His hearers looked down, and one of them muttered, "A man would have to be deucedly strong, and, besides, he would run a risk of being smashed."
"Come," Madeleine began again, "twenty louis." The same silence.
"It is not the good-will they are deficient in," a voice cried.
M. Madeleine turned and recognized Javert: he had noticed him when he came up. Javert continued,--
"It is the strength. A man would have to be tremendously strong to lift a cart like that with his back."
Then, looking fixedly at M. Madeleine, he continued, laying a marked stress on every word he uttered,--
"Monsieur Madeleine, I never knew but _one_ man capable of doing what you ask."
Madeleine started, but Javert continued carelessly, though without taking his eyes off Madeleine,--
Madeleine turned pale; all this while the cart was slowly settling down, and Father Fauchelevent was screaming,--
"I am choking: it is breaking my ribs: a jack! something--oh!"
"Is there no one here willing to earn twenty louis and save this poor old man's life?"
"I never knew but one man capable of acting as a jack, and it was that convict."
"Oh, it is crushing me!" the old man yelled.
Madeleine raised his head, met Javert's falcon eye still fixed on him, gazed at the peasants, and sighed sorrowfully. Then, without saying a word, he fell on his knees, and, ere the crowd had time to utter a cry, was under the cart. There was a frightful moment of expectation and silence. Madeleine almost lying flat under the tremendous weight, twice tried in vain to bring his elbows up to his knees. The peasants shouted: "Father Madeleine, come out!" And old Fauchelevent himself said: "Monsieur Madeleine, go away! I must die, so leave me; you will be killed too."
Madeleine made no answer; the spectators gasped; the wheels had sunk deeper, and it was now almost impossible for him to get out from under the cart. All at once the enormous mass shook, the cart slowly rose, and the wheels half emerged from the rut. A stifled voice could be heard crying, "Make haste, help!" It was Madeleine, who had made a last effort. They rushed forward, for the devotion of one man had restored strength and courage to all. The cart was lifted by twenty arms, and old Fauchelevent was saved. Madeleine rose; he was livid, although dripping with perspiration: his clothes were torn and covered with mud. The old man kissed his knees, and called him his savior, while Madeleine had on his face a strange expression of happy and celestial suffering, and turned his placid eye on Javert, who was still looking at him.