human
Admit you! exclaimed the galley slave who now filled the post of the dead and gone gate-keepers (with, for reward, a prospect of freedom before him when the pest should be finally over, if he should be alive by that time).
gpt
Admit you! Name of Heaven one does not often hear that request! Are you sick of life? It must be so!
human
Nay; instead, I seek to preserve life, even though I lose my own in doing so. To preserve the life of one I love. Then, observing the man's strange appearance, his red cap and convict's garb, he asked:
gpt
Are you the warder of the gate?
human
For want of better! When one has not a snipe they take a blackbird. I am the substitute of the warders. They lie in the outhouse now. I may lie there, too, ere long.
gpt
Has--has any cordon of women--female convicts--emigrants--passed in lately? From Paris? Speak, I beseech you,
human
I cannot say. I was sent here but yesterday--the warders would have known.
gpt
Go and ask them.
human
Ask them. _Ciel!_ they would return a strange answer. Man, they are dead! Do you not understand?
gpt
Is everybody dead in this unhappy place?
human
Not yet. But as like as not they will soon be. You see, _mon ami_, we die gaily. Of us, of us others--gentlemen condemned for crimes we never committed--forty were sent into the city from our galleys two days ago. Four remain alive. I am one. Then, changing the subject, he said:
gpt
Is the life you love that of a woman who comes--or has come--in the cordon of which you speak?
human
God pity me! yes. She is my wife. Yet an innocent.
gpt
Ha! An innocent. So! so! We are all innocent--all the convicts and convict emigrants. Also, our woman-kind. Well! enter, go find her if she is here. Then, away at once. Escape is easy, for the sufficient reason there will be none to stop you.
human
Why not, therefore, flee yourself?
gpt
Oh I as for that, we have our reasons. We may grow rich by remaining, and we are paid eight livres a day to encourage us. There is much hidden treasure. And our costume is a little pronounced. We should not get far. Moreover, with a look of incredible cunning,
human
I will go seek through the city for my wife. If I find her not I will return to you. You will tell me if the cordon I have spoken of arrives. Will you not?
gpt
Ay! never fear. If they come in you shall know of it.