ed round to me, and said to
me,--

"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends
come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."

Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight
paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones,
not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a
ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed
through it. There was no one behind the barricade.

"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the
last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting
near."

The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode,
and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding
the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on
our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement,
something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered
my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax
match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed
out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed
eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker
rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was
almost in the attitude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched
out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of
blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked
the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was
undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up
one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement
shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to
speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it
disappeared.

This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.

We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the
last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know
him."

We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the
ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We
appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.

A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness,
and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"

"Ah, there they are!"