Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk — Volume 04

by Gilbert Parker

A FRIEND OF THE COMMUNE

"See, madame—there, on the Hill of Pains, the long finger of the
Semaphore! One more prisoner has escaped—one more."

"One more, Marie. It is the life here that on the Hill, this here below; and yet the sun is bright, the cockatoos are laughing in the palms, and you hear my linnet singing."

"It turns so slowly. Now it points across the Winter Valley. Ah!"

"Yes, across the Winter Valley, where the deep woods are, and beyond to the Pascal River."

"Towards my home. How dim the light is now! I can only see It—like a long dark finger yonder."

"No, my dear, there is bright sunshine still; there is no cloud at all: but It is like a finger; it is quivering now, as though it were not sure."

"Thank God, if it be not sure! But the hill is cloudy, as I said."

"No, Marie. How droll you are! The hill is not cloudy; even at this distance one can see something glisten beside the grove of pines."

"I know. It is the White Rock, where King Ovi died."

"Marie, turn your face to me. Your eyes are full of tears. Your heart is tender. Your tears are for the prisoner who has escaped—the hunted in the chase."

She shuddered a little and added, "Wherever he is, that long dark finger on the Hill of Pains will find him out—the remorseless Semaphore."

"No, madame, I am selfish; I weep for myself. Tell me truly, as—as if I were your own child—was there no cloud, no sudden darkness, out there, as we looked towards the Hill of Pains."

"None, dear."

"Then—then—madame, I suppose it was my tears that blinded me for the moment."

"No doubt it was your tears."

But each said in her heart that it was not tears; each said: "Let not this thing come, O God!" Presently, with a caress, the elder woman left the room; but the girl remained to watch that gloomy thing upon the Hill of Pains.

As she stood there, with her fingers clasped upon a letter she had drawn from her pocket, a voice from among the palms outside floated towards her.

"He escaped last night; the Semaphore shows that they have got upon his track. I suppose they'll try to converge upon him before he gets to Pascal River. Once there he might have a chance of escape; but he'll need a lot of luck, poor devil!"

Marie's fingers tightened on the letter.

Then another voice replied, and it brought a flush to the cheek of the girl, a hint of trouble to her eyes. It said: "Is Miss Wyndham here still?"

"Yes, still here. My wife will be distressed when she leaves us."

"She will not care to go, I should think. The Hotel du Gouverneur spoils us for all other places in New Caledonia."

"You are too kind, monsieur; I fear that those who think as you are not many. After all, I am little more here than a gaoler—merely a gaoler, M. Tryon."

"Yet, the Commandant of a military station and the Governor of a Colony."

"The station is a penitentiary; the colony for liberes, ticket-of-leave men, and outcast Paris; with a sprinkling of gentlemen and officers dying of boredom. No, my friend, we French are not colonists. We emigrate, we do not colonise. This is no colony. We do no good here."

"You forget the nickel mines."

"Quarries for the convicts and for political prisoners of the lowest class."

"The plantations?"

"Ah, there I crave your pardon. You are a planter, but you are English.
M. Wyndham is a planter and an owner of mines, but he is English. The
man who has done best financially in New Caledonia is an Englishman.
You, and a few others like you, French and English, are the only colony
I have. I do not rule you; you help me to rule."

"We?"

"By being on the side of justice and public morality; by dining with me, though all too seldom; by giving me a quiet hour now and then beneath your vines and fig-trees; and so making this uniform less burdensome to carry. No, no, monsieur, I know you are about to say something very gracious: but no, you shall pay your compliments to the ladies."

As they journeyed to the morning-room Hugh Tryon said: "Does M. Laflamme still come to paint Miss Wyndham?"

"Yes; but it ends to-morrow, and then no more of that. Prisoners are prisoners, and though Laflamme is agreeable that makes it the more difficult."

"Why should he be treated so well, as a first-class prisoner, and others of the Commune be so degraded here—as Mayer, for instance?"

"It is but a question of degree. He was an artist and something of a dramatist; he was not at the Place Vendome at a certain critical moment; he was not at Montmartre at a particular terrible time; he was not a high officer like Mayer; he was young, with the face of a patriot. Well, they sent Mayer to the galleys at Toulon first; then, among the worst of the prisoners here—he was too bold, too full of speech; he had not Laflamme's gift of silence, of pathos. Mayer works coarsely, severely here; Laflamme grows his vegetables, idles about Ducos, swings in his hammock, and appears at inspections the picture of docility. One day he sent to me the picture of my wife framed in gold—here it is. Is it not charming? The size of a franc-piece and so perfect! You know the soft hearts of women."

"You mean that Madame Solde—"

"She persuaded me to let him come here to paint my portrait. He has done so, and now he paints Marie Wyndham. But—"

"But?—Yes?"

"But these things have their dangers."

"Have their dangers," Hugh Tryon musingly repeated, and then added under his breath almost, "Escape or—"

"Or something else," the Governor rather sharply interrupted; and then, as they were entering the room, gaily continued: "Ah, here we come, mademoiselle, to pay—"

"To pay your surplus of compliments, monsieur le Gouverneur. I could not help but hear something of what you said," responded Marie, and gave her hand to Tryon.

"I leave you to mademoiselle's tender mercies, monsieur," said the
Governor. "Au revoir!"

When he had gone, Hugh said: "You are gay today."

"Indeed, no, I am sad."

"Wherefore sad? Is nickel proving a drug? Or sugar a failure? Don't tell me that your father says sugar is falling." He glanced at the letter, which she unconsciously held in her hand.

She saw his look, smoothed the letter a little nervously between her palms, and put it into her pocket, saying: "No, my father has not said that sugar is falling—but come here, will you?" and she motioned towards the open window. When there, she said slowly, "That is what makes me sad and sorry," and she pointed to the Semaphore upon the Hill of Pains.

"You are too tender-hearted," he remarked. "A convict has escaped; he will be caught perhaps—perhaps not; and things will go on as before."

"Will go on as before. That is, the 'martinet' worse than the 'knout de Russe'; the 'poucettes', the 'crapaudine' on neck and ankles and wrists; all, all as bad as the 'Pater Noster' of the Inquisition, as Mayer said the other day in the face of Charpentier, the Commandant of the penitentiary. How pleasant also to think of the Boulevard de Guillotine! I tell you it is brutal, horrible. Think of what prisoners have to suffer here, whose only crime is that they were of the Commune; that they were just a little madder than other Frenchmen."

"Pardon me if I say that as brutal things were done by the English in
Tasmania."

"Think of two hundred and sixty strokes of the 'cat.'"

"You concern yourself too much about these things, I fear."

"I only think that death would be easier than the life of half of the convicts here."

"They themselves would prefer it, perhaps."

"Tell me, who is the convict that has escaped?" she feverishly asked.
"Is it a political prisoner?"

"You would not know him. He was one of the Commune who escaped shooting in the Place de la Concorde. Carbourd, I think, was his name."

"Carbourd, Carbourd," she repeated, and turned her head away towards the
Semaphore.

Her earnestness aroused in Tryon a sudden flame of sympathy which had its origin, as he well knew, in three years of growing love. This love leaped up now determinedly—perhaps unwisely; but what should a blunt soul like Hugh Tryon know regarding the best or worst time to seek a woman's heart? He came close to her now and said: "If you are so kind in thought for a convict, I dare hope that you would be more kind to me."

"Be kind to you," she repeated, as if not understanding what he said, nor the look in his eyes.

"For I am a prisoner, too."

"A prisoner?" she rejoined a little tremulously, and coldly.

"In your hands, Marie." His eyes laid bare his heart.

"Oh!" she replied, in a half-troubled, half-indignant tone, for she was out of touch with the occasion of his suit, and every woman has in her mind the time when she should and when she should not be wooed. "Oh, why aren't you plain with me? I hate enigmas."

"Why do I not speak plainly? Because, because, Marie, it is possible for a man to be a coward in his speech"—he touched her fingers—"when he loves." She quickly drew her hand from his. "Oh, can't we be friends without that?"

There was a sound of footsteps at the window. Both turned, and saw the political prisoner, Rive Laflamme, followed by a guard.

"He comes to finish my portrait," she said. "This is the last sitting."

"Marie, must I go like this? When may I see you again? When will you answer me? You will not make all the hopes to end here?"

It was evident that some deep trouble was on the girl. She flushed hotly, as if she were about to reply hotly also, but she changed quickly, and said, not unkindly: "When M. Laflamme has gone." And now, as if repenting of her unreasonable words of a moment before, she added: "Oh, please don't think me hard. I am sorry that I grieve you. I'm afraid I am not altogether well, not altogether happy."

"I will wait till he has gone," the planter replied. At the door he turned as if to say something, but he only looked steadily, sadly at her, and then was gone.

She stood where he had left her, gazing in melancholy abstraction at the door through which he had passed. There were footsteps without in the hall-way. The door was opened, and a servant announced M. Laflamme. The painter-prisoner entered followed by the soldier. Immediately afterward Mrs. Angers, Marie's elderly companion, sidled in gently.

Laflamme bowed low, then turned and said coolly to the soldier: "You may wait outside to-day, Roupet. This is my last morning's work. It is important, and you splutter and cough. You are too exhausting for a studio."

But Roupet answered: "Monsieur, I have my orders."

"Nonsense. This is the Governor's house. I am perfectly safe here. Give your orders a change of scene. You would better enjoy the refreshing coolness of the corridors this morning. You won't? Oh, yes, you will. Here's a cigarette—there, take the whole bunch—I paid too much for them, but no matter. Ah, pardon me, mademoiselle. I forgot that you cannot smoke here, Roupet; but you shall have them all the same, there! Parbleu! you are a handsome rascal, if you weren't so wheezy! Come, come, Roupet, make yourself invisible."

The eyes of the girl were on the soldier. They did the work better; a warrior has a soft place in his heart for a beautiful woman. He wheeled suddenly, and disappeared from the room, motioning that he would remain at the door.

The painting began, and for half an hour or more was continued without a word. In the silence the placid Angers had fallen asleep.

Nodding slightly towards her, Rive Laflamme said in a low voice to Marie:
"Her hearing at its best is not remarkable?"

"Not remarkable."

He spoke more softly. "That is good. Well, the portrait is done. It has been the triumph of my life to paint it. Not that first joy I had when I won the great prize in Paris equals it. I am glad: and yet—and yet there was much chance that it would never be finished."

"Why?"

"Carbourd is gone."

"Yes, I know-well?"

"Well, I should be gone also were it not for this portrait. The chance came. I was tempted. I determined to finish this. I stayed."

"Do you think that he will be caught?"

"Not alive. Carbourd has suffered too much—the galleys, the corde, the triangle, everything but the guillotine. Carbourd has a wife and children—ah, yes, you know all about it. You remember that letter she sent: I can recall every word; can you?"

The girl paused, and then with a rapt sympathy in her face repeated slowly: "I am ill, and our children cry for food. The wife calls to her husband, my darlings say, 'Will father never come home?'"

Marie's eyes were moist.

"Mademoiselle, he was no common criminal. He would have died for the cause grandly. He loved France too wildly. That was his sin."

"Carbourd is free," she said, as though to herself.

"He has escaped." His voice was the smallest whisper. "And now my time has come."

"When? And where do you go?"

"To-night, and to join Carbourd, if I can, at the Pascal River. At King
Ovi's Cave, if possible."

The girl was very pale. She turned and looked at Angers, who still slept. "And then?"

"And then, as I have said to you before, to the coast, to board the
Parroquet, which will lie off the island Saint Jerome three days from now
to carry us away into freedom. It is all arranged by our 'Underground
Railway.'"

"And you tell me all this—why?" the girl said falteringly.

"Because you said that you would not let a hunted fugitive starve; that you would give us horses, with which we could travel the Brocken Path across the hills. Here is the plan of the river that you drew; at this point is the King's Cave which you discovered, and is known only to yourself."

"I ought not to have given it to you; but—"

"Ah, you will not repent of a noble action, of a great good to me—
Marie?"

"Hush, monsieur. Indeed, you may not speak to me so. You forget. I am sorry for you; I think you do not deserve this—banishment; you are unhappy here; and I told you of the King's Cave-that was all."

"Ah no, that is not all! To be free, that is good; but only that I may be a man again; that I may love my art—and you; that I may once again be proud of France."

"Monsieur, I repeat, you must not speak so. Do not take advantage of my willingness to serve you."

"A thousand pardons! but that was in my heart, and I hoped, I hoped—"

"You must not hope. I can only know you as M. Laflamme, the—"

"The political convict; ah, yes, I know," he said bitterly: "a convict over whom the knout is held; who may at any moment be shot down like a hare: who has but two prayers in all the world: to be free in France once more, and to be loved by one—"

She interrupted him: "Your first prayer is natural."

"Natural?—Do you know what song we sang in the cages of the ship that carried us into this evil exile here? Do you know what brought tears to the eyes of the guards?—What made the captain and the sailors turn their heads away from us, lest we should see that their faces were wet? What rendered the soldiers who had fought us in the Commune more human for the moment? It was this:

"'Adieu, patrie!
L'onde est en furie,
Adieu patrie,
Azur!
Adieu, maison, treille au fruit mer,

Adieu les fruits d'or du vieux mur!
Adieu, patrie,
Ciel, foret, prairie;
Adieu patrie,
Azur.'"

"Hush, monsieur!" the girl said with a swift gesture. He looked and saw that Angers was waking. "If I live," he hurriedly whispered, "I shall be at the King's Cave to-morrow night. And you—the horses?"

"You shall have my help and the horses." Then, more loudly: "Au revoir, monsieur."

At that moment Madame Solde entered the room. She acknowledged
Laflamme's presence gravely.

"It is all done, madame," he said, pointing to the portrait.

Madame Solde bowed coldly, but said: "It is very well done, monsieur."

"It is my masterpiece," remarked the painter pensively. "Will you permit me to say adieu, mesdames? I go to join my amiable and attentive companion, Roupet the guard."

He bowed himself out.

Madame Solde drew Marie aside. Angers discreetly left.

The Governor's wife drew the girl's head back on her shoulder. "Marie," she said, "M. Tryon does not seem happy; cannot you change that?"

With quivering lips the girl laid her head on the Frenchwoman's breast, and said: "Ah, do not ask me now. Madame, I am going home to-day."

"To-day? But, so soon!—I wished—"

"I must go to-day."

"But we had hoped you would stay while M. Tryon—"

"M. Tryon—will—go with me—perhaps."

"Ah, my dear Marie!" The woman kissed the girl, and wondered.

That afternoon Marie was riding across the Winter Valley to her father's plantation at the Pascal River. Angers was driving ahead. Beside Marie rode Tryon silent and attentive. Arrived at the homestead, she said to him in the shadow of the naoulis: "Hugh Tryon, what would you do to prove the love you say you have for me?"

"All that a man could do I would do."

"Can you see the Semaphore from here?"

"Yes, there it is clear against the sky—look!"

But the girl did not look. She touched her eyelids with her finger-tips, as though they were fevered, and then said: "Many have escaped. They are searching for Carbourd and—"

"Yes, Marie?"

"And M. Laflamme—"

"Laflamme!" he said sharply. Then, noticing how at his brusqueness the paleness of her face changed to a startled flush for an instant, his generosity conquered, and he added gently: "Well, I fancied he would try, but what do you know about that, Marie?"

"He and Carbourd were friends. They were chained together in the galleys, they lived—at first—together here. They would risk life to return to France."

"Tell me," said he, "what do you know of this? What is it to you?"

"You wish to know all before you will do what I ask.

"I will do anything you ask, because you will not ask of me what is unmanly."

"M. Laflamme will escape to-night if possible, and join Carbourd on the
Pascal River, at a safe spot that I know." She told him of the Cave.

"Yes, yes, I understand. You would help him. And I?"

"You will help me. You will?"

There was a slight pause, and then he said: "Yes, I will. But think what this is to an Englishman-to yourself, to be accomplice to the escape of a French prisoner."

"I gave a promise to a man whom I think deserves it. He believed he was a patriot. If you were in that case, and I were a Frenchwoman, I would do the same for you."

He smiled rather grimly and said: "If it please you that this man escape, I shall hope he may, and will help you. . . . Here comes your father."

"I could not let my father know," she said. "He has no sympathy for any one like that, for any one at all, I think, but me."

"Don't be down-hearted. If you have set your heart on this, I will try to bring it about, God knows! Now let us be less gloomy. Conspirators should smile. That is the cue. Besides, the world is bright. Look at the glow upon the hills."

"I suppose the Semaphore is glistening on the Hill of Pains; but I cannot see it."

He did not understand her.