he ordered his men to load. The soldiers executed the order, but the disturbance increased, the swaggery, and the mockery.

"Ah! these shammers, they're going off to the target!" jeered the women, the Brûlé, the Levaque, and the others.

Maheude, with her breast covered by the little body of Estelle, who was awake and crying, came so near that the sergeant asked her what she was going to do with that poor little brat.

"What the devil's that to do with you?" she replied. "Fire at it if you dare!"

The men shook their heads with contempt. None believed that they would fire on them.

"There are no balls in their cartridges," said Levaque.

"Are we Cossacks?" cried Maheu. "You don't fire against Frenchmen, by God!"

Others said that when people had been through the Crimean [384]