“I’ve sworn that I will never set foot in Cayenne again. Do you understand me, Captain? If you refuse to understand me, there is sure to be a row. My sister who joined the ship to try to influence me, my sister herself can’t prevent it. You can take that from me... I may have been a little long-winded in my story, but I think I have shown you that I am a good man, a good man down on his luck. I have it in me to become a tiger; not a tiger in a menagerie, but a regular tiger who will destroy the lot of you.
“There are over eight hundred men here, who will blindly let themselves be guided by me. You haven’t; half that number. Your men would hardly be a mouthful for us. We are armed. We have weapons. So, be assured, they are only waiting for me to give them the signal to begin the fight. It would have been given before but that I caught sight of my sister’s cornette. That sight inspired me with a kindly thought. Once more I felt a sort of pity for my fellow-men, and this is what I’ve come to you to propose: Monsieur, society was wrong to close its doors against me. Society would be incomplete without me.” Chéri-Bibi gave vent to a tremendous sneer. “But I have my self-respect, and it’s I, now, who don’t want to have anything more to do with society.” He was speaking seriously. “You may, therefore, be easy in your mind. I promise you, on my conscience, not to return and make myself a nuisance to my fellow-countrymen.
“What do I want? We are not far from Africa. A sharp turn of the wheel and the trick’s done. Lower a boat, and there I am landed in a new country. It will be said once again that Chéri-Bibi got clear away, and no one will think any the worse of you for that. And I, Monsieur, I can start life afresh among the savages. Does the plan appeal to you? What will it cost you? A little salt beef, some biscuits, a cask of brandy — I must be able to sustain my strength when I take to the bush — and a cask of water. If it’s a bargain, say so. You’ll have nothing more to fear from Chéri-Bibi. Neither you nor any one else.
“With Chéri-Bibi away, everything will settle down quietly here, because the prisoners can do nothing without me. If you refuse to accept my offer, look out for yourself! I am not a bad sort of man, but I have already proved to you, in the store-room, that when I am attacked I know how to defend myself.”
There was a pause.
The Captain was silent and seemed to be reflecting deep down within himself. Chéri-Bibi began to lose patience.
“Well, you’d better say something. Is it to be yes or no?”
“No,” replied the Captain.
“Fatalitas!”
CHAPTER VII
THE REVOLT OF THE CONVICTS
THE TWO MEN were on their feet with the table between them. For some little time, the Captain had not heard the sentry’s step in the passage, and he felt a certain anxiety. How was it that the sentry had allowed the ruffian to pass? By what piece of strategy had he succeeded in reaching the cabin? By what means did he hope to escape? Chéri-Bibi was nearing the door by imperceptible movements, his revolver leveled at Barrachon. He was on the point of reaching the door when Barrachon suddenly leapt aside. Chéri-Bibi thrust the revolver between his eyes.
“If you stir before I’ve opened the door,” he said, “I’ll shoot you as I would a dog.”
Then the Captain grasped the significance of Chéri-Bibi’s coolness during his story. He had the key of the cabin in his pocket. The Captain did not move a muscle until the door was opened slightly, for imprisoned with the convict and unarmed as he was, he had not the slightest chance of getting the better of him. Chéri-Bibi cast a glance outside. Then it was that Barrachon resolved to act. Suddenly stooping he rushed at him, shouting for help.
Chéri-Bibi in a flash seized him by the throat and held him under him while he gasped for breath.
“I won’t kill you,” he said, “because I’ve no liking for useless crimes. But if you get out of this business alive, I swear that I myself will land you on the coast, as naked as a savage, as a punishment for refusing my last request.”
He hurriedly left the cabin and the door closed behind him.
The Captain picked himself up and flung himself at the door, but Chéri-Bibi had turned the key. Barrachon was a prisoner on board his own ship. He shouted and yelled and stamped his feet so as to attract attention in the ward-room, which, as it happened, was just underneath his cabin. And at that very moment the Bayard was filled with an indescribable tumult, amidst which the sound of firing could be heard from all sides.
A number of men rushed up in answer to the Captain’s calls for help. De Vilène himself opened the door, the key of which was in the lock.
“The convicts are in revolt,” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“Chéri-Bibi has just left me,” returned the Captain, who was foaming with rage.
They wasted no time in explanations. Over their heads and under their feet the noise of continuous firing could be heard. The fight seemed to be taking place without any definite plan. By the officers’ orders the sailors whose watch it was, and the military overseers who were on guard, were hurriedly warning their comrades, who got out of their beds in dismay. Every man in the ship on foot and armed was the order. As they passed near a companionway they heard young de Kerrosgouët shouting commands from the deck near the entrance to the cages.
At the companion-way leading to the upper deck, they came up against a crowd of persons shouting and gesticulating and apparently in a state of mad excitement. They were held up by some obstacle the nature of which they could not at first distinguish. At length they perceived that the companion-way had been taken away. Yes, the iron ladder was no longer in its place. It had been removed. And throughout the length of the alley-way the same thing had happened to the other ladders; with the result that all the men hurrying up from the lower decks were struggling there, while near the cages the fusillade continued to the accompaniment of howls and shrieks.
The overseers’ wives hastened up also, crying out as though they were being flayed alive. In the presence of this inconceivable confusion the Captain resumed his usual self-possession and ordered the men to go into the store-room and look for a few boxes with which to make a temporary stairway.
Some sailors and a dozen convict guards by standing on the shoulders of their comrades had already managed to gain the upper deck. But valuable time had been lost. What exactly was happening up there?
The Captain leapt on deck and joined de Kerrosgouët, who, with the assistance of a few sailors, was dragging the 37 mm. Hotchkiss gun to the hatchway which ran down to the cages. Fortunately the naval constructors whose business it was to transform the old cruiser, as they called her, into a transport for Guiana, had permanently closed every other entrance in order to render the supervision of the convicts less difficult. They would find themselves, as it were, bottled up. The hatchway was already surrounded by a cordon of military overseers who kept up a continuous fire, at random, into this dark cavity from which also a mortal fire was issuing.
It was a fine night, with a touch of tropical splendor in it, and the moon threw sufficient light over the scene of carnage to enable the Captain, as he drew near, to perceive a number of bodies lying on the deck. As soon as the first alarm was given, the Sub-Lieutenant gathered together the men under his command and attempted, at all costs, to go down to the cages. His efforts were fruitless. His men were obliged to fall back, and de Kerrosgouët himself received a shot in the forehead from which the blood streamed over his face. He informed the Captain that here, likewise, the ladder was no longer in position. How and from whom had the convicts obtained their arms? The fire which came from them was most deadly. Not one of the thirty convict guards whose duty it was that night to keep watch over the cages had been seen.
The unfortunate men, it was certain, had been massacred, and it was equally certain that it was with their rifles and revolvers that the convicts had so vigorously returned the fire which was being directed against them from the hatchway.
At this juncture de Vilène rushed up to the Captain with an appalling piece of news.
The men who were not on guard and were wakened in haste, had made a dash for their arms, but they discovered that the rifles were no longer in the arms-rack. They were bound to conclude, therefore, that these rifles had passed into the possession of the convicts owing to treachery which they did not suspect, and which constituted a fresh danger, the more to be dreaded inasmuch as it was unknown. The Captain turned pale.
The ruffians, who were now well armed, and doubtless possessed no lack of munitions, had a considerable advantage in point of numbers. They were obviously determined to stick at nothing, for they had nothing to lose, and the life that awaited them in the penal settlement had no attraction for them. The game would be lost to the officers and crew if they did not succeed in massacring the convicts to the last man, by turning the cages into a bleeding mass. From this infernal pit, riddled with shot just as the crater of a volcano is riddled with shafts of light, thick wreaths of smoke from the firing ascended, and at the same time the outlaws’ Song of Death floated up:
Who blows the blooming lot U P?
Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi.
Fortunately for Barrachon he had at his disposal two Hotchkiss guns, one of 37 mm and the other of 47 mm., with which he would be able to shoot down the rabble.
It was a stroke of luck that at the last moment he had requested the authorities to supply him with this additional means of defense. In ordinary circumstances they would have laughed in his face. But they knew that Chéri-Bibi was on board, and they regarded the precaution as a legitimate one. The two small guns were shipped at the eleventh hour, and were hoisted on the Bayard at night. The Captain ordered them to be stowed temporarily in the flag-locker until he was ready to fix them in their regular places. Then he overlooked them, which in itself was another piece of luck, for if the mysterious confederates had known that those powerful weapons were on board, they would have been in the convicts’ hands, in all probability, at that moment.
After his first failure, it occurred to young Kerrosgouët, who knew where the guns were, that in the terrible position which had arisen he should use them. The sailors were already placing the second gun by the side of the first when Barrachon, who had an eye for the future, stopped the men in their work.
One gun was all that was needed at the hatchway if they were to be the victors. In view of certain eventualities which they must provide for, such as a rush of convicts in other parts of the ship, or on the deck itself, it would be well to hold back one of those formidable weapons. Thus he had the 47 mm. Hotchkiss hoisted on to the bridge, on the very roof of the chart-room. From that position he could dominate the ship’s upper works and sweep them from end to end.
Meanwhile at the gaping mouth leading to the cages, firing continued on both sides. De Vilène and de Kerrosgouët had set up their Hotchkiss on an improvised platform whence they could shoot down into this infernal hole. As soon as this hole was cleared they would jump down into it; and there would be a pitiless slaughter. Reassured for the time being, Barrachon went below to the lower decks. He ordered the women and children to be locked in their quarters; and the women wept and cried out in terror for their husbands.
Accompanied by a squad of military overseers he went still further below.
His chief fear was lest he should be attacked from the rear. He had to remember that Chéri-Bibi had escaped from the lower deck through a cavity in the cell, the old ammunition magazine, and some opening which still remained to be discovered. Chéri-Bibi must have returned by the same way, and his assumption was at once confirmed when he came upon two convict guards writhing in their death agony. The way which was afterwards taken by the ruffian was a mystery, impossible to divine. Barrachon came across bulkheads which were uninjured. He had some fifty men under his command, spread around the old ammunition magazine, into which seemingly no one could enter, except by way of the cages, owing to the alterations effected by the naval constructors.
His rear and his passage below having been secured, he made his way to the upper deck.
The Captain was filled with a new hope. The revolt was localized, and the convicts were surrounded and besieged. Though they might not succeed in penetrating into the very center of the rebellion, they would end by stifling it. It would die a natural death for lack of munitions and food. The ruffians would be vanquished by hunger and thirst. Nevertheless there was an increasing tumult. Wherever he went, however far he might venture in the hidden recesses of the ship, convicts could be heard around him singing their terrible song. And those fateful syllables which might have sounded so pleasant, reached his ears like a violent and perpetual menace: “Chéri-Bibi... Chéri-Bibi.”
What was the secret of this power of crime over crime?... How all those wretched beings submitted to the scoundrel who maintained that he was the victim of Fate! And how he lured them on to follow him to the death, for they were marching towards death! What slaughter there would be! What bloodshed! Streams of blood were about to flow from deck to deck, from gangway to gangway, from bilge to bilge to the main bilge, which the Captain saw would not be emptied, but would one day pour out through the pumps naught but blood.
Shots behind the bulkheads, cries of fury and of men in their death throes, singing by those dregs of humanity. Yes, the rebellion had broken out at the call of Chéri-Bibi. But how was it that it had taken place? Once more the question arose, how had the convicts obtained arms? How had they escaped from their cages, with a double guard watching them unceasingly? Those were mysteries which the Captain, whose heart was filled with a desperate anger, was unable to fathom.
And this is what had occurred: That night after eating their dinner from the tubs suspended on the chain, Little Buddha asked Carrots to search carefully in his kit-bag. To the no small astonishment of the men, he revealed to view half a dozen revolvers fully loaded which “asked only to be allowed to go off.”
“Fine shooters!” exclaimed the convict in a stifled voice, while his comrades around him nudged each other and could scarcely restrain their joy. So it was planned for that night! During the last forty-eight hours they were gasping for the moment to come. And now they could scarcely bring themselves to believe in it. And yet it was high time if they meant to save the Toper from execution in the morning for attempting to strangle a warder.
The revolt, then, was a reality. With the Toper out of the way and Chéri-Bibi out of sight, they had no longer believed in it. Little Buddha alone, who was in the Toper’s confidence, had maintained a slightly mysterious air which puzzled and reassured them.
And now by some inconceivable miracle they were in possession of revolvers, of weapons that would set them free. Without a doubt it would put renewed heart into them. The moment had come to turn in, and there was a great commotion as they unrolled their hammocks and hung them up for the night.
Little Buddha made the most of the uproar to explain to the others who were expecting the watchword what was about to happen.
To begin with, nothing was to be done until Chéri-Bibi gave the signal for a general uprising; and this signal was to be a shrill whistle which would come from the lower deck during the night, but at what hour exactly he was unable to say. They had to bide their time. Little Buddha thought he could vouch for the fact that arms had been introduced into three other cages. In any case they were agreed to strike together. They would go ahead in unison. They had sworn it. Only they must not “have a funk” because blood would be shed.
The other cages would not enter the struggle when they heard the whistle, which was a signal intended only for Little Buddha, but would wait for a revolver shot from Little Buddha. But he would not fire until the cage was opened.
The Kanaka answered that the cages were never opened at night time, whereupon Little Buddha divulged the entire plot in order to inspire confidence. One of his pals would “give him the hold”; in other words, while he pretended to be asleep, this man would unhook his hammock as if he were playing a practical joke on him; and he would fall violently to the deck uttering cries
and moans. He would not rise, but pretend that he had broken a limb. Thus the guards would be bound to come to his assistance. As soon as the door opened, before the guards knew what was going on they would kill them. And one hundred and fifty pals would hurl themselves into the alleyway.
In each alley-way and deck were ten guards, and it would not take long to tackle them and do for them.
Afterwards to take the keys from them and open the cages and cells would be simplicity itself. They would release the Toper, the African and all their mates. They would constitute an army. And Chéri-Bibi would be with them! He would appear from they knew not where like a good omen, and bring with him rifles and munitions and anything else that might be needed to complete the feast. Everything had been thought out from the beginning of the voyage, and success was a certainty. As for the military overseers who would make for the upper deck, there was nothing to fear from them for the companion-way at the main hatch had been loosened. To take it down would be Little Buddha’s job. Nothing had been overlooked. They would be masters of the ship and do just as they pleased. Only, he repeated, they must understand that those who backed out of it would be killed. Every man’s skin was at stake, and it would be a battle for life or death.
The plot seemed splendid to some, problematical to others, and impossible to others again, who, however, kept their opinions to themselves; but they all agreed that they had to go ahead for all they were worth; even the Lamb was in it.
Convicts have a method of communicating among themselves, of talking, of arranging the minute details of a plan of escape, under the very eyes of the guards, who do not know how it is done. No sooner were the hammocks slung up in the cages and the men lying in their swinging beds, than the whole plot was understood and settled. Each man knew what part he had to play in it.
And yet the “turning in” that night was like the “turning in” on any other night, and the same sound of men snoring, the same hoarse gurgling from brutish throats arose between decks, while the warders on guard, revolver in hand, or rifle on shoulder, paced up and down before the cages.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 148
