promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the

turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during this

brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear

one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living

ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of the

courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat

the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some

partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray.

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone,

past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights

of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick,

more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and

Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they

could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation

started on them and swept by; but when they had done

descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were

alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls and

arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible

to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they

had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing.

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock,

swu