A year
all alone! Can this be possible? What would they have one think of when one
is all alone?"
"If they were to put you there by force?"
"I would not remain. I would make such use of my feet and hands that I
would escape," said Skeleton.
"But if you could not--if you were sure that you could not escape?"
"Then I would kill the first one I could, in order to be guillotined."
"But if, instead of condemning the red-handed to death, they condemned them
to a solitary cell for life?"
Skeleton seemed to be staggered by this reflection. After amoment's pause
he replied:
"Then I do not know what I should do. I would break my head against the
walls. I would allow myself to die with hunger rather than be in a cell.
How? All alone--all my life alone with myself? without the hope of escape?
I tell you it is not possible. You know there is no one bolder than I am. I
would bleed a man for a crown, and even for nothing, for honor. They think
that I have only assassinated two persons; but if the dead could speak,
there are five who could tell how I work." The brigand boasted of his
crimes. These sanguinary egotisms are among the most characteristic traits
of hardened criminals. A prison governor told us,"If the pretended murders
of which these wretches boast were real, population would be decimated."
"So I say," replied Barbillon, boasting in his turn; "they think that I
only laid out the milkwoman's husband in the city; but I have served many
others out, with Big Robert, who was shortened last year.
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