had, in a manner, captured him by treachery. Adorable
ambuscades of providence!

Only, the wounded man did not stir, and Jean Valjean did not know
whether that which he was carrying in that grave was a living being or a
dead corpse.

His first sensation was one of blindness. All of a sudden, he could see
nothing. It seemed to him too, that, in one instant, he had become deaf.
He no longer heard anything. The frantic storm of murder which had been
let loose a few feet above his head did not reach him, thanks to the
thickness of the earth which separated him from it, as we have said,
otherwise than faintly and indistinctly, and like a rumbling, in the
depths. He felt that the ground was solid under his feet; that was all;
but that was enough. He extended one arm and then the other, touched
the walls on both sides, and perceived that the passage was narrow; he
slipped, and thus perceived that the pavement was wet. He cautiously put
forward one foot, fearing a hole, a sink, some gulf; he discovered that
the paving continued. A gust of fetidness informed him of the place in
which he stood.

After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light
fell through the man-hole through which he had descended, and his eyes
became accustomed to this cavern. He began to distinguish something. The
passage in which he had burrowed--no other word can better express the
situation--was walled in behind him. It was one of those blind alleys,
which the special jargon terms branches. In front of him there was
another wall, a wall like night. The light of the air-hole died out ten
or twelve paces from the point where Jean Valjean stood, and barely cast
a wan pallor on a few metres of the damp walls of the sewer. Beyond,
the opaqueness was massive; to penetrate thither seemed horrible, an
entrance into it appeared like an engulfment. A man could, however,
plunge into that wall of fog and it was necessary so to do. Haste was
even requisite. It occurred to Jean Valjean that the grating which he
had caught sight of under the flag-stones might also catch the eye of
the soldiery, and that everything hung upon this chance. They also might
descend into that well and search it. There was not a minute to be lost.
He had deposited Marius on the ground, he picked him up again,--that is
the real word for it,--placed him on his shoulders once more, and set
out. He plunged resolutely into the gloom.

The truth is, that they were less saf