The Burial of the Rats

by Bram Stoker

Leaving Paris by the Orleans road, cross the Enceinte, and, turning  to the right, you find yourself in a somewhat wild and not at all savoury district. Right and left, before and behind, on every side rise great heaps of dust and waste accumulated by the process of time.

Paris has its night as well as its day life, and the sojourner who enters his hotel in the Rue de Rivoli or the Rue St. Honore late at  night or leaves it early in the morning, can guess, in coming near  Montrouge-if he has not done so already-the purpose of those great  waggons that look like boilers on wheels which he finds halting  everywhere as he passes.

Every city has its peculiar institutions created out of its own  needs; and one of the most notable institutions of Paris is its  rag-picking population. In the early morning-and Parisian life  commences at an early hour-may be seen in most streets standing on  the pathway opposite every court and alley and between every few  houses, as still in some American cities, even in parts of New York,  large wooden boxes into which the domestics or tenement-holders empty  the accumulated dust of the past day. Round these boxes gather and  pass on, when the work is done, to fresh fields of labour and pastures  new, squalid, hungry-looking men and women, the implements of whose  craft consist of a coarse bag or basket slung over the shoulder and  a little rake with which they turn over and probe and examine in the  minutest manner the dustbins. They pick up and deposit in their  baskets, by aid of their rakes, whatever they may find, with the  same facility as a Chinaman uses his chopsticks.

Paris is a city of centralisation-and centralisation and  classification are closely allied. In the early times, when  centralisation is becoming a fact, its forerunner is classification. All things which are similar or analogous become grouped together,  and from the grouping of groups rises one whole or central point.  We see radiating many long arms with innumerable tentaculae, and in  the centre rises a gigantic head with a comprehensive brain and  keen eyes to look on every side and ears sensitive to hear-and a  voracious mouth to swallow.

Other cities resemble all the birds and beasts and fishes whose appetites and digestions are normal. Paris alone is the analogical apotheosis of the octopus. Product of centralisation carried to an ad absurdum, it fairly represents the devil fish; and in no respects  is the resemblance more curious than in the similarity of the  digestive apparatus.

Those intelligent tourists who, having surrendered their  individuality into the hands of Messrs. Cook or Gaze, ‘do’ Paris  in three days, are often puzzled to know how it is that the dinner which in London would cost about six shillings, can be had for  three francs in a cafe in the Palais Royal. They need have no more wonder if they will but consider the classification which is a  theoretic speciality of Parisian life, and adopt all round the  fact from which the chiffonier has his genesis.

The Paris of 1850 was not like the Paris of to-day, and those who  see the Paris of Napoleon and Baron Haussmann can hardly realise the  existence of the state of things forty-five years ago.

Amongst other things, however, which have not changed are those  districts where the waste is gathered. Dust is dust all the world  over, in every age, and the family likeness of dust-heaps is perfect.  The traveller, therefore, who visits the environs of Montrouge can  go back in fancy without difficulty to the year 1850.

In this year I was making a prolonged stay in Paris. I was very  much in love with a young lady who, though she returned my passion,  so far yielded to the wishes of her parents that she had promised  not to see me or to correspond with me for a year. I, too, had  been compelled to accede to these conditions under a vague hope of  parental approval. During the term of probation I had promised to  remain out of the country and not to write to my dear one until  the expiration of the year.

Naturally the time went heavily with me. There was no one of my  own family or circle who could tell me of Alice, and none of her own  folk had, I am sorry to say, sufficient generosity to send me even  an occasional word of comfort regarding her health and well-being.  I spent six months wandering about Europe, but as I could find no  satisfactory distraction in travel, I determined to come to Paris,  where, at least, I would be within easy hail of London in case any  good fortune should call me thither before the appointed time. That  ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick’ was never better exemplified  than in my case, for in addition to the perpetual longing to see the  face I loved there was always with me a harrowing anxiety lest some  accident should prevent me showing Alice in due time that I had,  throughout the long period of probation, been faithful to her trust  and my own love. Thus, every adventure which I undertook had a fierce  pleasure of its own, for it was fraught with possible consequences  greater than it would have ordinarily borne.

Like all travellers I exhausted the places of most interest in the first month of my stay, and was driven in the second month to look  for amusement whithersoever I might. Having made sundry journeys to  the better-known suburbs, I began to see that there was a terra  incognita, in so far as the guide book was concerned, in the social  wilderness lying between these attractive points. Accordingly I began  to systematise my researches, and each day took up the thread of my  exploration at the place where I had on the previous day dropped it.

In process of time my wanderings led me near Montrouge, and I saw  that hereabouts lay the Ultima Thule of social exploration-a country  as little known as that round the source of the White Nile. And so  I determined to investigate philosophically the chiffonier-his  habitat, his life, and his means of life.

The job was an unsavoury one, difficult of accomplishment,  and with little hope of adequate reward. However, despite reason,  obstinacy prevailed, and I entered into my new investigation with  a keener energy than I could have summoned to aid me in any  investigation leading to any end, valuable or worthy.

One day, late in a fine afternoon, toward the end of September,  I entered the holy of holies of the city of dust. The place was  evidently the recognised abode of a number of chiffoniers, for some  sort of arrangement was manifested in the formation of the dust  heaps near the road. I passed amongst these heaps, which stood like  orderly sentries, determined to penetrate further and trace dust  to its ultimate location.

As I passed along I saw behind the dust heaps a few forms that  flitted to and fro, evidently watching with interest the advent  of any stranger to such a place. The district was like a small  Switzerland, and as I went forward my tortuous course shut out the path behind me.

Presently I got into what seemed a small city or community of chiffoniers. There were a number of shanties or huts, such as may be  met with in the remote parts of the Bog of Allan-rude places with  wattled walls, plastered with mud and roofs of rude thatch made from  stable refuse-such places as one would not like to enter for any  consideration, and which even in water-colour could only look  picturesque if judiciously treated. In the midst of these huts was  one of the strangest adaptations-I cannot say habitations-I had  ever seen. An immense old wardrobe, the colossal remnant of some  boudoir of Charles VII. or Henry II., had been converted into a  dwelling-house. The double doors lay open, so that the entire menage  was open to public view. In the open half of the wardrobe was a  common sitting-room of some four feet by six, in which sat, smoking  their pipes round a charcoal brazier, no fewer than six old soldiers  of the First Republic, with their uniforms torn and worn threadbare.  Evidently they were of the mauvais sujet class; their blear eyes and  limp jaws told plainly of a common love of absinthe; and their eyes  had that haggard, worn look which stamps the drunkard at his worst,  and that look of slumbering ferocity which follows hard in the wake  of drink. The other side stood as of old, with its shelves intact,  save that they were cut to half their depth, and in each shelf of  which there were six, was a bed made with rags and straw. The  half-dozen of worthies who inhabited this structure looked at me  curiously as I passed; and when I looked back after going a little  way I saw their heads together in a whispered conference. I did not  like the look of this at all, for the place was very lonely, and the  men looked very, very villainous. However, I did not see any cause  for fear, and went on my way, penetrating further and further into  the Sahara. The way was tortuous to a degree, and from going round  in a series of semi-circles, as one goes in skating with the Dutch  roll, I got rather confused with regard to the points of the compass.

When I had penetrated a little way I saw, as I turned the corner  of a half-made heap, sitting on a heap of straw an old soldier with  threadbare coat.

‘Hallo!’ said I to myself; ‘the First Republic is well represented  here in its soldiery.’

As I passed him the old man never even looked up at me, but gazed  on the ground with stolid persistency. Again I remarked to myself:  ‘See what a life of rude warfare can do! This old man’s curiosity  is a thing of the past.’

When I had gone a few steps, however, I looked back suddenly, and  saw that curiosity was not dead, for the veteran had raised his head  and was regarding me with a very queer expression. He seemed to me to  look very like one of the six worthies in the press. When he saw me  looking he dropped his head; and without thinking further of him I  went on my way, satisfied that there was a strange likeness between  these old warriors.

Presently I met another old soldier in a similar manner. He, too,  did not notice me whilst I was passing.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon, and I began  to think of retracing my steps. Accordingly I turned to go back, but could see a number of tracks leading between different mounds and  could not ascertain which of them I should take. In my perplexity  I wanted to see someone of whom to ask the way, but could see no  one. I determined to go on a few mounds further and so try to see  someone-not a veteran.

I gained my object, for after going a couple of hundred yards  I saw before me a single shanty such as I had seen before-with,  however, the difference that this was not one for living in, but merely a roof with three walls open in front. From the evidences which the neighbourhood exhibited I took it to be a place for sorting. Within it was an old woman wrinkled and bent with age;  I approached her to ask the way.

She rose as I came close and I asked her my way. She immediately  commenced a conversation; and it occurred to me that here in the very  centre of the Kingdom of Dust was the place to gather details of the  history of Parisian rag-picking-particularly as I could do so from  the lips of one who looked like the oldest inhabitant.

  I began my inquiries, and the old woman gave me most interesting  answers-she had been one of the ceteuces who sat daily before the  guillotine and had taken an active part among the women who  signalised themselves by their violence in the revolution. While  we were talking she said suddenly: ‘But m’sieur must be tired  standing,’ and dusted a rickety old stool for me to sit down. I  hardly liked to do so for many reasons; but the poor old woman was  so civil that I did not like to run the risk of hurting her by  refusing, and moreover the conversation of one who had been at the  taking of the Bastille was so interesting that I sat down and so  our conversation went on.

While we were talking an old man-older and more bent and wrinkled  even than the woman-appeared from behind the shanty. ‘Here is  Pierre,’ said she. ‘M’sieur can hear stories now if he wishes, for  Pierre was in everything, from the Bastille to Waterloo.’ The old  man took another stool at my request and we plunged into a sea of  revolutionary reminiscences. This old man, albeit clothed like a  scare-crow, was like any one of the six veterans.

I was now sitting in the centre of the low hut with the woman on my left hand and the man on my right, each of them being somewhat  in front of me. The place was full of all sorts of curious objects  of lumber, and of many things that I wished far away. In one corner  was a heap of rags which seemed to move from the number of vermin  it contained, and in the other a heap of bones whose odour was  something shocking. Every now and then, glancing at the heaps, I  could see the gleaming eyes of some of the rats which infested the  place. These loathsome objects were bad enough, but what looked even  more dreadful was an old butcher’s axe with an iron handle stained  with clots of blood leaning up against the wall on the right hand  side. Still these things did not give me much concern. The talk of  the two old people was so fascinating that I stayed on and on, till  the evening came and the dust heaps threw dark shadows over the vales  between them.

After a time I began to grow uneasy, I could not tell how or why, but somehow I did not feel satisfied. Uneasiness is an instinct and  means warning. The psychic faculties are often the sentries of the  intellect; and when they sound alarm the reason begins to act,  although perhaps not consciously.

This was so with me. I began to bethink me where I was and by  what surrounded, and to wonder how I should fare in case I should  be attacked; and then the thought suddenly burst upon me, although  without any overt cause, that I was in danger. Prudence whispered:  ‘Be still and make no sign,’ and so I was still and made no sign,  for I knew that four cunning eyes were on me. ‘Four eyes-if not  more.’ My God, what a horrible thought! The whole shanty might be  surrounded on three sides with villains! I might be in the midst  of a band of such desperadoes as only half a century of periodic  revolution can produce.

With a sense of danger my intellect and observation quickened, and  I grew more watchful than was my wont. I noticed that the old woman’s  eyes were constantly wandering toward my hands. I looked at them too,  and saw the cause-my rings. On my left little finger I had a large  signet and on the right a good diamond.

I thought that if there was any danger my first care was to avert suspicion. Accordingly I began to work the conversation round to  rag-picking-to the drains-of the things found there; and so by easy  stages to jewels. Then, seizing a favourable opportunity, I asked  the old woman if she knew anything of such things. She answered that  she did, a little. I held out my right hand, and, showing her the  diamond, asked her what she thought of that. She answered that her  eyes were bad, and stooped over my hand. I said as nonchalantly as  I could: ‘Pardon me! You will see better thus!’ and taking it off  handed it to her. An unholy light came into her withered old face,  as she touched it. She stole one glance at me swift and keen as a  flash of lightning.

She bent over the ring for a moment, her face quite concealed as  though examining it. The old man looked straight out of the front  of the shanty before him, at the same time fumbling in his pockets  and producing a screw of tobacco in a paper and a pipe, which he  proceeded to fill. I took advantage of the pause and the momentary  rest from the searching eyes on my face to look carefully round the  place, now dim and shadowy in the gloaming. There still lay all the  heaps of varied reeking foulness; there the terrible blood-stained  axe leaning against the wall in the right hand corner, and everywhere,  despite the gloom, the baleful glitter of the eyes of the rats. I  could see them even through some of the chinks of the boards at the  back low down close to the ground. But stay! these latter eyes seemed  more than usually large and bright and baleful!

For an instant my heart stood still, and I felt in that whirling condition of mind in which one feels a sort of spiritual drunkenness,  and as though the body is only maintained erect in that there is no  time for it to fall before recovery. Then, in another second, I was  calm-coldly calm, with all my energies in full vigour, with a  self-control which I felt to be perfect and with all my feeling  and instincts alert.

Now I knew the full extent of my danger: I was watched and  surrounded by desperate people! I could not even guess at how many  of them were lying there on the ground behind the shanty, waiting  for the moment to strike. I knew that I was big and strong, and they  knew it, too. They knew also, as I did, that I was an Englishman  and would make a fight for it; and so we waited. I had, I felt,  gained an advantage in the last few seconds, for I knew my danger  and understood the situation. Now, I thought, is the test of my  courage-the enduring test: the fighting test may come later!

The old woman raised her head and said to me in a satisfied kind  of way:

‘A very fine ring, indeed-a beautiful ring! Oh, me! I once had  such rings, plenty of them, and bracelets and earrings! Oh! for in those fine days I led the town a dance! But they’ve forgotten me now!  They’ve forgotten me! They? Why they never heard of me! Perhaps their  grandfathers remember me, some of them!’ and she laughed a harsh,  croaking laugh. And then I am bound to say that she astonished me,  for she handed me back the ring with a certain suggestion of  old-fashioned grace which was not without its pathos.

The old man eyed her with a sort of sudden ferocity, half rising from his stool, and said to me suddenly and hoarsely:

‘Let me see!’

I was about to hand the ring when the old woman said:

‘No! no, do not give it to Pierre! Pierre is eccentric. He loses things; and such a pretty ring!’

‘Cat!’ said the old man, savagely. Suddenly the old woman said, rather more loudly than was necessary:

‘Wait! I shall tell you something about a ring.’ There was  something in the sound other voice that jarred upon me. Perhaps  it was my hyper-sensitiveness, wrought up as I was to such a pitch  of nervous excitement, but I seemed to think that she was not  addressing me. As I stole a glance round the place I saw the eyes of the rats in the bone heaps, but missed the eyes along the back. But even as I looked I saw them again appear. The old woman’s ‘Wait!’ had given me a respite from attack, and the men had sunk back to their reclining posture.

‘I once lost a ring-a beautiful diamond hoop that had belonged  to a queen, and which was given to me by a farmer of the taxes, who  afterwards cut his throat because I sent him away. I thought it must  have been stolen, and taxed my people; but I could get no trace.  The police came and suggested that it had found its way to the  drain. We descended-I in my fine clothes, for I would not trust  them with my beautiful ring! I know more of the drains since then,  and of rats, too! but I shall never forget the horror of that  place-alive with blazing eyes, a wall of them just outside the  light of our torches. Well, we got beneath my house. We searched  the outlet of the drain, and there in the filth found my ring, and  we came out.

‘But we found something else also before we came! As we were  coming toward the opening a lot of sewer rats-human ones this  time-came toward us. They told the police that one of their number  had gone into the drain, but had not returned. He had gone in only  shortly before we had, and, if lost, could hardly be far off. They  asked help to seek him, so we turned back. They tried to prevent me  going, but I insisted. It was a new excitement, and had I not  recovered my ring? Not far did we go till we came on something.  There was but little water, and the bottom of the drain was raised  with brick, rubbish, and much matter of the kind. He had made a  fight for it, even when his torch had gone out. But they were too  many for him! They had not been long about it! The bones were still  warm; but they were picked clean. They had even eaten their own dead  ones and there were bones of rats as well as of the man. They took  it cool enough those other-the human ones-and joked of their comrade  when they found him dead, though they would have helped him living.  Bah! what matters it-life or death?’

‘And had you no fear?’ I asked her.

‘Fear!’ she said with a laugh. ‘Me have fear? Ask Pierre! But I was younger then, and, as I came through that horrible drain with its wall of greedy eyes, always moving with the circle of the light from the torches, I did not feel easy. I kept on before the men, though! It is a way I have! I never let the men get it before me. All I want is a chance and a means! And they ate him up-took every  trace away except the bones; and no one knew it, nor no sound of  him was ever heard!’ Here she broke into a chuckling fit of the  ghastliest merriment which it was ever my lot to hear and see. A  great poetess describes her heroine singing: ‘Oh! to see or hear  her singing! Scarce I know which is the divinest.’

And I can apply the same idea to the old crone-in all save the divinity, for I scarce could tell which was the most hellish-the harsh, malicious, satisfied, cruel laugh, or the leering grin, and the horrible square opening of the mouth like a tragic mask, and the yellow gleam of the few discoloured teeth in the shapeless gums.  In that laugh and with that grin and the chuckling satisfaction I  knew as well as if it had been spoken to me in words of thunder that  my murder was settled, and the murderers only bided the proper time  for its accomplishment. I could read between the lines of her  gruesome story the commands to her accomplices. ‘Wait,’ she seemed  to say, ‘bide your time. I shall strike the first blow. Find the  weapon for me, and I shall make the opportunity! He shall not  escape! Keep him quiet, and then no one will be wiser. There will  be no outcry, and the rats will do their work!’

It was growing darker and darker; the night was coming. I stole a glance round the shanty, still all the same! The bloody axe in the corner, the heaps of filth, and the eyes on the bone heaps and in the crannies of the floor.

Pierre had been still ostensibly filling his pipe; he now struck a light and began to puff away at it. The old woman said:

‘Dear heart, how dark it is! Pierre, like a good lad, light the lamp!’

Pierre got up and with the lighted match in his hand touched the  wick of a lamp which hung at one side of the entrance to the shanty,  and which had a reflector that threw the light all over the place.  It was evidently that which was used for their sorting at night.

‘Not that, stupid! Not that! The lantern!’ she called out to him.

He immediately blew it out, saying: ‘All right, mother, I’ll find it,’ and he hustled about the left corner of the room-the old woman  saying through the darkness:

‘The lantern! the lantern! Oh! That is the light that is most  useful to us poor folks. The lantern was the friend of the  revolution! It is the friend of the chiffonier! It helps us when  all else fails.’

Hardly had she said the word when there was a kind of creaking of the whole place, and something was steadily dragged over the roof.

Again I seemed to read between the lines of her words. I knew the  lesson of the lantern.

‘One of you get on the roof with a noose and strangle him as he  passes out if we fail within.’

As I looked out of the opening I saw the loop of a rope outlined black against the lurid sky. I was now, indeed, beset!

Pierre was not long in finding the lantern. I kept my eyes fixed through the darkness on the old woman. Pierre struck his light, and  by its flash I saw the old woman raise from the ground beside her  where it had mysteriously appeared, and then hide in the folds other  gown, a long sharp knife or dagger. It seemed to be like a butcher’s  sharpening iron fined to a keen point.

The lantern was lit.

‘Bring it here, Pierre,’ she said. ‘Place it in the doorway where we can see it. See how nice it is! It shuts out the darkness from us; it is just right!’

Just right for her and her purposes! It threw all its light on my face, leaving in gloom the faces of both Pierre and the woman, who  sat outside of me on each side.

I felt that the time of action was approaching; but I knew now that the first signal and movement would come from the woman, and  so watched her.

I was all unarmed, but I had made up my mind what to do. At the  first movement I would seize the butcher’s axe in the right-hand  corner and fight my way out. At least, I would die hard. I stole a  glance round to fix its exact locality so that I could not fail to  seize it at the first effort, for then, if ever, time and accuracy would be precious.

Good God! It was gone! All the horror of the situation burst  upon me; but the bitterest thought of all was that if the issue of  the terrible position should be against me Alice would infallibly  suffer. Either she would believe me false-and any lover, or any one  who has ever been one, can imagine the bitterness of the thought-or  else she would go on loving long after I had been lost to her and  to the world, so that her life would be broken and embittered,  shattered with disappointment and despair. The very magnitude of  the pain braced me up and nerved me to bear the dread scrutiny of  the plotters.

I think I did not betray myself. The old woman was watching me  as a cat does a mouse; she had her right hand hidden in the folds of  her gown, clutching, I knew, that long, cruel-looking dagger. Had  she seen any disappointment in my face she would, I felt, have known  that the moment had come, and would have sprung on me like a tigress,  certain of taking me unprepared.

I looked out into the night, and there I saw new cause for  danger. Before and around the hut were at a little distance some  shadowy forms; they were quite still, but I knew that they were  all alert and on guard. Small chance for me now in that direction.

Again I stole a glance round the place. In moments of great excitement and of great danger, which is excitement, the mind works very quickly, and the keenness of the faculties which  depend on the mind grows in proportion. I now felt this. In an  instant I took in the whole situation. I saw that the axe had  been taken through a small hole made in one of the rotten boards.  How rotten they must be to allow of such a thing being done  without a particle of noise.

The hut was a regular murder-trap, and was guarded all around.  A garroter lay on the roof ready to entangle me with his noose if  I should escape the dagger of the old hag. In front the way was  guarded by I know not how many watchers. And at the back was a row  of desperate men-I had seen their eyes still through the crack in  the boards of the floor, when last I looked-as they lay prone  waiting for the signal to start erect. If it was to be ever, now  for it!

As nonchalantly as I could I turned slightly on my stool so as to get my right leg well under me. Then with a sudden jump, turning my  head, and guarding it with my hands, and with the fighting instinct  of the knights of old, I breathed my lady’s name, and hurled myself  against the back wall of the hut.

Watchful as they were, the suddenness of my movement surprised  both Pierre and the old woman. As I crashed through the rotten  timbers I saw the old woman rise with a leap like a tiger and heard  her low gasp of baffled rage. My feet lit on something that moved,  and as I jumped away I knew that I had stepped on the back of one of  the row of men lying on their faces outside the hut. I was torn with  nails and splinters, but otherwise unhurt. Breathless I rushed up  the mound in front of me, hearing as I went the dull crash of the  shanty as it collapsed into a mass.

It was a nightmare climb. The mound, though but low, was awfully  steep, and with each step I took the mass of dust and cinders tore  down with me and gave way under my feet. The dust rose and choked me;  it was sickening, foetid, awful; but my climb was, I felt, for life  or death, and I struggled on. The seconds seemed hours; but the few  moments I had in starting, combined with my youth and strength, gave  me a great advantage, and, though several forms struggled after me  in deadly silence which was more dreadful than any sound, I easily  reached the top. Since then I have climbed the cone of Vesuvius,  and as I struggled up that dreary steep amid the sulphurous fumes  the memory of that awful night at Montrouge came back to me so  vividly that I almost grew faint.

The mound was one of the tallest in the region of dust, and as I struggled to the top, panting for breath and with my heart beating like a sledge-hammer, I saw away to my left the dull red gleam of the sky, and nearer still the flashing of lights. Thank God! I knew where I was now and where lay the road to Paris!

For two or three seconds I paused and looked back. My pursuers  were still well behind me, but struggling up resolutely, and in  deadly silence. Beyond, the shanty was a wreck-a mass of timber and  moving forms. I could see it well, for flames were already bursting  out; the rags and straw had evidently caught fire from the lantern.  Still silence there! Not a sound! These old wretches could die game,  anyhow.

I had no time for more than a passing glance, for as I cast an  eye round the mound preparatory to making my descent I saw several  dark forms rushing round on either side to cut me off on my way.  It was now a race for life. They were trying to head me on my way  to Paris, and with the instinct of the moment I dashed down to the  right-hand side. I was just in time, for, though I came as it seemed  to me down the steep in a few steps, the wary old men who were  watching me turned back, and one, as I rushed by into the opening  between the two mounds in front, almost struck me a blow with that  terrible butcher’s axe. There could surely not be two such weapons  about!

Then began a really horrible chase. I easily ran ahead of the  old men, and even when some younger ones and a few women joined in  the hunt I easily distanced them. But I did not know the way, and  I could not even guide myself by the light in the sky, for I was  running away from it. I had heard that, unless of conscious purpose,  hunted men turn always to the left, and so I found it now; and  so, I suppose, knew also my pursuers, who were more animals than  men, and with cunning or instinct had found out such secrets for  themselves: for on finishing a quick spurt, after which I intended  to take a moment’s breathing space, I suddenly saw ahead of me two  or three forms swiftly passing behind a mound to the right.

I was in the spider’s web now indeed! But with the thought of  this new danger came the resource of the hunted, and so I darted  down the next turning to the right. I continued in this direction  for some hundred yards, and then, making a turn to the left again,  felt certain that I had, at any rate, avoided the danger of being  surrounded.

But not of pursuit, for on came the rabble after me, steady,  dogged, relentless, and still in grim silence.

In the greater darkness the mounds seemed now to be somewhat  smaller than before, although-for the night was closing-they looked  bigger in proportion. I was now well ahead of my pursuers, so I made  a dart up the mound in front.

Oh joy of joys! I was close to the edge of this inferno of  dustheaps. Away behind me the red light of Paris in the sky, and  towering up behind rose the heights of Montmartre-a dim light,  with here and there brilliant points like stars.

Restored to vigour in a moment, I ran over the few remaining mounds of decreasing size, and found myself on the level land beyond. Even then, however, the prospect was not inviting. All before me was dark and dismal, and I had evidently come on one of  those dank, low-lying waste places which are found here and there  in the neighbourhood of great cities. Places of waste and desolation,  where the space is required for the ultimate agglomeration of all  that is noxious, and the ground is so poor as to create no desire  of occupancy even in the lowest squatter. With eyes accustomed to  the gloom of the evening, and away now from the shadows of those  dreadful dust-heaps, I could see much more easily than I could a  little while ago. It might have been, of course, that the glare in  the sky of the lights of Paris, though the city was some miles away,  was reflected here. Howsoever it was, I saw well enough to take  bearings for certainly some little distance around me.

In front was a bleak, flat waste that seemed almost dead level, with here and there the dark shimmering of stagnant pools. Seemingly  far off on the right, amid a small cluster of scattered lights, rose  a dark mass of Fort Montrouge, and away to the left in the dim  distance, pointed with stray gleams from cottage windows, the lights  in the sky showed the locality of Bicetre. A moment’s thought decided  me to take to the right and try to reach Montrouge. There at least  would be some sort of safety, and I might possibly long before come  on some of the cross roads which I knew. Somewhere, not far off, must  lie the strategic road made to connect the outlying chain of forts  circling the city.

Then I looked back. Coming over the mounds, and outlined black  against the glare of the Parisian horizon, I saw several moving  figures, and still a way to the right several more deploying out between me and my destination. They evidently meant to cut me off  in this direction, and so my choice became constricted; it lay now  between going straight ahead or turning to the left. Stooping to  the ground, so as to get the advantage of the horizon as a line of  sight, I looked carefully in this direction, but could detect no  sign of my enemies. I argued that as they had not guarded or were not trying to guard that point, there was evidently danger to me there already. So I made up my mind to go straight on before me.

It was not an inviting prospect, and as I went on the reality grew worse. The ground became soft and oozy, and now and again gave way  beneath me in a sickening kind of way. I seemed somehow to be going  down, for I saw round me places seemingly more elevated than where I  was, and this in a place which from a little way back seemed dead  level. I looked around, but could see none of my pursuers. This was  strange, for all along these birds of the night had followed me  through the darkness as well as though it was broad daylight. How I  blamed myself for coming out in my light-coloured tourist suit of  tweed. The silence, and my not being able to see my enemies, whilst  I felt that they were watching me, grew appalling, and in the hope  of someone not of this ghastly crew hearing me I raised my voice  and shouted several times. There was not the slightest response;  not even an echo rewarded my efforts. For a while I stood stock  still and kept my eyes in one direction. On one of the rising places  around me I saw something dark move along, then another, and another.  This was to my left, and seemingly moving to head me off.

I thought that again I might with my skill as a runner elude my enemies at this game, and so with all my speed darted forward.

Splash!

My feet had given way in a mass of slimy rubbish, and I had  fallen headlong into a reeking, stagnant pool. The water and the  mud in which my arms sank up to the elbows was filthy and nauseous  beyond description, and in the suddenness of my fall I had actually  swallowed some of the filthy stuff, which nearly choked me, and  made me gasp for breath. Never shall I forget the moments during  which I stood trying to recover myself almost fainting from the  foetid odour of the filthy pool, whose white mist rose ghostlike  around. Worst of all, with the acute despair of the hunted animal  when he sees the pursuing pack closing on him, I saw before my eyes  whilst I stood helpless the dark forms of my pursuers moving swiftly  to surround me.

It is curious how our minds work on odd matters even when the  energies of thought are seemingly concentrated on some terrible  and pressing need. I was in momentary peril of my life: my safety  depended on my action, and my choice of alternatives coming now  with almost every step I took, and yet I could not but think of the  strange dogged persistency of these old men. Their silent resolution,  their steadfast, grim, persistency even in such a cause commanded,  as well as fear, even a measure of respect. What must they have  been in the vigour of their youth. I could understand now that  whirlwind rush on the bridge of Arcola, that scornful exclamation  of the Old Guard at Waterloo! Unconscious cerebration has its own  pleasures, even at such moments; but fortunately it does not in any  way clash with the thought from which action springs.

I realised at a glance that so far I was defeated in my object,  my enemies as yet had won. They had succeeded in surrounding me on  three sides, and were bent on driving me off to the left-hand, where  there was already some danger for me, for they had left no guard. I  accepted the alternative-it was a case of Hobson’s choice and run.  I had to keep the lower ground, for my pursuers were on the higher  places. However, though the ooze and broken ground impeded me my  youth and training made me able to hold my ground, and by keeping  a diagonal line I not only kept them from gaining on me but even  began to distance them. This gave me new heart and strength, and by  this time habitual training was beginning to tell and my second  wind had come. Before me the ground rose slightly. I rushed up the  slope and found before me a waste of watery slime, with a low dyke  or bank looking black and grim beyond. I felt that if I could but  reach that dyke in safety I could there, with solid ground under my  feet and some kind of path to guide me, find with comparative ease  a way out of my troubles. After a glance right and left and seeing  no one near, I kept my eyes for a few minutes to their rightful  work of aiding my feet whilst I crossed the swamp. It was rough,  hard work, but there was little danger, merely toil; and a short  time took me to the dyke. I rushed up the slope exulting; but here  again I met a new shock. On either side of me rose a number of  crouching figures. From right and left they rushed at me. Each  body held a rope.

The cordon was nearly complete. I could pass on neither side, and  the end was near.

There was only one chance, and I took it. I hurled myself across the dyke, and escaping out of the very clutches of my foes threw  myself into the stream.

At any other time I should have thought that water foul and  filthy, but now it was as welcome as the most crystal stream to  the parched traveller. It was a highway of safety!

My pursuers rushed after me. Had only one of them held the rope  it would have been all up with me, for he could have entangled me  before I had time to swim a stroke; but the many hands holding it  embarrassed and delayed them, and when the rope struck the water I  heard the splash well behind me. A few minutes’ hard swimming took  me across the stream. Refreshed with the immersion and encouraged  by the escape, I climbed the dyke in comparative gaiety of spirits.

From the top I looked back. Through the darkness I saw my  assailants scattering up and down along the dyke. The pursuit was  evidently not ended, and again I had to choose my course. Beyond  the dyke where I stood was a wild, swampy space very similar to  that which I had crossed. I determined to shun such a place, and  thought for a moment whether I would take up or down the dyke. I  thought I heard a sound-the muffled sound of oars, so I listened,  and then shouted.

No response; but the sound ceased. My enemies had evidently got  a boat of some kind. As they were on the up side of me I took the  down path and began to run. As I passed to the left of where I had  entered the water I heard several splashes, soft and stealthy, like  the sound a rat makes as he plunges into the stream, but vastly  greater; and as I looked I saw the dark sheen of the water broken by the ripples of several advancing heads. Some of my enemies were  swimming the stream also.

And now behind me, up the stream, the silence was broken by the  quick rattle and creak of oars; my enemies were in hot pursuit. I  put my best leg foremost and ran on. After a break of a couple of  minutes I looked back, and by a gleam of light through the ragged  clouds I saw several dark forms climbing the bank behind me. The  wind had now begun to rise, and the water beside me was ruffled and  beginning to break in tiny waves on the bank. I had to keep my eyes  pretty well on the ground before me, lest I should stumble, for I  knew that to stumble was death. After a few minutes I looked back  behind me. On the dyke were only a few dark figures, but crossing the  waste, swampy ground were many more. What new danger this portended  I did not know-could only guess. Then as I ran it seemed to me that  my track kept ever sloping away to the right. I looked up ahead and  saw that the river was much wider than before, and that the dyke on  which I stood fell quite away, and beyond it was another stream on  whose near bank I saw some of the dark forms now across the marsh.  I was on an island of some kind.

My situation was now indeed terrible, for my enemies had hemmed  me in on every side. Behind came the quickening roll of the oars,  as though my pursuers knew that the end was close. Around me on  every side was desolation; there was not a roof or light, as far  as I could see. Far off to the right rose some dark mass, but what  it was I knew not. For a moment I paused to think what I should  do, not for more, for my pursuers were drawing closer. Then my  mind was made up. I slipped down the bank and took to the water.  I struck out straight ahead, so as to gain the current by clearing  the backwater of the island for such I presume it was, when I had  passed into the stream. I waited till a cloud came driving across  the moon and leaving all in darkness. Then I took off my hat and  laid it softly on the water floating with the stream, and a second  after dived to the right and struck out under water with all my  might. I was, I suppose, half a minute under water, and when I rose  came up as softly as I could, and turning, looked back. There went  my light brown hat floating merrily away. Close behind it came a  rickety old boat, driven furiously by a pair of oars. The moon was  still partly obscured by the drifting clouds, but in the partial  light I could see a man in the bows holding aloft ready to strike  what appeared to me to be that same dreadful pole-axe which I had  before escaped. As I looked the boat drew closer, closer, and the  man struck savagely. The hat disappeared. The man fell forward,  almost out of the boat. His comrades dragged him in but without  the axe, and then as I turned with all my energies bent on reaching  the further bank, I heard the fierce whirr of the muttered ‘Sacre!’  which marked the anger of my baffled pursuers.

That was the first sound I had heard from human lips during  all this dreadful chase, and full as it was of menace and danger  to me it was a welcome sound for it broke that awful silence which  shrouded and appalled me. It was as though an overt sign that my  opponents were men and not ghosts, and that with them I had, at  least, the chance of a man, though but one against many.

But now that the spell of silence was broken the sounds came thick  and fast. From boat to shore and back from shore to boat came quick  question and answer, all in the fiercest whispers. I looked back-a  fatal thing to do-for in the instant someone caught sight of my face,  which showed white on the dark water, and shouted. Hands pointed to  me, and in a moment or two the boat was under weigh, and following  hard after me. I had but a little way to go, but quicker and quicker  came the boat after me. A few more strokes and I would be on the  shore, but I felt the oncoming of the boat, and expected each second  to feel the crash of an oar or other weapon on my head. Had I not  seen that dreadful axe disappear in the water I do not think that I  could have won the shore. I heard the muttered curses of those not  rowing and the laboured breath of the rowers. With one supreme effort  for life or liberty I touched the bank and sprang up it. There was  not a single second to spare, for hard behind me the boat grounded and several dark forms sprang after me. I gained the top of the dyke,  and keeping to the left ran on again. The boat put off and followed  down the stream. Seeing this I feared danger in this direction, and  quickly turning, ran down the dyke on the other side, and after  passing a short stretch of marshy ground gained a wild, open flat  country and sped on.

Still behind me came on my relentless pursuers. Far away, below  me, I saw the same dark mass as before, but now grown closer and  greater. My heart gave a great thrill of delight, for I knew that  it must be the fortress of Bicetre, and with new courage I ran on.  I had heard that between each and all of the protecting forts of  Paris there are strategic ways, deep sunk roads, where soldiers marching should be sheltered from an enemy. I knew that if I could  gain this road I would be safe, but in the darkness I could not see  any sign of it, so, in blind hope of striking it, I ran on.

Presently I came to the edge of a deep cut, and found that down  below me ran a road guarded on each side by a ditch of water fenced  on either side by a straight, high wall.

Getting fainter and dizzier, I ran on; the ground got more  broken-more and more still, till I staggered and fell, and rose  again, and ran on in the blind anguish of the hunted. Again the  thought of Alice nerved me. I would not be lost and wreck her life:  I would fight and struggle for life to the bitter end. With a great  effort I caught the top of the wall. As, scrambling like a catamount,  I drew myself up, I actually felt a hand touch the sole of my foot.  I was now on a sort of causeway, and before me I saw a dim light. Blind and dizzy, I ran on, staggered, and fell, rising, covered with dust and blood.

‘Halt la!’

The words sounded like a voice from heaven. A blaze of light  seemed to enwrap me, and I shouted with joy.

‘Qui va la?’ The rattle of musketry, the flash of steel before my  eyes. Instinctively I stopped, though close behind me came a rush of  my pursuers.

Another word or two, and out from a gateway poured, as it seemed  to me, a tide of red and blue, as the guard turned out. All around  seemed blazing with light, and the flash of steel, the clink and  rattle of arms, and the loud, harsh voices of command. As I fell  forward, utterly exhausted, a soldier caught me. I looked back in  dreadful expectation, and saw the mass of dark forms disappearing  into the night. Then I must have fainted. When I recovered my senses  I was in the guard room. They gave me brandy, and after a while I was  able to tell them something of what had passed. Then a commissary of  police appeared, apparently out of the empty air, as is the way of  the Parisian police officer. He listened attentively, and then had a  moment’s consultation with the officer in command. Apparently they  were agreed, for they asked me if I were ready now to come with them.

‘Where to?’ I asked, rising to go.

‘Back to the dust heaps. We shall, perhaps, catch them yet!’

‘I shall try!’ said I.

He eyed me for a moment keenly, and said suddenly:

‘Would you like to wait awhile or till to-morrow, young  Englishman?’ This touched me to the quick, as, perhaps, he  intended, and I jumped to my feet.

‘Come now!’ I said; ‘now! now! An Englishman is always ready for  his duty!’

The commissary was a good fellow, as well as a shrewd one; he  slapped my shoulder kindly. ‘Brave garcon!’ he said. ‘Forgive me,  but I knew what would do you most good. The guard is ready. Come!’

And so, passing right through the guard room, and through a long  vaulted passage, we were out into the night. A few of the men in  front had powerful lanterns. Through courtyards and down a sloping  way we passed out through a low archway to a sunken road, the same  that I had seen in my flight. The order was given to get at the  double, and with a quick, springing stride, half run, half walk, the  soldiers went swiftly along. I felt my strength renewed again-such  is the difference between hunter and hunted. A very short distance  took us to a low-lying pontoon bridge across the stream, and  evidently very little higher up than I had struck it. Some effort  had evidently been made to damage it, for the ropes had all been  cut, and one of the chains had been broken. I heard the officer  say to the commissary:

‘We are just in time! A few more minutes, and they would have destroyed the bridge. Forward, quicker still!’ and on we went. Again  we reached a pontoon on the winding stream; as we came up we heard  the hollow boom of the metal drums as the efforts to destroy the  bridge was again renewed. A word of command was given, and several  men raised their rifles.

‘Fire!’ A volley rang out. There was a muffled cry, and the dark forms dispersed. But the evil was done, and we saw the far end of  the pontoon swing into the stream. This was a serious delay, and it  was nearly an hour before we had renewed ropes and restored the  bridge sufficiently to allow us to cross.

We renewed the chase. Quicker, quicker we went towards the dust  heaps.

After a time we came to a place that I knew. There were the  remains of a fire-a few smouldering wood ashes still cast a red  glow, but the bulk of the ashes were cold. I knew the site of  the hut and the hill behind it up which I had rushed, and in the  flickering glow the eyes of the rats still shone with a sort of  phosphorescence. The commissary spoke a word to the officer, and he cried:

‘Halt!’

The soldiers were ordered to spread around and watch, and then  we commenced to examine the ruins. The commissary himself began to  lift away the charred boards and rubbish. These the soldiers took  and piled together. Presently he started back, then bent down and  rising beckoned me.

‘See!’ he said.

It was a gruesome sight. There lay a skeleton face downwards, a  woman by the lines -- an old woman by the coarse fibre of the bone.  Between the ribs rose a long spike-like dagger made from a butcher’s  sharpening knife, its keen point buried in the spine.

‘You will observe,’ said the commissary to the officer and to me as he took out his note book, ‘that the woman must have fallen  on her dagger. The rats are many here-see their eyes glistening  among that heap of bones-and you will also notice’-I shuddered as  he placed his hand on the skeleton-’that but little time was lost  by them, for the bones are scarcely cold!’

There was no other sign of any one near, living or dead; and so deploying again into line the soldiers passed on. Presently we came to the hut made of the old wardrobe. We approached. In five  of the six compartments was an old man sleeping-sleeping so soundly  that even the glare of the lanterns did not wake them. Old and grim  and grizzled they looked, with their gaunt, wrinkled, bronzed faces  and their white moustaches.

The officer called out harshly and loudly a word of command, and  in an instant each one of them was on his feet before us and standing  at ‘attention!’

‘What do you here?’

‘We sleep,’ was the answer.

‘Where are the other chiffoniers?’ asked the commissary.

‘Gone to work.’

‘And you?’

‘We are on guard!’

‘Peste!’ laughed the officer grimly, as he looked at the old  men one after the other in the face and added with cool deliberate cruelty, ‘Asleep on duty! Is this the manner of the Old Guard? No  wonder, then, a Waterloo!’

By the gleam of the lantern I saw the grim old faces grow deadly  pale, and almost shuddered at the look in the eyes of the old men as  the laugh of the soldiers echoed the grim pleasantry of the officer.

I felt in that moment that I was in some measure avenged.

For a moment they looked as if they would throw themselves on  the taunter, but years of their life had schooled them and they  remained still.

‘You are but five,’ said the commissary; ‘where is the sixth?’  The answer came with a grim chuckle.

‘He is there!’ and the speaker pointed to the bottom of the  wardrobe. ‘He died last night. You won’t find much of him. The burial of the rats is quick!’

The commissary stooped and looked in. Then he turned to the  officer and said calmly:

‘We may as well go back. No trace here now; nothing to prove that man was the one wounded by your soldiers’ bullets! Probably they murdered him to cover up the trace. See!’ again he stooped and placed his hands on the skeleton. ‘The rats work quickly and they are many. These bones are warm!’

I shuddered, and so did many more of those around me.

‘Form!’ said the officer, and so in marching order, with the  lanterns swinging in front and the manacled veterans in the midst, with steady tramp we took ourselves out of the dust-heaps and turned backward to the fortress of Bicetre.

***

My year of probation has long since ended, and Alice is my  wife. But when I look back upon that trying twelvemonth one of  the most vivid incidents that memory recalls is that associated  with my visit to the City of Dust.