Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled on, these buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably lower in height. Although barely eight o’clock, this road was almost deserted. Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp ground, while the dismal howling of a dog added to the cheerlessness of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step that he took led him further from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the last wineshop. A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the child the limits of the inhabited world. After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking and talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had hideous faces—such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day they were looking for Mâdou. The woman, above all, was frightful. “What does he want?” said one of the men. The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith’s forge. The child stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what he had undertaken. Had he strength enough to reach his mother? He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow against the white stones. Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the wine-shop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally repulsive. The shadows all about were now to his fancy peopled with these frightful beings. They climbed over the bank, they barred his further progress. If he extended his hand to the right or the left, he felt certain that he should touch them. A light and a voice aroused the child from this stupor. An officer, accompanied by his orderly, bearing a lantern, suddenly appeared. “Good evening, gentlemen,” said the child, gently, breathless with emotion.