The brigand lowered his head with a sombre, sullen air, and was silent.
"What are you thinking of, Chourineur?" asked Rodolph, with interest.
"Nothing," he replied, abruptly; and then, with an air of brutish carelessness, he added, "At length they handcuffed me, and brought me before the "big wigs," and I was cast for death."
"You escaped, however?"
"True; but I had fifteen years at the galleys instead of being "scragged." I forgot to tell you that whilst in the regiment I had saved two of my comrades from drowning in the Marne, when we were quartered at Milan. At another time,--you will laugh, and say I am amphibious either in fire or water when saving men or women,--at another time, being in garrison at Rouen, all the wooden houses in one quarter were on fire, and burning like so many matches. I am the lad for a fire, and so I went to the place in an instant. They told me that there was an old woman who was bedridden, and could not escape from her room, which was already in flames. I went towards it, and, by Jove! how it did burn; it reminded me of the lime-kilns in my happy days. However, I saved the old woman, although I had the very soles of my feet scorched. Thanks to my having done these things, and the cunning of my advocate, my sentence was changed, and, instead of being "scragged," I was only sent to the hulks for fifteen years. When I found that my life would be spared, and I was to go to the galleys, I would have jumped upon the babbling fool, and twisted his neck, at the moment when he came to wish me joy, and to tell me he had saved my life, and be hanged to him! only they prevented me."
"Were you sorry, then, to have your sentence commuted?"
"Yes; for those who sport with the knife, the headsman"s steel is the proper fate; for those who steal, the "darbies" to their heels: each his proper punishment. But to force you to live amongst galley-slaves, when you have a right to be guillotined out of hand, is infamous; and, besides, my life, when I first went to the Bagne, was rather queer; one don"t kill a man, and soon forget it, you must know."
"You feel some remorse, then, Chourineur?"
"Remorse? No; for I have served my time," said the savage; "but at first, a night did not pa.s.s but I saw--like a nightmare--the sergeant and soldiers whom I had slashed and slaughtered; that is, they were not alone," added the brigand, in a voice of terror; "these were in tens, and dozens, and hundreds, and thousands, each waiting his turn, in a kind of slaughter-house, like the horses whose throats I used to cut at Montfaucon, awaiting each his turn. Then, then, I saw _red_, and began to cut and slash away on these men as I used formerly to do on the horses. The more, however, I chopped down the soldiers, the faster the ranks filled up with others; and as they died, they looked at one with an air so gentle,--so gentle, that I cursed myself for killing "em; but I couldn"t help it. That was not all. I never had a brother; and yet it seemed as if every one of those whom I killed was my brother, and I loved all of them. At last, when I could bear it no longer, I used to wake covered all over with sweat, as cold as melting snow."
"That was a horrid dream, Chourineur!"
"It was; yes. That dream, do you see, was enough to drive one mad or foolish; so, twice, I tried to kill myself, once by swallowing verdigris, and another time by trying to choke myself with my chain; but, confound it, I am as strong as a bull. The verdigris only made me thirsty; and as for the twist of the chain round my neck, why, that only gave me a natural cravat of a blue colour. Afterwards, the desire of life came back to me, nay nightmare ceased to torment me, and I did as others did."
"At the Bagne, you were in a good school for learning how to thieve?"
"Yes, but it was not to my taste. The other "prigs" bullied me; but I soon silenced them with a few thumps of my chain. It was in this way I first knew the Schoolmaster; and I must pay him the compliment due to his blows,--he paid me off as you did some little time ago."
"He is, then, a criminal who has served his time?"
"He was sentenced for life, but escaped."
"Escaped, and not denounced?"
"I"m not the man to denounce him. Besides, it would seem as if I were afraid of him."
"But how is it that the police do not detect him? Have they not got his description?"
"His description? Oh! yes, yes; but it is long since he has sc.r.a.ped out from his phiz what nature had placed there; now, none but the "baker who puts the condemned in his oven" (the devil) could recognise him" (the Schoolmaster).
"What has he done to himself?"
"He began by destroying his nose, which was an ell long; he ate it off with vitriol."
"You jest."
"If he comes in this evening, you"ll see. He had a nose like a parrot, and now it is as flat as in a death"s head; to say nothing of his lips, which are as thick as your fist, and his face, which is as wrinkled as the waistcoat of a rag-picker."
"And so he is not recognised?"
"It is six months since he escaped from Rochefort, and the "traps" have met him a hundred times without knowing him."
"Why was he at the Bagne?"
"For having been a forger, thief, and a.s.sa.s.sin. He is called the Schoolmaster because he wrote a splendid hand, and has had a good education."
"And is he much feared?"
"He will not be any longer, when you have given him such a licking as you gave me. Oh, by Jove, I am anxious to see it!"
"What does he do for a living?"
"He is a.s.sociated with an old woman as bad as himself, and as deep as the "old one;" but she is never seen, though he has told the ogress that some day or other he would bring his "mot" (woman) with him."
"And this women helps him in his robberies?"
"Yes, and in his murders too. They say he brags of having already, with her a.s.sistance, "done for" two or three persons; and, amongst others, three weeks ago, a cattle-dealer on the road to Poissy, whom they also robbed."
"He will be taken sooner or later."
"They must be very cunning, as well as powerful, to do that, for he always has under his blouse a brace of loaded pistols and a dagger. He says that Charlot (the executioner) waits for him, and he can only lose his head once, and so he will kill all he can kill to try and escape.
Oh! he makes no mystery of it; and as he is twice as strong as you and I, they will have a tough job who take him."
"What did you do, Chourineur, when you left the Bagne?"
"I offered myself to the master-lighterman of the Quai St. Paul, and I get my livelihood there."
"But as you have never been a "prig," why do you live in the Cite?"
"Why, where else can I live? Who likes to be seen with a discharged criminal? I should be tired of always being alone, for I like company, and here I am with my equals. I have a bit of a row sometimes, and they fear me like fire in the Cite; but the police have nothing to say to me, except now and then for a "shindy," for which they give me, perhaps, twenty-four hours at the watch-house, and there"s an end of that."
"What do you earn a day?"
"Thirty-five sous for taking in the river foot-baths, up to the stomach from twelve to fifteen hours a day, summer and winter; but let me be just, and tell the truth; so if, through having my toes in the water, I get the _grenouille_,[7] I am allowed to break my arms in breaking up old vessels, and unloading timber on my back. I begin as a beast of burden, and end like a fish"s tail. When I lose my strength entirely, I shall take a rake and a wicker basket, like the old rag-picker whom I see in the recollections of my childhood."
[7] A disease of the skin to which all who work in the water are liable.
"And yet you are not unhappy."
"There are worse than I am; and without my dreams of the sergeant and soldiers with their throats cut,--for I have the dream still sometimes,--I could quietly wait for the moment when I should drop down dead at the corner of some dunghill, like that at which I was born; but the dream--the dream--by heaven and earth! I don"t like even to think of that," said the Chourineur, and he emptied his pipe at the corner of the table.
The Goualeuse had hardly listened to the Chourineur; she seemed wholly absorbed in a deep and melancholy reverie. Rodolph himself was pensive.
A tragic incident occurred, which brought these three personages to a recollection of the spot in which they were.
CHAPTER V.
THE ARREST.