An Anarchist

An Anarchist

A desperate tale

THAT year I spent the best two months of the dry
season on one of the estates -- in fact, on the principal
cattle estate -- of a famous meat-extract manufacturing
company.

B.O.S. Bos. You have seen the three magic letters
on the advertisement pages of magazines and news-
papers, in the windows of provision merchants, and on
calendars for next year you receive by post in the month
of November. They scatter pamphlets also, written in
a sickly enthusiastic style and in several languages,
giving statistics of slaughter and bloodshed enough
to make a Turk turn faint. The "art" illustrating that
"literature" represents in vivid and shining colours a
large and enraged black bull stamping upon a yellow
snake writhing in emerald-green grass, with a cobalt-
blue sky for a background. It is atrocious and it is an
allegory. The snake symbolizes disease, weakness --
perhaps mere hunger, which last is the chronic disease
of the majority of mankind. Of course everybody
knows the B. 0. S. Ltd., with its unrivalled products:
Vinobos, Jellybos, and the latest unequalled perfection,
Tribos, whose nourishment is offered to you not only
highly concentrated, but already half digested. Such
apparently is the love that Limited Company bears to
its fellowmen -- even as the love of the father and mother
penguin for their hungry fledglings.

Of course the capital of a country must be pro-
ductively employed. I have nothing to say against the
company. But being myself animated by feelings of
affection towards my fellow-men, I am saddened by the
modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it
offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource
in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide
prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is
called gullibility.

In various parts of the civilized and uncivilized world
I have had to swallow B. 0. S. with more or less benefit
to myself, though without great pleasure. Prepared
with hot water and abundantly peppered to bring out
the taste, this extract is not really unpalatable. But I
have never swallowed its advertisements. Perhaps
they have not gone far enough. As far as I can re-
member they make no promise of everlasting youth to
the users of B. 0. S., nor yet have they claimed the
power of raising the dead for their estimable products.
Why this austere reserve, I wonder? But I don't think
they would have had me even on these terms. What-
ever form of mental degradation I may (being but hu-
man) be suffering from, it is not the popular form. I
am not gullible.

I have been at some pains to bring out distinctly this
statement about myself in view of the story which
follows. I have checked the facts as far as possible.
I have turned up the files of French newspapers, and I
have also talked with the officer who commands the
military guard on the Ile Royale, when in the course of
my travels I reached Cayenne. I believe the story to be
in the main true. It is the sort of story that no man, I
think, would ever invent about himself, for it is neither
grandiose nor flattering, nor yet funny enough to
gratify a perverted vanity.

It concerns the engineer of the steam-launch belong-
ing to the Maranon cattle estate of the B. 0. S. Co., Ltd.
This estate is also an island -- an island as big as a small
province, lying in the estuary of a great South American
river. It is wild and not beautiful, but the grass grow-
ing on its low plains seems to possess exceptionally
nourishing and flavouring qualities. It resounds with
the lowing of innumerable herds -- a deep and distress-
ing sound under the open sky, rising like a monstrous
protest of prisoners condemned to death. On the
mainland, across twenty miles of discoloured muddy
water, there stands a city whose name, let us say, is
Horta.

But the most interesting characteristic of this island
(which seems like a sort of penal settlement for con-
demned cattle) consists in its being the only known
habitat of an extremely rare and gorgeous butterfly.
The species is even more rare than it is beautiful, which
is not saying little. I have already alluded to my
travels. I travelled at that time, but strictly for my-
self and with a moderation unknown in our days of
round-the-world tickets. I even travelled with a pur-
pose. As a matter of fact, I am -- "Ha, ha, ha! -- a
desperate butterfly-slayer. Ha, ha, ha!"

This was the tone in which Mr. Harry Gee, the
manager of the cattle station, alluded to my pursuits.
He seemed to consider me the greatest absurdity in the
world. On the other hand, the B. 0. S. Co., Ltd.,
represented to him the acme of the nineteenth century's
achievement. I believe that he slept in his leggings and
spurs. His days he spent in the saddle flying over the
plains, followed by a train of half-wild horsemen, who
called him Don Enrique, and who had no definite idea of
the B. 0. S. Co., Ltd., which paid their wages. He was
an excellent manager, but I don't see why, when we met
at meals, he should have thumped me on the back, with
loud, derisive inquiries: "How's the deadly sport
to-day? Butterflies going strong? Ha, ha, ha!" --
especially as he charged me two dollars per diem for the
hospitality of the B. 0. S. Co., Ltd., (capital L1,500,000,
fully paid up), in whose balance-sheet for that year
those monies are no doubt included. "I don't think I
can make it anything less in justice to my company,"
he had remarked, with extreme gravity, when I was
arranging with him the terms of my stay on the island.

His chaff would have been harmless enough if
intimacy of intercourse in the absence of all friendly
feeling were not a thing detestable in itself. Moreover,
his facetiousness was not very amusing. It consisted
in the wearisome repetition of descriptive phrases
applied to people with a burst of laughter. "Desperate
butterfly-slayer. Ha, ha, ha!" was one sample of his
peculiar wit which he himself enjoyed so much. And in
the same vein of exquisite humour he called my at-
tention to the engineer of the steam-launch, one day, as
we strolled on the path by the side of the creek.

The man's head and shoulders emerged above the
deck, over which were scattered various tools of his
trade and a few pieces of machinery. He was doing
some repairs to the engines. At the sound of our foot-
steps he raised anxiously a grimy face with a pointed
chin and a tiny fair moustache. What could be seen of
his delicate features under the black smudges appeared
to me wasted and livid in the greenish shade of the
enormous tree spreading its foliage over the launch
moored close to the bank.

To my great surprise, Harry Gee addressed him as
"Crocodile," in that half-jeering, half-bullying tone
which is characteristic of self-satisfaction in his delect-
able kind:

"How does the work get on, Crocodile?"

I should have said before that the amiable Harry had
picked up French of a sort somewhere -- in some colony
or other -- and that he pronounced it with a disagreeable
forced precision as though he meant to guy the lan-
guage. The man in the launch answered him quickly in
a pleasant voice. His eyes had a liquid softness and
his teeth flashed dazzlingly white between his thin,
drooping lips. The manager turned to me, very cheer-
ful and loud, explaining:

"I call him Crocodile because he lives half in, half
out of the creek. Amphibious -- see? There's nothing
else amphibious living on the island except crocodiles;
so he must belong to the species -- eh? But in reality
he's nothing less than un citoyen anarchiste de Bar-
celone."

"A citizen anarchist from Barcelona?" I repeated,
stupidly, looking down at the man. He had turned to
his work in the engine-well of the launch and presented
his bowed back to us. In that attitude I heard him
protest, very audibly:

"I do not even know Spanish."

"Hey? What? You dare to deny you come from
over there?" the accomplished manager was down on
him truculently.

At this the man straightened himself up, dropping a
spanner he had been using, and faced us; but he trem-
bled in all his limbs.

"I deny nothing, nothing, nothing!" he said, ex-
citedly.

He picked up the spanner and went to work again
without paying any further attention to us. After
looking at him for a minute or so, we went away.

"Is he really an anarchist?" I asked, when out of
ear-shot.

"I don't care a hang what he is," answered the
humorous official of the B. 0. S. Co. "I gave him the
name because it suited me to label him in that way,
It's good for the company."

"For the company!" I exclaimed, stopping short.

"Aha!" he triumphed, tilting up his hairless pug
face and straddling his thin, long legs. "That sur-
prises you. I am bound to do my best for my company.
They have enormous expenses. Why -- our agent in
Horta tells me they spend fifty thousand pounds every
year in advertising all over the world! One can't be
too economical in working the show. Well, just you
listen. When I took charge here the estate had no
steam-launch. I asked for one, and kept on asking
by every mail till I got it; but the man they sent out
with it chucked his job at the end of two months, leav-
ing the launch moored at the pontoon in Horta. Got a
better screw at a sawmill up the river -- blast him! And
ever since it has been the same thing. Any Scotch or
Yankee vagabond that likes to call himself a mechanic
out here gets eighteen pounds a month, and the next
you know he's cleared out, after smashing something
as likely as not. I give you my word that some of the
objects I've had for engine-drivers couldn't tell the
boiler from the funnel. But this fellow understands his
trade, and I don't mean him to clear out. See?"

And he struck me lightly on the chest for emphasis.
Disregarding his peculiarities of manner, I wanted to
know what all this had to do with the man being an
anarchist.

"Come!" jeered the manager. "If you saw suddenly
a barefooted, unkempt chap slinking amongst the
bushes on the sea face of the island, and at the same
time observed less than a mile from the beach, a small
schooner full of niggers hauling off in a hurry, you
wouldn't think the man fell there from the sky, would
you? And it could be nothing else but either that or
Cayenne. I've got my wits about me. Directly I
sighted this queer game I said to myself -- 'Escaped
Convict.' I was as certain of it as I am of seeing you
standing here this minute. So I spurred on straight at
him. He stood his ground for a bit on a sand hillock
crying out: 'Monsieur! Monsieur! Arretez!' then at
the last moment broke and ran for life. Says I to
myself, 'I'll tame you before I'm done with you.' So
without a single word I kept on, heading him off here
and there. I rounded him up towards the shore, and at
last I had him corralled on a spit, his heels in the water
and nothing but sea and sky at his back, with my horse
pawing the sand and shaking his head within a yard
of him.

"He folded his arms on his breast then and stuck his
chin up in a sort of desperate way; but I wasn't to be
impressed by the beggar's posturing.

"Says I, 'You're a runaway convict.'

"When he heard French, his chin went down and
his face changed.

"'I deny nothing,' says he, panting yet, for I had
kept him skipping about in front of my horse pretty
smartly. I asked him what he was doing there. He
had got his breath by then, and explained that he had
meant to make his way to a farm which he understood
(from the schooner's people, I suppose) was to be found
in the neighbourhood. At that I laughed aloud and he
got uneasy. Had he been deceived? Was there no
farm within walking distance?

"I laughed more and more. He was on foot, and of
course the first bunch of cattle he came across would
have stamped him to rags under their hoofs. A dis-
mounted man caught on the feeding-grounds hasn't got
the ghost of a chance.

"'My coming upon you like this has certainly saved
your life,' I said. He remarked that perhaps it was so;
but that for his part he had imagined I had wanted to
kill him under the hoofs of my horse. I assured him
that nothing would have been easier had I meant it.
And then we came to a sort of dead stop. For the life
of me I didn't know what to do with this convict, unless
I chucked him into the sea. It occurred to me to ask
him what he had been transported for. He hung his
head.

"'What is it?' says I. 'Theft, murder, rape, or
what?' I wanted to hear what he would have to say
for himself, though of course I expected it would be some
sort of lie. But all he said was --

"'Make it what you like. I deny nothing. It is no
good denying anything.'

"I looked him over carefully and a thought struck
me.

"'They've got anarchists there, too,' I said. 'Per-
haps you're one of them.'

"'I deny nothing whatever, monsieur,' he repeats.

"This answer made me think that perhaps he was not
an anarchist. I believe those damned lunatics are
rather proud of themselves. If he had been one, he
would have probably confessed straight out.

"'What were you before you became a convict?'

"'Ouvrier,' he says. 'And a good workman, too.'

"At that I began to think he must be an anarchist,
after all. That's the class they come mostly from, isn't
it? I hate the cowardly bomb-throwing brutes. I
almost made up my mind to turn my horse short round
and leave him to starve or drown where he was, which-
ever he liked best. As to crossing the island to bother
me again, the cattle would see to that. I don't know
what induced me to ask --

"'What sort of workman?'

"I didn't care a hang whether he answered me or
not. But when he said at once, 'Mecanicien, monsieur,'
I nearly jumped out of the saddle with excitement. The
launch had been lying disabled and idle in the creek for
three weeks. My duty to the company was clear. He
noticed my start, too, and there we were for a minute or
so staring at each other as if bewitched.

"'Get up on my horse behind me,' I told him. 'You
shall put my steam-launch to rights.'"

These are the words in which the worthy manager
of the Maranon estate related to me the coming of the
supposed anarchist. He meant to keep him -- out of a
sense of duty to the company -- and the name he had
given him would prevent the fellow from obtaining
employment anywhere in Horta. The vaqueros of the
estate, when they went on leave, spread it all over the
town. They did not know what an anarchist was, nor
yet what Barcelona meant. They called him Anarchisto
de Barcelona, as if it were his Christian name and sur-
name. But the people in town had been reading in
their papers about the anarchists in Europe and were
very much impressed. Over the jocular addition of
"de Barcelona" Mr. Harry Gee chuckled with immense
satisfaction. "That breed is particularly murderous,
isn't it? It makes the sawmills crowd still more afraid
of having anything to do with him -- see?" he exulted,
candidly. "I hold him by that name better than if I
had him chained up by the leg to the deck of the steam-
launch.

"And mark," he added, after a pause, "he does not
deny it. I am not wronging him in any way. He is a
convict of some sort, anyhow."

"But I suppose you pay him some wages, don't you?"
I asked.

"Wages! What does he want with money here?
He gets his food from my kitchen and his clothing from
the store. Of course I'll give him something at the end
of the year, but you don't think I'd employ a convict
and give him the same money I would give an honest
man? I am looking after the interests of my company
first and last."

I admitted that, for a company spending fifty
thousand pounds every year in advertising, the strictest
economy was obviously necessary. The manager of
the Maranon Estancia grunted approvingly.

"And I'll tell you what," he continued: "if I were
certain he's an anarchist and he had the cheek to ask me
for money, I would give him the toe of my boot. How-
ever, let him have the benefit of the doubt. I am per-
fectly willing to take it that he has done nothing worse
than to stick a knife into somebody -- with extenuating
circumstances -- French fashion, don't you know. But
that subversive sanguinary rot of doing away with all
law and order in the world makes my blood boil. It's
simply cutting the ground from under the feet of every
decent, respectable, hard-working person. I tell you
that the consciences of people who have them, like you
or I, must be protected in some way; or else the first
low scoundrel that came along would in every respect be
just as good as myself. Wouldn't he, now? And that's
absurd!"

He glared at me. I nodded slightly and murmured
that doubtless there was much subtle truth in his view.

The principal truth discoverable in the views of Paul
the engineer was that a little thing may bring about the
undoing of a man.

"Il ne faut pas beaucoup pour perdre un homme," he
said to me, thoughtfully, one evening.

report this reflection in French, since the man was
of Paris, not of Barcelona at all. At the Maranon he
lived apart from the station, in a small shed with a metal
roof and straw walls, which he called mon atelier. He
had a work-bench there. They had given him several
horse-blankets and a saddle -- not that he ever had
occasion to ride, but because no other bedding was
used by the working-hands, who were all vaqueros --
cattlemen. And on this horseman's gear, like a son of
the plains, he used to sleep amongst the tools of his
trade, in a litter of rusty scrap-iron, with a portable
forge at his head, under the work-bench sustaining his
grimy mosquito-net.

Now and then I would bring him a few candle ends
saved from the scant supply of the manager's house.
He was very thankful for these. He did not like to lie
awake in the dark, he confessed. He complained that
sleep fled from him. "Le sommeil me fuit," he declared,
with his habitual air of subdued stoicism, which made
him sympathetic and touching. I made it clear to him
that I did not attach undue importance to the fact of his
having been a convict.

Thus it came about that one evening he was led to
talk about himself. As one of the bits of candle on the
edge of the bench burned down to the end, he hastened
to light another.

He had done his military service in a provincial
garrison and returned to Paris to follow his trade. It
was a well-paid one. He told me with some pride that
in a short time he was earning no less than ten francs a
day. He was thinking of setting up for himself by
and by and of getting married.

Here he sighed deeply and paused. Then with a
return to his stoical note:

"It seems I did not know enough about myself."

On his twenty-fifth birthday two of his friends in the
repairing shop where he worked proposed to stand him
a dinner. He was immensely touched by this attention.

"I was a steady man," he remarked, "but I am not
less sociable than any other body."

The entertainment came off in a little cafe on the
Boulevard de la Chapelle. At dinner they drank some
special wine. It was excellent. Everything was excel-
lent; and the world -- in his own words -- seemed a very
good place to live in. He had good prospects, some
little money laid by, and the affection of two excellent
friends. He offered to pay for all the drinks after
dinner, which was only proper on his part.

They drank more wine; they drank liqueurs, cognac,
beer, then more liqueurs and more cognac. Two
strangers sitting at the next table looked at him, he said,
with so much friendliness, that he invited them to join
the party.

He had never drunk so much in his life. His elation
was extreme, and so pleasurable that whenever it
flagged he hastened to order more drinks.

"It seemed to me," he said, in his quiet tone and
looking on the ground in the gloomy shed full of shad-
ows, "that I was on the point of just attaining a great
and wonderful felicity. Another drink, I felt, would do
it. The others were holding out well with me, glass for
glass."

But an extraordinary thing happened. At something
the strangers said his elation fell. Gloomy ideas-- des
idees noires -- rushed into his head. All the world out-
side the cafe; appeared to him as a dismal evil place
where a multitude of poor wretches had to work and
slave to the sole end that a few individuals should ride in
carriages and live riotously in palaces. He became
ashamed of his happiness. The pity of mankind's cruel
lot wrung his heart. In a voice choked with sorrow he
tried to express these sentiments. He thinks he wept
and swore in turns.

The two new acquaintances hastened to applaud his
humane indignation. Yes. The amount of injustice
in the world was indeed scandalous. There was only
one way of dealing with the rotten state of society.
Demolish the whole sacree boutique. Blow up the whole
iniquitous show.

Their heads hovered over the table. They whis-
pered to him eloquently; I don't think they quite
expected the result. He was extremely drunk -- mad
drunk. With a howl of rage he leaped suddenly upon
the table. Kicking over the bottles and glasses, he
yelled: "Vive l'anarchie! Death to the capitalists!"
He yelled this again and again. All round him broken
glass was falling, chairs were being swung in the air,
people were taking each other by the throat. The
police dashed in. He hit, bit, scratched and struggled,
till something crashed down upon his head. . . .

He came to himself in a police cell, locked up on
a charge of assault, seditious cries, and anarchist
propaganda.

He looked at me fixedly with his liquid, shining
eyes, that seemed very big in the dim light.

"That was bad. But even then I might have got off
somehow, perhaps," he said, slowly.

I doubt it. But whatever chance he had was done
away with by a young socialist lawyer who volunteered
to undertake his defence. In vain he assured him that
he was no anarchist; that he was a quiet, respectable
mechanic, only too anxious to work ten hours per day at
his trade. He was represented at the trial as the victim
of society and his drunken shoutings as the expression
of infinite suffering. The young lawyer had his way to
make, and this case was just what he wanted for a
start. The speech for the defence was pronounced
magnificent.

The poor fellow paused, swallowed, and brought out
the statement:

"I got the maximum penalty applicable to a first
offence."

I made an appropriate murmur. He hung his head
and folded his arms.

"When they let me out of prison," he began, gently,
"I made tracks, of course, for my old workshop. My
patron had a particular liking for me before; but when
he saw me he turned green with fright and showed me
the door with a shaking hand."

While he stood in the street, uneasy and discon-
certed, he was accosted by a middle-aged man who
introduced himself as an engineer's fitter, too. "I know
who you are," he said. "I have attended your trial.
You are a good comrade and your ideas are sound.
But the devil of it is that you won't be able to get work
anywhere now. These bourgeois'll conspire to starve
you. That's their way. Expect no mercy from the
rich."

To be spoken to so kindly in the street had com-
forted him very much. His seemed to be the sort of
nature needing support and sympathy. The idea of
not being able to find work had knocked him over
completely. If his patron, who knew him so well for a
quiet, orderly, competent workman, would have noth-
ing to do with him now -- then surely nobody else would.
That was clear. The police, keeping their eye on him,
would hasten to warn every employer inclined to give
him a chance. He felt suddenly very helpless, alarmed
and idle; and he followed the middle-aged man to the
estaminet round the corner where he met some other
good companions. They assured him that he would
not be allowed to starve, work or no work. They had
drinks all round to the discomfiture of all employers of
labour and to the destruction of society.

He sat biting his lower lip.

"That is, monsieur, how I became a compagnon," he
said. The hand he passed over his forehead was
trembling. "All the same, there's something wrong in
a world where a man can get lost for a glass more or
less."

He never looked up, though I could see he was
getting excited under his dejection. He slapped the
bench with his open palm.

"No!" he cried. "It was an impossible existence!
Watched by the police, watched by the comrades, I
did not belong to myself any more! Why, I could not
even go to draw a few francs from my savings-bank
without a comrade hanging about the door to see that
I didn't bolt! And most of them were neither more
nor less than housebreakers. The intelligent, I mean.
They robbed the rich; they were only getting back
their own, they said. When I had had some drink I
believed them. There were also the fools and the mad.
Des exaltes -- quoi! When I was drunk I loved them.
When I got more drink I was angry with the world.
That was the best time. I found refuge from misery in
rage. But one can't be always drunk -- n'est-ce pas,
monsieur? And when I was sober I was afraid to break
away. They would have stuck me like a pig."

He folded his arms again and raised his sharp chin
with a bitter smile.

"By and by they told me it was time to go to work.
The work was to rob a bank. Afterwards a bomb
would be thrown to wreck the place. My beginner's
part would be to keep watch in a street at the back and
to take care of a black bag with the bomb inside till it
was wanted. After the meeting at which the affair was
arranged a trusty comrade did not leave me an inch.
I had not dared to protest; I was afraid of being done
away with quietly in that room; only, as we were
walking together I wondered whether it would not
be better for me to throw myself suddenly into the
Seine. But while I was turning it over in my mind
we had crossed the bridge, and afterwards I had not
the opportunity."

In the light of the candle end, with his sharp features,
fluffy little moustache, and oval face, he looked at
times delicately and gaily young, and then appeared
quite old, decrepit, full of sorrow, pressing his folded
arms to his breast.

As he remained silent I felt bound to ask:

"Well! And how did it end?"

"Deportation to Cayenne," he answered.

He seemed to think that somebody had given the
plot away. As he was keeping watch in the back
street, bag in hand, he was set upon by the police.
"These imbeciles," had knocked him down without
noticing what he had in his hand. He wondered how the
bomb failed to explode as he fell. But it didn't explode.

"I tried to tell my story in court," he continued.
"The president was amused. There were in the
audience some idiots who laughed."

I expressed the hope that some of his companions
had been caught, too. He shuddered slightly before he
told me that there were two -- Simon, called also Biscuit,
the middle-aged fitter who spoke to him in the street,
and a fellow of the name of Mafile, one of the sym-
pathetic strangers who had applauded his sentiments
and consoled his humanitarian sorrows when he got
drunk in the cafe.

"Yes," he went on, with an effort, "I had the ad-
vantage of their company over there on St. Joseph's
Island, amongst some eighty or ninety other convicts.
We were all classed as dangerous."

St. Joseph's Island is the prettiest of the Iles de
Salut. It is rocky and green, with shallow ravines,
bushes, thickets, groves of mango-trees, and many
feathery palms. Six warders armed with revolvers and
carbines are in charge of the convicts kept there.

An eight-oared galley keeps up the communication
in the daytime, across a channel a quarter of a mile
wide, with the Ile Royale, where there is a military post.
She makes the first trip at six in the morning. At four
in the afternoon her service is over, and she is then
hauled up into a little dock on the Ile Royale and a
sentry put over her and a few smaller boats. From that
time till next morning the island of St. Joseph remains
cut off from the rest of the world, with the warders
patrolling in turn the path from the warders' house to
the convict huts, and a multitude of sharks patrolling
the waters all round.

Under these circumstances the convicts planned a
mutiny. Such a thing had never been known in the
penitentiary's history before. But their plan was not
without some possibility of success. The warders were
to be taken by surprise and murdered during the night.
Their arms would enable the convicts to shoot down
the people in the galley as she came alongside in the
morning. The galley once in their possession, other
boats were to be captured, and the whole company was
to row away up the coast.

At dusk the two warders on duty mustered the con-
victs as usual. Then they proceeded to inspect the
huts to ascertain that everything was in order. In the
second they entered they were set upon and absolutely
smothered under the numbers of their assailants. The
twilight faded rapidly. It was a new moon; and a heavy
black squall gathering over the coast increased the pro-
found darkness of the night. The convicts assembled in
the open space, deliberating upon the next step to be
taken, argued amongst themselves in low voices.

"You took part in all this?" I asked.

"No. I knew what was going to be done, of course.
But why should I kill these warders? I had nothing
against them. But I was afraid of the others. What-
ever happened, I could not escape from them. I sat
alone on the stump of a tree with my head in my hands,
sick at heart at the thought of a freedom that could be
nothing but a mockery to me. Suddenly I was startled
to perceive the shape of a man on the path near by.
He stood perfectly still, then his form became effaced in
the night. It must have been the chief warder 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
light of the signal for an instant, but she never faltered,
pulling at the cord and swinging the lantern 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 re-
maining stupidly exposed on the pier, I retreated a
little way and crouched behind a bush. I did not in-
tend to let myself be pounced upon unawares and be
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 Ile Royale came over in an astonishingly
short time. The woman kept right on till the light of
her lantern 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 lantern standing
on the ground near her.

"Then suddenly I saw in the light at the end of the
pier the red pantaloons of two more men. I was over-
come 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 spring from, I wondered.
Slowly I walked down the short pier. I saw the
woman's form shaken by sobs and heard her moaning
more and more distinctly, 'Oh, my man! my poor man!
my poor man!' I stole on quietly. She could neither
hear nor see anything. She had thrown her apron over
her head and was rocking herself to and fro 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.

"I pulled along the shore slowly. A black cloud
hung over the Iles de Salut. I heard firing, shouts.
Another hunt had begun -- the convict-hunt. The
oars were too long to pull comfortably. I managed
them with difficulty, though the boat herself was light.
But when I got round to the other side of the island the
squall broke in rain and wind. I was unable to make
head against it. I let the boat drift ashore and secured
her.

"I knew the spot. There was a tumbledown old
hovel standing near the water. Cowering in there I
heard through the noises of the wind and the falling
downpour some people tearing through the bushes.
They came out on the strand. Soldiers perhaps. A
flash of lightning threw everything near me into violent
relief. Two convicts!

"And directly an amazed voice exclaimed. 'It's a
miracle!' It was the voice of Simon, otherwise Biscuit.

"And another voice growled, 'What's a miracle?'

"'Why, there's a boat lying here!'

"'You must be mad, Simon! But there is, after all.
. . . A boat.'

"They seemed awed into complete silence. The
other man was Mafile. He spoke again, cautiously.

"'It is fastened up. There must be somebody here.'

"I spoke to them from within the hovel: 'I am here.'

"They came in then, and soon gave me to understand
that the boat was theirs, not mine. 'There are two of
us,' said Mafile, 'against you alone.'

"I got out into the open to keep clear of them for
fear of getting a treacherous blow on the head. I could
have shot them both where they stood. But I said
nothing. I kept down the laughter rising in my throat.
I made myself very humble and begged to be allowed to
go. They consulted in low tones about my fate, while
with my hand on the revolver in the bosom of my blouse
I had their lives in my power. I let them live. I
meant them to pull that boat. I represented to them
with abject humility that I understood the management
of a boat, and that, being three to pull, we could get a
rest in turns. That decided them at last. It was time.
A little more and I would have gone into screaming fits
at the drollness of it."

At this point his excitement broke out. He jumped
off the bench and gesticulated. The great shadows of
his arms darting over roof and walls made the shed
appear too small to contain his agitation.

"I deny nothing," he burst out. "I was elated,
monsieur. I tasted a sort of felicity. But I kept very
quiet. I took my turns at pulling all through the
night. We made for the open sea, putting our trust in a
passing ship. It was a foolhardy action. I persuaded
them to it. When the sun rose the immensity of water
was calm, and the Iles de Salut appeared only like dark
specks from the top of each swell. I was steering then.
Mafile, who was pulling bow, let out an oath and said,
'We must rest.'

'The time to laugh had come at last. And I took
my fill of it, I can tell you. I held my sides and rolled
in my seat, they had such startled faces. 'What's got
into him, the animal?' cries Mafile.

"And Simon, who was nearest to me, says over his
shoulder to him, 'Devil take me if I don't think he's
gone mad!'

"Then I produced the revolver. Aha! In a mo-
ment they both got the stoniest eyes you can imagine.
Ha, ha! They were frightened. But they pulled.
Oh, yes, they pulled all day, sometimes looking wild and
sometimes looking faint. I lost nothing of it because I
had to keep my eyes on them all the time, or else --
crack! -- they would have been on top of me in a second.
I rested my revolver hand on my knee all ready and
steered with the other. Their faces began to blister.
Sky and sea seemed on fire round us and the sea steamed
in the sun. The boat made a sizzling sound as she went
through the water. Sometimes Mafile foamed at the
mouth and sometimes he groaned. But he pulled. He
dared not stop. His eyes became blood-shot all over,
and he had bitten his lower lip to pieces. Simon was as
hoarse as a crow.

"'Comrade --' he begins.

'"There are no comrades here. I am your pa-
tron.'

"'Patron, then,' he says, 'in the name of humanity
let us rest.'

"I let them. There was a little rainwater washing
about the bottom of the boat. I permitted them to
snatch some of it in the hollow of their palms. But as I
gave the command, 'En route!' I caught them exchang-
ing significant glances. They thought I would have to
go to sleep sometime! Aha! But I did not want to go
to sleep. I was more awake than ever. It is they who
went to sleep as they pulled, tumbling off the thwarts
head over heels suddenly, one after another. I let them
lie. All the stars were out. It was a quiet world. The
sun rose. Another day. Allez! En route!
"They pulled badly. Their eyes rolled about and
their tongues hung out. In the middle of the forenoon
Mafile croaks out: 'Let us make a rush at him, Simon.
I would just as soon be shot at once as to die of thirst,
hunger, and fatigue at the oar.'

"But while he spoke he pulled; and Simon kept on
pulling too. It made me smile. Ah! They loved
their life these two, in this evil world of theirs, just
as I used to love my life, too, before they spoiled it
for me with their phrases. I let them go on to the
point of exhaustion, and only then I pointed at the
sails of a ship on the horizon.

"Aha! You should have seen them revive and
buckle to their work! For I kept them at it to pull
right across that ship's path. They were changed.
The sort of pity I had felt for them left me. They
looked more like themselves every minute. They
looked at me with the glances I remembered so well.
They were happy. They smiled.

"'Well,' says Simon, 'the energy of that youngster
has saved our lives. If he hadn't made us, we could
never have pulled so far out into the track of ships.
Comrade, I forgive you. I admire you.'

"And Mafile growls from forward: 'We owe you a
famous debt of gratitude, comrade. You are cut out
for a chief.'

"Comrade! Monsieur! Ah, what a good word!
And they, such men as these two, had made it accursed.
I looked at them. I remembered their lies, their
promises, their menaces, and all my days of misery.
Why could they not have left me alone after I came out
of prison? I looked at them and thought that while
they lived I could never be free. Never. Neither I nor
others like me with warm hearts and weak heads. For
I know I have not a strong head, monsieur. A black
rage came upon me -- the rage of extreme intoxication --
but not against the injustice of society. Oh, no!

"'I must be free!' I cried, furiously.

"'Vive la liberte!" yells that ruffian Mafile. 'Mort
aux bourgeois who send us to Cayenne! They shall
soon know that we are free.'

"The sky, the sea, the whole horizon, seemed to turn
red, blood red all round the boat. My temples were
beating so loud that I wondered they did not hear.
How is it that they did not? How is it they did not
understand?

"I heard Simon ask, 'Have we not pulled far enough
out now?'

"'Yes. Far enough,' I said. I was sorry for him;
it was the other I hated. He hauled in his oar with a
loud sigh, and as he was raising his hand to wipe his
forehead with the air of a man who has done his work, I
pulled the trigger of my revolver and shot him like this
off the knee, right through the heart.

"He tumbled down, with his head hanging over the
side of the boat. I did not give him a second glance.
The other cried out piercingly. Only one shriek of
horror. Then all was still.

"He slipped off the thwart on to his knees and raised
his clasped hands before his face in an attitude of suppli-
cation. 'Mercy,' he whispered, faintly. 'Mercy for
me! -- comrade.'

"'Ah, comrade,' I said, in a low tone. 'Yes, comrade,
of course. Well, then, shout Vive l'anarchie.'

"He flung up his arms, his face up to the sky and
his mouth wide open in a great yell of despair. 'Vive
l'anarchie! Vive --'

"He collapsed all in a heap, with a bullet through
his head.

"I flung them both overboard. I threw away the
revolver, too. Then I sat down quietly. I was free at
last! At last. I did not even look towards the ship;
I did not care; indeed, I think I must have gone to
sleep, because all of a sudden there were shouts and I
found the ship almost on top of me. They hauled me
on board and secured the boat astern. They were all
blacks, except the captain, who was a mulatto. He
alone knew a few words of French. I could not find
out where they were going nor who they were. They
gave me something to eat every day; but I did not like
the way they used to discuss me in their language.
Perhaps they were deliberating about throwing me over-
board in order to keep possession of the boat. How do
I know? As we were passing this island I asked
whether it was inhabited. I understood from the
mulatto that there was a house on it. A farm, I
fancied, they meant. So I asked them to put me ashore
on the beach and keep the boat for their trouble. This,
I imagine, was just what they wanted. The rest you
know."

After pronouncing these words he lost suddenly all
control over himself. He paced to and fro rapidly, till
at last he broke into a run; his arms went like a windmill
and his ejaculations became very much like raving.
The burden of them was that he "denied nothing,
nothing!" I could only let him go on, and sat out of his
way, repeating, "Calmez vous, calmez vous," at intervals,
till his agitation exhausted itself.

I must confess, too, that I remained there long after
he had crawled under his mosquito-net. He had en-
treated me not to leave him; so, as one sits up with a
nervous child, I sat up with him -- in the name of
humanity -- till he fell asleep.

On the whole, my idea is that he was much more of
an anarchist than he confessed to me or to himself; and
that, the special features of his case apart, he was very
much like many other anarchists. Warm heart and
weak head -- that is the word of the riddle; and it is a
fact that the bitterest contradictions and the deadliest
conflicts of the world are carried on in every individual
breast capable of feeling and passion.

From personal inquiry I can vouch that the story of
the convict mutiny was in every particular as stated by
him.

When I got back to Horta from Cayenne and saw
the "Anarchist" again, he did not look well. He was
more worn, still more frail, and very livid indeed under
the grimy smudges of his calling. Evidently the meat
of the company's main herd (in its unconcentrated
form) did not agree with him at all.

It was on the pontoon in Horta that we met; and I
tried to induce him to leave the launch moored where
she was and follow me to Europe there and then. It
would have been delightful to think of the excellent
manager's surprise and disgust at the poor fellow's
escape. But he refused with unconquerable obstinacy.

"Surely you don't mean to live always here!" I
cried. He shook his head.

"I shall die here," he said. Then added moodily,
"Away from them."

Sometimes I think of him lying open-eyed on his
horseman's gear in the low shed full of tools and scraps
of iron -- the anarchist slave of the Maranon estate,
waiting with resignation for that sleep which "fled"
from him, as he used to say, in such an unaccountable
manner.

-THE END-
Joseph Conrad's short story: An Anarchist

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