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Updated: July 24, 2025
Carbourd has suffered too much the galleys, the corde, the triangle, everything but the guillotine. Carbourd has a wife and children ah, yes, you know all about it. You remember that letter she sent: I can recall every word; can you?" The girl paused, and then with a rapt sympathy in her face repeated slowly: "I am ill, and our children cry for food.
A couple of hours later Laflamme rose from a hammock in his hut, and leant over the young lad, who was sleeping. He touched him gently. The lad waked: "Yes, yes, monsieur." "I am going away, my friend." "To escape like Carbourd?" "Yes, I hope, like Carbourd." "May I not go also, monsieur? I am not afraid." "No, lad. If there must be death one is enough. You must stay. Good-bye."
He had lately borne a letter from the Commandant, which permitted him to go from point to point outside the peninsula of Ducos, where the least punished of the political prisoners were kept. He depended somewhat on this for his escape. Carbourd had been more heroic, but then Carbourd was desperate. Laflamme believed more in ability than force.
Then stealthy steps were heard, and a voice said: "Ah, mademoiselle!" "You are Carbourd?" "As you see, mademoiselle." "You escaped safely then from the rifle-shot? Where is the soldier?" "He fell into the river. He was drowned." "You are telling me truth?" "Yes, he stumbled in and sank on my soul!" "You did not try to save him?"
Then stealthy steps were heard, and a voice said: "Ah, mademoiselle!" "You are Carbourd?" "As you see, mademoiselle." "You escaped safely then from the rifle-shot? Where is the soldier?" "He fell into the river. He was drowned." "You are telling me truth?" "Yes, he stumbled in and sank on my soul!" "You did not try to save him?"
Then, noticing how at his brusqueness the paleness of her face changed to a startled flush for an instant, his generosity conquered, and he added gently: "Well, I fancied he would try, but what do you know about that, Marie?" "He and Carbourd were friends. They were chained together in the galleys, they lived at first together here. They would risk life to return to France."
"I'll strike a match so that you can see I'm not a bushranger. There has been shooting in the grounds. Did you hear it?" "Yes. A soldier firing at Carbourd." "You saw him?" "Yes. He could not find the Cave. I directed him. Immediately after he was fired upon." "He can't have been hit. There are no signs of him. There, that's lighter and better, isn't it?" "I do not know."
She was thinking of something else. She was not merely sentimental, for she said, as if she had heard the words of the Governor and Madame Solde: "Oh! if it could be saved!" There was a rustle in the shrubbery near her. She turned towards the sound. A man came quickly towards her. "I am Carbourd," he said; "I could not find the way to the Cave. They were after me. They have tracked me.
He had been set to labour in the nickel mines; but that came near to killing him, and again through Laflamme's pleading he had been made a prisoner of the first class, and so relieved of all heavy tasks. Not even he suspected the immediate relations of Laflamme and Carbourd; nor that Laflamme was preparing for escape.
This speech brought another weighty matter to Carbourd's mind. He said: "I do not wish to distress you, but " "Now, Carbourd, what is the matter? Faugh! this place smells musty. What's that a tomb? Speak out, Citizen Carbourd." "It is this: Mademoiselle Wyndham is blind." Carbourd told the story with a great anxiety in his words. "The poor mademoiselle is it so? A thousand pities!
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