CHAPTER IX

PRISON BOAT NUMBER FOUR

Paul Durand was confined in the prison at Tours. The prison was so crowded that he had to be placed in a small room at the top of the building adjoining the quarters occupied by the jailer and his family.

Paul was paler than usual, the result of fatigue from the long, rapid ride from La Haye, but he showed no signs of fear and held up his head bravely as the jailer entered the room. The latter carried a bundle under his arm.

"You are to take these clothes," he said, "go into the adjoining room, and put them on in place of the garments you have on."

Paul took the bundle and went into the next room. For fifteen minutes the jailer sat upon the one chair the room contained, humming and jingling his bunch of keys. Then the door into the outer corridor was thrown open and a large man entered. The jailer sprang to his feet with alacrity.

"Where's the prisoner, Potin?" demanded the newcomer in a harsh voice.

"In the next room, Citizen Leboeuf," replied Potin.

Leboeuf strode toward the door and laid his hand upon the latch.

"I beg your pardon, Citizen Leboeuf, but the prisoner may not be ready to receive you."

"Well, there's no particular reason to be squeamish, is there?" asked Leboeuf, screwing his fat face into a leer.

"If you will wait another minute I think the prisoner will come out," suggested Potin deferentially, jingling his keys.

"Bah, you show your lodgers too much consideration, citizen jailer; you spoil them." Nevertheless Leboeuf allowed his hand to drop from the latch and took a few impatient strides across the floor.

The door opened and, turning, Leboeuf saw Mademoiselle de Rochefort standing on the threshold. She was thinner than when she left La Thierry: but her eyes had lost none of their fire, and she looked Citizen Leboeuf in the face without flinching. His dull eyes kindled while he looked at her some moments without speaking.

"Do you know who I am?" he inquired in his thick, husky voice.

"Yes, I overheard the jailer call you Citizen Leboeuf."

"Right. I am Citizen Leboeuf; and do you know why you have been brought here?"

"A paper was read to me last night which pretended to give some explanation," was her quiet rejoinder.

"In order to save time and expense your trial will take place at Tours, rather than at Paris. I am one of the judges of this district."

Mademoiselle Edme looked at him with an expression of indifference.

"You do not appear to be afraid."

"I am not afraid," was the quiet reply.

Leboeuf eyed her with evident admiration.

"Why did you put on boy's clothes?" he asked abruptly.

"In order to avoid detection," she answered frankly, coming forward and seating herself in the chair which Potin had vacated upon her entrance. Leboeuf was standing before her, hat in hand, an act of politeness he had not shown to any one for years.

"And you did it well," he said. "You threw them off the track completely. Had it not been for me, your hiding-place would never have been discovered. It was a splendid trick you played upon those bunglers from Paris." And he slapped his thigh in keen appreciation of it, and laughed hoarsely.

"I will take your boy's clothes with me," he continued as he prepared to leave the room, "lest you should be tempted to put them on again from force of habit. We don't want you turning into a boy any more. No, you make too pretty a woman." Then going up to the jailer he said something to him in a low voice which Edme could not hear. Potin seemed to be remonstrating feebly. Leboeuf scowled, and from his manner appeared to insist upon the point at issue.

"Are you sure you are not afraid?" he said again abruptly to Edme as he went to the door and stood with one hand on the latch looking back into the room.

"No!"

He looked at her admiringly.

"Remember you are a woman now and have a perfect right to be afraid; also to kick and scream when anything is the matter."

Edme made no reply.

"In case you should ever feel afraid," he said significantly, "just send for Leboeuf, that's all," and with this he left the room.

Edme remained in Potin's charge for two days. The jailer treated her with great consideration, and she congratulated herself upon having fallen into such kindly hands. She momentarily expected to be summoned before the Tribunal. She did not know what the result would be; but she looked forward to her trial with impatience. In any event it would end the suspense in which she was living.

On the afternoon of the second day Potin entered her room, accompanied by one of his deputies.

"You must prepare to go with this man, citizeness," said the little jailer.

"Has the Tribunal sent for me? she inquired.

"Not yet. But you are to be transferred to another prison."

"I prefer to stay here," she said. "Cannot you ask them to allow me to remain?"

"You have no choice in the matter, nor have I; I have only my orders."

"From whom did the order come? From that man Leboeuf who came here the other day?" she demanded quickly.

"I am not at liberty to say," replied Potin, shifting his feet uneasily.

"Are you forbidden to tell me where I am to be taken?" was her next question.

"To prison boat Number Four. The city prisons are so full," he continued, in answer to her look of surprised inquiry, "that great numbers have to be lodged in the boats anchored in the river. Number Four is one of the largest," he added as if by way of consolation.

In company of the deputy Edme was conducted to the floating prison on the Loire. As they stepped over the side they were met by a little round-shouldered man with splay feet. His face was wrinkled and brown almost to blackness; his dress showed that he had a fondness for bright colors, as he wore a purple shirt with a crimson sash, a bright yellow neckcloth, and a red cap. The deputy turned over his charge to him, received his quittance, and went away.

Edme was conducted to a room in the stern of the vessel. It was a small room and to her surprise she found it furnished comfortably, almost luxuriously. On a table in the centre stood a carafe of wine and a basket of sweet biscuit. Two or three chairs and a couch completed the equipment of the room. At the extreme end, the porthole had been enlarged into a window which looked out over the river. This window was closed by wooden bars. Otherwise the place looked more like the comfortable quarters of some ship's officer than a jail.

"Is this where I am to remain?" she asked of her new jailer.

The man nodded and withdrew, locking the door after him.

Edme threw herself into a chair. It was intended that she should at least be comfortable while in prison, and this thought helped to keep up her spirits. She rose, took a glass of wine and some of the biscuit, and then after finishing this refreshment, feeling fatigued, she lay down upon the couch and fell asleep.

It was nearly dark when she awoke. Lying on the couch she could see the dying light of the short December day shining feebly in at the window, reflected by the metal of a swinging lamp over the table. As she lay there she became aware of a noise that had evidently awakened her. It was the sound of wailing and lamentation, accompanied by the creaking of timber and the swash of water.

Rising from the bed she went to the window and looked out over the river.

Going down the stream were two other prison boats. They were scarcely fifty yards away and proceeded slowly with the current, the water lapping against their black sides. They were old vessels, and creaked and groaned as if they were about to fall apart from very rottenness. From between their decks came the sound of human voices raised in cries of fear, despair, and lamentation; all mingled in a strange, horrible medley, which, borne over the water by the sighing night wind, struck a chill into Edme's heart.

The vessels, stealing down the river with their sailless masts against the evening sky, looked like phantom ships conveying cargoes of unrestful, tortured spirits into darkness. The sight so fascinated Edme that she stood watching them until they drifted out of sight and the cries of those on board grew fainter and fainter in the distance. So absorbed had she been as not to hear the lock click in the door and a man enter the room. She only became aware of his presence on hearing a heavy sigh just behind her, and turning her head she saw Leboeuf's heavy face at her shoulder. She gave a startled cry and stepped nearer the window.

"It is a sad sight, is it not," he remarked, with a look of sympathy ill-suited to the leer in his eyes, "and one that might easily frighten the strongest of us."

"It is your sudden appearance, when I thought I was entirely alone, that startled me," replied Edme, regaining her composure with an effort. "I was so intent upon looking at those boats that I did not hear you come in."

"I see you didn't. I may be bulky, but I'm active and can move quietly," and he gave a chuckle.

Edme thought him even more repulsive than at the time of his visit to the prison. His face seemed coarser and more inflamed, and his eyes, so dull and heavy before, shone as if animated by drink.

"Where are they taking those poor people?" she asked; "for I presume those are prison boats."

"They are," was the reply in a thick utterance. "Just like this. Are you sure that you want to know where they are being taken?"

"Would I have asked you otherwise?"

"Are you sure you won't faint?"

Edme gave a shrug of contempt. She saw that he was trying to work upon her fears, and felt her spirit rise in antagonism.

The look of admiration that he gave her was more offensive than his pretended sympathy. Leaning forward he whispered, "They are going down the river for about two miles. There they will get rid of their troublesome freight and return empty."

"What do you mean?" asked Edme. "Where do they land the prisoners?"

"They don't land them, they water them," and he gave a low, inward laugh. "They drown every prisoner on board. Tie them together in couples, man and woman, and tumble them overboard by the score."

Edme gave a cry of horror. "It is too horrible to be true. I don't believe it!"

"Why not?" asked Leboeuf; "drowning is an easy death, and every one of them has been fairly and honestly condemned. This boat is to follow in its turn. Every prisoner here has looked upon the sun for the last time, though not one of them knows just when he is to die."

The idea of such wholesale murder seemed so utterly impossible to her that in her mind she set down Leboeuf's whole account as a fiction of his drink-besotted brain, called up to frighten her. Yet at the moment when she turned from him in disgust to look out of the window, she saw that their own vessel had begun to move slowly through the water.

"We have started," said Leboeuf, as if he were mentioning a matter of the smallest consequence.

"You say that every one upon this boat is a condemned person," said Edme quietly, repressing her terror with an effort.

Leboeuf nodded.

"But I am not. I have not even had a hearing."

"No?" exclaimed Leboeuf in a tone of surprise. "Then those jailers have made another mistake."

Edme advanced toward him one step, and in a tone which made the huge man draw back, said:--

"I was brought here by your order!"

"Oh, no, I knew nothing of the change. It was that villain Potin."

"I was brought here by your order," she repeated. "I demand that I be taken where I can have a trial."

"Potin has made another mistake," was all Leboeuf would vouchsafe in reply.

"If there has been any mistake, it is yours. I demand that you set it right."

"It is too late!"

"There must be some one aboard this vessel who has the power to do it, if you have not. I will go and appeal for aid," and she took a step toward the door.

Leboeuf interposed his bulky body between her and the means of exit; closed and locked the door on the inside.

"I will cry aloud. Some one will hear me," she said in desperation.

"Who will hear you above all that noise?" he inquired tersely.

The prisoners on the boat, now fully aware that their time of execution had come, were crying out against their fate,--some praying for mercy, some calling down the maledictions of heaven upon their butchers, while others wept silently.

"Merciful Virgin, protect me. I have lost all hope," cried Edme, turning from Leboeuf and sinking despairingly upon her knees.

"Ah, now you are frightened!" exclaimed Leboeuf, "admit that you are frightened!"

"If it is any satisfaction to have succeeded in terrifying a woman unable to defend herself, I will not rob you of the pleasure, but know that it is not death, but the manner of it, that I fear."

"But you are afraid; you have confessed to it at last, and now Leboeuf will see that they do not harm you." He gave a grim chuckle as if he enjoyed having won his point. Rapidly pushing the table to one side, turning back the rug that covered the floor, he stooped; and to Edme's astonished gaze lifted up a trap door in the floor of the cabin. Edme drew back from the black hole at her feet.

"It is large enough to afford you air for several hours," Leboeuf said. "By that time I will get you out again. Quick, descend the steps."

Edme, fearing further treachery, drew back in alarm. "I prefer to meet my fate here."

Leboeuf struck a light and by the rays of the lamp a ladder was revealed.

"I tell you it is certain death to remain here fifteen minutes longer. Even I could not save you then. The more they throw into the water the more frenzied they become for other victims. They will ransack the entire boat; but they won't find you down there. Leboeuf alone knows this place. Quick! If you would live to see the sun rise to-morrow, go down the steps of that ladder."

He took her by the shoulder to assist in the descent. His touch was so distasteful to her that she threw off his hand and went down the ladder unaided. "Make not the slightest sound, whatever you may hear going on up here above you, and wait patiently until I come to release you."

With these words the door was shut down and Leboeuf went out and up to the deck alone.

The vessel had reached a point in the river just outside the city. Here the stream narrowed and ran swiftly between the banks.

The sky was windy; and between the rifts of the high-banked clouds the moon shone fitfully. To the east lay the city of Tours, its spires standing out in sharp silhouette against the sky. On the river bank the wind swept over the dead, dry grass with a mournful, swaying sound and rattled the rotting halyards of the old hulk, which with one small sail set in the bow to keep it steady, made slowly down the river with the current, hugging the left bank as if fearful of trusting itself to the swifter depths beyond.

A rusty chain rasped through the hawse-hole, and the vessel swung at anchor.

In a small and close compartment in the ship's depths, totally without light, and with her nerves wrought upon by Leboeuf's appalling story, Edme could only guess at what was happening above her head.

She knew that something terrible was taking place. She could hear a confusion of cries and trampling of feet; of hoarse shouts and commands; and she pictured in her imagination scenes quite as horrible as were actually taking place above her. In every wave that splashed against the vessel's side she could see the white face of a struggling, drowning creature, and every sound upon the vessel was the despairing death-note of a fresh victim. Through it all she could see the large face of Leboeuf leering at her with his bleary eyes. To have exchanged one fate for a worse one was to have gained nothing, and in her mental agony she almost envied those who a short time ago had been struggling helplessly in the hands of their executioners, and whose bodies now were quietly sleeping in the waters of the flowing river.

A quiet fell upon the vessel. The last cry had been uttered, the last command given, and no sound reached Edme's ears but the soft plash of the water as it struck under the stern of the boat.

Then the remembrance of Leboeuf's face and look became still more