Page 779 - les-miserables

him at any moment, he undid his cravat, passed it round
Cosette’s body under the armpits, taking care that it should
not hurt the child, fastened this cravat to one end of the
rope, by means of that knot which seafaring men call a
‘swallow knot,’ took the other end of the rope in his teeth,
pulled off his shoes and stockings, which he threw over the
wall, stepped upon the mass of masonry, and began to raise
himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much
solidity and certainty as though he had the rounds of a lad-
der under his feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed
when he was resting on his knees on the wall.
Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without ut-
tering a word. Jean Valjean’s injunction, and the name of
Madame Thenardier, had chilled her blood.
All at once she heard Jean Valjean’s voice crying to her,
though in a very low tone:—
‘Put your back against the wall.’
She obeyed.
‘Don’t say a word, and don’t be alarmed,’ went on Jean
Valjean.
And she felt herself lifted from the ground.
Before she had time to recover herself, she was on the top
of the wall.
Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her
two tiny hands in his large left hand, lay down flat on his
stomach and crawled along on top of the wall as far as the
cant. As he had guessed, there stood a building whose roof
started from the top of the wooden barricade and descended
to within a very short distance of the ground, with a gentle

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