e 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 safe than Jean Valjean fancied. Perils of another sort and no less serious were awaiting them, perchance.
After the lightning-charged whirlwind of the combat, the cavern of miasmas and traps; after chaos, the sewer. Jean Valjean had fallen from one circle of hell into another.
When he had advanced fifty paces, he was obliged to halt.
A problem presented itself.
The passage terminated in another gut which he encountered across his path.
There two ways presented themselves. Which should he take?