e proprietor of the circus that Gwynplaine is coming
back."

The innkeeper took something from a chair in the darkness, and turning
towards Ursus with both arms raised, dangled from one hand a cloak, and
from the other a leather esclavine, a felt hat, and a jacket.

And Master Nicless said, "The man who knocked the second time was
connected with the police; he came in and left without saying a word,
and brought these things."

Ursus recognized the esclavine, the jacket, the hat, and the cloak of
Gwynplaine.

CHAPTER IV.

MOENIBUS SURDIS CAMPANA MUTA.

Ursus smoothed the felt of the hat, touched the cloth of the cloak, the
serge of the coat, the leather of the esclavine, and no longer able to
doubt whose garments they were, with a gesture at once brief and
imperative, and without saying a word, pointed to the door of the inn.

Master Nicless opened it.

Ursus rushed out of the tavern.

Master Nicless looked after him, and saw Ursus run, as fast as his old
legs would allow, in the direction taken that morning by the wapentake
who carried off Gwynplaine.

A quarter of an hour afterwards, Ursus, out of breath, reached the
little street in which stood the back wicket of the Southwark jail,
which he had already watched so many hours. This alley was lonely enough
at all hours; but if dreary during the day, it was portentous in the
night. No one ventured through it after a certain hour. It seemed as
though people feared that the walls should close in, and that if the
prison or the cemetery took a fancy to embrace, they should be crushed
in their clasp. Such are the effects of darkness. The pollard willows of
the Ruelle Vauvert in Paris were thus ill-famed. It was said that
during the night the stumps of those trees changed into great hands, and
caught hold of the passers-by.

By instinct the Southwark folks shunned, as we have already mentioned,
this alley between a prison and a churchyard. Formerly it had been
barricaded during the night by an iron chain. Very uselessly; because
the strongest chain which guarded the street was the terror it inspired.

Ursus entered it resolutely.

What intention possessed him? None.

He came into the alley to seek intelligence.

Was he going to knock at the gate of the jail? Certainly not. Such an
expedient, at once fearful and vain, had no place in his brain. To
attempt to introduce himself to demand an explanation. What folly!
Prisons do not open to those who wish