Volume III Part 23 (1/2)

”Then I would kill the first one I could, in order to be guillotined.”

”But if, instead of condemning the red-handed to death, they condemned them to a solitary cell for life?”

Skeleton seemed to be staggered by this reflection. After amoment's pause he replied:

”Then I do not know what I should do. I would break my head against the walls. I would allow myself to die with hunger rather than be in a cell.

How? All alone--all my life alone with myself? without the hope of escape?

I tell you it is not possible. You know there is no one bolder than I am. I would bleed a man for a crown, and even for nothing, for honor. They think that I have only a.s.sa.s.sinated two persons; but if the dead could speak, there are five who could tell how I work.” The brigand boasted of his crimes. These sanguinary egotisms are among the most characteristic traits of hardened criminals. A prison governor told us,”If the pretended murders of which these wretches boast were real, population would be decimated.”

”So I say,” replied Barbillon, boasting in his turn; ”they think that I only laid out the milkwoman's husband in the city; but I have served many others out, with Big Robert, who was shortened last year.”

”It was only to tell you,” said Skeleton, ”that I neither fear fire nor the devil. But, if I were in a cell, and very sure of not being able to escape--thunder! I believe I should be afraid.”

”Of what?” asked Nicholas.

”Of being all alone,” answered the c.o.c.k of the walk.

”So, if you had to recommence your robberies and murders, and, instead of prisons and galleys and guillotine, there were only cells, you would hesitate?”

”Yes--perhaps” (_a fact_), answered the Skeleton.

And he spoke the truth. A noisy burst of laughter, and exclamations of joy proceeding from the prisoners who were walking in the court, interrupted the meeting. Nicholas rose precipitately, and advanced toward the door to ascertain the cause of this unaccustomed noise.

”It is the Big Cripple!” cried Nicholas, returning.

”The Big Cripple?” said the provost; ”and Germain, has he descended from the talking-room?”

”Not yet,” said Barbillon.

”Let him hurry, then,” said Skeleton, ”that I may give him an order for a new coffin.”

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PLOT.

Big Cripple, whose arrival had been hailed by the prisoners in the Lions'

Den with such noisy joy, and whose denunciation was to be so fatal to Germain, was a man of middle stature; notwithstanding his obesity and his infirmity, he seemed active and vigorous. His b.e.s.t.i.a.l physiognomy, as was the case with most of his companions, much resembled a bull-dog's; his low forehead, his little yellow eyes, his falling cheeks, his heavy jawbones, of which the lower projecting beyond the other was armed with long teeth, or rather, broken tusks, which protruded over the lips, rendered this animal resemblance still more striking; he had on his head an otter-skin cap, and wore over his coat a blue cloak with a fur collar. He entered the hall, accompanied by a man of about thirty years of age, whose brown and sunburnt face seemed less degraded than those of the other prisoners, although he affected to appear as resolute as his companion; sometimes his face became clouded, and he smiled bitterly. The Cripple found himself, to use a vulgar expression, quite at home. He could hardly reply to the felicitations and welcomes which were addressed to him from all sides.

”Here you are at last, my jolly bloke! So much the better; we shall have a laugh.”

”We wanted you, old son!”

”You have stayed away a long time.”

”Yet I have done all I could to return to my friends. It is not my fault if they would not have me sooner.”