Javert placed his life-preserver between his teeth, bent his knees, bowed his back, laid his two powerful hands on Jean Valjean's shoulders, which they held as in two vises, examined and recognized him. Their faces almost touched, and Javert's glance was terrific. Jean Valjean remained inert under Javert's gripe, like a lion enduring the claw of a lynx.
"Inspector Javert," he said, "you have me. Besides, since this morning I have considered myself your prisoner. I did not give you my address in order to try to escape you. Take me, but grant me one thing."
Javert did not seem to hear, but kept his eyeballs fixed on Jean Valjean. His wrinkled chin thrust up his lips toward his nose, a sign of stern reverie. At length he loosed his hold of Jean Valjean, drew himself up, clutched his cudgel, and, as if in a dream, muttered rather than asked this question,—
"What are you doing here, and who is that man?"
Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice seemed to awaken Javert,—
"It is of him that I wished to speak. Do with me as you please, but help me first to carry him home. I only ask this of you."
Javert's face was contracted in the same way as it always was when any one believed him capable of a concession; still he did not say no. He stopped again, took from his pocket a handkerchief, which he dipped in the water, and wiped Marius's ensanguined forehead.
"This man was at the barricade," he said in a low voice, and as if speaking to himself; "he was the one whom they called Marius."
He was a first-class spy, who had observed everything, listened to everything, heard everything, and picked up everything, when he believed himself a dead man; who spied even in his death agony, and, standing on the first step of the sepulchre, took notes. He seized Marius's hand, and felt his pulse.
"He is wounded," said Jean Valjean.