A few minutes later Pernambouc appeared once more on the jetty staggering under his immense burden. The warder lay drowsing on the steps. Pernambouc had to jostle him slightly.
"Let me finish my job."
"Oh, that's number two," grunted the warder. "He looks heavier than the first. Shall I give you a hand to swing him in?"
"Don't trouble. . . . Look here, go back a little way along the jetty. . . . I thought I saw the Commandant over there. He's cursing like mad, and turning the hole damn island upside down to-night."
"Is it a fact that Chéri-Bibi is dead?" asked the warder as he went up the steps of the jetty.
"Oh, with a man like that you can never tell." So saying, Pernambouc bundled the sack into the water, and it was swallowed up in a huge eddy.
Pernambouc had not gone far when a hollow exclamation came from the sea, sending once more a shudder through him to the marrow: "Fatalitas!"
"What's that?" exclaimed the warder. "I thought I heard someone's voice."
"You're imagining things to-night."
The warder did not persist. He was attracted by the distant throbbing of the launch.