NUMBER 3216

“MY OWN ambition has always been to be an honest man,” said Little Buddha, casting a glance in the direction of the convict guards who, revolver in hand, were walking between the cages.

“What for?” asked the Toper.

“What for? Why, to set up as the owner of a wine shop, of course.”

“We can’t all keep a wine shop,” said the Toper in a tone of philosophy, “life would be too easy. Every man who comes into the world has his work cut out for him. You, Little Buddha, were certainly intended to grind away in Cayenne. As Chéri-Bibi says, _Fatalitas!_ What is written is written. We can’t cheat Providence. Talking of Chéri-Bibi, do you know what Carrots said to me?”

“I’m not bothering about what Carrots said to you,” replied Little Buddha, lowering his voice, “but it’s time we began to talk seriously. Now then: Is it for to-day or is it for to-morrow?”

The other outlaws repeated in the same tone, gathering round Little Buddha:

“He’s right.... Is it for to-day?... Is it for to-morrow?”

“Shut up!” growled the Toper. “It’s for whenever Chéri-Bibi pleases. But hang it all, shut up!”

As a warder passed stealthily along the bars of the cage, bending his legs in order to counterbalance the rolling of the vessel which was particularly heavy that day, the Toper continued aloud:

“No, but didn’t you hear what Carrots said? How silly the fellow is to talk like a preacher. He’s very squeamish. The only thing that he’s got up against Chéri-Bibi is robbing the body of the Marchioness. He says that cemeteries should be sacred.”

“He makes us laugh,” chuckled Little Buddha, who was seated on his kit bag. “The rich have no occasion to take their trinkets to the grave with them.”

“You see this hand,” said Carrots. “It has made as many victims as there are fingers on it. Well, it wouldn’t have done that. It would loathe that.”

“Chéri-Bibi did what he wanted to do. If he wasn’t in irons you’d hold your jaw.”

“That’s a certainty.”

“Ask the Kanaka[1] if he played the fastidious in the dissecting-room.”

Carrots shook his head obstinately. Chéri-Bibi did what he wanted to do, used the knife, was a thief--and such a thief!--cheeked the judge and all the Court, cleared out ordinary people, but he did not approve of Chéri-Bibi robbing the dead. That brought bad luck. They mentioned the Kanaka, an ex-doctor who had been condemned to ten years’ hard labor because he would not say for what purpose he required the strips of flesh which he had cut out of one of his living patients whom he kept by main force in his house, bound to a leather couch. Well, the Kanaka drove his own trade. Dead meat or living flesh, doctors as well as murderers gambled in it; it didn’t frighten them. And turning to the Kanaka, Carrots added with a vicious laugh:

“They do with it what they like, and it’s not for nothing that they call him the Kanaka.”

At this terrible allusion to the notorious cannibalism of the aborigines of New Caledonia, the Kanaka, who was yellow, became green. The other, obsessed by the one idea, continued:

“Take it from me, Chéri-Bibi was not born for that. There were better things for him to do than that. He showed a lack of delicacy.”

“Chéri-Bibi is a giant and you are a set of pigmies,” rapped out the Kanaka in a voice of contempt, turning his back on them.

“That’s true,” said Little Buddha. “He robbed the dead, but he did it to help the poor.”

“I grant that,” said Carrots, firm in his opinions, “but that throws discredit on the trade. That’s not the way to insure the progress of society. I’ve never read in Karl Marx or Kropotkine that you must do that sort of thing.”

Carrots had not read anything at all. But he never lost an opportunity of quoting the names of great men which were bandied about at public meetings, as if these important persons shared his views regarding the constitution of society.

“Chéri-Bibi has done everything in his time,” explained Little Buddha. “He even began his career by being an innocent victim.”

More often than not Little Buddha expressed himself in studied language, as became a man who had been clerk to a sheriff’s officer. He was nicknamed Little Buddha because with his thick-set, short-legged body as round as a barrel, his neck well sunk between his shoulders, and his arms folded across his chest, he resembled those little Asiatic gods which are to be found in second-hand dealers’ shops.

“Yes, he was innocent; at least that’s what he said,” he went on with a sigh, “and I quoted his case in my book on the ‘Reform of the Magistrature.’ Oh, the rotters....”

Little Buddha sighed as he thought of the sentence of penal servitude for life to which “they” had condemned him for having in “an attack of nerves”--so this sluggish person declared--taken the law into his own hands in a struggle with an old woman who had refused to hand over to him the key of her cash-box.

“That’s the way of the world now,” groaned Carrots. “It’s enough for you to have done nothing for them to send you to a convict settlement. I have ‘done in’ five, I give you my word. Not one more and not one less. Well, it’s for the sixth whom I never saw that you have the pleasure of my company. I say what I think. I’ve never committed a useless crime. I’ve always had a conscience. I’m a miserable wretch, ’tis true; a thief, ’tis true; I’ve used the knife, ’tis true; but that’s no reason why they should condemn an innocent man.”

“That’s the only thing society has ever done for you,” said Little Buddha in a tone of philosophy.

“While Chéri-Bibi is always doing something for society,” broke in the Toper, who was nervously following with a watchful eye the movements of the convict guard. “Did you see how he spat in the Commander’s face? There’s another man who gives me the hump with his doleful countenance. Do you know what he said to Chéri-Bibi?--‘Do you want anything, are you ill, Chéri-Bibi?’ And here was Chéri-Bibi spitting in his face! He did the right thing. We don’t want pity. What we want is justice.”

“Is it for to-day, or is it for to-morrow?” came from the hoarse voices of the men at the back of the cage.

The Toper growled louder than ever so as to drown their murmurs:

“If the Captain sings small to Chéri-Bibi, it’s because he funks him, just as the juries were too funky to condemn him to death for fear of reprisals. Everyone funks Chéri-Bibi.”

At these words the shadows at the back of the cage who were reclining on their kit bags and hammocks, which were rolled up in accordance with regulations, rose to their feet, and a humming sound, soft and rhythmic at first, but soon growing in volume, came from between decks.

_Who is it pads the hoof in gore,_ _And sets the dynamite a-roar,_ _And scares all Paris more and more?_ _Sing ho for Chéri!_ _The guv’ment will not leave us free,_ _From the Bois d’Boulogne to Gay Paree;_ _Who blows the blooming lot U P?_ _Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!_ _Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!_

The Toper with a few blows of his fist and a few rough words imposed silence, rapping out in a hollow voice:

“Look out! ... warder’s coming.”

“_Chouïa_, silence!” ordered the African, who was notorious for the extraordinary cruelty with which he had treated his mistress.

The overseers came hurrying up. They were furious. Keys grated in the locks. In the diffused light which feebly poured in from the railed portholes, the men could see through the bars, warders, revolver in hand, surrounding the men who were carrying the mess.

“Eyes front!”

The cage which contained the Toper, Little Buddha, Carrots and the Kanaka was the first in the upper gun deck next to the _Bayard’s_ forecastle. She was an old cruiser which had been converted into a transport and commissioned recently to convey convicts and persons deported from their country, from the Isle de Ré to Cayenne, since the _Loire_ alone was not equal to the work.

The issue of rations began at this cage. As soon as the order “Eyes front” rang out the fifty convicts who crowded the cage leapt to their feet. There were tragic faces among them; pallid faces, faces tinged with green; hollow cheeks, feverish eyes. Their heads and faces were clean-shaven, and they were dressed alike in the same square cap, the same jacket and trousers of coarse brown cloth, the same heavy yellow shoes. Round their arms was a band on which a number was inscribed, for in the eyes of the authorities these men no longer possessed a name. They lined up, elbowing each other so as to get in position, for they had caught sight of the second-in-command, a terrible martinet, who sent them to the cells, and put them in irons for next to nothing. The convict guards were subservient tools, cursing and swearing and striking hard at the men, ever ready with their “shooters,” as if the revolvers themselves were choking with the shot that filled their mouths, and longed to be relieved of their powder and their “suppressed lightning.” The criminal fraternity were smartened up a little by the wards’ bullying methods.

The guards enter the cages like animal tamers going among wild beasts. With revolver cocked, erect and on the alert, they encounter the eyes of each man in turn, and read in them rebellion, fury, impotent rage, and they compel them to shrink from the gleaming barrels. “Eyes front!”

The men who do not move to their places smartly enough with a click of the heels, their hands at their sides, are roughly hustled and soundly thrashed.

Nothing escaped the little piercing eyes of Lieutenant de Vilène, the second-in-command of the _Bayard_. There was but one word on his lips: “Cells.” He would have broken Chéri-Bibi if he had been in the Captain’s place. And nothing more would have been heard of the monster. The Captain and he would no longer have had to look after a man who had escaped from penal servitude once, from the lock-up twice, from a departmental prison thrice, and for whom doors seemed to have been built only to open of themselves, and bars erected only to support the rope or the bedclothes which set him free. They could very well have done without such a charge; and they both lived in dread of letting this terror loose on society.

However, Chéri-Bibi was in irons. At any rate that was something. And he would remain in irons during the voyage on board ship. De Vilène had made Captain Barrachon swear it. The latter had not yet got over Chéri-Bibi’s gross insult to him--him who was always so considerate with the convicts and professed humanitarian sentiments.

“That will teach you a lesson,” de Vilène said to the Captain.

The Lieutenant entered the cage in a fury, behind the warders, accompanied by the Overseer General, who himself had come hurrying up on hearing the unusual noise from the lower deck.

“Suppose I stop your rations. You know well enough that you’re not allowed to sing,” said the Inspector.

“If anyone wants to join No. 3216 in the hold let him say so,” exclaimed de Vilène. “Two days in the cells for you, Corporal, for not rolling up Chéri-Bibi’s hammock.”

The Corporal was no other than the African and he was on the point of receiving three tubs, which were being delivered to his cage, containing rations for his hundred and fifty men, and slinging the “dishes” to the deck above by means of the chain.

When he heard the sentence he said like a schoolboy:

“We’re going it!”

“Four days.”

He was silent. De Vilène shot a devastating look at him. He did not understand how a man with the African’s record could reply “We’re going it” to a naval lieutenant. He was beside himself. His wrath deprived everyone in the cage of the power of movement. The convicts around him held their breath. They knew that punishments incurred during the voyage would have a terrible influence on the treatment which would be meted out to them when they arrived in Cayenne.

“You’re so happy here, you sing,” snarled the officer. “Apparently because the absence of No. 3216 gives you more room.”

It was true that the departure of Chéri-Bibi had given them more room for they were packed in the cage like sardines in a tin. When Chéri-Bibi was ordered below in irons, two warders, who never left him, went with him; for, of course, they did him the honor of keeping a special watch over him. To begin with, the convict guard had been doubled in the passage outside his cage; afterwards two warders kept their eyes on him day and night in the cage itself. And at the end of the passage near the hatchways, and at all the entrances leading to the cages, soldiers were posted ready to fire at the first alarm.

The Lieutenant made the tour of the cage, turning the kit bags upside down as though he scented a surprise of some sort, some malevolent trick, devised in the dreadful gloom of this corner of the infernal regions. He opened one at haphazard. He knew quite well that after the perfect search to which the men had been subjected on leaving, he would find in it only the regulation outfit; but, even then one could never be easy in one’s mind, never be sure of anything with such miscreants. Finding nothing out of the way in the kit bag, he vented his spleen on the floor which he considered had not been properly swabbed.

“Who swabbed the deck?” he shouted; and turning to his escort, “For the future the cleaning for the cages will be done by men told off for the purpose. The overseer in charge of the men on fatigue duty must be satisfied that the work has been properly done, and must report to the Overseer General, who will inform me or my assistant.”

Then turning on his heel he confronted the men:

“And you.... Listen to me.... The men on fatigue duty, doing their twenty-four hours service, will not be allowed to go on deck with the others for the daily half-hour’s exercise. They must wait till they’ve finished their work. You will receive some small scrapers for this work, in addition to the swabs, for you don’t wet them enough. Damme, I want your cages to be as clean as the Commander’s sitting-room. Do you follow me? Do you understand--you Chouïa--you Corporal.”

“But the Commander said that ...” murmured the African with a sigh.

“There’s the Commander,” interrupted the Lieutenant as he thrust his revolver in the man’s face.

The warders were in a state of immense elation. The Lieutenant was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. But one of them, unluckily for him, laughed a little too loudly. The Lieutenant ordered him twenty-four hours in the cells, which would teach him to take the service seriously. It was the turn of the convicts to be delighted, and one of them cried out in the dusk:

“Bravo!”

On hearing this word of approval de Vilène, who was certainly very touchy, ordered one of the three dishes containing food for the cage to be taken away. It would make them tighten their belts. It would teach them to express an opinion when it wasn’t wanted.

He left them in a silence that could be felt.

After the convict guards went out and the bars were padlocked, the men snarled and gnashed their teeth. Once more a portion of the mess was taken away from them. And appalling in their rage, they surged round the Toper.

“Is it for to-day?... Is it for to-morrow?”

“It’s for whenever Chéri-Bibi decides.”

On account of the rolling of the vessel the “dishes”--the two tubs--were suspended on a chain. The Corporal was in charge of the first two parties of men who took their places round the tubs, and began to forage in the nauseous mixture which was simmering in them. The mess cooks kept a sharp look out on the movements of the wooden spoons plunging in this glue-like skilly consisting of odds and ends of carrots, turnips and leeks that at the finish were done to rags, or rather the residue of the stuff containing haricots so hard that nothing could soften them or make them lose their shape and identity. Each tub had, on this occasion, to satisfy the hunger of seventy-five instead of fifty men, because of the “privation.” Fortunately some of them suffered from the rolling of the ship, and being in a state of collapse in the corners, near the buckets, refused to answer the call. The convicts ate their food with mouths bent over the tubs like pigs bending over troughs. As they ate they continued their growls against the Lieutenant and the convict guards; the “warders” as they called them, although these men had the title and rank of “Military Overseers.”

The overseers passed and repassed the cages rapping out frightful oaths and jeers and threats. At one moment a loud clamor of slamming bars and a cry of pain could be heard from a distant cage on the gun deck. The convicts who were eating did not even look up. They knew the meaning of it. It was another old offender who had served his sentence in the cells, and on being brought back to his den had failed to enter it quickly enough. So they slammed the grille on his fingers.

The convict guards’ chief sport was this crushing of fingers. Oh, the warders were swine? Wait till they had one of them in their power. “When would it be--to-day or to-morrow?” It was for whenever Chéri-Bibi decided. Nevertheless let him hurry up!

Group succeeded group round the “tubs.” The men who were no longer eating watched the others eat. Each man was left his share. They showed a sense of fairness. And they stroked their stomachs with an air of satisfaction.

The rolling of the ship increased. Men slipped and lurched and cried out as others trod upon their feet. One blundering fool hung onto the “tub” and it began to bob up and down like a ship in distress. It was stopped too abruptly and there was a general shout. The haricots had made off! It was an unexpected bonus for the men who had finished their meal. They rushed forward and threw themselves upon the loathsome mess scattered over the deck.

The sea was terribly rough. The kit bags rolled one over the other; and one caught the clatter of things falling from their places between decks. A warder was sent sprawling on his face between the cages, and his revolver went off. The convicts laughed as only convicts can laugh. The shot did not kill or wound anyone.

“I wish it had killed you,” exclaimed the warder in a rasping voice as he scrambled to his feet.

In one cage a convict complained that salt water had been given him to drink. And the seas still mounted higher.... The waves sweeping against the ship’s waist and hurling themselves over the prow produced a thunder like the firing of heavy artillery.

At that moment the men who were eating at the “chain” with the Toper were listening to him with both ears. Carrots, the Kanaka, Little Buddha, and the African himself neglected their soup. But they pretended to be utterly intent on eating in the same gluttonous fashion.

“Don’t worry,” whispered the Toper. “As our curate said: ‘There’s a good time coming.’ It was not for nothing that Chéri-Bibi got himself put in irons. And the reason why he spat in the ‘Guv’nor’s’ face was that he didn’t want to be interfered with. He’s got his scheme. It’s a good ’un.”

“We’ll leave that to Chéri-Bibi. Seems we might in irons?” whispered Little Buddha. “I myself can do nothing without him. I’ve no confidence in anyone but him.”

“That’s his affair. He knows his business. There was no way of making our arrangements so long as the warders were in the cage watching him. That’s why he got himself put in irons. Do you understand now? He can talk.”

“I shall be in the cells to-morrow,” said the African. “Hurry up, so that I know what’s what. Is it a fact that we’re all agreed on a shindy?”

“Certain,” declared the Toper, nodding his head.

“All agreed to seize the ship.”

“Certain.”

“Is the lower gun deck in it?”

“The lower gun deck as well as the upper gun deck.”

“Aren’t there any police spies?”

“No, and no prison spies. All of us are in it quite openly. Ready to risk our skins if necessary. Win or die, what!”

“But what are we going to do when we’ve got the upper hand?”

“We’ll leave that to Chéri-Bibi. Seems we might turn pirates. We can please ourselves seeing that we shall be our own masters, what? Everything in the store-room will be ours, the whole caboodle, the ship and the government’s money.”

“We shall be masters of the Atlantic. Let those who come up against us look out!” said Little Buddha, and playing the gentleman he went on: “What awful weather! What a hustle! You’re treading on my foot, Toper. Did you ever see such a crowd packed into so small a space? We might be on the Boulevards on the fourteenth of July.” And he hummed as he cleaned out the bottom of the tub:

_In Paris chock-a-block with troops._

“Sing! Sing!” ordered the Toper. “There’s the warder. Don’t let him suspect that we’re planning things....”

Little Buddha wiped his mouth with his sleeve and finished:

_In Paris chock-a-block with troops,_ _Where I go for my little treat,_ _There’ll be twenty million nincompoops_ _A-treading on my feet._

The guard had passed. The Toper went on:

“Maybe we can go to Caracas where there’s a revolution on. We could offer our services to the revolutionary army, and then it would be our turn to become the government.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Little Buddha approvingly. “You shall be Minister of Justice and I Minister of Education. You’d see how I would educate the people. There would be no use for murderers.”

“Now you’ve talked enough rot,” said the Kanaka, who never allowed himself to take a cheerful view of anything, “can you explain, Monsieur the Toper, how we who are unarmed, locked up in cages, surrounded by warders and soldiers ready to search us, can get hold of the _Bayard_?”

“You want to know too much,” returned Carrots.

“That’s a fact, he’s too inquisitive,” insisted the Toper. “Chéri-Bibi doesn’t like it. I’ve told you he’s got his scheme.”

“Well, I tell you that without arms we can do nothing.”

“I agree with the Kanaka,” said the African.

“Who told you we shouldn’t have any arms?”

“Where are we to get ’em from?”

“Aren’t there any on board?”

“Yes, but we can’t get at ’em.”

“The scheme is a very simple one,” the Toper let slip at last, in a tone of irritation. And leaning towards his companions at the tub he continued: “We shall have arms ... as many as we want to make us masters of the lower deck. Do you follow me? We shall have arms ... cutlasses, shooters.... Excellent! At a given moment, when the cage is opened we shall make a rush at the guard, the Overseer General, the Inspector, the Lieutenant, in fact all the lot of them, and do for them. We shall open the other cages before the guards on the upper deck know what’s going on.”

“But the sentries will fire and the soldiers and sailors come hurrying up. We shall all be massacred.”

“Silly fool!” returned the Toper in a tone of contempt. “It’s certain that many of us will have to pay for it. More than one of us will get shot. But you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs, can you? The chief thing is not to funk it but to do the needful. Eight hundred pals on board will be armed.... We’ll make a dash for the hatchways, and it’s the sentries that’ll pay for it. And then we can barricade the hatchways in the gangways with kit bags and any stuff we may find in the hold.... I tell you, there’ll be a devil of a racket. We’ll fight like they did in the days of the Revolution, what? It’s a bad look out for the funkers. For my part I’d rather go under in the attempt than snuff it at Bré slaving away for the Government.”

A murmur of approval greeted the orator’s last words. Nevertheless the Kanaka did not seem entirely convinced. He was a man with the scientific mind. He mistrusted the Toper’s enthusiasm, his impulsive, thoughtless temperament. Yet he realized that Chéri-Bibi had chosen him as the confidant of his plans because, owing to his herculean strength, his brutality and his exploits, the Toper exercised a real influence over the convicts; and Chéri-Bibi was confident that he would not betray him but would make short work of those false friends who when they had knowledge of his intentions did not regard them as wonderful.

“The proof that we shall have arms when _he_ likes,” went on the Toper, getting up, a movement which was followed by the gaze of all the convicts who had been furtively watching Chéri-Bibi’s lieutenant as he talked, “the proof is that he wants us all to-day, in a body, to drink his health. We’ve had enough water. Come on, Carrots, have a look at the bottom of your bag.”

Carrots did as he was told and almost died on the spot from shock as his fingers came in contact with the agreeable chill of a glass bottle, and pulled it out with a trembling hand. All the men stared at it with the exception of the Lamb. There is always at least one Lamb in each cage who does not want to know anything of what is happening round him, and whose hypocritical attitude is allowed to pass because more often than not he is in a state of despair that prevents him from eating, and willingly foregoes his rations. With the exception, therefore, of the Lamb and the Toper, who started off on a tour of the grille just to keep the “deputy warders” under observation, every man had his eyes fixed on him, even the sick who pulled themselves together in order to see and understand.... Was it then indeed true?... A bottle.... A really big fat-bellied bottle.... A beautiful tickler.... A liter such as they had not seen for many a long day, for they were not entitled to buy luxuries at the canteen like the old offenders who were allowed to have money and the happiness that money can buy. They all stood up in spite of the pitching and rolling and their illness.... Clutching one another, with a tremulous movement of the fingers, their eyes starting from their heads, they stared at the bottle.

Carrots, who trembled so greatly that he was afraid of dropping it, held it tightly clasped in his arms; and then he opened it with eyes closed, nostrils dilated and face transfixed. The bottle contained rum. They would be able to have a tot of rum. The mere thought of it excited their thirst. Men who no longer had the right to anything save blows and kicks like wild beasts, and to starve to death, suddenly saw the light! A bottle of rum! What a miracle and what a mystery. It was Chéri-Bibi’s doing. He alone was capable of such a stroke. He alone could explain the inexplicable--how this wonderful thing had come about in spite of perpetual searches and frightful and continuous supervision. The man who had smuggled in this bottle of rum would also smuggle in arms. That could be depended on. There was no longer room for any doubt. And the men in all their varied brutality passionately vowed themselves to him.

“What a piece of luck the Lieutenant didn’t fix on Carrots’ kit bag,” said Little Buddha.

“It proves that Providence is with us,” declared the Toper. “Come on, there’s a drink all round. There isn’t enough in this one for all of us.”

He took four large bottles of rum out of the bag at the moment when he felt that there would be a scrimmage round Carrots’ bottle, which would not go far among so many. Then there was a gloomy and mute delirium. They drank, they gurgled and choked with joy, their heads thrown back a little, transported by the flow of the burning spirit. Those who had not yet drunk waited, their hands outstretched, their fingers bent, growling impatiently, gasping painfully and heavily for breath. The Toper kept order, and when the warders walked down the alley-way he put the bottles out of sight. And then once again the men made a rush at them. When the unclean kiss on the mouth of the bottle continued too long, men cried out in muffled and threatening voices: “That’ll do!” and the drinker gave up the bottle with flaming eyes. When the bottles were empty there was at first a silence, a sort of physical exhaustion to which they yielded with one common accord. And then suddenly the same impulse of gratitude leapt forth from all their throats. And the hoarse voices rang out:

_The guv’ment will not leave us free,_ _From the Bois d’Boulogne to Gay Paree;_ _Who blows the blooming lot U P?_ _Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!_ _Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi!_

The guard in hot haste leveled their revolvers through the bars, and the Captain and the Lieutenant rushed up with a number of soldiers before the men could be made to stop their singing. The whole cage, when silence was restored, was condemned to three days bread and water diet. A warder discovered the empty bottles. Lieutenant de Vilène went pale with rage:

“Who made you a present of these?”

There was a silence.

“Who made you this present?”

Then the convicts in unison shouted:

“Chéri-Bibi ... Chéri-Bibi.”

The Captain, noticing that they were in a state of mad excitement due to the rum to which they were unaccustomed, and wishing as far as possible to avoid further trouble, ordered his men to retire.

“You must make an inquiry,” he said to the Lieutenant when they were in the alley-way, “and if the guards are at fault, punish them severely. Bottles of rum in the cage! Why, there might have been arms. Oh, we’ve got to find out all about it.... It’s inconceivable.”

“Absolutely. But what is more inconceivable still, Captain,” replied the Lieutenant, “is why the juries did not condemn all these miscreants to death. If they saw them as we see them, it is quite likely that they would regret their weakness ... not to say their cowardice. When I think that they did not dare to strike at Chéri-Bibi....

“Yes, it’s monstrous.”

The circumstances of Chéri-Bibi’s last trial were indeed monstrous. To begin with, two of the jurymen whose names were in the ballot, and who in spite of their efforts were not challenged, had simply fainted, and they had to be brought to by massage before they returned to a sense of their duty to society. They requested the President of the Assize Court to afford them police protection to their homes after the trial, and to instruct the detective service to continue to guard their precious lives; and finally they returned a verdict of guilty with “extenuating circumstances,” finding that Chéri-Bibi was only in part responsible and thus saving his head. The case was, moreover, conducted with a remarkable lack of firmness by the President, who was so polite that he seemed to be asking the prisoner’s pardon for taking so great a liberty as to try him. The state of mind of the Seine Assize Court at this period may be gathered if we recall that on the very morning of the trial, the wine shop in which the waiter served who betrayed Chéri-Bibi and handed him over to the police, was blown up like a box of fireworks. It was a warning that the jurymen had taken to heart.

“Let’s go and see him,” said the Captain, who descended the ladder leading to the lower gun deck. “This Chéri-Bibi prevents me from sleeping,” he confessed.

They went along the lower gun deck, between the cages. On the upper deck, thanks to the portholes, it was possible to see almost distinctly, but the second deck was like night with a few dim red gleams from lanterns that swung with the rolling of the waves. Only the iron bars shone, and behind them, looming in the darkness, the faces of demons appeared, like the hideous faces seen in nightmares, and they stared at the warders as they passed, revolver in hand. The two officers merely walked through the alley-way and went below to the third deck. As soon as they descended to this inferno the obscurity became impenetrable. In places they had to grope their way step by step, leaning against the iron walls behind which they caught the sound of wails or curses. They reached the alley-way in which lay the cells under a military guard. At the far end, at the very back of this hell, a warder opened the door for them. And they went in accompanied by a sailor carrying a lantern. Two deputy convict warders--guards whom the convicts placed even below the warders--rose to their feet at the entrance to the cell and gave the salute.

Some object was crouching in the gloom of the background.

For a few moments the two officers took stock of this object which did not stir. Was it dead? Was it alive? The Captain, heavy of heart, much concerned, determined to make sure.

“Aren’t you ashamed, Chéri-Bibi, to have spat in the face of your Captain?” he said.

The still motionless object possessed a voice, and a hoarse voice replied:

“You were wrong to take it as a personal insult.”

When Captain Barrachon, worthy man, who asked only to live in peace, and to whom by a frightful stroke of fate the duty had fallen to take this cargo of malefactors to its destination, heard Chéri-Bibi’s reply he turned giddy: “You were wrong to take it as a personal insult!” He had to hold on to the bulkhead so greatly was he moved. It was really too much. Chéri-Bibi was obviously making fun of him. The little spirit which the practice of his social and humanitarian theories with his subordinates had left the Captain received a rude shock. He realized that de Vilène was undoubtedly right in treating these miscreants as wild beasts who had nothing in common with ordinary human nature. And what the past crimes, the blood-stained notoriety of Chéri-Bibi failed to achieve, namely, make him forget that a man, however low he may have sunk, still belongs to the human family, the convict’s mockery had accomplished in a flash. He bitterly loathed all those wretches, and he could not forgive them for making him believe for an instant that he could win them by fair treatment and make better men of them. Why, he had never lost an opportunity since the vessel started of showing Chéri-Bibi that his heart was not steeled against the evils of the prison system, by granting some relaxation of the terrible regulations, by improving the convicts’ daily fare, and by interesting himself in their general welfare. He allowed them now and again an additional short exercise on the upper deck with the sole object of preventing them from stifling to death in their cages. And this was his reward! Chéri-Bibi spat in his face and told him not to regard it as a personal insult.... Yes, yes, de Vilène was right ... it would teach him a lesson ... it would teach him a lesson. For the future he would be pitiless and he began:

“Chéri-Bibi, you are a reckless fellow.”

The object squatting in the dark corner chuckled.

“Consider that I spat in the face of society. It was not intended to annoy you personally, Captain.”

He heard the hoarse, husky, forbidding voice, the manner of saying “Captain.” How could one pity such wretches? If only he did not get loose. He would be capable of anything, anything. He had already proved that he was capable of anything, but after Captain Barrachon had spoken he meant that he was able to do anything against him; in other words, entail upon him all the anxieties that would follow his escape, to say nothing of the crimes that he would commit aboard ship. The man who devised a scheme for blowing up the Law Courts would certainly see nothing out of the way in shooting Captain Barrachon.

Prudence was the watchword. Chéri-Bibi should remain in irons until the end of the voyage. He told him so.

“That’s all right,” replied the voice. “I prefer you like that. You disgust me less.”

“Bring your lantern nearer,” the Captain shouted to the sailor.

He examined with minute care the irons, called bars of justice. They consisted of a long rod of over an inch in diameter with fetters attached which kept the legs crossed, and, if needs be, the arms as well. In Chéri-Bibi’s case the arms were crossed. When the shackles were once fitted to the limbs, they were threaded to the rod, and let down to the spot which they were intended to occupy. Afterwards the end of the rod was closed by means of a large padlock which served as a bolt. An iron pad covered the other end of the rod, to prevent the fetters from slipping off.

Captain Barrachon made sure that the bars and shackles were in position and Chéri-Bibi’s limbs also. The lantern did not cast any light upon the lower part of the object crouching in the dusk; the object whose wheezing and hateful breathing could be heard though its face could not be seen. The Captain took the lantern from the sailor, and felt no inclination to throw its rays upon Chéri-Bibi’s face, which always perturbed him. He could look at the hands and feet in their irons; but he would not look at the face, the hideous face.... He could not bear to see it.... He shuddered at the thought of the terrible expression which it must wear since he had ordered him to be kept “in irons for the rest of the voyage,” for, after all, it was as though he had sentenced him to death.

The lantern was clear of the rod and was held over the padlock, which was properly fastened. It was a sound, heavy, thick, honest padlock of which the Captain held the key, the only key, in his pocket. And he stood up with a sigh of relief. He was more easy in his mind now that he had examined the irons.

“I’ve always regretted,” he said to the Lieutenant, “that these irons which recall the Inquisition and the gloomy Middle Ages, are used in our navy to punish the slightest breach of the regulations or of discipline. But really I’m not sorry that we still have these last vestiges of barbarism at our command when we have to deal with a convict like this.”

“Shut up!” said the voice in the dark.

“Do you hear him? ’Tis crime itself that is speaking,” said Barrachon, incensed. “Crime in all its impudence and horror. Crime with no name to it.”

“Yes, for it’s called Chéri-Bibi,” shrieked the voice proudly.

“This wretch respects nothing. Perhaps he has parents who are mourning over his misdeeds, but he is as oblivious of them as he is oblivious of the crimes themselves.”

“I’ve weakened my memory by excess,” replied the voice.

“Let’s hurry away,” exclaimed the Captain, “or I shall kill him and regret it all my life.”

“And I ... I should congratulate you all mine,” replied the Lieutenant.

The Captain turned to the two men whose duty it was never to lose sight of Chéri-Bibi.

“I’ve ordered the guard to be relieved every hour. It will be less of a strain. You know your instructions.... You must never speak or answer No. 3216.”

At that moment a dismal sob came from the darkness. It was so terrible and so mournful that both officers were singularly impressed. The Captain was at the end of his endurance. He lifted the lantern to a level with the face of the man who was crying. And all five--the two officers, the two warders, and the sailor--started back appalled, for they had before them a man who was laughing. The men would never forget the abominable spectacle, this bitter laughter in the red gleam of the lantern, this monstrous grimace of the man who mocked them by laughing from ear to ear because they believed for a moment that he had moaned and felt compassion for his suffering. The Captain let the lantern fall, and it shattered, and the light went out, and the loathsome object faded in the darkness. Barrachon, stifling, staggering, opened the door of the cell and took refuge in the alley-way.

“He laughs!” he muttered, overcome with a fit of shivering. “The monster must have laughed when he committed his last murder.”

The door was not yet closed, and Chéri-Bibi heard the Captain’s word. And the hoarse voice overtook Barrachon as he fled:

“You’re wrong in thinking it made no difference to me. That very night I had to take a mustard foot bath!”

Barrachon and de Vilène pressed their whole weight against the door to shut out the sound.

Then they mounted the steps of the inferno which above and below and around them seemed once more to be filled with a general shout. The convicts would not keep silent unless they saw a non-commissioned officer or an officer. From cage to cage, from cell to cell, from lower deck to upper deck ribald songs, insults, curses, challenges, obscenities were being bandied about; but the Captain and the Lieutenant could think only of Chéri-Bibi.

“Luckily for all of us he’ll be dead before the voyage is over,” said de Vilène.

“Why should he be?” asked Barrachon, stopping short with one foot on the last rung of the ladder which ran up to the second deck. “Why do you want him to die?”

“He won’t be able to hold out to the end with those irons on. His hands and feet are already bleeding.”

“The devil they are!” said the Captain, thinking out aloud. “That’s a ‘question of conscience.’”

“Is there any question of conscience concerned with men like that? We must have more pluck than jurymen, that’s all.... Hark!”

The vessel re-echoed with the convicts’ doleful singing.

“There’s no hope with that scum,” went on the Lieutenant. “Oh, if we made up our minds to it! A little blood-letting would soon bring them to their senses.”

Before the Captain had time to reply a big white body came tumbling against him, grabbed him as it passed, made him slightly lose his balance, continued its course swiftly down the ladder, heels uppermost, and would have rolled to the bottom of the hold if the Lieutenant had not quietly caught it midway. The officers recognized the cook’s mate, who had obviously not found his sea legs. From the beginning of the voyage the lurching and wallowing of the ship held him at their mercy. The unfortunate man could not stand upright. Because of this fact and his thinness he was the sport of the warders and the sailors, who nicknamed him the Dodger.

“What are you doing here?” asked the Captain.

“You see for yourself, sir,” the Dodger replied in a serious voice. “I’m collecting my dishes.”

As a matter of fact, men were following him with the convicts’ mess tubs. He caught hold of the rope of the ladder and added:

“Do you know, sir, that the cook has been working it out in the store-room with the Inspector? Not a single bottle of rum is missing.”

At that moment a more than usually sudden lurch of the vessel made him let go the rope and he went flying down to the deck below.

“I never heard of such a thing,” groaned the Captain.

“I swear that I’ll clear the matter up before the day is over,” said de Vilène. “The rum must have been sold to them by the overseers.”

When the announcement was made by the guard that the two officers had returned to the lower deck, the singing ceased, to be taken up again as soon as the Captain and Lieutenant had passed. And it was the turn of the upper deck to smother its clamor.

“Here’s the Cap’n and the Second!”

The signal passed from cage to cage. The two officers halted for a moment before the “financier’s cage.” Not that a special compartment was set aside for financial gentlemen, but the cage owed its name to the great number of fraudulent bankrupts and swindlers who had misappropriated funds who were present, cheek by jowl with the usual number of common rogues. For that matter they were all dressed alike. Thus it was impossible to distinguish the small fry, the society sharper, the solicitor who was once held in honor in his county, the fraudulent banker who had surprised the town by his display, nor those popular cracksmen with a sense of humor who when they came before judges and juries excited the admiration of certain ill-balanced young persons. Spiritless, dejected, cast down amidst this confused jumble of the tagrag and bobtail of crime, they were no longer recognizable with the exception of the Top, who every now and then, when least expected, gave vent to a sharp, shrill chuckle which vibrated like a pea-whistle, and had the effect of driving the overseers almost crazy.

The officers afterwards passed on to another compartment, the cage for women, containing some forty old incorrigibles who, as soon as they caught sight of the Captain, began to bewail their fate and to groan in the most heartrending manner.

“Have you done sniveling?” snarled one of them, whose white face and flaming black eyes were glued to the grille.

Oh, she was not the one to whimper was not the Countess. Always in a passion, always in rebellion, she never ceased to stride round her cage like a wild hyena, scattering with a blow from her paw anyone who might stand in the way of her perambulation. The other women dreaded her, for she was cruel, and of great strength, and used her teeth. She was extraordinarily beautiful. And they called her the Countess because she had assumed towards them from the beginning the airs of a great lady.

And then one day she started to talk slang as if she had been used to it all her life, and she dominated them by her brazen effrontery. The Countess was the Kanaka’s wife and was condemned at the same time as that peculiar doctor for deeds which the indictment itself dared not describe. They were suspected of cannibalism.

Barrachon and de Vilène stood before this beast of prey clinging to the bars of its cage.

“What do you want, Captain? Do you want me to make love to you?”

The Captain uttered a cry of pain, for the Countess suddenly stretched out her claw and seized him by the chin.

“I’ve got him by the beard.... I’ve got him by the beard!”

The Lieutenant had to strike her a violent blow with the butt end of his revolver before she released her hold. She flung herself back, whining like a beast in a menagerie mastered by the prong of its keeper.

The Lieutenant ordered her to be taken to the cells at once.

“Oh, let’s get out of this,” gasped the Captain. “Let’s get up to the light of day. We must leave these cursed places.”

De Vilène shrugged his shoulders and followed him. The Captain’s weakness and his bombastic manner of expressing himself irritated him. Barrachon could endure it no longer nor could he master his disgust. He glided between the last cages as though he were running away, and heaved a sigh of relief when he placed his foot on the deck, notwithstanding that, down below, the inferno re-echoed once more with its terrible songs.

“But why are they singing? We’ve never heard them sing like this before,” he said to the Lieutenant. “Something is happening that we know nothing about.”

“Convicts are fond of singing,” answered the Lieutenant, smiling coldly. “Do you know the derivation of the word _chiourne_, convict? It comes from the Italian _ciurma_, which itself is derived from the Greek _keleusma_, and it means the Song of the Rowers. What is there more agreeable in the world than the Song of the Rowers?”

The Captain made off. He locked himself in his cabin. He was assailed by the gloomiest forebodings. He was especially perturbed by the mystery of the bottles of rum. Fortunately he had a considerable armed force under his command. Had he made sufficient use of that force? Had not his own weakness produced, by degrees, the state of mutiny into which his extraordinary cargo had fallen? If he had dared to let his men use their weapons once or twice, as was his right, there would have been no more singing in the cages. And then he asked himself: “After all, why should I prevent them from singing? Why?” And he realized that it was not the singing that worried him, but someone that was at the bottom of it all, someone in the vessel, and that someone was no other than Chéri-Bibi. He had confessed to his lieutenant that the man prevented him from sleeping. As he reached this point in his reflections, there was a loud knock at his door and Lieutenant de Vilène came in as pale as death.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in a voice that failed him somewhat, for he was already convinced that he was about to hear of some terrible misfortune.

“The matter is that No. 3216 has escaped,” replied the Lieutenant quickly.

“Chéri-Bibi?”

“Yes. Chéri-Bibi is not in his cell.”

The Captain partly turned round and dropped onto the sofa.

“But look here,” he exclaimed with a start, “you don’t mean to say so. What about the warders?”

“Both of them are dead. The relief guard found them behind the door of the cell strangled. The irons are still padlocked, and Chéri-Bibi has disappeared.”

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Kanaka, Canaque, Kanak, a native of New Caledonia and now applied to any native of the French colonies. TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.]