THE ATTACK ON THE STORE-ROOM

IN the early morning of the next day, the _Bayard’s_ quarter-deck was swarming with women, and children huddled on their mothers’ laps. The women and children had taken refuge there. They thought that there would be less fear of a surprise than in the lower decks and gangways, where they trembled with fear. Moreover, a great piece of news formed the subject of conversation. It was stated that Sister St. Mary of the Angels was working hand in glove with Chéri-Bibi. That, of course, beat everything they thought.

They knew now why and how the nun was wounded. She was acting as the convict’s go-between. And it was at the moment when she was about to receive a letter from the Toper that a bullet struck her in the shoulder. If this were true, she richly deserved her fate. For, after all, she could not be a real Sister of Mercy. She was probably a girl anarchist who had assumed the dress of a nun in order to be near Chéri-Bibi, and had been entrusted by his friends with the work of rescuing him. She had “caught it.” It was a case, if ever there was one, in which to say: “Serve her right.”

Thus matters stood on the quarter-deck when Madame Pascaud, the wife of Sergeant Pascaud, appeared. She was out of breath, and obviously had something important to say, for, try as she might, her excitement prevented her from finding utterance. At last she quietened down and blurted out what she wished to say:

“Do you know ... she’s his sister.”

At first they did not understand her. They asked her to repeat her words and to explain her meaning. Of whom was she speaking? Of Sister St. Mary of the Angels!

“Well, she is the sister of ...”

“Chéri-Bibi!”

The amazement was general. And then doubts arose.

“Are you certain?”

“She told the Captain so herself. She thinks she’s going to die. So she told the truth!”

“Oh, the poor thing!”

A deep pity was in them; and they did not doubt that she was an innocent victim whose sole offense was to have such a brother.

Madame Pascaud, conscious of the importance of the moment, entered into details.

“Of course there’s nothing against her except carelessness, as the Captain told her when he freely forgave her. She came to minister to convicts because, as she said, her patron Saint Vincent de Paul used to minister among convicts. Pascaud heard every word. It seems that what happened brought tears to his eyes. She applied to be sent to Cayenne because she wanted to convert her brother. Convert Chéri-Bibi! She was a little over-confident. She wanted him to pray to the Almighty to pardon him for his crimes. After that she would die happy, she said. The reason why she kept secret the fact that she was his sister was because she felt convinced that she wouldn’t be allowed to stay with him, and that the Government would forbid her to go to Cayenne, because they’d believe that she was there to help him to escape. Say what you like, she’s a good girl who has the proper family instinct. But she’s been badly repaid.”

The gossips pricked up their ears to listen to Madame Pascaud, and they were about to resume their praise of the nun with the secret hope that she might protect them from her brother, when there was a considerable stir on deck.

A procession was approaching consisting of the principal officers of the ship with the Captain at their head. They were formed up round a stretcher carried by four sailors, and upon the stretcher lay Chéri-Bibi’s sister, whose name, in religion, was Sister St. Mary of the Angels.

Her transparent face was as white as the sheet which covered her. She held in her bloodless hands a great crucifix which rested upon her breast and seemed already to be keeping vigil over the dead.

Nevertheless Sister St. Mary’s eyes shone with incomparable brightness and her lips were moving as if in prayer.

Behind the group, which was on its way to the cages, marched a number of sailors and a considerable portion of the staff. In a moment the quarter-deck was cleared. The women hastened to obtain the latest news, and they learnt that Sister St. Mary had expressed to the Captain the wish to be carried from hold to hold before she died, so that she might call her brother and summon him to surrender to the justice of man to which he belonged, ere he appeared before the justice of God.

The Captain promised that if Chéri-Bibi surrendered when his sister appealed to him, the life of the savage Toper should be spared.

“Well, if that’s all the Captain is relying on to induce Chéri-Bibi to give in ...” said one of the women.

“He is quite right to make the attempt,” replied Madame Pascaud. “The sister considers that she was responsible for the Toper’s mutiny, and she doesn’t want him to be shot to-morrow, you may be sure.”

“No; she would like to go straight to Paradise, poor girl, without having anything to reproach herself with. She’s a saint.”

The stretcher was taken down to the lower deck and the convicts could see through the bars of their cages the white vision as it passed. When they recognized Sister St. Mary of the Angels, they took off their caps, and a few of them, who had not entirely lost all sense of religion, made the sign of the Cross.

They reached the lower berth deck and opened the hatch leading to the hold into which it was supposed that Chéri-Bibi had escaped when he left his cell. A great silence fell around the stretcher illuminated by the lanterns carried by the sailors, and Sister St. Mary of the Angels raised her voice. It was an exceptionally powerful voice. She must have summoned up her entire strength in this supreme effort.

“Chéri-Bibi!” she cried. “Chéri-Bibi, it’s I, your sister, who calls you. Have pity on me, Chéri-Bibi, I’m dying. You know how much I loved you when you were a little child. Chéri-Bibi, I still love you. Heaven will forgive you. In Heaven’s name I call upon you to surrender and die with me. Chéri-Bibi! ... Chéri-Bibi!...”

Her voice died away, and they listened for the least sound to ascend from the silence of the hold. But there was no movement and no answer in the darkness.

At the end of a few moments the nun cried:

“If I die before you, Chéri-Bibi, you know that I forgive you.”

And as there was still no response she motioned to them to take her away. The hatches were opened in succession--the magazine, the cordage, the cargo, the baggage holds--all of them. They visited every part of the ship, and the nun’s voice was raised above the dark cavities calling her brother, but her brother did not answer. And the procession returned to the sick-bay, and Sister St. Mary went back to bed in the operating room.

She asked that no operation should be performed on her because she wanted to die, and then she realized that since the doctor maintained that he could save her life, it was her duty to allow him to have his way. She was destined still to suffer here on earth. She submitted to the inevitable.

Nevertheless it was with the Captain’s support, but in spite of the doctor’s warning, that she had attempted to appeal to the memories of a brother whom she had tenderly loved, but to no purpose. She was now in a burning fever, and the extraction of the bullet had to be postponed.

The Captain held her hand and she wept. Above the little iron bedstead was hung the placard which she took with her wherever she went, and which was her only article of personal property. It contained these words:

“_For a convent they have the houses of the sick, for a cell the room that charity lends them, for a chapel their parish church, for a cloister the poor house, for seclusion the duty of obedience, for iron bars the fear of God, and for a veil a saintly modesty._”

Although she was forbidden to speak she murmured in her tears:

“He did not answer me, he did not come to me, he has forgotten the sound of my voice. It was I who gave him the name of Chéri-Bibi when he was quite young. It was the name which I chose out of my love for him. Alas! What has he made of it?...”

Her grief seemed to know no bounds. Her eyes, raised to heaven, were bedewed with tears.

“Oh God, I am the cause of his misfortune.... Forgive me.... Forgive him.”

A few moments later she said in a still fainter tone:

“Oh, I did think that when he heard my voice he would come....”

At that moment a great commotion arose in the alley-way.

“Captain.... Captain.... It’s Chéri-Bibi! ... It’s Chéri-Bibi!”

“Oh, I knew he would come,” she cried, and she clasped her hands, transfixed.

The Captain made a dash outside. A terrible tragedy was being enacted near the galleys. Chéri-Bibi had, indeed, appeared in an alley-way for the space of a second, and a sentry fired on him. Of course he missed him. With one bound Chéri-Bibi took refuge in the mess store-room, and was firing on everyone who attempted to come near him. The fight had all the appearance of a regular siege.

The sound of firing could be heard from the upper deck and from the direction of the galleys.

The mess store-room, as it was called on the _Bayard_, was a somewhat roomy pantry, between the two galleys, in which the provisions intended for the daily consumption of crew, passengers and convicts were stored. The main store-room was in the fore part below the third deck. The mess store-room led into one of the galleys only, but it was the largest and used for the convicts, and it contained hardly anything but three immense boilers, which were, in fact, receptacles, as deep as vats and large enough to hold an entire regiment’s washing, in which the convicts’ soup was made. This “bare” galley was managed by the Dodger, a journeyman baker who had been promoted in an emergency to the rank of cook, while the real chief cook lorded it in the officers’ galley. The galleys were situated nearly amidships between the two funnels. They could be reached almost direct from the upper deck by stairways called “ladders,” and one could go up to them very quickly by iron steps which led from the deck where the Captain and his little group were standing.

When the Captain arrived at the bottom of the ladder men shouted to him to get out of the way quickly for the ladder faced the outer door of the mess store-room. It was wide open, and Chéri-Bibi, who was right at the back and could not be seen, was shooting straight down into the lower deck.

De Kerrosgouët, revolver in hand, and de Vilène stood on the upper side ladders conducting the attack which, up to then, presented great difficulties.

Two military overseers who went too near the galley door were shot; one man in the leg and the other in the hand.

Thus Chéri-Bibi was rushing from one room to the other according to the necessities of his defense, and was ready to fire even before there was time to take aim at him, for he did not allow anyone to set foot in the hatchway in front of him.

How did he get there? How was he discovered? The story went that it was the Dodger who raised the alarm. The Lieutenant was on the point of entering the mess store-room when he stumbled against the Dodger, who was coming out, shouting:

“Don’t go in! I’ve seen something move under the vegetables.”

By an extraordinary chance the Lieutenant was unarmed. He called the two guards who were passing and they opened the store-room door without encountering any resistance; but as soon as the door was opened, the ruffian inside fired two revolvers simultaneously, and both guards had to make for the ladders.

De Vilène was in time to catch a glimpse of a demoniacal figure which sprang from the mess store-room to the galley. He recognized it. It was Chéri-Bibi.

“Now we’ve got him!” he shouted with delight. “Fetch the Captain.”

As a matter of fact it seemed impossible for Chéri-Bibi to escape. The cook’s mates had slipped out of the galleys and fled, leaving the field entirely in the scoundrel’s possession; but what could he do? The guards came hurrying up from all quarters. Doubtless a great deal of damage would be caused, but he was trapped!... he was trapped! Passengers and even women showed themselves on the companionways which were not under the enemy’s fire and shouted: “Shoot him!... Shoot him!”

Chéri-Bibi, feeling at that moment that the guards would risk everything to effect an entrance into one of the two rooms, galley or store-room, and thus take him between two fires, managed swiftly to close the galley door and to get back to the store-room when the Captain, leading half a dozen men, rushed in.

He fired.

Three men fell to the ground, impeding the onrush of the others.

The remarkable thing was that although a hot fire was directed against the convict, he did not seem in the slightest degree inconvenienced by it. True, they were firing at haphazard at a shadow which appeared and disappeared with amazing rapidity.

The Captain ordered de Vilène and de Kerrosgouët to remain in their positions, and to guard the ladders against any desperate attempt at flight in that direction.

A deafening clamor surged up from every part of the ship. The convicts below sang and shouted:

“Cheerily, Chéri-Bibi!... Cheerily!” _Who blows the blooming lot UP?_ _Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi.... Chéri-Bibi._

And the warders behind the Captain wavered.

Barrachon determined to bring matters to a climax whatever happened. He dashed ahead, exposing himself to the enemy’s fire, and he would inevitably have been laid low if a form, all white, like a wan ghost, had not come between and shielded him.

Sister St. Mary!...

Yes, it was she who had risen from her bed in spite of her weakness, and hurried to meet the shouts and the shot. Had she not called Chéri-Bibi? Well, he had answered the appeal. But his hand was still dealing out death.... And blood was being shed in streams around him.

She walked in front of the Captain, but with so light a tread that it looked as if her feet under her long drapery scarcely touched the deck.... She was a saint.... But she said in her gentle voice, which was growing still weaker:

“Here I am, Chéri-Bibi.... Don’t you recognize me?... Here I am.... If you must kill someone, kill me.... Kill me, my brother in Jesus Christ....”

But no shot was fired, and as she moved forward, followed by the Captain and his men, they all entered the store-room.

Chéri-Bibi was no longer there!

He had closed the door between the two rooms, and was now in the convicts’ galley.

It was his last resource.

The men were already trying the door. It was here that the quarry would be found. Sister St. Mary implored the wretch to give himself up and not to make any more victims.

“You’ve done enough killing,” she cried. “Chéri-Bibi, have pity on us. Have pity on me. I’ve come to die with you....”

They had to take her away before they could break down the door. There was a whirlwind rush into the galley....

It was empty.

Smoke was escaping from the three great soup boilers, and he, too, like smoke, had escaped.

Once more the question arose how did he get away? The galley did not lead into any room--except the store-room from which they had just come. There were no scuttles looking on to the sea. Light penetrated from the great upper deck skylights, which were riddled with bullets, and it was impossible for a man to force his way through them owing to the iron sashes. And, moreover, guards were on the lookout for him on deck.

Where was he?

Suddenly the Dodger’s voice was heard shouting:

“This way!... This way!... There he is! ... There he is!”

In a twinkling galley and store-room were cleared, and everyone followed the Dodger, who ran like one possessed along the alley-ways, rushed into a stairway, scrambled down, fell his length on the deck, and looking up exclaimed to those who were around him:

“I saw him.... Oh, I saw him.... Look, he vanished through there.... Sure enough, he’s the very devil.”