At last, ninety-three days after her departure from St. Martin de Re, the Loire cast anchor in the Bay of Noumea. The town, perched on the slope of a hill, is quite picturesque with its flat-roofed white houses that are shaded by gigantic cocoanut trees, and half hidden by huge bushes of a kind of scarlet rhododendron of a singular luxuriance and beauty. Owing to the frequence of cyclones and tornadoes no building is more than one-story high, even the church tower having been razed to the ground by a storm which took place a short time before Frederick reached the colony.
The young man, however, had no opportunity of examining the town more closely. For shortly before midday the convicts were placed on barges rowed by naked savages, and conveyed to the barren and desolate Island of Nou, distant about an hour from the city. On landing the convicts were taken to a shed where they were ordered to strip. Their bodies were then plentifully besprinkled with the most nauseating kind of insect powder, after which they were furnished with their new kit, consisting of coarse canvas trousers, jackets and shirts, straw hats, wooden shoes, hammocks and dingy-colored blankets. They were then locked up by batches of sixty in long, low buildings, the small windows of which were heavily barred.
There they were left without either food or water until the following morning. The night was horrible. The most impenetrable darkness prevailed, no lantern or any kind of light having been provided to dispel the gloom. The [Pg 101] heat and foul odors due to the want of proper ventilation were indescribable, and the men, driven almost frantic by thirst and hunger, rendered the long, weary hours of the night still more hideous with their yells, oaths, and execrations. At about 2 o'clock in the morning a fearful cry of agony rang through the building:
“Help! Help! They are killing me! Let me go, cowards! Help for the love of God!”
A great silence followed this heart-rending appeal, which was only broken by the sound of a few shuddering gasps. A few minutes later the pandemonium broke loose again with increased violence and continued until morning. When day began to pierce through the grated windows the cause of the awful cries for help which had made the blood of even some of the most hardened criminals run cold became apparent. Stretched on the ground, with his open eyes distended by pain and terror, lay the dead body of the convict who during the voyage out had volunteered to act as the “corrector” on the occasion of the flogging of Frederick and of the three men who attempted to escape with him in the harbor of Santa Cruz. Death had evidently been caused by strangulation, for purple finger-marks were plainly visible on the victim's throat.
At 6 o'clock the doors were thrown open, and the warders ordered the prisoners to file out into the open air. After having been ranged in line, the roll was called. The several numerals by which the respective convicts were known were called forth and responded to by their owners. Suddenly there was a pause caused by the failure of No. 21,265, to answer the summons.
“Where the devil is No. 21,265?” shouted the head warder, in an angry tone of voice.
The convicts remained silent.
Fearing that the missing man had escaped, several of the “gardes-chiourmes” (sub-warders) rushed into the building [Pg 102] where the prisoners had spent the night, and reappeared a few moments later bearing the body of the murdered man.
Of course the convicts one and all denied any knowledge as to how their comrade had come to his death, and as it was impossible to discover which of the sixty prisoners had been the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed, a report was made to the governor stating that a fight had taken place among the newly arrived convicts during the night, in the course of which one of their number had met his death. To tell the truth, the affair attracted but little attention on the part of the authorities. After all, it was but a convict the less. As, however, it was deemed necessary to take some notice of the matter, the ten prisoners who had the largest number of black marks against their name, and among whom was Frederick, were sentenced to undergo the following punishment. Their hands were tightly secured behind their backs and fastened to a chain attached to iron rings in the exterior wall of the building in which the murder had been committed. The chains were sufficiently loose to enable them either to squat on the ground or to stand upright. But being unable to use their hands to convey their miserable pittance of bread and water to their mouths, they were forced to bend their faces down to the ground in order to seize the bread with their teeth and to lap up the water like dogs.
FREDERICK UNDERGOING PUNISHMENT.
In defiance of all notions of humanity or decency they were left bound in this cruel manner for seven days and seven nights, exposed to the weather and unable to defend themselves from the bites of the myriads of musquitoes and other aggressive insects.
When, at the end of this week of indescribable torture, they were released, five of their number, including Frederick, were in such a state as to necessitate their being sent to the hospital. Frederick, who possessed a wonderfully strong constitution and powerful physique, soon recovered. [Pg 103] Two of his companions, however, had their arms paralyzed for the remainder of their lives from the effects of this appalling treatment.
For two long years Frederick remained on the Island of Nou, subject to the never-ending tyranny and brutality of the jailers and overseers, who are recruited from the very lowest ranks of society. The slightest appearance of hesitation or failure on the part of the convict to submit to every caprice of the “chiourme” was immediately interpreted as an act of insubordination, and formed the subject of daily reports to the superintendent, who responded thereto by sending vouchers either for a flogging or for an imprisonment during a certain number of days in the dark punishment cell.
[Pg 104]
One day matters came to a climax. Frederick, with a gang of about twelve others, was engaged on the main landing in breaking stones for the construction of a new road. Two warders with loaded rifles kept watch over them. One of the two, however, seeing the men quietly at work withdrew after a while to a neighboring farm-house, which belonged to an ex-convict who was still under the supervision of the police.
The fate of these liberated convicts is scarcely a happy one. For although they are permitted to summon to their side the wife, sisters, or children whom they may have left behind them in France, or, if they prefer it, to marry some female ex-convict, yet their womankind are entirely subject to the caprices and passions of the various prison functionaries. Even the very lowest sub-warder has it in his power to force these unfortunate people to submit to his demands, no matter how outrageous their nature may be, since any refusal would inevitably entail a denunciation, accusing either the husband or wife, or possibly both, of acts of insubordination. Needless to add that the word of persons who are under police supervision and who are deprived of their civil rights has no weight whatsoever when opposed by that of a prison official.
One of the warders having, as has been stated above, retired to a neighboring farm-house, his companion sat down under the shade of some bushes which grew at the top of a small mound, whence he could exercise a careful watch over the men intrusted to his charge. The heat was overpowering, and from time to time he refreshed himself wit............