Deibler took the man by one arm, a warder took him by the other, and
between them they half-carried him to the office for his last toilette.
In the little room, dimly lighted by a winking lamp, a chair had been
set close to a table. The executioner and his assistant pushed the
condemned man into the chair, and Deibler took up a pair of scissors.
The Public Prosecutor spoke to the prisoner.
"Would you like a glass of rum? Would you like a cigarette? Is there
anything you wish to have done?"
Maître Barberoux, who had not arrived in time for the awakening of the
prisoner, now approached his client; he, too, was ghastly white.
"Is there anything else that I can do for you? Have you any last wish?"
The condemned man made another effort to rise from the chair, and a
hoarse groan escaped from his throat.
"I--I----"
The prison doctor had joined the group, and now drew the Public
Prosecutor's deputy aside.
"It is appalling!" he said. "The man has not articulated a single word
since he was awakened. He is as though sunk in a stupefied sleep. There
is a technical word for his condition: he is in a state of inhibition.
He is alive, and yet he is a corpse. Anyhow he is utterly unconscious,
incapable of any clear thought, or of saying a word that has any sense.
I have never seen such complete stupefaction."
Deibler waved aside the men who were pressing round him.
"Sign the gaol book, please, M. Havard," he said, and while that
gentleman affixed a shaky signature to the warrant authorising the
delivery of Gurn to the public executioner, Deibler took the scissors
and cut a segment out of the prisoner's shirt and cut off a wisp of hair
that grew low down on his neck. Meanwhile an assistant bound the wrists
of the man who was about to die. Then the executioner looked at his
watch and made a half-bow to the Public Prosecutor.
"Come! Come! It is the time fixed by law!"
Two assistants took the wretch by the shoulders and raised him up. There
was a horrible, deep, unintelligible rattle in his throat.
"I--I----"
But no one heard him, and he was dragged away. It was practically a
corpse that the servants of the guillotine bore down to the boulevard
Arago.
* * * * *
Outside, the first rosy tints of early dawn were waking the birds, and
playing on the great triangular knife, drawing gleams from it. The time
was ten minutes past five. And now the supreme moment was at hand.
The crowd, momentarily growing denser, was crushed behind the cordon of
troops that had difficulty in keeping it at a distance from the
guillotine. The soldiers, unheeding the oaths and curses and entreaties
with which they were assailed, carried out their orders and permitted no
one to take up his stand anywhere in the near neighbourhood of the
guillotine, except the few rare individuals who had a special pass.
A sudden murmur ran through the crowd. The mounted police, stationed
opposite the guillotine, had just drawn their sabres. Fandor gripped
Juve's hand nervously. The detective was very pale.
"Let us get over there," he said, and led Fandor just behind the
guillotine, to the side where the severed head would fall into the
basket. "We shall see the poor devil get out of the carriage, and being
fastened on to the bascule, and pulled into the lunette." He went on
talking as if to divert his own mind from the thing before him. "That's
the best place for seeing things: I stood there when Peugnez was
guillotined, a long time ago now, and I was there again in 1909 when
Duchémin, the parricide, was executed."
But he came to an abrupt stop. From the great door of the Santé prison a
carriage came rapidly out. All heads were uncovered, all eyes were
fixed, and a deep silence fell upon the crowded boulevard.
The carriage passed the journalist and the detective at a gallop and
pulled up with a jerk just opposite them, on the other side of the
guillotine, and at the very foot of the scaffold. M. Deibler jumped down
from the box, and opening the door at the back of the vehicle let down
the steps. Pale and nervous, the chaplain got out backwards, hiding the
scaffold from the eyes of the condemned man, whom the assistants managed
somehow to help out of the carriage.
Fandor was shaking with nervousness and muttering to himself.
But things moved quickly now.
The chaplain, still walking backwards, hid the dread vision for yet a
few seconds more, then stepped aside abruptly. The assistants seized the
condemned man, and pushed him on to the bascule.
Juve was watching the unhappy wretch, and could not restrain a word of
admiration.
"That man is a brave man! He has not even turned pale! Generally
condemned men are livid!"
The executioner's assistants had bound the man upon the plank; it tilted
upwards. Deibler grasped the head by the two ears and pulled it into the
lunette, despite one last convulsive struggle of the victim.
There was a click of a spring, the flash of the falling knife, a spurt
of blood, a dull groan from ten thousand breasts, and the head rolled
into the basket!
But Juve had flung Fandor aside and sprang towards the scaffold. He
thrust the assistants away, and plunging his hands into the bran that
was all soaked with blood, he seized the severed head by the hair and
stared at it.
Horrified by this scandalous action the assistants rushed upon the
detective.
Deibler forced him backwards.
"You must be mad!"
"Get away!"
Fandor saw that Juve was staggering and seemed about to swoon. He rushed
towards him.
"Good God!" he cried in tones of anguish.
"It isn't Gurn who has just been put to death!" Juve panted brokenly.
"This face has not gone white because it is painted! It is made up--like
an actor's! Oh, curses on him! Fantômas has escaped! Fantômas has got
away! He has had some innocent man executed in his stead! I tell you
Fantômas is alive!"
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Notes |
| |
| Page 25: comma added after "why" ("Why, the park enclosure |
| has been altered") |
| Page 265: Treteau _sic_ |
| |
| Accents have been standardised. |
| |
| Hyphenation has generally been standardized. However, when |
| a word appears hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number |
| of times, both versions have been retained |
| (maidservants/maid-servants). |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+