In silence these men wait patiently. What do they want? What dark conspiracy are they hatching in the shadows with the help of the silence of night. Who will be the victim of this horde of half-starved wretches in rags, despairing and ashamed.
They wait.
Suddenly a ray of light flashes abruptly into the trembling darkness, betraying the opening of a door. “Here they are.”
Muscles harden under the ragged garments, chests swell, bodies are poised ready. A formidable, savage struggle, accompanied by a hoarse roar, transforms the peaceful and silent crowd into a threatening hurricane, from which soon cries and oaths arise.
The light, swinging backwards and forwards, shows for a second angular profiles, criminal faces, stamped with ferocious brutality, twitching hands, and arms knotted and tattooed. Sinister sight!
The noise increases; they push; some struggle to advance; others to draw back. Helmets are flying; the uproar and the cries destroy the peace of the night. They come to blows, fists fall at random in the gloom with a dull sound. The fight becomes furious. It is a battle of demons in a hell deprived of light.
Those nearest the kitchen stoop, making wild and savage gestures; they seem to want to finish an invisible enemy already brought down, and it is with exclamations of joy and triumph and glee that they add their voices to the cries of their comrades, who, from behind, catching on to anything they can, try to force themselves forward and throw themselves on the long-awaited victim. From time to time one hears the groans of some man in pain, whose hand is being crushed under the nailed boots of those who are advancing without looking where they are going.
The uproar causes the sentry on guard at the kitchen to appear, armed, ferocious, yelling, gesticulating, sweeping them before him here, there, everywhere, with blows from the butt of his rifle and kicks from his heavy boots, bestowed with so praiseworthy a generosity that it approaches prodigality. They do not give to his entrance on the scene the importance it demands. His blows are added to the blows already given, his cries to those already uttered, and only serve to increase the tumult and uproar. The men who have been hit remain there insensible and angry, with clenched hands and staring eyes full of violent purposes. They remind one of ferocious dogs who have sprung on one another, and that nothing can separate.
A few succeed in getting out of the arena, and disappear noiselessly in the darkness, creeping along by the tents like night thieves; and the lantern swinging from the rafters of the kitchen, seemingly ashamed of showing up such poor wretches, spares them the indignity of revealing their incognito, and swings backwards and forwards in such a manner as to deprive them of its smoking light.
At last the cries die out, the movement becomes less intense. Silently they go away one by one, till only the sentinel remains. His shouting ceases; breathless but victorious he marches over the conquered ground.