貯蔵庫は、ごみで散らかっていた。ジョシュは、しばらく、そのあいだに横たわっていたが、息はきれ、傷も少しできていた。立ち上がろうとしたとき、くるぶしが思うように動かないことに気がついた。昔の捻挫がうずいたのだ。懲役をうける前、マザー・ギャップの店でくじいたもので、いつも、その症状がでてくるのだった。煉瓦の破片のあいまに腰をおろして、長靴をぬぐと―その長靴は汚れ、血が粘りついていた―それから、くるぶしを揉んだ。彼は愚かにも、この貯蔵庫を選んでしまったのだ。頭上の、壁と壁のあいだなる曲がり角を選ぶべきだった。彼は恐れおののき、穴を掘って、その穴のなかに身を隠そうとする衝動にかられた。脱出する術が他にはない方法を選んでしまったのだ、転がりおちてきた階段をのぞいては。大胆にも、コロンビア・マーケット沿いの通りを横切って、運河へと進んだ方がましだった。暗闇のなかで、汚点をみいだす者はいない。そうすれば、運河にはいって、橋のしたで、誰にも見られることなく、例のものを洗い流せたことだろう。今でも、痛みに耐えることができるなら可能だ。だが、無理だった。動かそうとしても、足が言うことをきかなかった。罠にかかった彼の有様は、まるで兎のようだった。彼は精魂込めて、くるぶしをさすり、揉み解すと、長靴をひっぱりあげた。だが、どちらの足にしても、体重を支えきれなかった。両手、両膝をつかえば、階段を這いあがることもできた。だが、そんなことをして何の役にたつだろう？ そこで彼は座り込み、待つことにした。
There were cellars under these houses, reached from the back-yards. Many a Jago had been born, had lived, and had died in such a place. A cellar would hide him for an hour, while he groped himself clean as he might. Broken brickwork littered the space that had been the back-yard. Feeling in the dark for the steps, which stood in a little pit, his foot turned on a stone, and he pitched headlong.
The cellar itself was littered with rubbish, and he lay among it a little while, breathless and bruised. When he tried to rise, he found his ankle useless. It was the old sprain, got at Mother Gapp’s before his lagging, and ever ready to assert itself. He sat among the brickbats to pull off the boot—that was foul and sticky too—and he rubbed the ankle. He had been a fool to think of the cellar: why not any corner among the walls above? He had given way to the mere panic instinct to burrow, to hide himself in a hole, and he had chosen one wherefrom there was no second way of escape—none at all but by the steps he had fallen in at. Far better to have struck out boldly across the streets by Columbia Market to the canal: who could have seen the smears in the darkness? And in the canal he might have washed the lot away, secure from observation, under a bridge. The thing might be possible, even now, if he could stand the pain. But no, the foot was useless when he tried it. He was trapped like a rat. He rubbed and kneaded the ankle diligently, and managed to draw the boot on. But stand on both legs he could not. He might have crawled up the steps on hands and knees, but what was the use of that? So he sat, and waited.
