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A voice cried out from the opposite barricade, "Advance in order!"
Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the
barricade, paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into
the dark street.
From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety.
Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.
No one attempted to restrain Denis Dussoubs. Each felt that he was going
where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you
like me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dussoubs refused, with a
shake of the head.
Dussoubs, alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade.
The night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They
could distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid
bearing. Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was
an inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be
heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying
away in the distance.
After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion
eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a
glimmer of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was
probably a lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash
they again saw Dussoubs, he was close to the barricade, he had almost
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