At length, overcome by the sultriness of the atmosphere and by the frequency of his potations, he sank off into a deep and drunken sleep, his rifle still loosely lying across his knees. Frederick's attention having been attracted thereto by one of his comrades, he immediately perceived that the moment had arrived for carrying into effect his long-cherished project of escape. Quick as lightning he communicated his intention to his fellow-prisoners. A few sturdy blows with the hammers which they had been using until then for breaking the stones were sufficient to relieve them of their waist and ankle chains, and in a moment they had overpowered and tightly bound and gagged their still sleeping warder. Frederick seized his rifle, and accompanied by the others made a bolt for the woods, which they were able to reach unobserved. It was not until an hour after nightfall, when they were already several miles distant from the spot where they had regained their liberty, that the booming of the big guns of the fort at stated intervals proclaimed the fact to them that their escape had become known and that a general alarm had been given.
On becoming aware of this they held a kind of council of war, and it was determined that they should scatter in groups of two and three, which they considered would be more likely to enable them to avoid being recaptured.
The notes left by “Prado” do not mention the fate of those from whom he parted company at the time. It is probable that they either were caught by the posses of warders sent in their pursuit or else that they fell into the hands of the “Canaks,” as the ferocious natives of New Caledonia are called. The “Canaks” before deciding as to what to do with their prisoners would probably hesitate, influenced on the one hand by their appetite for human flesh and on the other by their greed for the handsome reward offered by the Government for the capture, either alive or dead, of runaway convicts.
For many days Frederick and his two companions wandered through almost impenetrable forests. They were frightened by every sound, by every rustle of a leaf, and were dependent for food on the berries, fruits, and roots, which they devoured with some apprehension, afraid lest they should contain some unknown and deadly poison. Everywhere around them they felt that death was hovering. The dense foliage of the trees completely hid the sky and surrounded them with deep shadows, which appeared full of horror and mystery. Large birds flew off as they advanced, with a startling flutter of their heavy wings, and their only resting-place at night was among the branches of some lofty tree. Frequently they had to wade through pestilential swamps, in which masses of poisonous snakes and other loathsome reptiles squirmed and raised their hissing heads against the intruders. Once they were almost drowned in a deep lake of liquid mud which was so overgrown with luxuriant grasses and mosses that they had mistaken it for terra firma.
At length, on the twelfth day after their escape, they reached, shortly after nightfall, a small coast-guard station. The night was very dark and a heavy tropical rain was falling. A little after midnight the three men, who had remained hidden until then among the rocks, made their way down the little creek, where the open boat used by the coast guards lay at anchor. Gliding noiselessly into the water, they swam out to where the tiny craft was rising and falling under the influence of a heavy ground swell. In a few moments they were safely on board.
The tide was going out, and, unwilling to attract the attention of the coast guards by the noise which would attend the raising of the anchor, they quietly slipped the cable and allowed the boat to drift silently out to sea.
It was a terrible voyage on which they had embarked and must have been regarded as fool-hardy and insane to the last degree were it not that to remain on the island meant life-long captivity and sufferings so intolerable that death would be but a happy release. As soon as they had drifted far enough they spread the boat's single sail to the wind, and by daylight were well-nigh out of sight of land. On searching the craft they discovered, to their unspeakable delight, that a locker in the bow contained a sack of ship's biscuits, while in the stern was a small cask of water, both of which had evidently been kept on board by the coast-guards for use in case of their being becalmed at any distance from their station. It was little enough, in all conscience, but to Frederick and to his starving companions it seemed the most delicious fare which they had ever tasted.
Frederick's two fellow-fugitives were men of the lowest class. The one was a thorough type of the Paris criminal, with a pale face, bleary eyes, and an outrageously flat, turned-up nose. His breast was adorned with a tattooed caricature of himself, of which he was inordinately proud. The other was a miner who had been condemned to penal servitude for life for killing his chief in response to some violent reproaches which had been addressed to him by the latter.
Without compass, without even a sailor's knowledge of the constellations, they sailed aimlessly before the wind, intent only on increasing the distance which already lay between them and their abhorred prison. Their only hope was that they would be picked up by some passing vessel which, as long as it did not fly the French colors, would certainly not deliver them back into the hands of their tormentors.
They had been sailing along for some four or five days when the water began to give out. Only a little drop remained. Moreover, there was no protection to be obtained from the burning rays of the sun, the reflection of which on the blue waters of the Pacific seemed to increase the heat tenfold. The three men had agreed to keep the remaining drops of water until the very last extremity, and then only to divide it up into equal shares before preparing to undergo the terrible death by thirst which stared them in the face. Suddenly the ex-miner was seized with convulsions, brought on, no doubt, by the terrific heat of the midday sun on his unprotected head. When these ceased he started to his feet, and, with the yell of a maniac, for such he had now become, made a rush for the water cask. Divining his intention, Frederick and the Parisian “voyou” threw themselves before him, and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, which was, however, brought to a quick end by the madman breaking loose from them and, with a cry of “Water, water!” jumping head foremost into the sea, almost capsizing the boat as he did so.