ther
from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the last wineshop.
A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the child the
limits of the inhabited world.

After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go
into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated
at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking
and talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had
hideous faces--such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day
they were looking for Madou. The woman, above all, was frightful.

"What does he want?" said one of the men.

The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of
light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The
darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until
he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after
field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the
monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of
reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith's forge. The child
stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of
doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now
suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what
he had undertaken.

Had he strength enough to reach his mother?

He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of
the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the
spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was
stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow
against the white stones.

Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step
forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and
to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the
wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally
repulsive.

The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful
beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If
he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that
he should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this
stupor. An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern,
suddenly appeared.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said the child, gently, breathless with
emotion.

The soldier