Interrogated in Chinese, none of the mariners was, of course, able to reply. Farandoul, observing the hostile disposition of the tribunal, forbade the Siamese interpreter to say anything. Although the work of the judges was abridged thereby, that did not prevent the trial from lasting two weeks—to the great annoyance of Farandoul, for whom the days spent at the hearing were time lost, because no opportunity to attempt an escape could arise in the middle of a courtroom besieged by a crowd and guarded by 300 men.
Finally, the accused not having wished to answer any questions and having said nothing regarding their situation or the circumstances that had brought them to China, the mandarin broached the question of damages and asked them whether, by combining all their resources, they might be able to pay the sum of 165 millions, the approximate cost of the damage—promising, if the material damage were repaired, only to put them to death with relative gentleness.
In the face of the obstinate silence of the accused, it only remained for the tribunal to pass sentence. After six hours of consultation with the most intelligent executioners, summoned to a solemn conference from all the provinces of the empire, the tribunal came back into session in the midst of the breathless murmurs of the audience.
The interpreter, half dead with fright, cocked a desolate ear to listen to the sentence read out in a severe tone by the mandarin Tsi-Tsang. After a considerable number of “givens” and “considerings,” the guilty parties were condemned to be subjected, over three days, to the terrible torture of the 98,000 pieces.
A shudder went through the crowd. The torture of the 98,000 pieces, formerly reserved for the crime of treason, had not been applied for 800 years. Before the session closed, therefore, the auditorium requested a stay of a week, in order to have the time to inform friends and relatives in other provinces of the solemnity that was in preparation.
Our poor friends, now certain of their fate, were immediately taken back to prison. As they had passed from the rank of remand prisoners to that of condemned prisoners, certain formalities had to be carried out on their arrival. Their chains and cangues were taken off in order that they could be refitted with the cangues of the condemned, which were more than twice as heavy. The two leaders, Farandoul and Mandibul, became the objects of special attention; they were not fitted with the cangues of the condemned but were introduced, in chains, into barrels pierced, like the cangues, with holes for their heads. In such a barrel—a considerable aggravation of the punishment—one could only sustain oneself on one’s knees or squatting on one’s heels. Farandoul and Mandibul pulled horrible faces when they found themselves thus treated; how could anyone maintain the faintest hope of escape with that infernal barrel on his shoulders? The mandarin Tsi-Tsang could sleep easy on his two pillows, without any fear that his prey might escape!
The first visit that our friends received after their reintroduction to the prison was that of the executioner—the conference prize-winner!—who had rediscovered, by dint of research in libraries, the exact tradition of the curious torture of the 98,000 pieces. He came politely to pay his respects to the unfortunates who would furnish him the occasion to consolidate his artistic reputation. To begin with, his advances well ill-received by the mariners, but Mandibul, having been informed of his quality and being curious to know beforehand exactly what the famous torture comprised, asked the interpreter to interrogate the brave executioner.
In truth, the torture of the 98,000 pieces was nothing vulgar. The instrument, remarkably ingenious, was far in advance of the saber, the rope or simple, sempiternal and routine decapitation. Firstly, he set in motion the mechanism—a neat device, operable by the hand of a child. One had only to turn a wheel and, all the cogs being set in motion, the machine would cut a criminal into 98,000 little flakes within the space of six hours.
In response to Mandibul’s objections, the executioner took the plans of his machine out of his pocket and entered into a long series of explanations. The Siamese interpreter had fainted in his cangue; the executioner complaisantly flung a few drops of water in his face to revive him. Before leaving, he informed our friends that their status as prisoners condemned to death entitled them to certain privileges, including additional food and a few pipes of opium.
“Well,” said Mandibul, after the executioner’s departure, “did you understand? In a week, we’ll be divided into 98,000 little slices. It’s hopeless!”
“You’re right,” Farandoul replied. “It’s hopeless. Well, let’s smoke to stupefy ourselves. We have a right to opium, I want opium, and all of you want it…”
“My word, no—I don’t have the heart for a pipe…”
“I tell you that you all want opium, and a great deal of it. Recall the executioner—he’s a fine fellow!”
The executioner was not far away. A tiger warrior ran after him and brought him back.
“Executioner,” said Farandoul, via the interpreter, “you’re an intelligent man; we’re flattered to be passing through the hands of an artist, instead of falling into those of some vulgar flayer. We have the right to smoke a few pipes, did you say? As I don’t want to ask anything of anyone else, would you be so kind as to obtain opium and pipes for us? I have a few gold coins hidden in my belt; take them and bring us opium—as much as possible, for there are 18 of us, all smokers.”
“Rely on me!” replied the executioner, flattered by this confidence. “I’ll come back with everything necessary in a quarter of an hour.”
“Why do you want so much opium?” asked Mandibul.
“To smoke, of course! We shall all smoke for five minutes—then, when the executioner has gone, we shall declare that opium is a drug good only for the Chinese, and…silence! Here’s the executioner.”
The worthy man came in with a fine collection of pipes and a large packet of opium, purchased with Farandoul’s savings. He distributed the pipes to the condemned men himself, and stuffed them with grains of opium. “Just try not to break the pipes,” he said, via the interpreter. “I’ll keep them to remember you by!”
“Thank you,” Farandoul replied. “In recompense for your good deed, I’d just like to give you a little advice about your machine. It’s perfect; I can only see one small improvement. If I were you, I’d have it driven by steam….”
“I’ve already thought about that, vaguely,” the executioner replied, “but in China, you know, people don’t like innovators. I’d make enemies. I’ll think about it, though, and I shan’t despair of being able to bring your idea to fruition some day. I have to leave you, though—must get on! I’ll come back in a week; you have enough opium to smoke until then.”
The executioner had scarcely departed when the 18 condemned men took the first drags on their pipes; on a signal from Farandoul they stopped after five minutes, with grimaces of disgust. The tiger warriors looked at them and darted glances at the provision of opium that Mandibul had appeared to put prudently aside.
“Pooh, what a drug!” cried Farandoul, after making faces for five minutes.
The 18 condemned men threw away their pipes.
“If you don’t want it…?” said the leader of the tigers, coming forward.
“You can take the opium if you want it,” Farandoul replied, “but on one condition—you let us have a breather outside our barrels.”
“Provided that you get back into them when the officer makes his rounds.”
In consequence of this agreement, Farandoul and Mandibul were released from their barrels, and the tiger warriors, leaping upon the opium, lost themselves delightedly in clouds of aromatic smoke.
The mariners had understood Farandoul’s plan. Mute and motionless, they prayed for the happy moment to arrive when the surly guards, lost in divine ecstasy, would only be paying scant attention to things of this world.
Lying at the back of the room, the half-closed eyes of the tiger warriors followed the spirals of smoke that were beginning to take on, for them, the vague forms of pretty women with friendly smiles and imperceptible feet. Th
e leader of the tigers, deeply intoxicated, forgot everything, including the imminent arrival of the nocturnal round and the strokes of bamboo that would be his reward if he were caught in that state of somnolent bliss.
Farandoul did not forget; taking advantage of the increasing obscurity, he had slipped behind the smokers with infinite precaution. What was he doing there? From time to time, the Chinamen moved their heads and put their hands to their long plaited hair, as if something were troubling them.
Suddenly, Farandoul leapt to his feet and, in spite of his chains, seized some of the tiger warriors’ swords. The mariners were already running forward, in spite of the weight of their cangues.
The tiger warriors, stunned at first, made an effort to shake off the opium fumes; they got to their feet, but could only mill around in inextricable confusion. Farandoul had taken his precautions; he had had attached them all to one another by tying their long pigtails together, and could now laugh at their efforts.
“Quickly, quickly!” he cried, strangling the leader of the tigers’ leader somewhat, to make him hand them over more rapidly. “The keys to the cangues!”
The tiger protested hotly. The interpreter understood his explanation that the keys to the cangues were in the possession of the officer who would make the round.
“Shall we wait for the round?” Farandoul asked the sailors.
“No, no! They’re a bit heavy, but let’s get out of here anyway.”
The mariners ran outside after having gagged the tigers. During the journey between the hearing and the prison, Farandoul had studied the locality. Without hesitation, he steered his troop towards the wall of the enclosure overlooking the bank of the Blue River. As they reached the wall, they hurled themselves upon a sentry. Without giving him time to cry out, Tournesol and Escoubico seized him between their cangues, squeezed him a little, and let him fall, three-quarters strangled.
The way was open. They had to scale the wall with 20-kilo cangues on their shoulders;94 they succeeded regardless, and as soon as they were on the other side, they gained open country, in order to put as much distance as possible between the ingenious machine of the 98,000 thin slices and the unfortunates charged with its inauguration.
“Oof! Oof!” repeated Mandibul, as he ran. “How good it is to be free. How good it is to walk about intact instead of feeling oneself being subdivided into little flakes. Oof! Oof! When the Devil will we be able to get out of this infernal China?”
“When we’ve retrieved the white elephant!” replied Farandoul.
When dawn broke, at about 4 a.m., our friends were forced to seek refuge somewhere to hide from all eyes. No forest was discernible on the horizon. Farandoul was beginning to get direly anxious when a bed of reeds bordering a long stretch of the river caught his eye.
“There’s no time to hesitate,” he said. “It’s in there that we must hide until dusk. It’s wet, but it’s better than prison.”
VI.
Our friends established themselves in the middle of the reed-bed, well-hidden but knee-deep in water. To occupy their leisure, they tried to break the hinges of their cangues, but without result.
As the hours seemed long while they were enduring their forced bath, it was with envious eyes that they contemplate the Tankaderes,95 the pretty Chinese boatwomen who were passing by on the river, singing, or preparing food 200 meters from their hiding-place. Save for a few imprudent frogs, they had nothing to calm the pangs in their stomachs, already debilitated by the prison food.
Towards dusk, the boats and the boatwomen became rarer. Our friends, quivering with impatience, were only waiting for the right moment to get under way again. Night fell; they were about to depart. Suddenly, a large junk passing along the edge of the reed-bed sent them hurrying back into their hiding-place. Farandoul started. In the prow of the junk, a man with a lantern in his hand was leaning over the river.
Like Farandoul, Mandibul had made a forward movement. “It’s him! It’s him!” he said, in a stifled voice.
“Yes,” replied Farandoul. “It’s him—the bayaderes’ musician, the stealer of the white elephant. Enough! We’ve got him! The elephant must be aboard. He’ll go down the river and head for the sea. We must try to find a boat and follow the junk. Forward—and don’t make any noise.”
The pirates’ junk had regained the open water and was sailing 200 meters from the bank. The mariners made themselves as inconspicuous as possible and followed it at a gymnastic pace, in spite of their cangues.
After two hours, the course of the junk and its followers entered a busier region. The riverbank sparkled in the distance with thousands of lights; there was a town there—an immense accumulation of dangers for our friends: the danger of being captured; the danger of losing the junk.
The town was Siposi, the pleasure resort where the businessmen of Nanking came to relax from their affairs in the tea-houses or on the flower-boats. Visible ahead, garlanded with lanterns, were several of these floating cafés, where one could always be sure of finding exquisite cuisine and music, private cabins and charming little Chinese women with almond-shaped eyes.
The junk had already passed the town and disappeared into the darkness in the distance. As yet, the mariners had only found one wretched boat with no oars.
“No more hesitation!” cried Farandoul. “Let’s float downstream in this wreck, board the first boat we come too, and steal it!”
Huddled together in the bottom of the boat, the mariners set themselves adrift. Soon, the high poop of a white and blue boat anchored by a little island appeared some distance away. Lanterns were swaying cheerfully from its masts and yard-arms; the sounds of hectic music, escaping from all its portholes, clearing indicated that they were dealing with some sprightly flower-boat.96
“Are we boarding her?” Mandibul asked. “We’ll have difficulty…”
“Too bad!” retorted Farandoul. “Let’s go.” And the boat ran violently into the stern of the flower-boat. No one on board paid any attention. The marines scaled the high sides of the vessel silently and leapt on to the deck.
The music stopped abruptly, and a terrible scream went up in the boat at the sight of these unknown men wearing the cangues of criminals. Four ravishing Chinese women who were dancing in the middle of a circle of pleasure-seekers let themselves fall on to the knees of their admirers. The mariners brandished the swords stolen from the tiger warriors in such a bellicose fashion that any inclination to defense vanished of its own accord. The little Chinese women emerging frantically from all parts of the boat released screams of desperation, but none of the men present sought the honor of dying for them.
While Farandoul held the population of the boat in respect, Mandibul and a few men ran to the foredeck, to the mast terminated by oriflammes and gilded depictions of birds. A few minutes sufficed for them to hoist the large multicolored sail, and the boat, under the influence of the breeze, was son swaying, ready to set off along the river.
“Cut the anchor-rope!” cried Farandoul. “Well done, lads!”
At the sight of these preparations, the Chinamen leapt overboard like a flock of sheep and swam to the little island, save for the infirm and feminine elements of the crew, who remained aboard.
“We’ve no time to lose—we’ll drop you off further on,” Farandoul told them. “In the meantime, stay calm.”
The handful of Chinamen still aboard and the 25 pretty women forming the ornamentation of the flower-boat were gathered together in the stern, guarded by two men.
They were nearing Siposi. The mariners headed into the middle of the river in order to avoid the lights of other flower-boats as much as was possible; they were, however, hailed several times by groups of party-goers desirous of supping in good company. Only one of these bands succeeded in accosting the boat: four Chinamen, bearing gifts of flowers and roasted suckling-pigs for the ladies climbed up the port-side ladder, singing and hooting with laughter, but their joyful mood vanished when they were suddenly grabbed by men charged with
the familiar cangues of those condemned to death.
Mandibul was already searching the crew’s cabins for some instrument capable of breaking the hinges of the cangues to free the sailors. It was difficult to find one, but finally, after hours of effort, the mariners were released from the apparatus that weighed upon their shoulders and could breathe easily. How light they felt, and how ready they were now to challenge all the regiments of tiger warriors!
The young Chinese women, a little less frightened, looked at these brave matelots with astonishment; for their part, the latter were not so absorbed by maneuvering the vessel not to risk winking at their elegant captives from time to time. These flowers of the Celestial Empire were clad in long tight-fitting dresses in the most vivid colors, with low necklines in the form of flowers, gently retained by scarves. All their anxiety was a matter of not knowing where they were going; the strangest rumors were already circulating around the flower-boat. Some thought they had simply fallen into the hands of Formosan bandits and were expecting to be taken as beautiful decorations to the pirates’ lair, while others, more romantically inclined, thought they were being kidnapped on behalf of some monarch of distant Europe. While waiting, to get well in with their ravishers, they competed for everyone’s attention, as much for the simplest seaman as for the worthy Mandibul.
Hunger was beginning to make itself felt aboard. Farandoul had the trembling Chinamen removed to the deepest hold and decided that the crew ought to prepare a restorative supper. In consequence, the boast’s cook, discovered underneath his oven, was summoned to serve the most exquisite dishes he had with the least possible delay. The young Chinese women had already set the table with an accumulation of little pots, and ivory chopsticks fulfilled the role of spoons and forks. The first course, composed of preserves, was rushed through with disdainful smiles; then came other preserves in castor oil—which, with common accord, were thrown overboard.
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 47
