The French Prisoners of Norman Cross Part 3

"Well, Captain Tournier," said Alice, relaxing her severity of manner, though it was not very severe.

"Separation, and hopelessness of ever seeing them again, are a torment I find unendurable."

"Well, sir," she repeated, but this time with more softness, and with sympathy in the true blue eyes.

"Did not your brother lose his wife some two years ago? I was told he did."

"He did. But I do not see the relevancy of that to what you have just been saying."

"Then your brother has actually suffered what I am only _dreading_ I may have to suffer. He can never, by any possibility, see his wife again."

Poor Alice was sorely puzzled. She could only wonder what he was coming to, and acquiesce.

"But was he really fond of her?"

"I cannot imagine, Captain Tournier, why you should ask such a question.

I am glad you did not ask _him_."

"Oh, but I have a reason for asking. Of your charity, bear with me a little longer. But you say he really did love his wife pa.s.sionately?"

"Beyond all doubt. His life was bound up in hers. When he lost her, he lost his best. He tells me he will never marry again, and has asked me to be his companion."

There was a tone of impatience in her voice, which Tournier, however, noticed not, but pa.s.sed from his former eagerness of manner into a sort of dreamy abstraction, as if talking to himself.

"And yet the man seems happy--_is_ happy; goes about as cheerful as the day; laughs and jokes, and enjoys his life. I cannot comprehend it!"

Alice was indeed in "Wonderland."

He seemed lost in thought.

At length he changed back to his eager manner again.

"And now, Miss Cosin, comes the question: I want you, of your great kindness, to answer, and to lead up to which I have given you so much trouble. Pardon, pardon an unhappy man. Tell me, what is the secret of your brother's power to bear his trouble, and even triumph over it. I want, _myself_, to learn it."

"I can only say," replied Alice, with all simplicity, but looking with her clear blue eyes into his face, "I know G.o.d helped him, as no one else could, and was very kind to him, as He is to all who want Him."

She was only just in time, for, as she finished, her brother came back again.

Soon after they took leave of each other, and the captain returned to his quarters. And as he went along this thought kept coming into his mind, like the flash of a revolving light--"Cosin not only believes in G.o.d, but has found Him a help in time of greatest trouble!"

CHAPTER IV.--MUTINY OF THE PRISONERS.

In the course of the following year, the prisoners of Norman Cross began to show a spirit of general insubordination. There had been from time to time individual cases of attempted outbreak, some few successful, but for the most part ending in recapture. No one can wonder that, among so many men, in the full vigour of life, there should be not a few who, sick at heart of their rigorous captivity, one day succeeding another with cheerless monotony, the shadows settling deeper and deeper upon their distant homes, should listen by degrees to any scheme that the more desperate around them might propose in order to regain their liberty. The growing agitation was almost entirely among the lower ranks of soldiers and sailors, although the officers, in their separate quarters, knew what was going on, and more or less sympathized with it.

There was, however, a particular reason for this state of things. It did not originate it, but had a great deal to do with aggravating it. The prisoners, especially the rank and file, were not in the hands of a sympathetic controller. It was with them, as it sometimes is now, with large inst.i.tutions where numbers are collected. The governor may be an excellent disciplinarian, and do his duty admirably; but the inmates never feel, consciously or unconsciously, that there is one over them who takes an _interest_ in their welfare. They are in the cold, and, like plants, no one is likely to grow better in the cold. Such was the character of the administration of Captain Mortimer, the Admiralty agent.

He had charge of the comforts of the prisoners; he treated them well according to the letter of his duty; but it was with coldness and want of sympathy. And what he did, as is always the case, his subordinates did likewise. And there can be little doubt that this coldness of treatment had much to do with the increase of insubordination in the prison.

Victor Malin was a ringleader from the first in this matter. He was about forty years old; and, as a young man, had taken an active part in all the diabolical horrors of the streets of Paris during the reign of terror. He had seen Louis XVI. guillotined, and a few months later the poor Queen, and had screamed with joy over it. He had seen heads cut off by the score, and enjoyed his dinner all the more for the sight. He was therefore a brute, a great big brute, with plenty of animal courage; and there was no wickedness under the sun that he had not practised in his time. He was also one of the very few among the prisoners who insulted the venerable chaplain when he could, though all the notice the good man took of it was to mutter to himself, "N'importe."

The days were getting short and the nights long when, one evening, a council of war was being held in one of the barrack rooms. Not all the inmates were engaged in it, but only a select few, round one of the tables at the end of the huge caserne. By far the greater part (and there must have been over two hundred crowded together in it,) were amusing themselves in various ways, so far as a very limited choice would allow. But a Frenchman will beat an Englishman hollow in finding amus.e.m.e.nt out of little or nothing; aye, and enjoying it too with lively satisfaction. Some were busy at work over the manufacture of those singularly ingenious models, toys, boxes, and other articles, for sale, which are so well known and so justly admired all round the neighbourhood, and found in almost every house to this day. These were the quiet and sensible men, who made the best of their misfortunes.

Others were playing dominoes, draughts, backgammon, and cribbage, the boards and appliances all their own work. Some sang songs to a small admiring audience. All talked and at the same time, and nowhere more than where card-playing was going on, which was all over the room, and the more vociferously because, if they could, they played for money or money's worth, from a penny to an old shirt, or blanket, or even the next day's rations.

The noise was deafening. Yet amidst it all the council of war went on deliberating as calmly as if they were chatting together in some peaceful meadow, with only the chirping of birds to disturb them. They literally put their heads together, as, figuratively, conspirators always do, and so made one another hear.

They were a sorry lot, both in face and clothing. Not one had a decent set of garments on him. The only difference between the soldiers and the sailors who composed the council was--the soldiers' clothes were in rags, while the sailors mended theirs. In face they were all alike unsavoury, but Victor Malin "took the cake."

"Comrades," he was saying, leaning forward and speaking with a harsh powerful voice into the s.p.a.ce between the bowed heads of the others, where, by the way, there must have been some blue fire playing: "Comrades, we must not follow the advice of our brother Poivre there.

Delay with us is dangerous. Every day makes it more likely that these soldiers,"--there was an adjective prefixed, a favourite one, applied by him to almost everything--"will find out what we are planning. The dark nights, now there is no moon, will favour us when once we get away. Now or never is the word. The men in all the other yards are waiting for the red flag to be hoisted over our prison. To-morrow morning, at daybreak, let us begin."

Marc Poivre, the man he had alluded to, was a tall, lank fellow, with muscles of iron, and sunken fiery eyes, that betokened a fierce temper which would not brook much contradiction.

"I say, wait!" was his sententious reply.

"What for?" said Malin.

"Till the days get shorter still. Till we know more for certain that the others are ready. Till the soldiers have lost the suspicions they certainly have, that something is up. Only to-day I heard one of the red- coats say to his fellow, 'When are they going to kick up a row?' You know, yourself, Malin, they have doubled the guard all round."

"Are you afraid?" sneered Malin.

The sunken eyes burned. But it was not the time for quarrelling: so Poivre restrained himself, and only said, "I will answer you another time. Begin to-morrow if you will. Have your own way. I am content."

All the others agreed to this, for Poivre was not popular among them. He was too fond of brawling; and most councils, especially small ones, are ruled by personal prejudices of some sort, rather than by honest, independent opinion.

Then all the councillors got on their legs, and shouted, "Silence!

Silence!"

It took some little time to get it owing to the babel that was going on.

At last they prevailed, and then Malin addressed those present in his stentorian voice:

"Brothers! Our captivity will end to-morrow. It will be our own fault if we are not all free men before another sun sets. Then many hours of darkness will befriend us. Hide by day and hurry on by night. Make for the sea, but not all in the same direction. With the first light of day, our companions, all over the prison, will see the red flag flying. Then shout! Shout every one of you. Keep on shouting! and the walls of our jail will fall down flat."

"Like the walls of Jericho," cried a derisive voice. Some said Poivre's.

Malin knew it was, and did not forget it. But it damped his ardour for a moment, though the prisoners were too numerous to hear, or too interested to heed it.

"To-morrow! Liberty!" was all the mighty voice of Malin could add; and then an outburst of cheers followed that made the red tiles of the long roof rattle.

The morning broke; and then, sure enough, the guards observed the red flag waving in the breeze. They had not long to wait before the meaning of it was made plain. A tremendous shout arose from the yard where the flag was hoisted, and then an answering shout from each of the other yards in succession, till they all blended in one continuous roar from more than three thousand throats. If it subsided in part, or altogether, for a few moments, it quickly broke out again. The turnkeys, looking through the gratings of the wickets, saw the prisoners leaping and jumping about in the greatest state of excitement (and when a Frenchman is excited, he is excited indeed); and in some of the yards they had evidently got tools and implements which must have been brought in by outsiders.

Major Kelly was promptly on the spot, and at once saw that the situation was threatening. It was not the uproar that alarmed him. That, alone, could do no harm, except to the throats of the shouters, though it betrayed the fact that the whole of the prisoners were taking part in the rising. What he feared most was the possession of tools by the prisoners, and the consequent danger that, if any sufficient opening were made in one or more of the outer palisades, a considerable number of prisoners might get out, and much bloodshed take place. This his humane nature shrank from.

The force under his command consisted, at that particular time, of only a regiment of militia, and a battalion of the army reserve, about eleven hundred bayonets. The whole of these were immediately under arms, and ordered to surround the enclosure in detachments, with instructions to combine at any point where there seemed any signs of an opening being made by the prisoners.

Major Kelly then proceeded to consult with his senior officers and Captain Mortimer. The question was not whether he had force enough to put down the mutiny by violent measures, but whether there were men enough to do it without considerable effusion of blood.