Chapter 27

JUDE AND THE GALLEY

The Council of the Galley-on-Land were gathered again in Gougeon's shop at two in the morning. All Paris was sleeping, and even the orgies of the Beggars' Ball had sunk to silence. There was animation among the Council, for in a corner, not at first visible, lay a subject of debate--a prisoner tightly bound with a rope. Each man held some piece of sharp iron, Wife Gougeon her pistol. The Admiral sat wrapped in his brown cloak.

"_I_ caught him!" shouted Hache hilariously; "I caught him myself."

"Who is he?" the Admiral asked.

"The sheep that followed me. They have followed me ever since the breaking of Bec and Caron. This one was the worst. He follows you along like a lizard under a wall; but I caught him, I caught him!"

A stifled struggle with its fastenings were heard from the bundle in the corner.

"Bring him over," order the Admiral.

Gougeon and Hache went over, lifted the bundle, and deposited it in the centre of the group, where the candle rays brought out amidst it the lines of a face. A woollen gag was across the mouth, the eyes were bloodshot and fear-distorted, but the features were unmistakable. They were those of Jude.

Jude, when deprived of the favour of the Princess, had offered his services to the police administration. He was set on the track of Hache, whom he successfully shadowed and was about to expose, together with the Gougeons and their den, when his victim caught him.

Gougeon took hold of the prisoner's hand roughly, and bound a new gag under the chin and tightly over the head; he then loosened the mouth gag and turned away, without any interest in the sequel, to pick at a driblet of grease running down the side of the candle.

The change in the gags allowed of speech between the teeth while preventing the prisoner's mouth from opening to cry out.

"Spy," said the Admiral severely. "You are in the service of the Lieutenant of Police?"

"Oh, no, sir, I pray you," Jude hissed. "I am no spy, a poor Abbé only; and in the name of the Church----"

"The Church is one of our enemies."

"But I am not in orders--a secular, a reader, a poor companion. Oh, let me go and I will do you no harm. I have some money--eighty-five florins--at my lodgings; let me but go and bring it."

"And betray us all!" screamed Wife Gougeon. "No, Monsieur Abbé. When you go from here it will not be to sing."

"Monsieur will doubtless sign an order for us to draw this sum," said the Admiral most suavely.

"Immediately on my release," gasped the Abbé.

"It is more just that we should have the money first."

"But I am dying of fear. I have no courage. Listen, listen, I pray of you good people. I shall give you all I have and fly from you for ever as far as I can."

"Unbind his right hand," commanded the leader. "Is there any paper here?"

"His own book. I took it from his pocket," said Wife Gougeon, handing over a note-book.

The Admiral pounced upon it. The first entry he read aloud was headed "_Hache--ex-convict_," succeeded by a description; following it were memoranda concerning several others of the gang; further on, the number and street of the shop, and at length an entry: "_The Admiral, an individual of Brittany, who seems to have some connection with these people._"

"Oho!" he cried, "Monsieur Abbé, what do you say to this?"

A hoarse, long groan was the reply.

Femme Gougeon came over to him, and putting her glittering eyes just over his, caught his neck with her left hand, and stretching her right up to Gougeon said "A knife!"

"No," the Admiral exclaimed peremptorily. "What would you do with the blood? To the rats with him rather, like the others. Hache, the trap."

The ex-felon staggered across a pile of scraps, and raised a triplet of planks which covered a pit. A sickening odour arose.

"Down with him," continued the robber Captain.

"But his money?" murmured Gougeon.

"Never mind it."

All the men present caught up Jude and hurried him quickly over the gaping hole, in which he could hear a scuttling of vermin feet and a chorus of squeaks.

"May the next be Répentigny!" the Admiral began. "Now up with him----"

A death-like hiss rose from Jude's lips, "Répentigny? He is my enemy too. I will be your slave. I have too much fear of you to ever harm you. Let me tell you about this Répentigny. Life, life, I beseech--I beseech--beseech you!"

"Back a moment!" the Admiral commanded.

Jude was carried once more into the candle-light.

"Who is the Répentigny you say you know?"

"The officer--of the King's--Bodyguard."

"What do you know about him?"

"I lived in the same house at Versailles--the Hôtel de Noailles."

"Then you are an aristocrat?"

"Oh, no, sir; do not accuse me--only a servant--one of the people--and I was dismissed."

"A reader, you said. Well, what of this Répentigny?"

"I could inform you concerning all his movements were you only to release me."

The Admiral looked away and reflected several minutes. His sinister countenance was watched with terrible constancy by Jude. At length the victim caught what he took for a relaxation of the cruel look on the face of the Admiral, who rose and tapped upon the box on which the candle stood.

"Ragmen," he said. The spy's breath stopped in his suspense. "Ragmen, carry him back."

It was a terrific blow to Jude, who still, however, retained consciousness, though now incapable of even hiss or contortion. He was held over the trap again, and the leader once more commenced speaking. "Spy," he said, "you have been condemned by the Galley-on-Land to the death which now yawns beneath you. Men, lift him up till I give my final order." He paused a time; it seemed an eternity to Jude.

"Monsieur Spy," continued he. "Are you ready, in return for your life, to serve the Galley-on-Land, of which I am Admiral, before all other masters; to go where I bid you, to do what I command, to inform me of whatever will protect us; to succour a ragman before every other consideration!"

"All," the prisoner gurgled, with his last strength.

"Then live."

They hurried him back and laid him down on the floor unconscious.

"Yes, the order must be reversed: Répentigny first, this one afterwards," mused the Admiral, who could do nothing without indulging his turn for brutal melodrama.