“I hope you’ve enjoyed the entertainment,” he said, in annoyance.
“Entertainment,” echoed the other. “There is scarcely entertainment in the mauvais quart-d’heure, is there? Bah! we all of us in this malarial death-trap have periods of melancholy, more or less. For myself, I’m never troubled with them. When you’ve been here a few years you’ll see the folly of giving way to gloomy thoughts, and the utter uselessness of entertaining any anticipation of either escape or release.”
“But we may still hope.”
“Hope! What’s the use? What can we hope for—except death?” he asked bitterly. Then, without waiting for a reply, he said, “Let’s forget it all; we shall die some day, and then we shall obtain rest and peace, perhaps.”
“We cannot all forget so easily.”
“There, don’t talk so dismally. Come, we must be going.”
“Where?”
“To the cage,” he replied, indicating the prison by the sobriquet bestowed upon it by the convicts. “The gun has sounded. Did you not hear it? Come, we must hasten, or you know the penalty.”
Hugh sighed again, rose to his feet, took up his pickaxe, and, placing it upon his shoulder, walked with heavy wearied steps beside his companion in misfortune. Both trudged on in dogged silence, broken only by the clanking of their leg-irons, for nearly a quarter of a mile along the rough beach path, until they came to a broader path leading inland, with dense forests on either side.
Here they were met by two armed warders, who roundly abused them for their tardy appearance, and who escorted them within the grim portals of the long, low stone building which stood upon the side of the bare, rugged mountain overlooking Noumea.