‘At last they divided into two parties and moved off. When they had passed me I rose, weary and hopeless. The path to the warders’ house was dark and silent, but on each side the bushes rustled slightly. Presently I saw a faint thread of light before me. The chief warder, followed by his three men, was approaching cautiously. But he had failed to close his dark lanthorn properly. The convicts had seen that faint gleam too. There was an awful savage yell, a turmoil on the dark path, shots fired, blows, groans, and with the sound of smashed bushes, the shouts of the pursuers and the screams of the pursued, the man-hunt, the warder-hunt, passed by me into the interior of the island. I was alone. And I assure you, monsieur, I was indifferent to everything. After standing still for a while, I walked on along the path till I kicked something hard. I stooped and picked up a warder’s revolver. I felt with my fingers that it was loaded in five chambers. In the gusts of wind I heard the convicts calling to each other far away, and then a roll of thunder would cover the soughing and rustling of the trees. A big light ran across my path very low along the ground, and it showed a woman’s skirt with the edge of an apron.

‘I knew it was the wife of the head warder. They must have forgotten all about her. A shot rang out in the interior of the island, and she cried out to herself as she ran. She passed on. I followed, and presently I saw her again. She was pulling at the cord of the big bell which hangs at the end of the landing-pier with one hand, and with the other was swinging the heavy lanthorn to and fro. That is the signal for the Ile Royale should assistance be required at night. The wind carried the sound away from our island and the light was hidden on the shore side by the few trees that grow near the warders’ house.

‘I came up quite close to her from behind. She went on without stopping, without looking aside, as though she had been all alone on the island. A brave woman, monsieur. I put the revolver inside the breast of my blue blouse and waited. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder destroyed both sound and light for an instant, but she never faltered, pulling at the cord and swinging the lanthorn as regularly as a machine. She was a comely woman of thirty—no more. I thought to myself, “All that’s no good on a night like this.” And I made up my mind that if a body of my fellow convicts came down to the pier—which was sure to happen soon—I would shoot her through the head before I shot myself. I knew the “comrades” well. This idea of mine gave me quite an interest in life, monsieur; and at once, instead of remaining stupidly exposed on the pier, I crouched behind a bush. I did not intend to let myself be pounced upon unawares and prevented perhaps from rendering a supreme service to at least one human creature before I died myself.

‘But we must believe the signal was seen, for the galley from the Ile Royale came over in an astonishingly short time. The woman kept right on till the light of her lanthorn flashed upon the officer in command and the bayonets of the soldiers in the boat. Then she sat down and began to cry.

‘She didn’t need me any more. I did not budge. Some soldiers were only in their shirt-sleeves, others without boots, just as the call to arms had found them. They passed by my bush at the double. The galley had been sent away for more; and the woman sat all alone crying at the end of the pier, with the lanthorn standing on the ground near her.

‘Then suddenly I saw appear in the light the red pantaloons of two more men. I was overcome with astonishment. They too started off at a run. Their tunics flapped unbuttoned and they were bare-headed. One of them panted out to the other, ‘Straight on, straight on!’

‘Where on earth did they come from, I wondered. Slowly I walked down the short pier. I saw the woman’s from shaken by sobs and heard her moaning more and more distinctly, “Oh, my man! my man! my man!” I stole on quietly. She could neither hear nor see anything. She had thrown her apron over her head and was lost in her grief. But I remarked a small boat fastened to the end of the pier.

‘Those two men—they looked like sous-officiers^*—must have come in it, after being too late, I suppose, for the galley. It is incredible that they should have thus broken the regulations from a sense of duty. And it was a stupid thing to do. I could not believe my eyes in the very moment I was stepping into that boat.