Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Hang it all!” exclaimed the Captain. “They’ve had the cheek to make off that way.”

  This main bilge, the well-room of the ship, was at the bottom of the hull, and consisted of a narrow gut or channel into which flowed all the water on board. As soon as it was full, it was emptied by the pumps. At that moment it was but half full. Even for a man who was called Chéri-Bibi to have dared to use such a method of escape, showed that he was conscious that death was on his track. The Captain was in a state of despair.

  “Now they’re able to go wherever they please,” he said to de Vilène in a mournful tone. “From this well, such devils as they are will be able to communicate with every part of the ship. The fact that they will have to remove the hatches won’t worry them for long, and they will go where they please. Where shall we look for them? The fore hold, the after hold, the store-rooms? They’ll go from the old small arms magazine to the coal bunkers. They’ll be walking about among us as if they were in their own homes, and we shall he utterly nonplussed.”

  “If they are in the bilge, which is not yet certain,” replied de Vilène, “we can send them a few volleys from our revolvers on the off chance.”

  Flattening himself against the hatch he discharged his revolver and then waited, his ears on the alert. He caught only the sound of the plashing of the water, and rising to his feet said:

  “It’s quite simple! We should have to unload the entire cargo to find the pair of them!”

  He mustered his men near the ladder. The man with a bullet in his arm was whimpering like a child. The Captain ordered him to be silent.

  “You’re going to the sick-bay, my lad. You will he asked a lot of questions. For that matter everyone must, by now, be aware of the facts. You must tell those to whom you have anything to say that Chéri-Bibi is dead.... Do you understand, all of you?”

  “Yes, yes,” replied the warders. “You can rely on us, Captain. The convicts will be only too delighted to hear it!”

  CHAPTER III

  SISTER ST. MARY OF THE ANGELS

  BARRACHON LEFT SIX men in the hold, two of whom were ordered to stand by the hatch over the bilge.

  “If they’re not already dead they’ll soon be drowned,” said a warder who had closely inspected the level of the water. “There’s hardly enough room for them to hold their heads above water and to breathe.”

  “To my thinking they won’t get out of it,” said another. “What do you expect them to do? They can’t climb up through the pump-pipes.”

  The Captain and the Lieutenant joined Pascaud in the cell from which the Countess had disappeared.

  “Well,” said the Sergeant. “What’s the result?”

  “Nothing. We haven’t found him,” returned the Captain after dismissing the men. “The only thing is that the guards are spreading the report that Chéri-Bibi is dead so as to prevent people on board losing their heads.”

  Pascaud expressed the opinion that it was the right thing to say to keep the convicts quiet.

  “Have you discovered anything?” asked de Vilène.

  The Sergeant shook his head.

  “I can understand,” he said, “how she escaped seeing there’s a hole, but we ought to find out how Chéri-Bibi managed to get out. Now, you know, I’ve groped about everywhere. There’s no communication between the two cells, not the slightest. Chéri-Bibi’s cell is as solidly closed now as it was when he was in it. So what does it mean? It’s a conjuring trick or witchcraft — you can’t get away from that....”

  In Chéri-Bibi’s cell they were once more confronted by the dead warders and the problem which they presented. And they were no further advanced in its solution. After throwing a net over the two bodies and leaving a couple of lanterns near them, like burning tapers in a mortuary chamber, the Captain and the Lieutenant went on deck. No one on the Bayard spoke of anything but the tremendous event: the death of Chéri-Bibi. He had been shot point blank in the hold in attempting to escape with the Kanaka’s wife, an old offender. She was wounded; details were given.

  She had defended herself like a lioness. The Countess, indeed, in the imagination of those on board, changed her animal personality according to circumstances; now she was a she-wolf for cruelty, now a tigress for ferocity, and now a lioness for courage.

  It was chiefly among the government officials who were returning to their posts, and the warders’ families, who all gathered together in the daytime in the after part of the vessel, on the poop, that gossip on board reached unending lengths. That day young women ceased to sing, and children to play, and Chéri-Bibi’s name was on everyone’s lips. The poop was, in general, the one cheerful spot in this floating citadel in which, everywhere else, one caught sight only of grilles, rifles, revolvers, and uniforms, and caps with more or less gold lace on them. The tidings of Chéri-Bibi’s death were welcomed with special delight. So much had been said about the villain that the ladies were glad for themselves and for their husbands’ sake that they were rid of him.

  They were well acquainted with the convicts’ little peculiarities, for they scrutinized them with curiosity when they came on deck, in batches, to breathe the sea air, and walk in a circle on the fore “quarter” under the perpetual menace of the rifles. They would not, to be sure, have mistaken the Top for Little Buddha, although both men were as round as tops and were dressed alike; and they “knew the facts” and the “antecedents” of each man. They were rather proud of traveling in the same ship with “notorious persons whose names had figured in all the newspapers.” They exchanged views as to which man looked most to be feared or most to be pitied. The Toper and the Kanaka had for long excited their attention, which had now died away. Chéri-Bibi was the only man in whom their interest had not grown stale. But he was never to be seen.

  Chéri-Bibi persistently declined “to take the promenade on deck,” and showed such obstinacy that the guards had ended by leaving him alone. Chéri-Bibi spumed the Captain’s favors. Chéri-Bibi remained lolling in his cage or cell, refusing to show himself. And now the gossips, notwithstanding the acute desire that had possessed them, would never see him. He was dead.

  When the Captain and the Lieutenant crossed the deck to reach the chart-room, to visit the Navigating Officer, Sub-Lieutenant Kerrosgouët, the ladies would gladly have cheered them. But they, too, had some sense of discipline, and they kept silent. They would have liked to know what the men were saying below in the convict prisons — the cages were so called in official language — but the convicts were saying nothing at all. The silence was maintained.

  And it was this strange silence that formed the subject of discussion between the Captain, the Lieutenant, the Navigating Officer, the Inspector, and the Overseer General in the chart-room where they met together to hold a council of war. Barrachon chose this spot in preference to any other because from its position he overlooked the entire ship, and could plainly see through the scuttles what was occurring on deck.

  The Navigating Officer, the Inspector, and the Overseer General learnt the truth with alarm and dismay. Chéri-Bibi was not dead. Chéri-Bibi was free somewhere in the ship. It was too late that day to open the hatchways and the hatches over the hold, as the Captain suggested, and send all the available guards and armed sailors below, so as to engage in a swift and general chase which could not fail, in the end, to produce a satisfactory result. The plan would be put into operation, at the earliest hour, the next day. Meanwhile they decided that during the night sentries should guard every entrance, every ladder, every passage, even those which led to the passengers’ and officers’ berths, and that fifty warders, revolver in hand, should pace up and down outside the cages on the lower and upper gun decks until morning.

  “If there are any convicts who doubt Chéri-Bibi’s death, these measures will keep them quiet,” observed the young Kerrosgouët.

  “Oh, we can’t teach them anything!” declared the inspector. “They know all that there is to know now, simply because they know all that goes on before we
do. In my opinion, they’re waiting in silence for something to happen; something that we know nothing about.”

  “They give me the same impression,” agreed the Overseer General. “I’ve never seen them like this before. They are acting in the cages in accordance with some prearranged signal. One would think that they were afraid of producing an outburst before they are ready for this thing that we know nothing about.”

  “What can they do?” asked de Vilène. “We should shoot them down like rabbits.”

  “It would give us a lot of trouble afterwards,” interposed the Inspector.

  “Well, Monsieur, it would certainly have been more to the point if a better watch had been kept on them before now,” muttered Barrachon.

  Without mentioning Pascaud, the Captain revealed the trick of the correspondence that was carried on between these delightful people in which sailors, women, and love were intermingled. He was glad to put before him the case of Francesco of Porto Vecchio, caught in the act.

  “Oh, we shall never prevent them from writing to women,” said the Inspector, whose face became scarlet under the reproof. “I don’t know how they manage it. They haven’t any ink or pen or paper or anything. Moreover, they are searched again and again.... And that doesn’t prevent them from writing... and nothing prevents them from buying bottles of rum! We saw that only a few hours ago.... This is not the first time, Captain, that I have been utterly nonplussed. You don’t know how Chéri-Bibi got out, and I don’t know how the bottles of rum got in! See!... Watch them now, they look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths!”

  He pointed through the scuttles to a few convicts whose turn it was to take the air and who were dolefully promenading the deck.

  As it happened the Toper, the Kanaka, Little Buddha, and Carrots were together. During the few minutes in which they were permitted to stretch themselves on deck under the watchful eyes of the guards, they at first yawned enough to put their jaws out of joint, and then talked “philosophy.” Were they conscious that the guards were listening to every word they said? The news of Chéri-Bibi’s death, which had been cried aloud by the guards from deck to deck, could not have left them so utterly indifferent; and yet the Kanaka said in a casual tone:

  “How sad it must have been for our poor Chéri-Bibi to die without seeing the penal settlement again. He was mentioning it to me only a few days ago, and spoke of the delight it would be to him to visit once more the land where for the first time in his life he enjoyed a little rest.”

  “If he were as happy as all that,” said Carrots, “I don’t see why he left it.”

  “It was gold that did it,” explained the Kanaka. “He told me about it, and I’ll give you the story, because, after all, it will put a little pluck into those who are fond of the precious metal. It appears that at Guiana there’s a gold mine, the existence of which is known only to the prisoners. The Government has done its utmost to discover it, but don’t they wish they may get it! Meanwhile the old offenders work the mine in common. Each man slips away in turn, goes and works at the mine, comes back with the gold, and stands treat to the whole community. Of course when the man returns he can’t avoid a few days in prison. But what does that matter if he is rich? Well, one day Chéri-Bibi came back very rich; so rich that he was able to buy a small boat and the consciences of a couple of warders. In this way he reached Maroni river, and managed to return to France, where, he said, he found things deadly dull. He wanted to become an honest man, and he couldn’t do it! And then he’d spent all his money. So he worked to be sent back to his pals again. But it’s all over. He’ll never see them any more. Poor Chéri-Bibi!”

  The others took up the refrain and sighed:

  “Poor Chéri-Bibi!”

  “What poor devils we all are!” broke in Little Buddha after a moment’s silence which was apparently devoted to the dead man’s memory. “He was in the prime of life.”

  “As strong as a lion,” suggested the Toper.

  “As strong as a lion. And yet he didn’t know how to control his temperament.”

  “We are all at the mercy of our temperaments,” said the Kanaka, the ex-trader in dead bodies, in the manner of a lecturer. “You, the Toper, you suffer from irritability. That’s the temperament which is characteristic of dangerous and caustic persons who do great things in the world. Your works have been crimes, but you are not to blame for them. You can say that from me to the Great Judge when the time comes for you to give an account of yourself. You, Little Buddha, you suffer from sluggishness; in other words, you were born lazy and a pessimist. There’s no hope for you, poor boy, with such bad luck, for you know as well as I do that idleness is the mother of all the vices. As to Carrots, he is of a sanguine temperament; he has strong, fiery, impulsive passions, and a temper hard to subdue. And, in fact, there’s only one thing that is in his favor, and that’s his bad character.”

  “How well he can hold forth,” observed Carrots. “But, I say, my dear old medicine man, have you heard the latest? They say that the Countess has bolted with the ‘boss.’”

  “If it pleases him I’ve no objection,” returned the Kanaka unconcernedly. “There’s been a coldness between madame and myself for some time.”

  At this moment the Toper was lying at full length on the deck, seemingly dozing off into a sleep; but his hand was under his cap, which had been flung down beside him, and he was taking a deal of trouble to slip a tiny note, that did not take up more room than a postage stamp, into a crevice between two battens of the deck. When the operation was completed, he rose to his feet in the most natural manner; for the convicts were returning to the lower decks, urged forward by the guards, who drove them before them like cattle.

  The men were extraordinarily docile, notwithstanding the hard words, and still harder blows from the butt-ends of revolvers, which they received from the warders. Little Buddha became quite poetic. He said to a young chick that stretched out its beak between the bars of the hen-coop:

  “You are very fortunate, for you can see the sunrise every day!”

  “Try to continue to do so!” the Kanaka thought it well to add.

  And when on their way below, the ex-doctor and the ex-clerk to a sheriff’s officer treated each other with elaborate courtesy with their “After you,” they each received a kick which accelerated their movements.

  “That’s to help you to come to an agreement!” said the warder, thrusting his revolver in their faces, for they turned round furious at so gross an insult. “Well, what’s the matter?” said the warder. “Do you want to send me your seconds?”

  The entire hatch of men burst into laughter.

  “You see how nicely they behave now that Chéri-Bibi is dead,” said a warder. And he slammed the door of the cage with a bang on Little Buddha’s fingers. Little Buddha, swelling with pleasure, eyes upturned, had cleverly taken away his hand; but only just in the nick of time!

  “Another day, dear friend,” said Little Buddha to the guards. “Good night, dear friend. Pleasant dreams!”

  He hung up his hammock, begging his neighbor not to “give him the hold,” which was an expression used to describe the trick of unfastening the hammock so that the sleeper should fall to the deck — for he wanted to see the brightness of the morrow in good health.

  Meanwhile an event of some interest was happening on deck at the very spot which the convicts had just left. The Navigating Officer, M. de Kerrosgouët., was walking with a reflective air round the hen-coops and the cattle-pens, now raising his eyes aloft studying the weather, and then letting his gaze stray to his feet in the attitude of a man in deep thought. A light breeze was still blowing, although, unfortunately, it came from the northwest, but that was a detail which was hardly likely to cause the officer any concern. So why was he there? He ought to have been in the chart-room. Suddenly his preoccupation seemed to vanish; he pulled himself up in his walk, and quickly, casually, after stopping a moment at the sight of some sailors slaughtering an ox which had negligently brok
en a couple of its legs during the rough weather, he returned to the chart-room which his superior officers had not left, for they had been watching his various movements through the scuttles.

  “Well?” said the Captain.

  “It’s done. I was right. The man called the Toper slipped a piece of paper between two battens.”

  “Why didn’t you bring it to us?”

  “Because we can always get it from the person who comes to fetch it.”

  “Exactly,” agreed the Lieutenant. “Let’s break up, and let each man go on his business as if Chéri-Bibi was in his cell, or if there were no such person.”

  “I will stay at my post to see the last act of the farce,” said Kerrosgouët.

  But as they were about to separate their attention was attracted by the vision of a newcomer who was walking the deck with a thoughtful expression, as Kerrosgouët had done a moment before, and was now and again looking about as if in search of something. Their astonishment knew no bounds, for the newcomer wore a cornette, the large white cornette with turned back wings of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and under this white cornette they could distinguish the pale, sad, gentle and innocent face of Sister St. Mary of the Angels.

  This sister of mercy, whom the Government had permitted to sail for Cayenne where Sister St. Mary had courageously asked to serve in the hospital so as to be near the most miserable among men, was admired by everyone on board — crew, passengers, convicts.

  Her lovable disposition, in spite of a touch of sadness which never left her, the frequent little services which she rendered the wives and families of the warders, her solicitation with the authorities on behalf of convicts who were at death’s door from heat or hunger or thirst in the cells or cages, not less than her gracious beauty, quickly made her popular. Nevertheless when Sister St. Mary failed to soften the rigidity of the discipline on board, she was the first to submit to its necessity, however hard it might be for the miserable wretches whom this saintly girl so greatly pitied. Could it be possible that in these circumstances the virtuous St. Mary of the Angels had secretly entered into correspondence with a man of the loathsome character of the Toper, and this, too, at a moment when it had become essential to exercise a greater measure of severity with the convicts?