Part 128

“Well, old cock?” said the lad, with the curiosity of a novice.

This prisoner, a man of good family, accused of forgery, had come down from the cell next to that where Lucien had been.

“My son,” Fil-de-Soie went on, “at Brest you are sure to get some beans at the third turn if you dip your spoon in the bowl; at Toulon you never get any till the fifth; and at Rochefort you get none at all, unless you are an old hand.”

Having spoken, the philosopher joined le Biffon and la Pouraille, and all three, greatly puzzled by the priest, walked down the yard, while Jacques Collin, lost in grief, came up it. Trompe-la-Mort, absorbed in terrible meditations, the meditations of a fallen emperor, did not think of himself as the centre of observation, the object of general attention, and he walked slowly, gazing at the fatal window where Lucien had hanged himself. None of the prisoners knew of this catastrophe, since, for reasons to be presently explained, the young forger had not mentioned the subject. The three pals agreed to cross the priest’s path.

“He is no priest,” said Fil-de-Soie; “he is an old stager. Look how he drags his right foot.”

It is needful to explain here--for not every reader has had a fancy to visit the galleys--that each convict is chained to another, an old one and a young one always as a couple; the weight of this chain riveted to a ring above the ankle is so great as to induce a limp, which the convict never loses. Being obliged to exert one leg much more than the other to drag this fetter (manicle is the slang name for such irons), the prisoner inevitably gets into the habit of making the effort. Afterwards, though he no longer wears the chain, it acts upon him still; as a man still feels an amputated leg, the convict is always conscious of the anklet, and can never get over that trick of walking. In police slang, he “drags his right.” And this sign, as well known to convicts among themselves as it is to the police, even if it does not help to identify a comrade, at any rate confirms recognition.

In Trompe-la Mort, who had escaped eight years since, this trick had to a great extent worn off; but just now, lost in reflections, he walked at such a slow and solemn pace that, slight as the limp was, it was strikingly evident to so practiced an eye as la Pouraille’s. And it is quite intelligible that convicts, always thrown together, as they must be, and never having any one else to study, will so thoroughly have watched each other’s faces and appearance, that certain tricks will have impressed them which may escape their systematic foes--spies, gendarmes, and police-inspectors.

Thus it was a peculiar twitch of the maxillary muscles of the left cheek, recognized by a convict who was sent to a review of the Legion of the Seine, which led to the arrest of the lieutenant-colonel of that corps, the famous Coignard; for, in spite of Bibi-Lupin’s confidence, the police could not dare believe that the Comte Pontis de Sainte-Helene and Coignard were one and the same man.

“He is our boss” (dab or master) said Fil-de-Soie, seeing in Jacques Collin’s eyes the vague glance a man sunk in despair casts on all his surroundings.

“By Jingo! Yes, it is Trompe-la-Mort,” said le Biffon, rubbing his hands. “Yes, it is his cut, his build; but what has he done to himself? He looks quite different.”

“I know what he is up to!” cried Fil-de-Soie; “he has some plan in his head. He wants to see the boy” (sa tante) “who is to be executed before long.”

The persons known in prison as tantes or aunts may be best described in the ingenious words of the governor of one of the great prisons to the late Lord Durham, who, during his stay in Paris, visited every prison. So curious was he to see every detail of French justice, that he even persuaded Sanson, at that time the executioner, to erect the scaffold and decapitate a living calf, that he might thoroughly understand the working of the machine made famous by the Revolution. The governor having shown him everything--the yards, the workshops, and the underground cells--pointed to a part of the building, and said, “I need not take your Lordship there; it is the quartier des tantes.”--“Oh,” said Lord Durham, “what are they!”--“The third sex, my Lord.”

“And they are going to scrag Theodore!” said la Pouraille, “such a pretty boy! And such a light hand! such cheek! What a loss to society!”

“Yes, Theodore Calvi is yamming his last meal,” said le Biffon. “His trips will pipe their eyes, for the little beggar was a great pet.”

“So you’re here, old chap?” said la Pouraille to Jacques Collin. And, arm-in-arm with his two acolytes, he barred the way to the new arrival. “Why, Boss, have you got yourself japanned?” he went on.

“I hear you have nobbled our pile” (stolen our money), le Biffon added, in a threatening tone.

“You have just got to stump up the tin!” said Fil-de-Soie.

The three questions were fired at him like three pistol-shots.

“Do not make game of an unhappy priest sent here by mistake,” Jacques Collin replied mechanically, recognizing his three comrades.

“That is the sound of his pipe, if it is not quite the cut of his mug,” said la Pouraille, laying his hand on Jacques Collin’s shoulder.

This action, and the sight of his three chums, startled the “Boss” out of his dejection, and brought him back to a consciousness of reality; for during that dreadful night he had lost himself in the infinite spiritual world of feeling, seeking some new road.

“Do not blow the gaff on your Boss!” said Jacques Collin in a hollow threatening tone, not unlike the low growl of a lion. “The reelers are here; let them make fools of themselves. I am faking to help a pal who is awfully down on his luck.”

He spoke with the unction of a priest trying to convert the wretched, and a look which flashed round the yard, took in the warders under the archways, and pointed them out with a wink to his three companions.

“Are there not narks about? Keep your peepers open and a sharp lookout. Don’t know me, Nanty parnarly, and soap me down for a priest, or I will do for you all, you and your molls and your blunt.”

“What, do you funk our blabbing?” said Fil-de-Soie. “Have you come to help your boy to guy?”

“Madeleine is getting ready to be turned off in the Square” (the Place de Greve), said la Pouraille.

“Theodore!” said Jacques Collin, repressing a start and a cry.

“They will have his nut off,” la Pouraille went on; “he was booked for the scaffold two months ago.”