When Blake Shorland stepped from the steamer Belle Sauvage upon the quay
at Noumea, he proceeded, with the alertness of the trained newspaper
correspondent, to take his bearings. So this was New Caledonia, the home
of outcast, criminal France, the recent refuge of Communist exiles, of
Rochefort, Louise Michel, Felix Rastoul, and the rest! Over there to
the left was Ile Nou, the convict prison; on the hill was the Governor’s
residence; below, the Government establishments with their red-tiled
roofs; and hidden away in a luxuriance of tropical vegetation lay the
houses of the citizens. He stroked his black moustache thoughtfully
for a moment, and put his hand to his pocket to see that his letters of
introduction from the French Consul at Sydney to Governor Rapont and his
journalistic credentials were there. Then he remembered the advice
of the captain of the Belle Sauvage as to the best hotel, and started
towards it. He had not been shown the way, but his instincts directed
him. He knew where it ought to be, according to the outlines of the
place.
It proved to be where he thought, and, having engaged rooms, sent for
his luggage, and refreshed himself, he set out to explore the town.
His prudent mind told him that he ought to proceed at once to Governor
Rapont and present his letters of commendation, for he was in a country
where feeling was running high against English interference with the
deportation of French convicts to New Caledonia, and the intention of
France to annex the New Hebrides. But he knew also that so soon as
these letters were presented, his freedom of action would be
restricted, either by a courtesy which would be so constant as to become
surveillance, or by an injunction having no such gloss. He had come to
study French government in New Caledonia, to gauge the extent of the
menace that the convict question bore towards Australia, and to tell his
tale to Australia, and to such other countries as would listen. The task
was not pleasant, and it had its dangers, too, of a certain kind. But
Shorland had had difficulty and peril often in his life, and he borrowed
no trouble. Proceeding along the Rue de l’Alma, and listening to the
babble of French voices round him, he suddenly paused abstractedly, and
said to himself “Somehow it brings back Paris to me, and that last night
there, when I bade Freeman good-bye. Poor old boy, I’m glad better days
are coming for him. Sure to be better, if he marries Clare. Why didn’t
he do it seven years ago, and save all that other horrible business?”
Then he moved on, noticing that he was the object of remark, but as it
was daytime, and in the street he felt himself safe. Glancing up at a
doorway he saw a familiar Paris name--Cafe Voisin. This was interesting.
It was in the Cafe Voisin that he had touched a farewell glass with Luke
Freeman, the one bosom friend of his life. He entered this Cafe Voisin
with the thought of how vague would be the society which he would meet
in such a reproduction of a famous Parisian haunt. He thought of a Cafe
chantant at Port Said, and said to himself, “It can’t be worse than
that.” He was right then. The world had no shambles of ghastly frivolity
and debauchery like those of Port Said.
The Cafe Voisin had many visitors, and Shorland saw at a glance who they
were--liberes, or ticket-of-leave men, a drunken soldier or two, and
a few of that class who with an army are called camp-followers, in an
English town roughs, in a French convict settlement recidivistes. He
felt at once that he had entered upon a trying experience; but he also
felt that the luck would be with him, as it had been with him so many
times these late years. He sat down at a small table, and called to a
haggard waitress near to bring him a cup of coffee. He then saw that
there was another woman in the room. Leaning with her elbows on the bar
and her chin in her hands, she fixed her eyes on him as he opened and
made a pretence of reading La Nouvelle Caledonie. Looking up, he met her
eyes again; there was hatred in them if ever he saw it, or what might
be called constitutional diablerie. He felt that this woman, whoever
she was, had power of a curious kind; too much power for her to be
altogether vile, too physically healthy to be of that class to which
the girl who handed him his coffee belonged. There was not a sign of
gaudiness about her; not a ring, a necklace, or a bracelet. Her dress
was of cotton, faintly pink and perfectly clean; her hair was brown, and
waving away loosely from her forehead. But her eyes--was there a touch
of insanity there? Perhaps because they were rather deeply set, though
large, and because they seemed to glow in the shadows made by the brows,
the strange intensity was deepened. But Shorland could not get rid of
the feeling of active malevolence in them. The mouth was neither small
nor sensuous, the chin was strong without being coarse, the figure was
not suggestive. The hands--confound the woman’s eyes! Why could he not
get rid of the feeling they gave him? She suddenly turned her head, not
moving her chin from her hands, however, or altering her position, and
said something to a man at her elbow--rather the wreck of a man, one who
bore tokens of having been some time a gallant of the town, now only a
disreputable citizen of a far from reputable French colony.
Immediately a murmur was heard: “A spy, an English spy!” From the mouths
of absinthe-drinking liberes it passed to the mouths of rum-drinking
recidivistes. It did not escape Blake Shorland’s ears, but he betrayed
no sign. He sipped his coffee and appeared absorbed in his paper,
thinking carefully of the difficulties of his position. He knew that to
rise now and make for the door would be of no advantage, for a number
of the excited crowd were between him and it. To show fear might
precipitate a catastrophe with this drunken mob. He had nerve and
coolness.
Presently a dirty outcast passed him and rudely jostled his arm as he
drank his coffee. He begged the other’s pardon conventionally in French,
and went on reading. A moment later the paper was snatched from his
hand, and a red-faced unkempt scoundrel yelled in his face: “Spy of the
devil! English thief!”
Then he rose quickly and stepped back to the wall, feeling for the
spring in the sword-stick which he held closely pressed to his side.
This same sword-stick had been of use to him on the Fly River in New
Guinea.
“Down with the English spy!” rang through the room, joined to vile
French oaths. Meanwhile the woman had not changed her position, but
closely watched the tumult which she herself had roused. She did not
stir when she saw a glass hurled at the unoffending Englishman’s head. A
hand reached over and seized a bottle behind her. The bottle was raised
and still she did not move, though her fingers pressed her cheeks with
a spasmodic quickness. Three times Shorland had said, in well-controlled
tones: “Frenchmen, I am no spy,” but they gave him the lie with
increasing uproar. Had not Gabrielle Rouget said that he was an English
spy? As the bottle was poised in the air with a fiendish cry of “A
baptism! a baptism!” and Shorland was debating on his chances of
avoiding it, and on the wisdom of now drawing his weapon and cutting his
way through the mob, there came from the door a call of “Hold! hold!”
and a young officer dashed in, his arm raised against the brutal missile
in the hands of the ticket-of-leave man, whose Chauvinism was a matter
of absinthe, natural evil, and Gabrielle Rouget. “Wretches! scum of
France!” he cried: “what is this here? And you, Gabrielle, do you sleep?
Do you permit murder?”
The woman met the fire in his eyes without flinching, and some one
answered for her. “He is an English spy.”
“Take care, Gabrielle,” the young officer went on, “take care--you go
too far!” Waving back the sullen crowd, now joined by the woman who had
not yet spoken, he said: “Who are you, monsieur? What is the trouble?”
Shorland drew from his pocket his letters and credentials. Gabrielle now
stood at the young officer’s elbow. As the papers were handed over, a
photograph dropped from among them and fell to the floor face upward.
Shorland stooped to pick it up, but, as he did so, he heard a low
exclamation from Gabrielle. He looked up. She pointed to the portrait,
and said gaspingly: “My God--look! look!” She leaned forward and touched
the portrait in his hand. “Look! look!” she said again. And then she
paused, and a moment after laughed. But there was no mirth in her
laughter--it was hollow and nervous. Meanwhile the young officer had
glanced at the papers, and now handed them back, with the words: “All is
right, monsieur--eh, Gabrielle, well, what is the matter?” But she drew
back, keeping her eyes fixed on the Englishman, and did not answer.
The young officer stretched out his hand. “I am Alencon Barre,
lieutenant, at your service. Let us go, monsieur.”
But there was some unusual devilry working in that drunken crowd. The
sight of an officer was not sufficient to awe them into obedience. Bad
blood had been fired, and it was fed by some cause unknown to Alencon
Barre, but to be understood fully hereafter. The mass surged forward,
with cries of “Down with the Englishman!”
Alencon Barre drew his sword. “Villains!” he cried, and pressed the
point against the breast of the leader, who drew back. Then Gabrielle’s
voice was heard: “No, no, my children,” she said, “no more of that
to-day--not to-day. Let the man go.” Her face was white and drawn.
Shorland had been turning over in his mind all the events of the last
few moments, and he thought as he looked at her that just such women had
made a hell of the Paris Commune. But one thought dominated all others.
What was the meaning of her excitement when she saw the portrait--the
portrait of Luke Freeman?
He felt that he was standing on the verge of some tragic history.
Barre’s sword again made a clear circle round him, and he said:
“Shame, Frenchmen! This gentleman is no spy. He is the friend of the
Governor--he is my friend. He is English? Well, where is the English
flag, there are the French--good French-protected. Where is the French
flag, there shall the English--good English--be safe.”
As they moved towards the door Gabrielle came forward, and, touching
Shorland’s arm, said in English: “You will come again, monsieur? You
shall be safe altogether. You will come?” Looking at her searchingly, he
answered slowly: “Yes, I will come.”
As they left the turbulent crowd behind them and stepped into the
street, Barr$ said: “You should have gone at once to the Hotel du
Gouverneur and presented your letters, monsieur, or, at least, have
avoided the Cafe Voisin. Noumea is the Whitechapel and the Pentonville
of France, remember.”
Shorland acknowledged his error, thanked his rescuer, enjoyed the
situation, and was taken to Governor Rapont, by whom he was cordially
received, and then turned over to the hospitality of the officers of the
post. It was conveyed to him later by letters of commendation from the
Governor that he should be free to go anywhere in the islands and to see
whatever was to be seen, from convict prison to Hotel Dieu.