der coming to see what had become of his
two men. No one noticed him. The convicts kept on quarrelling over
their plans. The leaders could not get themselves obeyed. The fierce
whispering of that dark mass of men was very horrible.

"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 lantern 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. Suddenly, 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 that the person who carried it must be the wife of the head
warder. They had forgotten all about her, it seems. 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 she was swinging the heavy lantern to
and fro. This is the agreed signal for the Ile Royale should assistance
be required at night. The wind carried the sound away from our island
and the light she swung 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 the sound and the ligh