They were stupefied at first. Étienne stopped short, and the axe slipped from his hands. Maheu, Levaque, and the others forgot the shop, with their eyes fixed on the wall along which a thin red streak was slowly flowing down. And the cries ceased, and silence spread over the growing darkness.
All at once the hooting began again. It was the women, who rushed forward overcome by the drunkenness of blood.
"Then there is a good God, after all! Ah! the bloody beast, he's done for!"
They surrounded the still warm body. They insulted it with laughter, abusing his fractured head, the dirty chops, hurling in the dead man's face the long venom of their starved lives.
"I owed you sixty francs, now you're paid, thief!" said Maheude, enraged like the others. "You won't refuse me credit any more. Wa
