Schemmer had pointed to the bruises when, on the witness-stand, he had identified Ah Cho.It was only just now that the marks had become no longer visible.That had been a blow.Half an inch nearer the centre and it would have taken out his eye.Then Ah Cho forgot the whole happening in a vision he caught of the garden of meditation and repose that would be his when he returned to his own land.
He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.
Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive.And they remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them had been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow should have his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New Caledonia, Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years.There was no use in getting excited about it.Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as a mummy, though it was his head that was to be cut off.The magistrate added a few words, and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face having been most severely bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his identification so positive that, since one man must die, he might as well be that man.Also, the fact that Ah Cho's face likewise had been severely bruised, conclusively proving his presence at the murder and his undoubted participation, had merited him the twenty years of penal servitude.And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the proportioned reason for each sentence was explained.Let the Chinagos take the lesson to heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that the law would be fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell.
The five Chinagos were taken back to jail.They were not shocked nor grieved.The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils.From them a Chinago rarely expected more than the unexpected.The heavy punishment for a crime they had not committed was no stranger than the countless strange things that white devils did.In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho often contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity.His head was to be cut off by the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation.For him there would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity.Ah Cho philosophized and speculated about life and death.As for himself, he was not perturbed.Twenty years were merely twenty years.By that much was his garden removed from him--that was all.He was young, and the patience of Asia was in his bones.He could wait those twenty years, and by that time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be better fitted for that garden of calm delight.He thought of a name for it; he would call it The Garden of the Morning Calm.He was made happy all day by the thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on the virtue of patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially to Wong Li and Ah Tong.Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim.His head was to be separated from his body in so short a time that he had no need for patience to wait for that event.He smoked well, ate well, slept well, and did not worry about the slow passage of time.
Cruchot was a gendarme.He had seen twenty years of service in the colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those twenty years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind.He was as slow-witted and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France.He knew discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant of gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish obedience which he rendered.In point of fact, the sergeant bulked bigger in his mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces had their say.God was usually very remote, while the sergeant was ordinarily very close at hand.
Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the jailer commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person of Ah Chow.Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the night before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.His hand was shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so dreadfully that he did not read over the order.It was only a Chinago's life he was signing away, anyway.So he did not notice that he had omitted the final letter in Ah Chow's name.The order read "Ah Cho," and, when Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of Ah Cho.
Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind two mules, and drove away.
Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine.He sat beside the gendarme and beamed.He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed south toward Atimaono.Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought back.Schemmer wanted him to work.Very well, he would work well.
Schemmer would never have cause to complain.It was a hot day.There had been a stoppage of the trades.The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah Cho sweated.But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern.
He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation.He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment.
"You are very funny," he said at last.
Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently.Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.
"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided."One's heart should be full of tears on a day like this.""I am glad to get out of the jail."
"Is that all?" The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.
"Is it not enough?" was the retort.
"Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?"Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer.
Are you not taking me to Atimaono?"
