tion, but no one is above gratitude. Was he
dead? Who was the man? What sort of a face had he? No one could tell him
this.

The coachman answered: "The night was very dark." Basque and Nicolette,
all in a flutter, had looked only at their young master all covered with
blood.

The porter, whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival of Marius, had
been the only one to take note of the man in question, and this is the
description that he gave:

"That man was terrible."

Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been
brought back to his grandfather preserved, in the hope that it would
prove of service in his researches.

On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had been torn in a
singular way. A piece was missing.

One evening, Marius was speaking in the presence of Cosette and Jean
Valjean of the whole of that singular adventure, of the innumerable
inquiries which he had made, and of the fruitlessness of his efforts.
The cold countenance of "Monsieur Fauchelevent" angered him.

He exclaimed, with a vivacity which had something of wrath in it:

"Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime. Do you know what
he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself
into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the
sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He
must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful
subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the
cess-pool,--more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his
back! And with what object? With the sole object of saving the corpse.
And that corpse I was. He said to himself: 'There may still be a
glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that
miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times!
And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from
the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all
this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent.
What was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette's six hundred thousand
francs were mine . . ."

"They are yours," interrupted Jean Valjean.

"Well," resumed Marius, "I would give them all to find that man once
more."

Jean Valjean remained silent.

BOOK SIXTH.--THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT

CHAPTER I--THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833

The night of the 16th to the 17th of Febr