Suddenly, in that very spot which looked like a dark hole, a redness showed.  The redness grew larger, and became a light.

There was no uncertainty about it.  It soon took a form and angles.  The gate of the jail had just turned on its hinges.  The glow painted the arch and the jambs of the door.  It was a yawning rather than an opening.  A prison does not open; it yawns—­perhaps from ennui.  Through the gate passed a man with a torch in his hand.

The bell rang on.  Ursus felt his attention fascinated by two objects.  He watched—­his ear the knell, his eye the torch.  Behind the first man the gate, which had been ajar, enlarged the opening suddenly, and allowed egress to two other men; then to a fourth.  This fourth was the wapentake, clearly visible in the light of the torch.  In his grasp was his iron staff.

Following the wapentake, there filed and opened out below the gateway in order, two by two, with the rigidity of a series of walking posts, ranks of silent men.

This nocturnal procession stepped through the wicket in file, like a procession of penitents, without any solution of continuity, with a funereal care to make no noise—­gravely, almost gently.  A serpent issues from its hole with similar precautions.

The torch threw out their profiles and attitudes into relief.  Fierce looks, sullen attitudes.

Ursus recognized the faces of the police who had that morning carried off Gwynplaine.

There was no doubt about it.  They were the same.  They were reappearing.

Of course, Gwynplaine would also reappear.  They had led him to that place; they would bring him back.

It was all quite clear.

Ursus strained his eyes to the utmost.  Would they set Gwynplaine at liberty?

The files of police flowed from the low arch very slowly, and, as it were, drop by drop.  The toll of the bell was uninterrupted, and seemed to mark their steps.  On leaving the prison, the procession turned their backs on Ursus, went to the right, into the bend of the street opposite to that in which he was posted.

A second torch shone under the gateway, announcing the end of the procession.

Ursus was now about to see what they were bringing with them.  The prisoner—­the man.

Ursus was soon, he thought, to see Gwynplaine.

That which they carried appeared.

It was a bier.

Four men carried a bier, covered with black cloth.

Behind them came a man, with a shovel on his shoulder.

A third lighted torch, held by a man reading a book, probably the chaplain, closed the procession.

The bier followed the ranks of the police, who had turned to the right.

Just at that moment the head of the procession stopped.

Ursus heard the grating of a key.

Opposite the prison, in the low wall which ran along the other side of the street, another opening was illuminated by a torch passing beneath it.