Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Leroy was awakened about ten o’clock that night by sounds that were very unusual in that sombre, sepulchral prison. They were sounds of unbridled revelry — snatches of ribald song, bursts of coarse, reverberating laughter and they proceeded, as it seemed to him, from the courtyard and the porter’s lodge.

  He crawled from the dank straw which served him for a bed, and approached the door to listen. Clearly the porter Laqueze was entertaining friends and making unusually merry. It was also to be gathered that Laqueze’s friends were getting very drunk. What the devil did it mean?

  His curiosity was soon to be very fully gratified. Came heavy steps up the stone staircase, the clatter of sabots, the clank of weapons, and through the grille of his door an increasing light began to beat.

  Some one was singing the “Carmagnole” in drunken, discordant tones. Keys rattled, bolts were drawn; doors were being flung open. The noise increased. Above the general din he heard the detestable voice of the turnkey.

  “Come and see my birds in their cages. Come and see my pretty birds.”

  Leroy began to have an uneasy premonition that the merrymaking portended sinister things.

  “Get up, all of you!” bawled the turnkey. “Up and pack your traps. You’re to go on a voyage. No laggards, now. Up with you!”

  The door of Leroy’s cell was thrown open in its turn, and he found himself confronting a group of drunken ruffians. One of these — a red-capped giant with long, black mustaches and a bundle of ropes over one arm suddenly pounced upon him. The cocassier was an active, vigorous young man. But, actuated by fear and discretion, he permitted himself tamely to be led away.

  Along the stone-flagged corridor he went, and on every hand beheld his fellow-prisoners in the same plight, being similarly dragged from their cells and similarly hurried below. At the head of the stairs one fellow, perfectly drunk, was holding a list, hiccupping over names which he garbled ludicrously as he called them out. He was lighted in his task by a candle held by another who was no less drunk. The swaying pair seemed to inter-support one another grotesquely.

  Leroy suffered himself to be led down the stairs, and so came to the porter’s lodge, where he beheld a half-dozen Marats assembled round a table, with bumpers of wine before them, bawling, singing, cursing, and cracking lewd jests at the expense of each prisoner as he entered. The place was in a litter. A lamp had been smashed, and there was a puddle of wine on the floor from a bottle that had been knocked over. On a bench against the wall were ranged a number of prisoners, others lay huddled on the floor, and all of them were pinioned.

  Two or three of the Marats lurched up to Leroy, and ran their hands over him, turning out his pockets, and cursing him foully for their emptiness. He saw the same office performed upon others, and saw them stripped of money, pocket-books, watches, rings, buckles, and whatever else of value they happened to possess. One man, a priest, was even deprived of his shoes by a ruffian who was in want of foot-gear.

  As they were pinioning his wrists, Leroy looked up. He confesses that he was scared.

  “What is this for?” he asked. “Does it mean death?”

  With an oath he was bidden to ask no questions.

  “If I die,” he assured them, “you will be killing a good republican.”

  A tall man with an inflamed countenance and fierce, black eyes, that were somewhat vitreous, now leered down upon him.

  “You babbling fool! It’s not your life, it’s your property we want.”

  This was Grandmaison, the fencing-master, who once had been a gentleman. He had been supping with Carrier, and he had only just arrived at Le Bouffay, accompanied by Goullin. He found the work behind time, and told them so.

  “Leave that fellow now, Jolly. He’s fast enough. Up and fetch the rest. It’s time to be going... time to be going.”

  Flung aside now that he was pinioned, Leroy sat down on the floor and looked about him. Near him an elderly man was begging for a cup of water. They greeted the prayer with jeering laughter.

  “Water! By Sainte Guillotine, he asks for water!” The drunken sans-culottes were intensely amused. “Patience, my friend — patience, and you shall drink your fill. You shall drink from the great cup.”

  Soon the porter’s lodge was crowded with prisoners, and they were overflowing into the passage.

  Came Grandmaison cursing and swearing at the sluggishness of the Marats, reminding them — as he had been reminding them for the last hour — that it was time to be off, that the tide was on the ebb.

  Stimulated by him, Jolly — the red-capped giant with the black mustaches — and some others of the Marat Company, set themselves to tie the prisoners into chains of twenty, further to ensure against possible evasion. They were driven into the chilly courtyard, and there Grandmaison, followed by a fellow with a lantern, passed along the ranks counting them.

  The result infuriated him.

  “A hundred and five!” he roared, and swore horribly. “You have been here nearly five hours, and in all that time you have managed to truss up only a hundred and five. Are we never to get through with it? I tell you the tide is ebbing. It is time to be off.”

  Laqueze, the porter of Le Bouffay, with whose food and wine those myrmidons of the committee had made so disgracefully free, came to assure him that he had all who were in the prison.

  “All?” cried Grandmaison, aghast. “But according to the list there should have been nearer two hundred.” And he raised his voice to call: “Goullin! Hola, Goullin! Where the devil is Goullin?”

  “The list,” Laqueze told him, “was drawn up from the register. But you have not noted that many have died since they came — we have had the fever here — and that a few are now in hospital.”

  “In hospital! Bah! Go up, some of you, and fetch them. We are taking them somewhere where they will be cured.” And then he hailed the elegant Goullin, who came up wrapped in a cloak. “Here’s a fine bathing-party!” he grumbled. “A rare hundred of these swine!”

  Goullin turned to Laqueze.

  “What have you done with the fifteen brigands I sent you this evening?”

  “But they only reached Nantes to-day,” said Laqueze, who understood nothing of these extraordinary proceedings. “They have not yet been registered, not even examined.”

  “I asked you what you have done with them?” snapped Goullin.

  “They are upstairs.”

  “Then fetch them. They are as good as any others.”

  With these, and a dozen or so dragged from sick-beds, the total was made up to about a hundred and thirty.

  The Marats, further reinforced now by half a company of National Guards, set out from the prison towards five o’clock in the morning; urging their victims along with blows and curses.

  Our cocassier found himself bound wrist to wrist with a young Capuchin brother, who stumbled along in patient resignation, his head bowed, his lips moving as if he were in prayer.

  “Can you guess what they are going to do with us?” murmured Leroy.

  He caught the faint gleam of the Capuchin’s eyes in the gloom.

  “I do not know, brother. Commend yourself to God, and so be prepared for whatever may befall.”

  The answer was not very comforting to a man of Leroy’s temperament. He stumbled on, and they came now upon the Place du Bouffay, where the red guillotine loomed in ghostly outline, and headed towards the Quai Tourville. Thence they were marched by the river the whole length of the Quai La Fosse. Fear spreading amongst them, some clamours were raised, to be instantly silenced by blows and assurances that they were to be shipped to Belle Isle, where they were to be set to work to build a fort.

  The cocassier thought this likely enough, and found it more comforting than saying his prayers — a trick which he had long since lost.

  As they defiled along the quays, an occasional window was thrown up, and an inquisitive head protruded, to be almost instantly withdrawn again.

  On the Cale Robin at last they were herded into a shed whic
h opened on to the water. Here they found a large lighter alongside, and they beheld in the lantern-light the silhouettes of a half-dozen shipwrights busily at work upon it, whilst the place rang with the blows of hammers and the scream of saws.

  Some of those nearest the barge saw what was being done. Two great ports were being opened in the vessel’s side, and over one of these thus opened the shipwrights were nailing planks. They observed that these ports, which remained above the water-line now that the barge was empty, would be well below it once she were laden, and conceiving that they perceived at last the inhuman fate awaiting them, their terror rose again. They remembered snatches of conversation and grim jests uttered by the Marats in Le Bouffay, which suddenly became clear, and the alarm spreading amongst them, they writhed and clamoured, screamed for mercy, cursed and raved.

  Blows were showered upon them. In vain was it sought to quiet them again with that fable of a fort to be constructed on Belle Isle. One of them in a frenzy of despair tore himself free of his bonds, profited by a moment of confusion, and vanished so thoroughly that Grandmaison and his men lost a quarter of an hour seeking him in vain, and would have so spent the remainder of the night but for a sharp word from a man in a greatcoat and a round hat who stood looking on in conversation with Goullin.

  “Get on, man! Never mind that one! We’ll have him later. It will be daylight soon. You’ve wasted time enough already.”

  It was Carrier.

  He had come in person to see the execution of his orders, and at his command Grandmaison now proceeded to the loading. A ladder was set against the side of the lighter by which the prisoners were to descend. The cords binding them in chains were now severed, and they were left pinioned only by the wrists. They were ordered to embark. But as they were slow to obey, and as some, indeed, hung back wailing and interceding, he and Jolly took them by their collars, thrust them to the edge, and bundled them neck and crop down into the hold, recking nothing of broken limbs. Finding this method of embarkation more expeditious, the use of the ladder was neglected thenceforth.

  Among the last to be thus flung aboard was our cocassier Leroy. He fell soft upon a heaving, writhing mass of humanity, which only gradually shook down and sorted itself out on the bottom of the lighter when the hatches overhead were being nailed down. Yet by an odd chance the young Capuchin and Leroy, who had been companions in the chain, were not separated even now. Amid the human welter in that agitated place of darkness, the cries and wails that rang around him, Leroy recognized the voice of the young friar exhorting them to prayer.

  They were in the stern of the vessel, against one of the sides, and Leroy, who still kept a grip on the wits by which he had lived, bade the Capuchin hold up his wrists. Then he went nosing like a dog, until at last he found them, and his strong teeth fastened upon the cord that bound them, and began with infinite patience to gnaw it through.

  Meanwhile that floating coffin had left its moorings and was gliding with the stream. On the hatches sat Grandmaison, with Jolly and two other Marats, howling the “Carmagnole” to drown the cries of the wretches underneath, and beating time with their feet upon the deck.

  Leroy’s teeth worked on like a rat’s until at last the cord was severed. Then, lest they should be parted in the general heaving and shifting of that human mass, those teeth of his fastened upon the Capuchin’s sleeve.

  “Take hold of me!” he commanded as distinctly as he could; and the Capuchin gratefully obeyed. “Now untie my wrists!”

  The Capuchin’s hands slid along Leroy’s arms until they found his hands, and there his fingers grew busy, groping at the knots. It was no easy matter to untie them in the dark, guided by sense of touch alone. But the friar was persistent and patient, and in the end the last knot ran loose, and our cocassier was unpinioned.

  It comforted him out of all proportion to the advantage. At least his hands were free for any emergency that might offer. That he depended in such a situation, and with no illusions as to what was to happen, upon emergency, shows how tenacious he was of hope.

  He had been released not a moment too soon. Overhead, Grandmaison and his men were no longer singing. They were moving about. Something bumped against the side of the vessel, near the bow, obviously a boat, and voices came up from below the level of the deck. Then the lighter shuddered under a great blow upon the planks of the forecastle port. The cries in the hold redoubled. Panting, cursing, wailing men hurtled against Leroy, and almost crushed him for a moment under their weight as the vessel heaved to starboard. Came a succession of blows, not only on the port in the bow, but also on that astern. There was a cracking and rending of timbers, and the water rushed in.

  Then the happenings in that black darkness became indescribably horrible. In their frenzy not a few had torn themselves free of their bonds. These hurled themselves towards the open ports through which the water was pouring. They tore at the planks with desperate, lacerated hands. Some got their arms through, seeking convulsively to widen the openings and so to gain an egress. But outside in the shipwrights’ boat stood Grandmaison, the fencing-master, brandishing a butcher’s sword.

  With derision and foul objurgations he slashed at protruding arms and hands, thrust his sword again and again through the port into that close-packed, weltering mass, until at last the shipwrights backed away the boat to escape the suction of the sinking lighter.

  The vessel, with its doomed freight of a hundred and thirty human lives, settled down slowly by the head, and the wailing and cursing was suddenly silenced as the icy waters of the Loire eddied over it and raced on.

  Caught in the swirl of water, Leroy had been carried up against the deck of the lighter. Instinctively he had clutched at a crossbeam. The water raced over his head, and then, to his surprise, receded, beat up once or twice as the lighter grounded, and finally settled on a level with his shoulders.

  He was quick to realize what had happened. The lighter had gone down by the head on a shallow. Her stern remained slightly protruding, so that in that part of her between the level of the water and the deck there was a clear space of perhaps a foot or a foot and a half. Yet of the hundred and thirty doomed wretches on board he was the only one who had profited by this extraordinary chance.

  Leroy hung on there; and thereafter for two hours, to use his own expression, he floated upon corpses. A man of less vigorous mettle, moral and physical, could never have withstood the ordeal of a two hours’ immersion in the ice-cold water of that December morning. Leroy clung on, and hoped. I have said that he was tenacious of hope. And soon after daybreak he was justified of his confidence in his luck. As the first livid gleams of light began to suffuse the water in which he floated, a creaking of rowlocks and a sound of voices reached his ears. A boat was passing down the river.

  Leroy shouted, and his voice rang hollow and sepulchral on the morning stillness. The creak of oars ceased abruptly. He shouted again, and was answered. The oars worked now at twice their former speed. The boat was alongside. Blows of a grapnel tore at the planking of the deck until there was a hole big enough to admit the passage of his body.

  He looked through the faint mist which he had feared never to see again, heaved himself up with what remained him of strength until his breast was on a level with the deck, and beheld two men in a boat.

  But, exhausted by the effort, his numbed limbs refused to support him. He sank back, and went overhead, fearing now, indeed, that help had arrived too late. But as he struggled to the surface the bight of a rope smacked the water within the hold. Convulsively he clutched it, wound it about one arm, and bade them haul.

  Thus they dragged him out and aboard their own craft, and put him ashore at the nearest point willing out of humanity to do so much, but daring to do no more when he had told them how he came where they had found him.

  Half naked, numbed through and through, with chattering teeth and failing limbs, Leroy staggered into the guard-house at Chantenay. Soldiers of the Blues stripped him of his sodden rags, wrapped him in
a blanket, thawed him outwardly before a fire and inwardly with gruel, and then invited him to give an account of himself.

  The story of the horse will have led you to suppose him a ready liar. He drew now upon that gift of his, represented himself as a mariner from Montoir, and told a harrowing tale of shipwreck. Unfortunately, he overdid it. There was present a fellow who knew something of the sea, and something of Montoir, to whom Leroy’s tale did not ring quite true. To rid themselves of responsibility, the soldiers carried him before the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes.

  Even here all might have gone well with him, since there was no member of that body with seacraft to penetrate his imposture. But as ill-chance would have it, one of the members sitting that day was the black-mustached sans-culotte Jolly, the very man who had dragged Leroy out of his cell last night and tied him up.

  At sight of him Jolly’s eyes bulged in his head.

  “Where the devil have you come from?” he greeted him thunderously.

  Leroy quailed. Jolly’s associates stared. But Jolly explained to them:

  “He was of last night’s bathing party. And he has the impudence to come before us like this. Take him away and shove him back into the water.”

  But Bachelier, a man who, next to the President Goullin, exerted the greatest influence in the committee, was gifted with a sense of humour worthy of the Revolution. He went off into peals of laughter as he surveyed the crestfallen cocassier, and, perhaps because Leroy’s situation amused him, he was disposed to be humane.

  “No, no!” he said. “Take him back to Le Bouffay for the present. Let the Tribunal deal with him.”

  So back to Le Bouffay went Leroy, back to his dungeon, his fetid straw and his bread and water, there to be forgotten again, as he had been forgotten before, until Fate should need him.

  It is to him that we owe most of the materials from which we are able to reconstruct in detail that first of Carrier’s drownings on a grand scale, conceived as an expeditious means of ridding the city of useless mouths, of easing the straitened circumstances resulting from misgovernment.