le with as much
solidity and certainty as though he had the rounds of a ladder under his
feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on
his knees on the wall.

Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without uttering a word. Jean
Valjean's injunction, and the name of Madame Thenardier, had chilled her
blood.

All at once she heard Jean Valjean's voice crying to her, though in a
very low tone:--

"Put your back against the wall."

She obeyed.

"Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed," went on Jean Valjean.

And she felt herself lifted from the ground.

Before she had time to recover herself, she was on the top of the wall.

Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands
in his large left hand, lay down flat on his stomach and crawled along
on top of the wall as far as the cant. As he had guessed, there stood
a building whose roof started from the top of the wooden barricade and
descended to within a very short distance of the ground, with a gentle
slope which grazed the linden-tree. A lucky circumstance, for the wall
was much higher on this side than on the street side. Jean Valjean could
only see the ground at a great depth below him.

He had just reached the slope of the roof, and had not yet left the
crest of the wall, when a violent uproar announced the arrival of the
patrol. The thundering voice of Javert was audible:--

"Search the blind alley! The Rue Droit-Mur is guarded! so is the Rue
Petit-Picpus. I'll answer for it that he is in the blind alley."

The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley.

Jean Valjean allowed himself to slide down the roof, still holding fast
to Cosette, reached the linden-tree, and leaped to the ground. Whether
from terror or courage, Cosette had not breathed a sound, though her
hands were a little abraded.

CHAPTER VI--THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA

Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and
of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to
be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape,
with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall forest
trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where could
be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees, gnarled
and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch, whose
glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and
there stood stone ben