"May she ever imitate the holy women of former times, and may the Evil
One have no share in her actions."
The nuptial blessing was droned monotonously in French by a stout
rubicund priest, who wore soiled and crumpled vestments.
The scene was strange and impressive.
Upon a tawdry altar, in a small bare chapel, two candles flickered
unsteadily. The gloomy place was utterly devoid of embellishment, with
damp-stained, white-washed walls, a stone floor, dirty and uneven, and
broken windows patched with paper.
Over the man and woman kneeling at the steps the priest outstretched his
hands, and pronounced the benediction.
When he had concluded a gabbled exhortation and premonishment, they
rose. The weary-eyed man regained his feet quickly, gazing a trifle
sadly at his companion, while the latter, with a scarcely perceptible
sigh, got up slowly, and affectionately embraced her newly-wedded
husband.
As the bride placed her arms about her husband's neck, he bent, and,
lifting her black veil slightly, gave her a fond, passionate caress.
Turning from the altar, the priest grasped their hands, wishing them
health and happiness. What bitter irony! what a canting pretence of
humanity! As if either could be obtained in New Caledonia, the malarial
island to which the French transport their criminals. The ill-timed
sarcasm caused the statuesque warders to grin, but a tear stood in the
eye of more than one of the bridegroom's comrades in adversity, even
though they were desperate characters, hardened by crime.
"We thank you heartily for your kind wishes," he replied, "and trust
that your blessing will render our lot less wearisome."
The convict's bride remained silent, gazing about her unconcernedly.
"Come," exclaimed the officer, rising abruptly, "we must not linger;
already we have lost too much time."
After the register had been signed, the husband again kissed his wife.
As she raised her lips to his, he whispered a few words, as if to
reassure her, then said aloud--
"Farewell, dearest. In seven years I shall be free. Till then, _au
revoir, sans adieu_!"
"_Sans adieu_!" she echoed in a low voice, apparently unmoved.
He shrugged his shoulders, and turned towards his stern guards.
"I must apologise for detaining you, gentlemen," he said. "Let us go; I
am ready."
The bride, who was young, was dressed very plainly in black, yet with
Parisian taste. Perhaps she was handsome, but the thick veil concealed
her features. The husband's appearance, however, was decidedly
unprepossessing. He was undergoing a term of ten years' hard labour and
lifelong banishment.
Tall, bronzed, and bearded, with a thin face wrinkled by toil, although
still retaining traces of good looks, he remained for a moment
motionless, contemplating with loving eyes the woman who was now his
wife. His attire was scarcely befitting a bridegroom, for he had no
coat, and wore the soiled and ragged grey shirt and trousers of a miner,
while the chains that bound his wrists seemed strangely out of place.
Yet the spectators of this odd ceremony were as strikingly incongruous
as the principals themselves.
There were but eight persons. Five were fellow-prisoners of the
husband, comprising the labour gang in which he worked, while close
behind them sat an officer and two sinister-looking warders in faded
military uniforms, the butts of their loaded rifles resting on the
floor. The convicts were watching the ceremony interestedly, frequently
whispering among themselves, and ever and anon, as either stirred, the
clanking of their chains formed an ominous accompaniment to the
hastily-gabbled formula, as if reminding them of the dismal hopelessness
of their situation.
Neither replied. The warder who held the chain to which the five
prisoners were manacled stepped forward, and locked it to the
bridegroom's fetters.
For a few minutes, while before the altar, the latter had been allowed
comparative freedom, but now, the ceremony over, he was compelled to
return with his gang to the atrocious tortures and dispiriting gloom of
the copper mines--that monotonous, toilsome existence of French
convicts; a life without rest, without hope, with naught else beyond
hard labour, brutal taskmasters, and the whining homilies of drunken
priests.
At a word from the officer the men filed slowly out, a dismal, dejected
procession. Notwithstanding the uniform grey dress and closely-cropped
heads, the difference in their physiognomy came prominently out. It was
easily distinguishable that the husband belonged to a higher social
circle than the others, who, from their ferocious, forbidding aspect,
had evidently given the rein to their evil passions, and were undergoing
their just punishment. Through the narrow door they passed in single
file, the warders following immediately behind with their rifles upon
their shoulders.
The officer paused at the door, and turning, lifted his cap politely to
the bride, saying--
"Forgive me, madame, for thus taking your husband from you, but, alas!
I have orders which must be obeyed."
"No apology is needed, m'sieur," she replied, with a slight sigh. "My
husband's honeymoon has been brief indeed, but, as one convicted of a
serious crime, what can he expect? We must both wait. Nothing further
need be said."
"And you have followed him here--from Paris?"
"Yes."
"Ah, what devotion! Madame, truly yours is a cruel separation, and you
have my heartfelt sympathy. Adieu."
"Thanks, m'sieur; adieu," she said brokenly; but the officer had already
passed out, and was beyond hearing.
Drawing herself up suddenly, and bowing stiffly to the priest, she left
the chapel without deigning to thank him.
Outside the furnace heat of sunshine was intense.
The fierce, glaring sun reflected upon the unruffled surface of the
Pacific Ocean, and beat down mercilessly on the white road that
stretched away for a mile or so to Noumea, the chief town of the penal
settlement, which is altogether a curious place, where society is
composed chiefly of _recidivistes_ and warders, and where in the Rue
Magenta, one rubs shoulders with murderers, thieves, and notorious
conspirators, the scum of French prisons, who, having completed their
term of hard labour, have developed into colonists, respectable and
otherwise.
Hesitating on the threshold, undecided whether to return to the town or
take the road which led up the steep hill to where the black shaft and
windlass marked the mouth of the convict's mine, she quickly resolved
upon the former course, and, strolling leisurely down to where the
waveless sea lazily lapped the shingly beach, continued her way under
the welcome shadow of some great rocks overgrown by tropical vegetation,
and rendered picturesque by palms, acacias, and giant azaleas in full
bloom.
The landscape, though arid, was beautiful.
Away across the bay, the cluster of white houses, embowered in branches,
stood out in bold relief against the more sombre background of forest,
and behind rose mountains denuded of their foliage, but clothed by the
sun and air with a living garment of constantly changing colours, which
sometimes hid their loss, sometimes more than atoned for it. Into the
far distance the long ranges stretched away in undulating lines of
ultra-marine and rose, while in the centre the snow-capped summit of
Mount Humboldt glistened like frosted silver. Not a breath of wind
stirred the sultry atmosphere. The very birds were silent, having
sought shelter from the terrible heat; and the calm waters, shut in by
coral reefs, seemed to reflect and even increase the intensity of the
sun's rays.
Suddenly she halted, and looked back contemplatively along the road the
convicts had taken.
Words escaped her. They were scarcely vapid sentimentalities.
"Bah! even the warder pities me, the imbecile!" she exclaimed in French,
breaking into a nervous, discordant laugh. "I have obeyed you, my
elegant husband, merely because I am helpless; but my fervent wishes for
your welfare are that you will descend yonder mine and never return to
the light of day--that your taskmasters will crush the life out of you
long before the expiration of your term. You think you have ingeniously
strengthened the tie by making me your wife, but you have yet to
discover your mistake. You have yet to discover that you are dealing
with one who can hold her own against the world!" Motionless and
silent, she stood for a few moments with fixed eyes and hands tightly
clutched. Then she continued--
"Seven years must elapse before you return to civilisation. Meanwhile
much can be accomplished. _Sacre_! I hope you'll die the death you
deserve, and rot in a criminal's grave before that, curse you! Your
wife--_ma foi_!--your victim!"
Hissing the last sentence with bitter contempt, and stamping her shapely
foot vehemently, she added--
"Why should I barter myself? By going through the ceremony I have
effectually closed his mouth for at least seven years, yet I still have
freedom and the means whereby to enjoy life. Shall I calmly submit,
then, and pose before the world as a social outcast--the wife of a
notorious convict?"
The words were uttered in a tone that clearly demonstrated her intense
hatred of the man to whom she had bound herself.