voice said to him, but not loudly:--
"There''s a dog."
At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him.
The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as ferocious beasts who are uneasy; their terrified air evokes terror.
He recoiled and stammered:--
"What jade is this?"
"Your daughter."
It was, in fact, Eponine, who had addressed Thenardier.
At the apparition of Eponine, the other five, that is to say, Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night.
Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. Guelemer held one of those pairs of curved pincers which prowlers call fanchons.
"Ah, see here, what are you about there?
What do you want with us? Are you crazy?" exclaimed Thenardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still speak low; "what have you come here to hinder our work for?"
Eponine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck.
"I am here, little father, because I am here.
Isn''t a person allowed to sit on the stones nowadays?
It''s you who ought not to be here.
What have you come here for, since it''s a biscuit? I told Magnon so.