CHAPTER XI. ANOTHER VICTIM.

At last, ninety-three days after her departure from St. Martin de Re, the Loire cast anchor in the Bay of Noumea. The town, perched on the slope of a hill, is quite picturesque with its flat-roofed white houses that are shaded by gigantic cocoanut trees, and half hidden by huge bushes of a kind of scarlet rhododendron of a singular luxuriance and beauty. Owing to the frequence of cyclones and tornadoes no building is more than one-story high, even the church tower having been razed to the ground by a storm which took place a short time before Frederick reached the colony.

The young man, however, had no opportunity of examining the town more closely. For shortly before midday the convicts were placed on barges rowed by naked savages, and conveyed to the barren and desolate Island of Nou, distant about an hour from the city. On landing the convicts were taken to a shed where they were ordered to strip. Their bodies were then plentifully besprinkled with the most nauseating kind of insect powder, after which they were furnished with their new kit, consisting of coarse canvas trousers, jackets and shirts, straw hats, wooden shoes, hammocks and dingy-colored blankets. They were then locked up by batches of sixty in long, low buildings, the small windows of which were heavily barred.

There they were left without either food or water until the following morning. The night was horrible. The most impenetrable darkness prevailed, no lantern or any kind of light having been provided to dispel the gloom. The [Pg 101] heat and foul odors due to the want of proper ventilation were indescribable, and the men, driven almost frantic by thirst and hunger, rendered the long, weary hours of the night still more hideous with their yells, oaths, and execrations. At about 2 o'clock in the morning a fearful cry of agony rang through the building:

“Help! Help! They are killing me! Let me go, cowards! Help for the love of God!”

A great silence followed this heart-rending appeal, which was only broken by the sound of a few shuddering gasps. A few minutes later the pandemonium broke loose again with increased violence and continued until morning. When day began to pierce through the grated windows the cause of the awful cries for help which had made the blood of even some of the most hardened criminals run cold became apparent. Stretched on the ground, with his open eyes distended by pain and terror, lay the dead body of the convict who during the voyage out had volunteered to act as the “corrector” on the occasion of the flogging of Frederick and of the three men who attempted to escape with him in the harbor of Santa Cruz. Death had evidently been caused by strangulation, for purple finger-marks were plainly visible on the victim's throat.

At 6 o'clock the doors were thrown open, and the warders ordered the prisoners to file out into the open air. After having been ranged in line, the roll was called. The several numerals by which the respective convicts were known were called forth and responded to by their owners. Suddenly there was a pause caused by the failure of No. 21,265, to answer the summons.

“Where the devil is No. 21,265?” shouted the head warder, in an angry tone of voice.

The convicts remained silent.

Fearing that the missing man had escaped, several of the “gardes-chiourmes” (sub-warders) rushed into the building [Pg 102] where the prisoners had spent the night, and reappeared a few moments later bearing the body of the murdered man.

Of course the convicts one and all denied any knowledge as to how their comrade had come to his death, and as it was impossible to discover which of the sixty prisoners had been the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed, a report was made to the governor stating that a fight had taken place among the newly arrived convicts during the night, in the course of which one of their number had met his death. To tell the truth, the affair attracted but little attention on the part of the authorities. After all, it was but a convict the less. As, however, it was deemed necessary to take some notice of the matter, the ten prisoners who had the largest number of black marks against their name, and among whom was Frederick, were sentenced to undergo the following punishment. Their hands were tightly secured behind their backs and fastened to a chain attached to iron rings in the exterior wall of the building in which the murder had been committed. The chains were sufficiently loose to enable them either to squat on the ground or to stand upright. But being unable to use their hands to convey their miserable pittance of bread and water to their mouths, they were forced to bend their faces down to the ground in order to seize the bread with their teeth and to lap up the water like dogs.
FREDERICK UNDERGOING PUNISHMENT.

In defiance of all notions of humanity or decency they were left bound in this cruel manner for seven days and seven nights, exposed to the weather and unable to defend themselves from the bites of the myriads of musquitoes and other aggressive insects.

When, at the end of this week of indescribable torture, they were released, five of their number, including Frederick, were in such a state as to necessitate their being sent to the hospital. Frederick, who possessed a wonderfully strong constitution and powerful physique, soon recovered. [Pg 103] Two of his companions, however, had their arms paralyzed for the remainder of their lives from the effects of this appalling treatment.

For two long years Frederick remained on the Island of Nou, subject to the never-ending tyranny and brutality of the jailers and overseers, who are recruited from the very lowest ranks of society. The slightest appearance of hesitation or failure on the part of the convict to submit to every caprice of the “chiourme” was immediately interpreted as an act of insubordination, and formed the subject of daily reports to the superintendent, who responded thereto by sending vouchers either for a flogging or for an imprisonment during a certain number of days in the dark punishment cell.

[Pg 104]

One day matters came to a climax. Frederick, with a gang of about twelve others, was engaged on the main landing in breaking stones for the construction of a new road. Two warders with loaded rifles kept watch over them. One of the two, however, seeing the men quietly at work withdrew after a while to a neighboring farm-house, which belonged to an ex-convict who was still under the supervision of the police.

The fate of these liberated convicts is scarcely a happy one. For although they are permitted to summon to their side the wife, sisters, or children whom they may have left behind them in France, or, if they prefer it, to marry some female ex-convict, yet their womankind are entirely subject to the caprices and passions of the various prison functionaries. Even the very lowest sub-warder has it in his power to force these unfortunate people to submit to his demands, no matter how outrageous their nature may be, since any refusal would inevitably entail a denunciation, accusing either the husband or wife, or possibly both, of acts of insubordination. Needless to add that the word of persons who are under police supervision and who are deprived of their civil rights has no weight whatsoever when opposed by that of a prison official.

One of the warders having, as has been stated above, retired to a neighboring farm-house, his companion sat down under the shade of some bushes which grew at the top of a small mound, whence he could exercise a careful watch over the men intrusted to his charge. The heat was overpowering, and from time to time he refreshed himself with long pulls from a suspicious-looking flask which he had hidden away in an inside pocket. The liquor, whatever it was, instead of rendering him more good-humored and tractable, seemed to call forth all the latent savagery of his nature. Every time one of the unfortunate convicts attempted to rest from his work for a few brief moments the [Pg 105] brute would force him, by means of taunts and threats, to resume his task. Not a moment's respite would he permit them for the purpose of slaking their intense thirst with a drink of water; and for six long hours, in the very hottest part of the day, he kept them exposed without interruption to the scorching rays of the tropical sun.

At length, overcome by the sultriness of the atmosphere and by the frequency of his potations, he sank off into a deep and drunken sleep, his rifle still loosely lying across his knees. Frederick's attention having been attracted thereto by one of his comrades, he immediately perceived that the moment had arrived for carrying into effect his long-cherished project of escape. Quick as lightning he communicated his intention to his fellow-prisoners. A few sturdy blows with the hammers which they had been using until then for breaking the stones were sufficient to relieve them of their waist and ankle chains, and in a moment they had overpowered and tightly bound and gagged their still sleeping warder. Frederick seized his rifle, and accompanied by the others made a bolt for the woods, which they were able to reach unobserved. It was not until an hour after nightfall, when they were already several miles distant from the spot where they had regained their liberty, that the booming of the big guns of the fort at stated intervals proclaimed the fact to them that their escape had become known and that a general alarm had been given.

On becoming aware of this they held a kind of council of war, and it was determined that they should scatter in groups of two and three, which they considered would be more likely to enable them to avoid being recaptured.

The notes left by “Prado” do not mention the fate of those from whom he parted company at the time. It is probable that they either were caught by the posses of warders sent in their pursuit or else that they fell into the [Pg 106] hands of the “Canaks,” as the ferocious natives of New Caledonia are called. The “Canaks” before deciding as to what to do with their prisoners would probably hesitate, influenced on the one hand by their appetite for human flesh and on the other by their greed for the handsome reward offered by the Government for the capture, either alive or dead, of runaway convicts.

For many days Frederick and his two companions wandered through almost impenetrable forests. They were frightened by every sound, by every rustle of a leaf, and were dependent for food on the berries, fruits, and roots, which they devoured with some apprehension, afraid lest they should contain some unknown and deadly poison. Everywhere around them they felt that death was hovering. The dense foliage of the trees completely hid the sky and surrounded them with deep shadows, which appeared full of horror and mystery. Large birds flew off as they advanced, with a startling flutter of their heavy wings, and their only resting-place at night was among the branches of some lofty tree. Frequently they had to wade through pestilential swamps, in which masses of poisonous snakes and other loathsome reptiles squirmed and raised their hissing heads against the intruders. Once they were almost drowned in a deep lake of liquid mud which was so overgrown with luxuriant grasses and mosses that they had mistaken it for terra firma.

At length, on the twelfth day after their escape, they reached, shortly after nightfall, a small coast-guard station. The night was very dark and a heavy tropical rain was falling. A little after midnight the three men, who had remained hidden until then among the rocks, made their way down the little creek, where the open boat used by the coast guards lay at anchor. Gliding noiselessly into the water, they swam out to where the tiny craft was rising and [Pg 107] falling under the influence of a heavy ground swell. In a few moments they were safely on board.

The tide was going out, and, unwilling to attract the attention of the coast guards by the noise which would attend the raising of the anchor, they quietly slipped the cable and allowed the boat to drift silently out to sea.

It was a terrible voyage on which they had embarked and must have been regarded as fool-hardy and insane to the last degree were it not that to remain on the island meant life-long captivity and sufferings so intolerable that death would be but a happy release. As soon as they had drifted far enough they spread the boat's single sail to the wind, and by daylight were well-nigh out of sight of land. On searching the craft they discovered, to their unspeakable delight, that a locker in the bow contained a sack of ship's biscuits, while in the stern was a small cask of water, both of which had evidently been kept on board by the coast-guards for use in case of their being becalmed at any distance from their station. It was little enough, in all conscience, but to Frederick and to his starving companions it seemed the most delicious fare which they had ever tasted.

Frederick's two fellow-fugitives were men of the lowest class. The one was a thorough type of the Paris criminal, with a pale face, bleary eyes, and an outrageously flat, turned-up nose. His breast was adorned with a tattooed caricature of himself, of which he was inordinately proud. The other was a miner who had been condemned to penal servitude for life for killing his chief in response to some violent reproaches which had been addressed to him by the latter.

Without compass, without even a sailor's knowledge of the constellations, they sailed aimlessly before the wind, intent only on increasing the distance which already lay between them and their abhorred prison. Their only hope was that they would be picked up by some passing vessel which, [Pg 108] as long as it did not fly the French colors, would certainly not deliver them back into the hands of their tormentors.

They had been sailing along for some four or five days when the water began to give out. Only a little drop remained. Moreover, there was no protection to be obtained from the burning rays of the sun, the reflection of which on the blue waters of the Pacific seemed to increase the heat tenfold. The three men had agreed to keep the remaining drops of water until the very last extremity, and then only to divide it up into equal shares before preparing to undergo the terrible death by thirst which stared them in the face. Suddenly the ex-miner was seized with convulsions, brought on, no doubt, by the terrific heat of the midday sun on his unprotected head. When these ceased he started to his feet, and, with the yell of a maniac, for such he had now become, made a rush for the water cask. Divining his intention, Frederick and the Parisian “voyou” threw [Pg 109] themselves before him, and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, which was, however, brought to a quick end by the madman breaking loose from them and, with a cry of “Water, water!” jumping head foremost into the sea, almost capsizing the boat as he did so.

A moment afterward, and before he had time to come to the surface again, the spot where he had disappeared became tinged with blood, and the fins of several huge sharks appeared between the waves. Raising his eyes to the horizon from this terrible scene, Frederick suddenly exclaimed:

“A sail, a sail!”
RESCUE OF FREDERICK AND HIS FELLOW FUGITIVE.