Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  The idea was so utterly inconceivable that the officers would not have believed it had they not witnessed the incident with their own eyes.

  The nun, after a last glance round her on this deserted part of the deck, stooped quickly, pretending to pick up some object which had dropped from her wide sleeves. Now those sleeves, like the Toper’s cap, remained a sufficient time on the deck to enable the small hands underneath them to move freely.

  Sister St. Mary had never walked so quickly, but was no longer of the beautiful pallor which gave her, under her white cornette, so much charm; a color suffused her cheeks. She made sure that no one had seen her stoop, and she went off, gliding over the deck with a fleetness which seemed still further to be assisted by the fluttering white wings of her cornette.

  Nevertheless she was obliged for a moment to turn round, for she heard footsteps behind her. She recognized the Captain, bowed to him, and hurriedly went on her way.

  Sister St. Mary had never walked so quickly, but the footsteps followed close behind her. Thus she reached her cabin, which was in the after part of the vessel, somewhat out of breath. She opened the door, and without turning round, tried to close it, but a hand interposed and a voice said:

  “I beg your pardon, Sister.”

  The nun once more changed color. She was now ghastly white. She stared at the Captain haggardeyed, and could scarcely stammer:

  “What do you want me for?”

  “I want the letter that you picked up on deck.”

  “I didn’t... I didn’t pick anything up,” she said, almost fainting. “I assure you, Captain, that I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do, Sister, and I am shocked to hear you tell such a falsehood.”

  She drew back as if she intended to shut the door.... The Captain advanced a step.

  “Heavens!” she cried. “You’re not coming in here.”

  “Not if you give me the letter.”

  She drew back still farther, and owing to the size of her sleeves the Captain could not see what she was doing with her hands. Then he made up his mind. He boldly went into the cabin, leaving the door open.

  The nun leant against the wall to prevent herself from falling.

  “Listen to me,” said the Captain. “Unless you do as I tell you, and give me that note written by a convict, I shall be compelled to order a Sister to take it from you by force.”

  She did not reply. The Captain went on:

  “You don’t want me to do that, I presume? But what is it you do want, after all, by communicating in this way with convicts without our consent and in spite of us? Do you know that it is a terrible offense which might bring down on you the most disastrous consequences?”

  Her eyes, which at first flashed in anger, now became soft again.

  “I know what I owe to your character, to the mission to which you have devoted yourself... but, Sister St. Mary, you must understand that there are certain things that I cannot allow. I must not, I will not, for instance, admit that breaches of discipline may be made under the guise of charity.... Why are you so obstinate? Be careful!... I may soon find myself compelled to believe that there is in this something more than an indiscretion due to your zeal as a Christian.... For, after all, you told me a lie.... Let us call things by their proper names...

  and since you lied to me, you must have had some serious motive for doing so.... Give me the letter.”

  “I haven’t got it. I... I haven’t got it.... Monsieur, please... take my word... and leave me.”

  She fell inert at his feet. Her knees sharply struck the deck. But the Captain was in no mood to pity her.

  “You are covering up your hands. Show me your hands. Can’t you understand that your attitude gives me every reason to suspect the worst? During the last few days we have been trying to discover how it is that the convicts know everything that happens on hoard, every step that we take against them, to insure our common safety. We are trying to find how they communicate with one another from cage to cage, from deck to deck, and manage in this way to plan some mysterious plot, the nature of which we do not know but the menace of which we feel.... Who tells them what they want to know?... Who is their tool?... Is it, by chance, you, Sister St. Mary of the Angels?... Oh, unconsciously, I wish to believe, and so that I may believe it, I must have that paper.”

  He suddenly caught hold of her hands and snatched it from her.

  It was an insignificant scrap of paper on which was written simply:

  “Chéri-Bibi is not dead.”

  The Captain, more amazed than he could say, read the short sentence out loud. The Sister heaved a sigh, and collapsed on the floor of her cabin in a dead faint.

  “What can Chéri-Bibi have to do with her?” he said to himself. “It’s most extraordinary.”

  He called the women, who came hurrying in and set about trying to bring Sister St. Mary to herself. In distracted tones they asked the Captain what had happened to the Sister, but he went away, completely absorbed in thought, without making any reply.

  Chéri-Bibi was not dead. Everyone on board knew it now. Everyone was fully aware of the frightful tragedy that had taken place, and when during the evening a funeral stretcher, over which a sheet had been thrown, was brought up from the lower deck, everyone knew what was underneath it. Moreover, the two murdered warders had wives and children, and no attempt was made to hide the calamity from them any longer, and the sound of their moans and their cries of despair soon reached the little colony of warders’ families.

  Curses were uttered against Chéri-Bibi, and a feeling of terror seized everyone. The darkness of the night increased the apprehension. Those who could, locked themselves in their cabins, but no one slept, and men and women stood by their weapons until daylight.

  Where was the ruffian? If he could vanish in this way it was reasonable to suppose that he could appear at will. Everything was possible to him. He was dreaded as though he were some specter for whom natural and human laws did not exist, and who could prowl about everywhere without encountering the obstacles which would stand in the way of other living persons.

  The sailors themselves were not more easy in their minds. At their stations, and in their mess, they talked of nothing but the amazing prisoner who had managed to break loose from his irons. Their superstitious instincts, for many of them were Bretons, had full play, and since it was impossible to explain his escape in any “Christian” way, it was obvious that he was in league with the devil.

  It was no use doubling the guards and placing sentries on every hand, for the men feared that he might at any moment take it into his head to commit some fresh murder and to disappear once more. Chéri-Bibi represented evil itself stalking on earth; and here he was roaming freely about the Bayard with the woman of the fiery black eyes.

  A door opened and each one turned round with a look of fear, the conversation was hushed, and they held their breath. And then a sigh of relief went up from every breast. It was the Dodger who was bringing in the food.

  The Dodger was, moreover, the most “funky” of all. He made his friends go with him to the lower decks armed to the teeth, and told stories that were enough to make the bravest shudder. He thought he saw Chéri-Bibi everywhere, and he cried out like a child at his own shadow which the light of a lantern suddenly threw out before him. He arrived, out of breath, dropped on to a seat, and placed his hand upon his fast-beating heart.

  “Oh, my boys... my boys... I’m certain it was he... I recognized his eyes... there, just now, on deck, and then he was gone.... Whosh!... he disappeared....”

  On deck the men were far from being comfortable. Those who were on duty or formed the night watch saw Chéri-Bibi in the most natural shapes which loomed in the cloudless night in the corners of ladders, the poop decks, the gangways and even under the davits of the boats. Some old sailors, carried away by the excitement of their own fears, spent their watch telling startling ghost stories.... The shadow of the phantom vessel was dancing in the sea, an
d the shadow of the Flying Dutchman sped under the moon.

  And only in the cells did men sleep in absolute peace and quietness.

  The Bayard was then in Latitude 32.20° north and Longitude 24.50° west of the meridian of Paris. She had passed Madeira and the Peak of Teneriffe on her port quarter, and, leaving the African shores behind, was heading straight across the Atlantic.

  CHAPTER IV

  TERROR ON BOARD

  THAT CHÉRI-BIBI HAD found accomplices on board, the Captain was bound to acknowledge, but that Sister St. Mary of the Angels should be involved in the criminal’s escape was beyond his comprehension. Though this last point was one which greatly harassed him, he had no intention of wasting time by investigating it at that moment.

  The main thing, to begin with, was to recapture the scoundrel, alive or dead, come what may, and he would afterwards endeavor “to explain the inexplicable.” In order to carry out his project, Barrachon determined to “turn everything upside down in the old tub.”

  There is no need to describe in detail an undertaking which was without result. It was in vain that they searched and inspected the vessel from mast to keel, and that numbers of armed military overseers and sailors crowded into the hold with, as it were, the courage of despair and thirsting for revenge. Nothing was discovered.

  The main bilge-well itself was entirely emptied. It was hoped, in the end, that the scoundrel and the terrible woman who was with him in his mad adventure were drowned, but unfortunately the searchers were soon undeceived. A plucky cabin boy, who made the dangerous venture of entering the well, came back without having seen the least thing. Chéri-Bibi and the Countess could not be found.

  “I will have the coal bunkers cleared. I will have the hold cleared, and all the goods turned out and put back again. I swear that we’ll find him,” shouted the Captain, who had lost all his pleasantness of manner. He renewed his oath over the bodies of the hapless warders, which were “thrown to the sharks” in a sack after a moving religious service at which all on board mingled their prayers and tears, save Sister St. Mary of the Angels, who did not put in an appearance.

  At lunch, after this sad ceremony, when the principal persons on board were brought together under the Captain’s presidency, the Sister’s absence was mentioned, and the warrant officers who were present the night before, and witnessed the little scene from the chart-room, which overlooked the deck, expressed their astonishment.

  The Captain did not tell them of his interview with Sister St. Mary, and he kept the Toper’s writing to himself, attributing the nun’s absence from the service to her indisposition. Sister St. Mary’s attitude, however, perplexed him as much as anyone, but he determined not to let it be seen, for he considered that; quite enough mysteries were being talked about on board.

  And then he intended, after lunch, to visit and question the nun once more, and he believed that this time he would succeed in “pumping” her. Fully resolved to spare no one, and perturbed by the responsibility that he would incur if he failed to capture Chéri-Bibi, he replied to the questions which one and the other put to him by grunts.

  He wondered why the Lieutenant had not yet joined him at table. He was told that the officer must have been detained in the execution of his duty.... Afterwards there was a depressing silence; for the thoughts of all of them were centered on Chéri-Bibi and the Countess.

  “The end of it will be that they’ll both die of hunger and thirst if they don’t show themselves,” groaned the Overseer General.

  “I don’t think so!” said the Inspector. “If they are in any of the holds they’ll find a way of getting some sort of food. There are provisions in the holds, nice things. In my opinion they have enough friends on board to be able to get water.”

  “Then such men will suffer for it,” declared Barrachon. “Whoever they are, they must know that they’ll be shot at the same time as Chéri-Bibi. Any man who assists the scoundrel in the slightest degree will be served like him.”

  “What about the woman if we find her? Will she be shot, Captain?”

  “Do you imagine that I shall stand on ceremony? Shot or hanged, they will not escape punishment. But where is M. de Vilène? Has anything fresh happened? De Kerrosgouët, go and see.”

  The Sub-Lieutenant left the table, and returned in a few minutes. He had not seen the Lieutenant, but had been told that he was below in the cages.

  “He is no doubt devoting himself to a supplementary inspection,” said Barrachon. “Perhaps he is having the kit bags ransacked. He’s got that affair of the bottles of rum on the brain. He was speaking to me about it again this morning, and said he wouldn’t feel quite easy until he had cleared things up.”

  De Kerrosgouët sat down again. The dishes were passed round, but once more the conversation languished.

  At dessert the Captain broke a glass while emphasizing that Chéri-Bibi must be somewhere or other. His opinion was shared by the company. Nevertheless the Overseer General said:

  “Of course he is somewhere, But perhaps after all he is not on board.”

  And he diffidently put forward the theory that the awful couple had left the Bayard.

  “What do you mean?” asked Barrachon with a shrug of his shoulders. “None of the boats are missing.... And we should have seen them.”

  “They may simply have thrown themselves into the sea.”

  “But how?” Barrachon burst out again. “It would be known. Every means of egress below is barred, and if they had come up on deck we might, perhaps, with all the wealth of sentries on the watch, have seen them!... Absurd! Let’s argue the thing out, but, let’s talk sense.”

  The Overseer General apologized, but he made the mistake of adding:

  “It’s a great pity.”

  “What’s a great pity?” asked the Captain in a tone which became more and more abrupt.

  “Well... it’s a pity that they haven’t left the ship. It would have been a good riddance.”

  The Captain gave a start.

  “You think so, do you? Well, allow me to tell you that you have a strange notion of your duty. As far as I am concerned, Chéri-Bibi was confided to my care. If I don’t see him again, living or dead, I know what the alternative for me will be.”

  The Captain spoke in such a tone that the others were very disagreeably impressed. They shivered to the very marrow. They already saw, in imagination, the worthy Barrachon blowing his brains out. And what endless trouble for them afterwards! What a terrible responsibility! They would not forget No. 3216 in a hurry!

  Meanwhile the Lieutenant was still absent. When coffee was served Barrachon was in a state of alarm and at the end of his endurance. He left the mess to look for the Lieutenant himself. De Vilène might have discovered something fresh.

  But the Captain’s anxiety only became deeper after he had searched the upper and lower decks. He could not find de Vilène anywhere. And no one had seen him for more than an hour. Some of them thought that they noticed him going below to the cages, but the convict guards stated that he had not visited them.

  When the officers joined him the Captain was in an agony of suspense. Every man set to work and the search proceeded with greater energy than ever. Nothing was found in de Vilène’s cabin which could put them on the track. The crew were now fully aware of his strange disappearance, and men as well as officers endeavored to probe the mystery. They shouted the Lieutenant’s name throughout the ship. It might be that he had been taken ill. It might be that he had suddenly met Chéri-Bibi and was killed.

  After vainly searching for him living they sought to find his dead body.

  But they were unable to find him living or dead. And a general consternation swept through the ship.

  Then every man on board, from the passengers to the least important merchant, was seized with a peculiar agitation which originated in fear and reached its climax in frenzy.

  Literally they became desperate. And no wonder!

  The Captain had the work of the world to kee
p the fury of these men within bounds, for, without the least excuse, they wanted to break the heads of the old offenders. Revolvers were continually being pointed at them through the bars. Threats of death were uttered every moment, and yet the convicts had never behaved themselves so well. Even the Top had ceased his hateful chuckle, for he realized that if he laughed again it would be for the last time.

  The Inspector and the Overseer General, overwhelmed by the Lieutenant’s disappearance and wondering if their turn might not come soon, resolved to link up their duties and to work together.

  A desire to be revenged on something or someone impelled them to ask the Captain to place the men in the cages on a “bread and water” diet, and to abolish the exercise on deck.

  But Barrachon, who had been to his cabin to plunge his head into a basin of cold water, for he feared a stroke of apoplexy, came out with a gleam of sanity and refused to listen to any such dangerous measure.

  Every revolver was taken out of its case. Even the women on the decks were armed, and no one went alone into the alley-ways although sentries were posted in them at specified intervals.

  The new and appalling incident of the Lieutenant’s disappearance caused the Captain to forget for the moment the strange conduct of Sister St. Mary. But she herself was soon to remind him of her existence. It was an amazing thing, but this saintly girl who had not been seen during the whole day, even at the burial service, showed herself on deck, as on the day before, when the Toper’s horrible gang was brought up.

  Barrachon caught sight of her when she appeared, and stood watching her without letting himself be seen.