Page 724 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XI

NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS,

AND COSETTE WINS

IT IN THE LOTTERY

Jean Valjean was not dead.
When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw him-
self into it, he was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam
under water until he reached a vessel at anchor, to which a
boat was moored. He found means of hiding himself in this
boat until night. At night he swam off again, and reached
the shore a little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not
lack money, he procured clothing. A small country-house
in the neighborhood of Balaguier was at that time the dress-
ing-room of escaped convicts,—a lucrative specialty. Then
Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives who are seeking to
evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality, pursued an
obscure and undulating itinerary. He found his first refuge
at Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then he directed his course to-
wards Grand-Villard, near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes.
It was a fumbling and uneasy flight,— a mole’s track, whose

724 Les Miserables