Having read this with grim complacency, the
superintendent resumed his cigar, replaced the
book in his pocket, and walked away.

All was over—now all the incredulous wonder,
the dreamy dulness, the smouldering hope, of
the past three days. I was a felon, and (slavery
in slavery!) chained to a fellow-felon. I looked
up, and found his eyes upon me. He was a
swart heavy-browed sullen-jawed man of about
forty; not much taller than myself, but of
immensely powerful build.

"So," said he, "you're for life, are you? So
am I."

"How do you know I am for life?" I asked, wearily.

"By that." And he touched my cap roughly
with the back of his hand. "Green, for life. Red,
for a term of years. What are you in for?"

"I conspired against the government."

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Devil's mass! "Then you're a gentleman-
convict, I suppose! Pity you've not a berth to
yourselves—we poor forçats hate such fine
company."

"Are there many political prisoners?" I
asked, after a moment's pause.

"None, in this department."

Then, as if detecting my unspoken thought,
"I am no innocent," he added with an oath.
"This is the fourth time I have been here. Did
you ever hear of Gasparo?"

"Gasparo the forger?"

He nodded.

"Who escaped three or four months since, and—"

"And flung the sentinel over the ramparts,
just as he was going to give the alarm. I'm
the man."

I had heard of him, as a man who, early in
his career, had been sentenced to a long solitary
imprisonment in a gloomy cell, and who had
come forth from his solitude hardened into an
absolute wild beast. I shuddered, and, as I
shuddered, found his evil eye taking vindictive
note of me. From that moment he hated me.
From that moment I loathed him.

A bell rang, and a detachment of convicts
came in from labour. They were immediately
searched by the guard, and chained up, two and
two, to a sloping wooden platform that reached
all down the centre of the hall. Our afternoon
meal was then served out. consisting of a mess
of beans, an allowance of bread and ship-
biscuit, and a measure of thin wine. I drank the
wine; but I could eat nothing. Gasparo took
what he chose from my untouched allowance,
and those who were nearest, scrambled for
the rest. The supper over, a shrill whistle
echoed down the hall, each man took his narrow
mattress from under the platform which made
our common bedstead, rolled himself in a piece
of seaweed matting, and lay down for the night.
In less than five minutes, all was profoundly
silent. Now and then I heard the blacksmith
going round with his hammer, testing the gratings,
and trying the locks, in all the corridors.
Now and then, the guard stalked past with his
musket on his shoulder. Sometimes, a convict
moaned, or shook his fetters in his sleep. Thus
the weary hours went by. My companion slept
heavily, and even I lost consciousness at last.

I was sentenced to hard labour. At Toulon
the hard labour is of various kinds: such as
quarrying, mining, pumping in the docks, lading
and unlading vessels, transporting ammunition,
and so forth. Gasparo and I were employed
with about two hundred other convicts in a
quarry a little beyond the port. Day after day
week after week, from seven in the morning
until seven at night, the rocks echoed with our
blows. At every blow, our chains rang and
rebounded on the stony soil. In that fierce
climate, terrible tempests and tropical droughts
succeed each other throughout the summer and
autumn. Often and often, after toiling for
hours under a burning sky, have I gone back
to prison and to my pallet, drenched to the skin.
Thus the last days of the dreary spring ebbed
slowly past; and then the more dreary summer,
and then the autumn-time, came round.

My fellow-convict was a Piedmontese. He
had been a burglar, a forger, an incendiary. In
his last escape, he had committed manslaughter.
Heaven alone knows how my sufferings were
multiplied by that abhorred companionship—
how I shrank from the touch of his hand—how
I sickened, if his breath came over me as we lay
side by side at night. I strove to disguise my
loathing; but in vain. He knew it as well as I
knew it, and he revenged himself upon me by
every means that a vindictive nature could
devise. That he should tyrannise over me was
not wonderful; for his physical strength was
gigantic, and he was looked upon as an
authorised despot throughout the port; but simple
tyranny was the least part of what I had to
endure. I had been fastidiously nurtured; he
purposely and continually offended my sense of
delicacy. I was unaccustomed to bodily labour;
he imposed on me the largest share of our daily
work. When I needed rest, he would insist on
walking. When my limbs were cramped, he
would lie down obstinately, and refuse to stir.
He delighted to sing blasphemous songs, and
relate hideous stories of what he had thought
and resolved on in his solitude. He would
even twist the chain in such wise that it should
gall me at every step. I was at that time
just twenty-two years of age, and had been
sickly from boyhood. To retaliate, or to defend
myself, would have been alike impossible. To
complain to the superintendent, would only have
been to provoke my tyrant to greater cruelty.

There came a day, at length, when his hatred
seemed to abate. He allowed me to rest when
our hour of repose came round. He abstained
from singing the songs I abhorred, and fell into
long fits of abstraction. The next morning,
shortly after we had begun work, he drew near
enough to speak to me in a whisper.

"François, have you a mind to escape?"

I felt the blood rush to my face. I clasped
my hands. I could not speak.

"Can you keep a secret?"