"Hullo, where's the Nut?"
Then they began their search.
Their personal responsibility was directly involved in this case. They had no inclination to treat it as a joke. And when they made certain that the Nut also had escaped, they fell into a sudden rage. Once more they turned everything upside down and bullied the men in the dormitory, uttering a thousand threats and oaths. They grew violent when a look from "Monsieur Désiré" told them what they wanted to know.
His look pointed to a flagstone, and as the stone was not properly in its place, and the seams were sprinkled with dust, they at once discovered the secret. They ordered the flagstone to be cleared, whereupon the cavity lay open before them. One of them descended into it, requesting the other to remain at his post.
Almost at once the echo of two, three, four shots was heard. The warder running forward in the little tunnel was firing on the fugitives.
The entire staff of the Penitentiary Administration was called into action. By the Lieutenant's orders the clerical staff telephoned to the deputy-chiefs on the other islands, informing them of the escape of six convicts, and instructing them to take the necessary measures to recapture them before they could, by some unforeseen means, reach the mainland.
The gun on the roof of the tower which dominated the penitentiary huts on Devil's Island, placed in position at the time of Dreyfus's imprisonment, was fired, thus proclaiming that the roadstead was closed.
All the convict guards and forces in the islands which the authorities had at their command were set to work hunting for the absent men.
The Inspecting Officer, whom the "lifers" had nicknamed "Haversack," threw himself into the fray with furious ardor; and his exasperation was entirely comprehensible, for Chéri-Bibi had already played tricks on him; but the peculiar incidents of this last trick which had been carried out under his very nose were more than he could bear. The miscreant had killed Tarasque by the light of his cigar!
He worked himself up into a fury when, on returning from his rounds in the dormitories, he learned that other convicts had followed Chéri-Bibi in his flight, while nothing was known of the means by which they had escaped.