"OH, WHERE IS MY LOVE?"
At the prison the scene is repeated in reverse, and the Black Maria
presently rumbles away empty. In that building, whose exterior Narcisse
found so picturesque, the vagrant at length finds food. In that question
of food, by the way, another question arose, not as to any degree of
criminality past or present, nor as to age, or sex, or race, or station;
but as to the having or lacking fifty cents. "Four bits" a day was the
open sesame to a department where one could have bedstead and ragged
bedding and dirty mosquito-bar, a cell whose window looked down into the
front street, food in variety, and a seat at table with the officers of
the prison. But those who could not pay were conducted past all these
delights, along one of several dark galleries, the turnkeys of which
were themselves convicts, who, by a process of reasoning best understood
among the harvesters of perquisites, were assumed to be undergoing
sentence.
The vagrant stood at length before a grated iron gate while its bolts
were thrown back and it growled on its hinges. What he saw within needs
no minute description; it may be seen there still, any day: a large,
flagged court, surrounded on three sides by two stories of cells with
heavy, black, square doors all a-row and mostly open; about a hundred
men sitting, lying, or lounging about in scanty rags,--some gaunt and
feeble, some burly and alert, some scarred and maimed, some sallow, some
red, some grizzled, some mere lads, some old and bowed,--the sentenced,
the untried, men there for the first time, men who were oftener in than
out,--burglars, smugglers, house-burners, highwaymen, wife-beaters,
wharf-rats, common "drunks," pickpockets, shop-lifters, stealers of
bread, garroters, murderers,--in common equality and fraternity. In this
resting and refreshing place for vice, this caucus for the projection of
future crime, this ghastly burlesque of justice and the protection of
society, there was a man who had been convicted of a dreadful murder a
year or two before, and sentenced to twenty-one years' labor in the
State penitentiary. He had got his sentence commuted to confinement in
this prison for twenty-one years of idleness. The captain of the prison
had made him "captain of the yard." Strength, ferocity, and a terrific
record were the qualifications for this honorary office.
The gate opened. A howl of welcome came from those within, and the new
batch, the vagrant among them, entered the yard. He passed, in his turn,
to a tank of muddy water in this yard, washed away the soil and blood of
the night, and so to the cell assigned him. He was lying face downward
on its pavement, when a man with a cudgel ordered him to rise. The
vagrant sprang to his feet and confronted the captain of the yard, a
giant in breadth and stature, with no clothing but a ragged undershirt
and pantaloons.
"Get a bucket and rag and scrub out this cell!"
He flourished his cudgel. The vagrant cast a quick glance at him, and
answered quietly, but with burning face:--
"I'll die first."
A blow with the cudgel, a cry of rage, a clash together, a push, a
sledge-hammer fist in the side, another on the head, a fall out into
the yard, and the vagrant lay senseless on the flags.
When he opened his eyes again, and struggled to his feet, a gentle grasp
was on his arm. Somebody was steadying him. He turned his eyes. Ah! who
is this? A short, heavy, close-shaven man, with a woollen jacket thrown
over one shoulder and its sleeves tied together in a knot under the
other. He speaks in a low, kind tone:--
"Steady, Mr. Richling!"
Richling supported himself by a hand on the man's arm, gazed in
bewilderment at the gentle eyes that met his, and with a slow gesture of
astonishment murmured, "Ristofalo!" and dropped his head.
The Italian had just entered the prison from another station-house. With
his hand still on Richling's shoulder, and Richling's on his, he caught
the eye of the captain of the yard, who was striding quietly up and down
near by, and gave him a nod to indicate that he would soon adjust
everything to that autocrat's satisfaction. Richling, dazed and
trembling, kept his eyes still on the ground, while Ristofalo moved with
him slowly away from the squalid group that gazed after them. They went
toward the Italian's cell.
"Why are you in prison?" asked the vagrant, feebly.
"Oh, nothin' much--witness in shootin' scrape--talk 'bout aft' while."
"O Ristofalo," groaned Richling, as they entered, "my wife! my wife!
Send some bread to my wife!"
"Lie down," said the Italian, pressing softly on his shoulders; but
Richling as quietly resisted.
"She is near here, Ristofalo. You can send with the greatest ease! You
can do anything, Ristofalo,--if you only choose!"
"Lay down," said the Italian again, and pressed more heavily. The
vagrant sank limply to the pavement, his companion quickly untying the
jacket sleeves from under his own arms and wadding the garment under
Richling's head.
"Do you know what I'm in here for, Ristofalo?" moaned Richling.
"Don't know, don't care. Yo' wife know you here?" Richling shook his
head on the jacket. The Italian asked her address, and Richling gave it.
"Goin' tell her come and see you," said the Italian. "Now, you lay still
little while; I be back t'rectly." He went out into the yard again,
pushing the heavy door after him till it stood only slightly ajar,
sauntered easily around till he caught sight of the captain of the yard,
and was presently standing before him in the same immovable way in which
he had stood before Richling in Tchoupitoulas street, on the day he had
borrowed the dollar. Those who idly drew around could not hear his
words, but the "captain's" answers were intentionally audible. He
shook his head in rejection of a proposal. "No, nobody but the prisoner
himself should scrub out the cell. No, the Italian should not do it for
him. The prisoner's refusal and resistance had settled that question.
No, the knocking down had not balanced accounts at all. There was more
scrubbing to be done. It was scrubbing day. Others might scrub the yard
and the galleries, but he should scrub out the tank. And there were
other things, and worse,--menial services of the lowest kind. He should
do them when the time came, and the Italian would have to help him too.
Never mind about the law or the terms of his sentence. Those counted for
nothing there." Such was the sense of the decrees; the words were such
as may be guessed or left unguessed. The scrubbing of the cell must
commence at once. The vagrant must make up his mind to suffer. "He had
served on jury!" said the man in the undershirt, with a final flourish
of his stick. "He's got to pay dear for it."
When Ristofalo returned to his cell, its inmate, after many upstartings
from terrible dreams, that seemed to guard the threshold of slumber, had
fallen asleep. The Italian touched him gently, but he roused with a wild
start and stare.
"Ristofalo," he said, and fell a-staring again.
"You had some sleep," said the Italian.
"It's worse than being awake," said Richling. He passed his hands across
his face. "Has my wife been here?"
"No. Haven't sent yet. Must watch good chance. Git captain yard in
good-humor first, or else do on sly." The cunning Italian saw that
anything looking like early extrication would bring new fury upon
Richling. He knew _all_ the values of time. "Come," he added, "must
scrub out cell now." He ignored the heat that kindled in Richling's
eyes, and added, smiling, "You don't do it, I got to do it."
With a little more of the like kindly guile, and some wise and simple
reasoning, the Italian prevailed. Together, without objection from the
captain of the yard, with many unavailing protests from Richling, who
would now do it alone, and with Ristofalo smiling like a Chinaman at the
obscene ribaldry of the spectators in the yard, they scrubbed the cell.
Then came the tank. They had to stand in it with the water up to their
knees, and rub its sides with brickbats. Richling fell down twice in the
water, to the uproarious delight of the yard; but his companion helped
him up, and they both agreed it was the sliminess of the tank's bottom
that was to blame.
"Soon we get through we goin' to buy drink o' whisky from jailer," said
Ristofalo; "he keep it for sale. Then, after that, kin hire somebody to
go to your house; captain yard think we gittin' mo' whisky."
"Hire?" said Richling. "I haven't a cent in the world."
"I got a little--few dimes," rejoined the other.
"Then why are you here? Why are you in this part of the prison?"
"Oh, 'fraid to spend it. On'y got few dimes. Broke ag'in."
Richling stopped still with astonishment, brickbat in hand. The Italian
met his gaze with an illuminated smile. "Yes," he said, "took all I had
with me to bayou La Fourche. Coming back, slept with some men in boat.
One git up in night-time and steal everything. Then was a big fight.
Think that what fight was about--about dividing the money. Don't know
sure. One man git killed. Rest run into the swamp and prairie. Officer
arrest me for witness. Couldn't trust me to stay in the city."
"Do you think the one who was killed was the thief?"
"Don't know sure," said the Italian, with the same sweet face, and
falling to again with his brickbat,--"hope so!"
"Strange place to confine a witness!" said Richling, holding his hand to
his bruised side and slowly straightening his back.
"Oh, yes, good place," replied the other, scrubbing away; "git him, in
short time, so he swear to anything."
It was far on in the afternoon before the wary Ristofalo ventured to
offer all he had in his pocket to a hanger-on of the prison office, to
go first to Richling's house, and then to an acquaintance of his own,
with messages looking to the procuring of their release. The messenger
chose to go first to Ristofalo's friend, and afterward to Mrs. Riley's.
It was growing dark when he reached the latter place. Mary was out in
the city somewhere, wandering about, aimless and distracted, in search
of Richling. The messenger left word with Mrs. Riley. Richling had all
along hoped that that good friend, doubtless acquainted with the most
approved methods of finding a missing man, would direct Mary to the
police station at the earliest practicable hour. But time had shown
that she had not done so. No, indeed! Mrs. Riley counted herself too
benevolently shrewd for that. While she had made Mary's suspense of
the night less frightful than it might have been, by surmises that
Mr. Richling had found some form of night-work,--watching some pile
of freight or some unfinished building,--she had come, secretly, to a
different conviction, predicated on her own married experiences; and if
Mr. Richling had, in a moment of gloom, tipped the bowl a little too
high, as her dear lost husband, the best man that ever walked, had often
done, and had been locked up at night to be let out in the morning, why,
give him a chance! Let him invent his own little fault-hiding romance
and come home with it. Mary was frantic. She could not be kept in; but
Mrs. Riley, by prolonged effort, convinced her it was best not to call
upon Dr. Sevier until she could be sure some disaster had actually
occurred, and sent her among the fruiterers and oystermen in vain search
for Raphael Ristofalo. Thus it was that the Doctor's morning messenger
to the Richlings, bearing word that if any one were sick he would call
without delay, was met by Mrs. Riley only, and by the reassuring
statement that both of them were out. The later messenger, from the two
men in prison, brought back word of Mary's absence from the house, of
her physical welfare, and Mrs. Riley's promise that Mary should visit
the prison at the earliest hour possible. This would not be till the
next morning.
While Mrs. Riley was sending this message, Mary, a great distance away,
was emerging from the darkening and silent streets of the river front
and moving with timid haste across the broad levee toward the edge of
the water at the steam-boat landing. In this season of depleted streams
and idle waiting, only an occasional boat lifted its lofty, black,
double funnels against the sky here and there, leaving wide stretches of
unoccupied wharf-front between. Mary hurried on, clear out to the great
wharf's edge, and looked forth upon the broad, softly moving harbor. The
low waters spread out and away, to and around the opposite point, in
wide surfaces of glassy purples and wrinkled bronze. Beauty, that joy
forever, is sometimes a terror. Was the end of her search somewhere
underneath that fearful glory? She clasped her hands, bent down with
dry, staring eyes, then turned again and fled homeward. She swerved once
toward Dr. Sevier's quarters, but soon decided to see first if there
were any tidings with Mrs. Riley, and so resumed her course. Night
overtook her in streets where every footstep before or behind her made
her tremble; but at length she crossed the threshold of Mrs. Riley's
little parlor. Mrs. Riley was standing in the door, and retreated a step
or two backward as Mary entered with a look of wild inquiry.
"Not come?" cried the wife.
"Mrs. Richlin'," said the widow, hurriedly, "yer husband's alive and
found."
Mary seized her frantically by the shoulders, crying with high-pitched
voice:--
"Where is he?--where is he?"
"Ya can't see um till marning, Mrs. Richlin'."
"Where is he?" cried Mary, louder than before.
"Me dear," said Mrs. Riley, "ye kin easy git him out in the marning."
"Mrs. Riley," said Mary, holding her with her eye, "is my husband in
prison?--O Lord God! O God! my God!"
Mrs. Riley wept. She clasped the moaning, sobbing wife to her bosom, and
with streaming eyes said:--
"Mrs. Richlin', me dear, Mrs. Richlin', me dear, what wad I give to have
my husband this night where your husband is!"