All at once the crowd uttered a loud shout:
the convict had fallen into the sea.
The fall was perilous.
The frigate Algesiras was anchored alongside the Orion, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels: it was to be feared that he would slip under one or the other of them. Four men flung themselves hastily into a boat; the crowd cheered them on; anxiety again took possession of all souls; the man had not risen to the surface; he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple, as though he had fallen into a cask of oil:
they sounded, they dived.
In vain.
The search was continued until the evening: they did not even find the body.
On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines:--
"Nov. 17, 1823.
Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on board of the Orion, on his return from rendering assistance to a sailor, fell into the sea and was drowned.
The body has not yet been found; it is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the Arsenal point:
this man was committed under the number 9,430, and his name was Jean Valjean."
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BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN