Time was passing; he must act quickly.
He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that it was impracticable outside and in.
He approached the other door with more hope; it was frightfully decrepit; its very immensity rendered it less solid; the planks were rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted.
It seemed as though it might be possible to pierce this worm-eaten barrier.
On examining it he found that the door was not a door; it had neither hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle; the iron bands traversed it from side to side without any break. Through the crevices in the planks he caught a view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone roughly cemented together, which passers-by might still have seen there ten years ago.
He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank; but then, one found one's self face to face with a wall.
BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK
CHAPTER V
WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GAS LANTERNS
At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some distance.
Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street.
Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just debouched into the Rue Polonceau.
He saw the gleam of their bayonets.
They were advancing towards him; these soldiers, at whose head he distinguished Javert's tall figure, advanced slowly and cautiously.
They halted frequently; it was plain that they were searching all the nooks of the walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys.
This was some patrol that Javert had encountered--there could be no mistake as to this surmise--and whose aid he had demanded.
Javert's two acolytes were marching in their ranks.
At the rate at which they were marching, and in consideration of the halts which they were making, it would take them about a quarter of an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean stood. It was a frightful moment.